Hear This: Ballad of the Whiskey Robber

Since the DIY audiobook for Julian Rubinstein's Ballad of the Whiskey Robber has been a topic of discussion on GalleyCat, I was excited to see a sampler CD show up in my mailbox late last week, especially since the entire 11-hour-plus production is only available on iTunes or as an Audible.com download. (I didn't get the whole thing, but certainly enough to keep me entertained...)

To give you an idea of how the all-star production plays out, I've uploaded a quick soundbite of Eric Bogosian as a frustrated Hungarian detective (412K MP3 file), but there's also appearances from Jonathan Ames, Gary Shteyngart, Arthur Phillips, and Samantha Power. The disc includes Rubinstein's own performance of the book's theme song, which you can now hear on the real-life Whiskey Robber's MySpace page, as well as musical performances by One Ring Zero and other bands, plus a ten-minute NPR Weekend Edition segment about the book. Not too shabby!