> Dani Scarratt Books & Ideas Case #74 - Power

My audiobook library

December 18, 2025

Dani Scarratt

Alison showed us her bedside table; A.J. wrote so much about Farenheit 451 that we left it at that. In this third instalment of ‘meet the CASE Team through their books’, Dani gives us some of her audiobook highlights.

I’ve always loved audiobooks. To my mind, audiobooks (along with podcasts) are the best things smartphones have to offer. Here are some picks from my growing library:

1. Legend of the Condor Heroes (Jin Yong, trans. Anna Holmwood & Gigi Chang). I’m told everyone in China knows the story of Guo Jing and Huang Rong, but these epic novels, from the 1950s have only recently been translated into English. Often referred to as a Chinese Lord of the Rings, the story follows our heroes and a fantastically entertaining cast of characters on their adventures. The novels (3 or 4, depending on how the material is divided up) are wuxia—a genre of Chinese historical fiction in which heroes and heroines cultivate chivalry and martial arts, and travel around fighting evil and executing justice. The unfamiliar (to me) historical and cultural background made the storytelling even more enjoyable, as values and motivations drove the action in directions it wouldn’t go in a Western context. Avenging wronged ancestors is a particularly common wuxia trope, and makes me thankful I know the merciful and just God who takes this burden off my hands.

2. Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout). Olive is a prickly retired maths teacher from Maine, and the thread on which this collection of short stories hangs. Some episodes focus on Olive herself; in others her role ranges from pivotal to incidental. She faces her aging life and those around her with a brutal bluntness that made me squirm at times, but is surprisingly paired with genuine kindness. Each vignette is beautifully written, and I went back for the sequel, Olive, Again.

3. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Phillip K. Dick). I’d just reviewed Klara and the Sun and Never Let Me Go, both of which explore the dilemmas arising from the creation of ‘artificial people’. As these issues become increasingly urgent, I’m appreciating thoughtful fictional explorations that give them flesh and help us see what’s at stake. So I gave the book behind Bladerunner a shot. The reports are right—the movie is better—but it provided yet another angle on the issues. In fiction as in real life, it’s hard to get away from the conclusion that God is a lot better at being God than we are.

4. A Secular Age. I know, I know. What was I thinking? Charles Taylor’s intellectual history of modern secularism is massive in scope, influence, and the 42 hours of listening time it demands! Of course the audio format cannot do it justice—it should be read slowly and chewed over. But endeavouring not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, I decided to go for it and I’m glad I did—especially having heard Peter Harrison’s New College Lectures earlier this year. Knowing more about the development of secularism has forced me to face the humbling fact that what we in the post-Christian West experience as normal—how we think about God, the universe and ourselves—is far from historically and geographically normal.

5. I chose Tess of the d’Urbervilles for a plane trip to the UK. I fell in love with Tess in high school, and with Stonehenge on my itinerary I wanted to revisit it. Sensitive yet unsentimental depictions of human nature with its many frailties are everywhere in English literature. In Austen they amuse us; in Hardy they break our hearts. There’s no happily ever after for Tess in this indifferent universe. Angel repents too late. Tess is broken by the happiness that is almost, but never quite, within her reach. If only Hardy had known that ‘on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned’ (Isaiah 9:2).