No blasphemy! Not for me! Nor for you!
December 16, 2023 5:34 PM   Subscribe

I'm looking for audiobooks for someone with zero tolerance for swear words, particularly Christian blasphemous swears or phrases.

My friend's mom loves audiobooks, but has zero tolerance for swears, especially blasphemous swears, ex. "god damn." She can't read print and is hooked up with NLS, but they keep sending books that don't meet the required standard. Can you suggest titles that she might like?

-- no swears! none! ...maybe a couple instances of "darn" would be OK. "Dagnabbit" might be OK but might be too close (we all know what it's a replacement for) and I don't know where the exact line is.

-- does not want to read novels for children or with child protagonists

-- Christian fiction would be OK. It's OK if a character has a difficult relationship with God so long as there are no instances of blasphemy and they figure it out all right in the end

-- no explicit sex or violence. Fade-to-black or implied sex and violence are OK within the context of a plot

-- does not want to read books about war, especially WWII (mostly she is just sick of hearing about it. Been there done that)

-- Doesn't like murder mysteries

-- prefers contemporary novels, not classics. Some of that is just preference, some of it is having difficulty following old-fashioned language.

-- would like books with protagonists she can relate to: women, farming people, from the upper Midwest

I suspect that if we burned podcasts or radio serials to a CD, that might be OK, so I'm interested in hearing about what else is out there we could get. I have thought maybe Amish romances would be OK, but I don't know the genre well enough to be sure. I'm pretty stumped here. I thought maybe Adventures in Odyssey-- is there any adult appeal? I am hoping to put together 5-10 titles to try in the near future, so what have you got?
posted by blnkfrnk to Media & Arts (20 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Adventures in Odyssey fails your child protagonist rules I think.

I'll have a think!

Maybe the Sacred Diaries of Adrian Plass? Adrian Plass has other titles too.
posted by freethefeet at 6:00 PM on December 16, 2023


Deseret Book is a Mormon bookstore, so that should take care of the no swears part. Maybe call and ask if you can speak to a staff member for suggestions?
posted by FencingGal at 6:02 PM on December 16, 2023 [5 favorites]


I think the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books would work for her--they are mostly about smaller "crimes" and social dilemmas, not murder mysteries. But you'd need to ctrl-F for swears. I don't remember any, but it's not the kind of thing I would especially notice, especially at the level of "dagnabbit."
posted by praemunire at 6:03 PM on December 16, 2023 [3 favorites]


Response by poster: Child protagonists are kind of a "maybe." I could see a radio drama that does have adults being OK, but, yeah, looking for mostly books about adults.
posted by blnkfrnk at 6:07 PM on December 16, 2023


Jan Karon's Mitford books
posted by BoscosMom at 6:17 PM on December 16, 2023 [5 favorites]


I came in to suggest the Mitford books too. And maybe Beverly Jenkins? There are children in her Blessings series, but they are reasonably minor characters (not totally minor, they do have plot lines and some dialogue).
posted by paduasoy at 6:25 PM on December 16, 2023


Garrison Keillor has become, er, problematic, but otherwise the Lake Woebegone books might fit the bill.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 7:11 PM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]


Amish Romances, might be useful?
posted by PinkMoose at 7:18 PM on December 16, 2023


Carla Kelly’s romances; they have plots other than the romances. Her non-Regencies are Mormon though.
posted by clew at 8:37 PM on December 16, 2023


Look up "proper romances." They're a publishing category and they don't just cover Amish Life, nor are they necessarily explicitly Christian.

I agree that Jan Karon is also worth looking at. This is the kind of stuff I've been vetting for parents, in-laws, etc. for years.

There are also a number of good recorded versions of The Lord of the Rings -- that fits some of her requirements, in that it's pretty tame, but maybe not others, in that she may not necessarily relate to the characters well.
posted by verbminx at 10:28 PM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]


I’m suggesting from memory, so you might have to do some double-checking about the profanity, but these fit the other parts of your brief well, and are wonderful reads:

The Stone Diaries by Carol Sheilds
Zorrie by Laird Hunt
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
posted by minervous at 12:52 AM on December 17, 2023 [1 favorite]


James Herriot maybe??
posted by freethefeet at 4:42 AM on December 17, 2023 [4 favorites]


Some of the Harlequin Romance series such as Love Inspired and I think Harlequin Heartwarming are probably OK and they are quick reads and professionally written. I had to review a bunch of Harlequins once and had no trouble getting through them. My father enjoyed them when for some reason the recording for the blind started sending them to him. Sometimes you don't want to buy into a big long audiobook with a complicated plot.

Kind of a footnote but I went to a talk with Lee Child where someone asked why there was so much profanity in his books and he said there was close to none (in the early ones maybe?) but he would just write, "He swore." Lee Child is probably not OK for different reasons.
posted by BibiRose at 4:59 AM on December 17, 2023 [1 favorite]


Seconding The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - I've read it at least a dozen times and cannot recall any profanity.

James Herriot does occasionaly quote mild profanity (when recounting his farm adventures). Also, his buddy Tristan swears a lot and is a heavy drinker.
posted by M. at 8:18 AM on December 17, 2023 [1 favorite]


Herriot very definitely has swearing, and not just “darn.”

On edit: Jinx, M.
posted by holborne at 8:36 AM on December 17, 2023 [1 favorite]


Ivan Doig’s The Whistling Season was a title I recommended to a coworker with similar constraints a while back. Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds checks a lot of the boxes, I just can’t remember about swearing.
posted by childofTethys at 9:31 AM on December 17, 2023


I totally forgot Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary has a swear-free lead character -and they are 90% of the story. Can’t remember if other characters will exclude the book, and this does not include his other writing, as The Martian was rife with profanity, as marooned people can get salty.

There is a website that helps with screening books, with a title something like “Does the Dog Die” that might be a tool on your quest.
posted by childofTethys at 9:47 AM on December 17, 2023


Common Sense Media rates for "language" but I don't think they specifically call out blasphemy.
posted by praemunire at 12:42 PM on December 17, 2023


Nonfiction science podcast called Ologies has special edited versions of the interviews that are safe for classrooms called Smologies. Recent topics include scorpions, clouds, aging, pumpkins, shipwrecks, Mars and many more.
posted by metahawk at 1:47 PM on December 17, 2023 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: The bad news is, the lady passed away before she could use any of these. But thanks-- this is a question I've had since in the library so these resources are helpful.
posted by blnkfrnk at 10:26 AM on September 12, 2024


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