nomadreader

narrated by Katherine Kellgren The backstory: Her Royal Spyness  is the first book in Rhys Bowen's Royal Spyness historical mystery series, which is set in 1930's London. The basics: Lady Georgiana is 34th in line for the throne of England. She's also broke and unmarried. Given her station in life, working is challenging at best. My thoughts: I have a fascination with the 1930's and aristocracy, and I snapped up Her Royal Spyness in an Audible sale awhile ago. I'm glad I finally got around to listening to it. It's a cozy mystery series, and like many cozies, it's emphasis wasn't focused on the mystery, particularly in the first half of the book. The novel is incredibly character driven, and Georgie is a fabulous character. She's funny, and she acknowledges the preposterousness of her situation with wonderful humor. She's a heroine to root for, and when a dead body turns up in her family's home, she finds herself playing sleuth. I...

narrated by Kate Rudd The basics: The Fault in Our Stars  is the story of the romance of Hazel and Augustus, teenagers who meet at a cancer support group. My thoughts: I don't read a lot of young adult fiction, but it's been impossible to ignore the acclaim of this novel, particularly it's impressive performance in the 2013 Tournament of Books . I opted to listen to it on audio, and Kate Rudd's narration captured a delightful tone for the novel. There are moments of levity, seriousness and relative normalcy, and Rudd moves between them deftly. The subject matter of this novel is dark: teenagers with cancer, but the novel is rarely dark. While this tone makes it more entertaining read, it also functioned to keep me from becoming as emotionally invested in the characters as I would have liked to be. The Fault in Our Stars  is the first young adult novel I've read since I became pregnant, and it was a somewhat jarring experience for me to feel more connection...

narrated by Robin Miles The backstory: We Need New Names, the first novel by Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo, was shortlisted for the 2013 Booker Prize . The basics: We Need New Names  is the coming of age story of Darling. The novel begins in Zimbabwe when Darling is ten years old. She knows she will soon be able to escape her troubled country and go to the U.S., where her aunt lives, but little else in this novel is so simple. My thoughts: Child narrators are hit or miss for me, and I don't have a consistent opinion about them. Instead, I feel as I do about almost any staple in literature: when it's done well, I love it. When it's not done well, I don't. In this case, I am of two minds about Darling's narration. Admittedly, I know little about the history of Zimbabwe, so it was helpful to have a child guide me through some of it. When done well, a child's narration enhances a story rather than detracts from it; it's a lens into the world, but t...

narrated by Carrington MacDuffie My thoughts:    Despite what the title implies, this mystery-of-sorts doesn't start with a death. And with only one artist in the cast of characters, Stef, her death is a foregone conclusion. Furthermore, who kills her is also (mostly) apparent from the beginning. The why is debated, but it's the how  that makes this novel shine. Thus,  Death of an Artist  feels off kilter until Stef dies. It's rare to discover a mystery not concerned with who did it, or even why, and much of this novel is a character-based exploration of Stef, her art, and her family. This novel took me a little time to get into because of its unusual structure. If I didn't know the title, I would not have thought the novel was a mystery. Once Stef did die, however, all of the backstory was incredibly helpful because it made me as a reader immediately on the side of Marnie. What seemed to be more of a family drama soon morphed into a conspiracy, and I was h...

Because I seem to be unable to actually get caught up on reviews, this week I'll be bringing you a few sets of mini-reviews. First up: audiobooks! The backstory: I don't listen to many audiobooks. I've tried, I really have, but I can never finish the digital library loaned ones before they delete (my library only gives you seven days!) I don't drive to work, so cds don't work for me. I used to copy cds to my iPod, but my iPod is now over six years old and doesn't allow bookmarking, so if I want to  listen to anything else, I have to write down my stopping point. I'm not invested enough in them to spend money at audible. I have finally found something that works: Playaways! They're genius, really. Playaways are their own portable player with only the book loaded on to it. I can plug it into the car on the odd chance I am driving, take it to the gym, listen to it while doing dishes, and I can check one out for three weeks for only $1. After not listenin...

Last week I held a contest for an ARC of The Leftovers  by Tom Perrotta, and Melissa from The Avid Reader's Musings is the lucky winner! Contest closed: Congratulations to Joanna from A Worn Path ! Didn't win? You can still buy the  book  ( Kindle version ) or audiobook , you can do that too. Look back for my review on August 29; The Leftovers  comes out August 30. As an affiliate, I receive a very, very small commission when you make a purchase through any of the above links. Thank you for helping to support my book habits that bring more content to this blog!

The backstory: Because I'm spending more time driving than taking the bus semester, I decided to browse the audio book cds at my library and decided to start with Very Valentine . I also enjoyed the other Adriana Trigiani book I read, Big Stone Gap ( my review ). The basics: Very Valentine is the story of Valentine Roncalli, a young woman in her early thirties who lives with her grandmother and helps her grandmother run the Angelini Shoe Company, which makes custom wedding shoes. My thoughts: Going into this novel, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was surprised how much I enjoyed Big Stones Gap mostly because of how unexpectedly funny it was. I knew next to nothing going into this book, and I wasn't even sure if it was set in contemporary New York City (it is.) While Very Valentine wasn't funny like Big Stone Gap was, it did have good character development and a mostly interesting storyline. There were times the prose was overly descriptive, but as an infreque...

Happy Sunday! I was grateful for the extra hour of sleep this morning thanks to Daylight Savings time. I'm thrilled to have the night off from work too. It's an incredibly rare treat to have a Sunday off, and I'm planning to use mine to dig into Jaimy Gordon's Lord of Misrule . It's a lovely, crisp, sunny day, and I hope to enjoy a few hours of reading in the backyard. The temperature is in the mid-forties and it feels lovely!  Lord of Misrule  is a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction, and the publisher kindly moved up the date after the finalists were announced. We're only ten days from the winner's announcement, so once again, I probably won't make my goal of reading all of the finalists before the announcement. I finished  Great House by Nicole Krauss, and my review is coming this week. I still have I Hotel  by Karen Tei Yamashita and Parrot and Olivier in America  by Peter Carey to read, and both are on my shelf waiting for me. I'm ...

The backstory: Then We Came to the End,  the first novel by Joshua Ferris, has been in my TBR pile since it came out. I immediately knew I wanted to read The Unnamed  too, and I was thrilled when I won a contest for a copy of the audio book, I was thrilled. I saved it for my road trip to Providence, Rhode Island , and it was a wonderful road companion. The basics: Tim Farnsworth, a lawyer, cannot stop walking.  No doctor can figure out what's causing this unnamed condition. The verdict: Ferris uses a seemingly ridiculous medical condition (inability to stop walking?) to explore a marriage, a family, and our collective cynicism. To satisfy the naysayers and the characters themselves, Ferris explores every question I could muster about this bizarre condition. As a reader/listener, I was privy to the thoughts of Tim, his wife Jane, and their daughter, and the different reasons they each had for not discussing Tim's condition with others. In this wor...