nomadreader

The backstory:  I bought this audiobook in 2014 when it was a Daily Deal, but like so many of the Daily Deals I buy, it never rose to the top of my audiobook TBR. On Litsy, CareBear hosted a low stakes read-a-long: read the book in February and discuss it at the end of the month. I'm so glad that I read this book but also that I had people to discuss it with because there is SO MUCH to discuss. The basics: This novel is set in a country house West Hall, Vermont in 1908 and the present day. The town has had quite a few strange disappearances and deaths over the years. In 1908, Sarah Harrison Shea, who is struggling with the death of her daughter, Gertie, and writing in a diary. Her husband and doctor confuse her grief with psychosis. In present day, 19-year-old Ruthie and her little sister Fawn live in Sarah's house, and their mother is missing. When looking for clues, they find Sarah's diary. My thoughts: If I'm being honest, if I knew I was reading a paranormal gho...

The backstory: The Library Book  is the January 2019 pick for the Hello Sunshine book club . I started listening to it December 27th, but it was nice to be well into it when Reese announced the January pick. My thoughts:  I saw Susan Orlean speak at the American Library Association conference in New Orleans last June. I had heard she had a book coming out in the fall called The Library Book , but I didn't know anything else about it. After moving to Los Angeles, her son had an assignment to interview a city employee, and he chose a librarian. While visiting Central Library in Los Angeles, a librarian mentioned to Susan that you can still smell smoke in some of the books. She was shocked to learn there had been a major fire at the library in 1986 and she didn't know about it. The Library Book is an investigation of the fire, which was intentionally set and still unsolved, but it's also an exploration of the long history of the Los Angeles Public Library and the current sta...

Four years ago I bought the audiobook of Crazy Rich Asians when it was the Audible daily deal. This month, I finally listened to it. These are the things I learned: 1. There are A LOT of characters. Don't let it worry you. In the first chapter featuring all of the mothers, I almost gave up or started over. Keep listening. The more important characters emerge, and I wasn't confused. Part of that is due to: 2. Lynn Chen's narration is excellent. She utilizes voices so well, I wasn't even aware of them. I soon could tell who was talking simply through her performance, which makes me sad because: 3. She doesn't narrate the next two books in the series. This book is the last one she narrated. I hope it's because her acting career has really taken off and she doesn't have time. 4. Speaking of the next two books, this book's ending is: abrupt and unsatisfying. I looked at my phone and couldn't believe the book was over. It begs the reader to start ...

Dear Ariel Levy, Many years ago, I read and enjoyed your first book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture . For some reason, I didn't make the connection between the your books until I was listening to you read your memoir, The Rules Do Not Apply.  Granted, the books are very different, and I read them thirteen years apart. I wasn't even tracking my reading in 2005. Still: knowing you wrote both of these very different, thought-provoking books makes it clear I will be in line to read any book you write. I'm so glad you narrated The Rules Do Not Apply . It's such a personal story, and I can't imagine anyone else capturing the emotion, insight and thoughtfulness. Listening to this audiobook made me feel so close to you. When I decided The Rules Do Not Apply  would be my next audiobook, I didn't know one of the themes of the book would be your international travel. It was such a happy accident for me, as I listened to it while I'm tr...

Dear Steven Hartley, I listened to most of The Music Shop  on flights from Des Moines, Iowa to Bangkok, Thailand (with stops in Chicago and at both Tokyo airport.) I don't like to fly, but I do love to travel, and flying is part of that reality. To help distract me from the fact that I'm flying, I like to pick books to transport me to a different place, and your narration made me feel like I was on Unity Street in the 1980's. I decided to read The Music Shop  when it was named a January Book of the Month pick. This year, I'm aiming to read all 60 Book of the Month picks , and to do that, I know I'll need to listen to one each month. I was quite intrigued when I saw The Music Shop  was your first audiobook. After listening, I'm surprised, but I'm confident it won't be your last. The Music Shop  is told from the point of view of Frank, a curmudgeonly, but loveable man who is passionate about music and vinyl (only vinyl.) Your performance made Frank co...

Dear Reza, A couple of years ago, I listened to you read the audiobook of Zealot: The Life and Times of  Jesus of Nazareth . I found it fascinating, if somewhat disappointing at the lack of (understandable) lack of information about Jesus himself. I really enjoyed listening to the book and liked the emphasis and enthusiasm you narrate with. When I heard you had a new book, God: A Human History , I wanted to listen to it too. I, like many, have a complicated relationship with religion. I was raised in the United Methodist church. My father is a United Methodist pastor. Many of closest friends are also pastor's kids, and many more of closest friends are friends I met through church. About six years ago, I realized I didn't consider myself a Christian anymore. It was a big deal to me because being a liberal United Methodist was such a large part of my identity for so much of my life. It wasn't a big deal because I hadn't been actively attending church for a few years. ...

narrated by Tavia Gilbert The backstory: Girl Through Glass  is on the 2016 First Novel Prize longlist. The basics: Told in alternating chapters, Girl Through Glass  is the story of a young girl's coming of age at the highest levels of New York City ballet in the late 1970's, and where she is now, a dance history professor somewhere in Ohio. While it appears to be a simple narrative at first, it soon becomes clear there are many mysteries between the 1970's and today for the reader to discover. My thoughts: Over the years I find myself less drawn to traditional coming of age stories, so I was excited to see this one offered two timelines, a narrative technique I enjoy. As is often the case with such a structure, I find myself trying to fit the pieces together as I read. The biggest challenge of dual narratives are what to revela when, and while I took issue with a few of Wilson's choices as I read, I admit I can't come up with a better way to tell this st...

narrated by Jorjeana Marie The basics: The Assistants, Camille Perri's debut novel, is the story of Tina Fontina, a thirty-year-old who serves as the executive assistant to Robert Barlow, the CEO of Titan, a media conglomerate. What begins innocently soon spins a big scheme to falsify expense reports to pay off the student loans of assistants throughout the company. My thoughts: As I wrote the basics above, I kept trying to come up with a description that made it sound like a book I would actually want to read. I didn't know much about this novel when I downloaded the audiobook from my library, and I think that's the way to go into it. It's a quick listen, and I found it entertaining, funny and surprisingly insightful. In that way, the book sneaked up on me. I was enjoying the story, as it was clearly diverting from reality into delightfully reckless fictional insanity, when I found myself wowed. Perri has absolutely written an entertaining novel, but it packs a wo...

narrated by Nancy Wu The backstory: A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding was longlisted for the 2016 Baileys Prize . The basics:  "When Amaterasu Takahashi opens the door of her Philadelphia home to a badly scarred man claiming to be her grandson, she doesn’t believe him. Her grandson and her daughter, Yuko, perished nearly forty years ago during the bombing of Nagasaki. But the man carries with him a collection of sealed private letters that open a Pandora’s Box of family secrets Ama had sworn to leave behind when she fled Japan."--publisher My thoughts: I started this book on audio but switched to print about half way through.The reader, Nancy Wu, was good, and I appreciated her pronunciations of the Japanese names and words, but she read relatively slowly. The book is less than 300 pages, but the audio is over 11 hours. I reached a point where I wanted to finish more quickly than the audio would allow. It's rare for me to listen to half of a book and read the o...

narrated by Graham Halstead and Julia Whelan The basics:  The first in a new young adult trilogy, A Study in Charlotte  follows Charlotte Holmes, a descendant of Sherlock Holmes, and Jamie Watson, a descendant of Dr. Watson, as students at a Connecticut boarding school. My thoughts: I typically file Sherlock Holmes under the "things I simply don't really like--but people with similar taste always seem to love." And I haven't read a young adult novel in several years. So what made me pick up a young adult Sherlock Holmes-inspired mystery? Brittany Cavallaro's Twitter bio . Despite not really caring for most adaptations or appropriations of Sherlock Holmes I've encountered, I really like the smart ways Cavallaro uses Holmes. Most importantly, she makes Holmes and Watson real people. Sometimes I have to remind myself my favorite characters aren't real people, and after so many years and iterations, doesn't it seem like Holmes and Watson were  real? ...

The basics: NPR edited together stories about first ladies over the years, including interviews with the more modern ones. My thoughts: American Wife , a fictionalization of Laura Bush's life, is my favorite novel, and I'm fascinated by the unlikely journeys we take in life. I think the journey to first lady (or first gentleman, one day) is one of those that is the biggest leap, and is the most fascinating. When I saw this one available at my library, I eagerly downloaded it. It wasn't quite what I expected, but I enjoyed it. For such a short audiobook, I feel as though I learned a lot, but it was somewhat uneven. I wished for more first ladies to be featured, but because NPR was pulling from their archives, they're somewhat limited. The early first ladies were featured in interviews with their biographers, and I was eagerly adding to my TBR as I listened. As we move through history, I was glad I opted for audio, as some news stories featured historic recordings of ...

narrated by Erin Bennett The backstory: I've never read Elin Hilderbrand, and I was in the mood for a Christmas book, so I started her Winter Street series when it was available at the library. The basics: The Winter Street series is centered on the Quinn family, who own the Winter Street Inn, a bed and breakfast on Nantucket island. When the first book begins, patriarch Kelly and his second wife, Mitzi, run the inn, while two of Kelly's adult children, Ava, who is a music teacher, and Kevin, a bartender, also live at the inn. His third child, Patrick, lives in Boston with his wife and kids. Kelly and Mitzi's son Bart is a Marine in Afghanistan. Kelly's first wife, Margaret, is a famous evening newscaster in New York City. My thoughts: Fun fact: Elin Hilderbrand is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop. I learned this while listening to Winter Street , which I listened to a lot of as I drove to and from Iowa City for a meeting this month. I'm embarras...

narrated by Debra Winger The basics:  "Gloria Steinem had an itinerant childhood. When she was a young girl, her father would pack the family in the car every fall and drive across country searching for adventure and trying to make a living. The seeds were planted: Gloria realized that growing up didn’t have to mean settling down. And so began a lifetime of travel, of activism and leadership, of listening to people whose voices and ideas would inspire change and revolution."--publisher My thoughts: I've been fascinated by Gloria Steinem for a long time, as she was one of those public figures I just always seemed to know about. Yet I remember when I discovered she was born in 1934 and couldn't believe it. Not only did she seem younger, but it made her achievements that much more impressive; she was that much more ahead of her time. For someone I feel like I know so well, for the sheer number of years she's spent in the spotlight, when I heard about this mem...

narrated by Carrie Brownstein The basics: Carrie Brownstein, a writer, musician, and actress, tells the story of how she got into music, her early experiences with bands, and her time with her best known band, Sleater-Kinney. My thoughts: I used to own more than one Sleater-Kinney album. They were band I desperately wanted to like. I pretended I liked them because I thought they were so cool, but I'm older and wiser than I was in the 1990's as a teenager, so I'll confess: despite many attempts, I do not really like Sleater-Kinney's music. But I still like the three of them and would love to just hang out and chat. All this is to say, my interest in this memoir is not the music, so I was somewhat disappointed that it's mostly about the music. Despite this knowledge, I still really liked this memoir. Brownstein is a wonderful writer. This isn't a revelation, of course. She's been writing songs for many, many years. She co-created and writes Portlandia ...

narrated by Karen Cass The backstory: Crooked Heart  was longlisted for the 2015 Baileys Prize . The basics:  "When Noel Bostock – aged ten, no family - is evacuated from London to escape the Blitz, he ends up living in St Albans with Vera Sedge - thirty-six and drowning in debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it. Noel's mourning his godmother, Mattie, a former suffragette. Brought up to share her disdain for authority and eclectic approach to education, he has little in common with other children and even less with Vee."--publisher My thoughts: Now that I spend almost as much time listening to audiobooks as I do reading print books, I often find myself wondering how much the format impacts my reaction. As I listened to Crooked Heart , I found myself thinking something I can't recall ever thinking while reading: I'd rather watch this story on screen. As in, I would gladly put down this book and watc...

narrated by Alan Cumming The basics: Not My Father's Son  is actor Alan Cumming's memoir of his childhood and his experience learning about his family's history on the genealogy reality television show Who Do You Think You Are? My thoughts: I've enjoyed Alan Cumming's performances in various things over the years, but it wasn't my enjoyment of his craft that made me pick up this audiobook from the library. Instead, I was fascinated by the genealogy and the insight into his experience on Who Do You Think You Are?, a show I've thoroughly enjoyed in the past. The show allows librarians, archivists, historians, and museums to show their value by helping celebrities research their family histories. It's a far more fascinating glimpse into how alike we all really are. I had not, however, seen Cumming's episode. If you have, some of the reveals won't be a surprise, but there is still enough intrigue to make this book worth your while. I think it...

narrated by Tavia Gilbert The backstory: After loving Jami Attenberg's last novel, The Middlesteins , I was excited to read her new one. The basics: Set in Jazz Age New York City's Bowery neighborhood and based upon a real person, Saint Mazie  is the story of Mazie Phillips, a young woman who loves to party. When the Depression hits, Mazie can't help but help. My thoughts: The premise of this novel checks so many of my boxes, yet as I listened, Mazie never quite came alive for me. I think it's a combination of Attenberg's structure and Gilbert's narration style. The novel is structured as a documentary film, so there are numerous excerpts from Mazie's diaries, as well as interviews with descendants of those she knew. Perhaps especially on audio, this structure made the narrative feel fractured. I really wanted to love this book, but over all, I feel mostly 'meh' about it. It's such a great concept, and Attenberg is a great writer. This bo...

narrated by Mindy Kaling The backstory: I thoroughly enjoyed Mindy Kaling's first memoir, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) , so I was eager to listen to her new memoir too. The basics: Why Not Me?  is a memoir in essay form. My thoughts: I picked up Kaling's first book on a whim while I was pregnant and mostly in the mood for something not depressing to listen to. I loved it and immediately started watching The Mindy Project  (we still watch it.) This time, I had expectations and also fears. Would Why Not Me? be as good (it is.) The two books are obviously similar, but they felt different to me. Why Not Me? feels less like a memoir and more like a collection of essays, many of which are memoir-like. Perhaps what I liked best about this book is how surprising it is. I find Mindy Kaling to be laugh out loud funny. We have similar senses of humor, and this book definitely made me laugh out loud. What surprised me were the moments of deep contempl...

narrated by Lorelei King The backstory: Early Warning  is the second installment in Jane Smiley's Langdon family trilogy. I enjoyed the first installment, Some Luck . The basics: Each of these novels cover thirty-three years, with each chapter covering a year. Early Warning begins in 1953 and ends in the 1980's. My thoughts: I really enjoyed Some Luck , but I didn't always love King's narration. I planned to read this one instead of listen to it, but I'm so glad I decided to listen instead. King's narration improved in this installment, and her different voices helped me re-acclimate to this large family. I'm often leery of audiobooks longer than twelve hours, but I breezed through this one. On a personal note, there's something enchanting about listening to an Iowa family saga while driving around Iowa with my baby in the car. One character in this volume lives very near Hawthorne's day care. It took me a few chapters to get re-invested in...

narrated by Emma Bering and Robbie Daymond The backstory: Vanessa Diffenbaugh's first novel, The Language of Flowers , has been on my TBR list since it came out, yet I never got around to it. When I saw her speak at the American Library Association conference this summer, I was wowed, and vowed to read both her books. The basics: We Never Asked for Wings  is the story of Letty, an American born to Mexican parents in the U.S. She works as a bartender, and her parents have largely raised her two children, Alex, fifteen, and Luna, six. Life is hard for Letty and her children, and she vows to find a way to move to a good neighborhood in the San Francisco area before Alex starts high school. My thoughts: It took me about twenty minutes to get my bearings in We Never Asked for Wings . It's hard for me to tell sometimes if that's the novel or the act of listening on audio, and Diffenbaugh is intentionally vague in the opening scene. In this case, it may also due to the fac...