CategoryAudiobook Reviews

This is my fourth Kate Atkinson book (Life After Life, A God in Ruins, and Case Histories) and I have loved each one. This one and Case Histories feature Jackson Brodie, a former policeman who became a private investigator. The appeal of all her books for me are the characters that you come to love, however improbable they are. There’s Reggie, a teenager who manages to live on her own after...

Laura recommended this series to me and this first one made a great audiobook to listen to while cooking, walking, and gardening. First published in 2003, it is set around the time of the First World War in Britain and its aftermath and features an appealing heroine. Maisie is of humble birth, and a smarter, more hardworking, more loyal character you could not ask for. When we first meet Maisie...

An appealing audiobook on several counts, News of the World interestingly inhabits a different time. It is set in Texas shortly after the Civil War when a reader with a good suit could make his way by traveling to small towns and bringing the news from far off places for ten cents a person. International news was best in order to avoid the strong partisan views on local issues in some localities...

This 1961 novel tells the story of Rufus Scott, a talented drummer in Harlem, overcome by the societal forces he faces, and the stories of his friends in the aftermath of his death. He is introduced to us on the last night of a gig when he meets the sweet Leona, a Southern white woman with a complicated past. Their intense love for each other does not overcome those societal forces, and Rufus...

Published in 1981, Muriel Spark’s book was set in 1950; the narrator is a successful author looking back on writing her first book, Warrender Chase. I have thoroughly enjoyed Muriel Spark’s books in the past, A Far Cry from Kensington and Memento Mori and in the distant past, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.  This one seemed to be a bit more odd than the others and to have a little less...

The advice to new writers is, I understand, “Write what you know.” Though the 78-year old Dame Margaret Drabble is hardly a new writer, she seems to have done that with this book. The characters are old and illustrate the various situations in which the upper middle class elderly find themselves. Often older characters in a book are looking back over the events that are the pivotal...

Thanks to Liz for recommending this book; it’s been a great read. The title made me think it had some connection to the “pleasure” district of Edo period Japan (1600-1867) which I came to know through my affection for Japanese woodblock prints. Well, of course there is a connection:  this book is set in New Orleans at the time of Katrina. One of the characters, looking at prints...

The winner of this year's Giller Prize for Canadian literature was a big puzzle for me:  near the end I realized I was not going to get all the pieces to fit together. It is the first in a trilogy, so perhaps all will become clear after two more books. It begins with a woman who describes her bookshop in Toronto. All seemed pretty straight-forward, though I was alerted to her weirdness...