This short audiobook grew out of a multi-part podcast by Freakonomics Radio Podcast host, Stephen Dubner. He became enamored of The Messiah by George Frideric Handel at the time of the pandemic. He put the podcasts together with additional material for this audiobook. My own connection to The Messiah occurred when I was very young. Music was important for all my family members, in particular...
I began listening to this book of Zadie Smith’s essays in January, but gave it up when I was worried there was too much about Trump in it. I picked it up again in late April just when my anxiety over Mr. Booklog’s move to an assisted living facility was at its height. It turns out that her voice, whatever was on her mind, was preferable to what was rattling around in my head. Now Mr...
This was the perfect book for me to read at this time. I noticed it when it came out in 2024 and was a “best book” in The Washington Post that year. It tells the gripping story of Lila, a 29-year-old book editor living in Brooklyn. She had lived with her divorced mother in Kolkata until she was 16 when her father came from the US and took her there to live. She loved her life as an...
When I read early this year that Tayari Jones had a new novel coming out, I was happy to see that. And my joy was justified. What a wonderful audiobook this has been for me. It is the story of two “cradle friends,” Vernice and Annie, who grew up in the 1950s in rural South Louisiana. Neither of them had mothers; Annie’s mother, a child herself, had left Annie with her...
It was Ron Charles’ review in his Substack that made me think this was a book I would enjoy and that turned out to be true. This was just the read for me. It begins in suburban Rochester, New York in 1977 when we meet two upper middle class families each with two teenage kids living across the street from each other. There’s Mr. Finnegan (Finn), and Honey, who quite dislikes sex...
This author appeared at the Charlottesville Festival of the Book and I was drawn to hear about someone who made their way in the world playing Bluegrass and Old Time Music. Over the years I have known people whose lives are centered on Old Time music, especially people that we knew in Bloomington, Indiana where we lived in the 1970s. So of course I was interested in seeing a woman born in 1934...
I have been a big fan of Timothy Egan since I read his book The Worst Hard Time, so when Cathy mentioned this one in a comment recently, I read it right away. I listened to the audiobook read by an Irishman and that contributed to my thought that the part set in the US before and during the Civil War was very much the Irish immigrant’s view of a major event in American history. The story of...
Kim at Reading Matters was enthusiastic about this debut book and her description of being swept up in the story persuaded me. And I don’t know when I’ve read a book with a story so intensely told. I hope to write about some of the remarkable aspects of this book without recounting the whole plot. It is set in 2012 in Belfast as the city was recovering from The Troubles. The Belfast...
It was Ron Charles’ review of this book that took me to the author’s previous book Writers and Lovers that also featured Casey, the novelist. So after a decent interval, I happily took up this one. That one was irresistible despite its happy resolutions of seemingly impossible situations. The review gave an indication of the heartbreak in this one and while it is accompanied by hope...
Having recently dipped into the British TV series Victoria from 2016, I looked for a reputable biography of her that was available as an audiobook. I was surprised to find that a book written in 1987 by an American academic whose special interest was George Bernard Shaw had been recorded. The reader spoke in accents and as she imagined Victoria, Albert, or others would have spoken. That made the...