Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

December 29, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Caroline Lee. Macmillian Audio, 2016. 17 hours, 20 minutes. Library copy.  Clementine and Erika have been best friends since childhood. While their lives have taken different turns over the years — Clementine has two little girls, Erika has always said she doesn’t want kids — the two women always make an effort to get together now and then. When Erika mentions that her neighbors, Vid and Tiffany, want to host Clementine’s family and Erika’s at […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Chunkster, Fiction, Oceania • Tags: Caroline Lee, Liane Moriarty

Some Luck by Jane Smiley

December 20, 2018 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Lorelei King. Random House Audio, 2014. 14 hours, 48 minutes. Library copy.  I purchased a printed copy of Smiley’s novel a little over two years ago, which is why I included the novel on my to-read list for 20 Books of Summer earlier this year. But the tiny print bothered my eyes, and I put the book aside until I could source one with larger print. I never did find an edition with larger print, […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Europe, Fiction, France, National Book Award, North America, United States • Tags: Jane Smiley, Lorelei King

In the Woods by Tana French

December 11, 2018 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Steven Crossley. Penguin Audio, 2007. 20 hours, 24 minutes. Purchased. In 1984, twelve-year-old Adam Ryan is found clutching a tree in the woods of Knocknaree, a suburb of Dublin. This discovery would be unremarkable if Adam and his two friends hadn’t been missing for days and if one of Adam’s shoe wasn’t filled with blood. Adam is unable to remember how he ended up in the woods, and his two friends – a girl named […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Ireland • Tags: Steven Crossley, Tana French

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

November 27, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction – audiobook. Read by Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, and Danny Campbell. Random House Audio, 2017. 9 hours, 4 minutes. Library copy. Prior to the Great Depression of the 1930s, a tribe of Native Americans known as the Osage were among the richest people in the United States. Their wealth was derived from the oil under their tribal lands in Oklahoma; lands they were pushed onto from Kansas and other Plains states by white settlers and the American government. […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, National Book Award, Native Peoples, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Ann Marie Lee, Danny Campbell, David Grann, Will Patton

Voyager by Diana Gabaldon

November 11, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Davina Porter. Recorded Books, 2007. Originally published 1993. 43 hours, 46 minutes. Purchased. The third installment in Gabaldon’s Outlander series picks up with the aftermath of the events of Culloden, where Jamie planned to stand in battle with the Mackenzie and Fraser lcans, and Claire stepping back through the stones to her life in post-World War II. In the twenty years since that moment, Claire has reunited with her first husband, Frank Randall, and traveled to […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Caribbean, Chunkster, Europe, Fantasy, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: Davina Porter, Diana Gabaldon

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

September 2, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Francois Chau. Audible Studios, 2015. 13 hours, 53 minutes. Purchased. The narrator in Nguyen’s novel is a man serving in the South Vietnamese army as a caption and watching the collapse of his country in April 1975. He has grown increasingly disillusioned with the Vietnam War and the role of the Americans, whom he refers to as drug dealers now cutting off the supply. This disillusionment is further fostered by the fact the unnamed narrator […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Fiction, North America, Pulitzer Prize, United States, Vietnam • Tags: Francois Chau, Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian

July 12, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Cady McClain and Grace Experience. Random House Audio, 2017. 9 hours, 38 minutes. Library copy.  When Lianna Ahlberg awakens one morning at her parents’ home in Vermont and realizes her mother, Annalee, is missing, she immediately feels the worst because Annalee is a sleepwalker whose affliction causes her to wander out of the house and into dangerous situations. Once, Annalee sleepwalked right on to the ledge of the bridge over Gale River, requiring Lianna to pull […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Book Club, Crime, Fiction, New England, North America, United States • Tags: Cady McClain, Chris Bohjalian, Grace Experience

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

June 20, 2018 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Kirby Heyborne and Ariadne Meyers. Listening Library, 2015. 11 hours, 4 minutes. Library copy.  Quirky and unpredictable Theodore Finch counts his days forward from the last time he slept. Grieving Violet Markey counts her days down until graduation, until she can move on with her life after high school. Moving on, though, doesn’t look the way Violet always planned. The website she started with her sister, who didn’t survive the car crash she and Violet were […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Book Club, Fiction, North America, United States, Young Adult • Tags: Ariadne Meyers, Jennifer Niven, Kirby Heyborne

The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo

May 30, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by the author. Penguin Random House, 2017. 7 hours, 15 minutes. Library copy. On September 11, 2001, Lucy is sitting in her classroom at Columbia University prepared to discuss Shakespeare when Gabe burst into the classroom tardy. Lucy is immediately intrigued by Gabe; so much so that she goes home to his dorm room after the TA arrives announcing that a plane has hit one of the Twin Towers. That day, as America and the world […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Book Club, Fiction, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Jill Santopolo

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

May 27, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Anna Fields. Blackstone Audio, 2008. Originally published 2001. 11 hours, 24 minutes. Library copy.  In an unnamed country in South America, guests arrive at the Vice President’s home to celebrate the birthday of a Japanese businessman, Katsumi Hosokawa. Eager to woo the businessman and encourage him to invest in the country, the country has invited a famous American opera singer by the name of Roxane Cross to serenade Katsumi. The party is interrupted by a […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Art, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Book Club, Fiction, South America, Women's Prize • Tags: Ann Patchett, Anna Fields

Amy Lillard’s Wells Landing Series

May 23, 2018 by Christina

For the last four weeks, I practically devoured the six novels that comprise Amy Lillard’s Wells Landing series. The fictional Wells Landing, Oklahoma is home to a Beachy Amish community — Beachy because they utilize tractors due to the rocky soil of Oklahoma — and each of Lillard’s novels focus on a young member of the community. The first three novels focus on three close-knit friends — Emily, Caroline, and Lorie — while the next three focus on secondary characters from the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Amish, Audiobook, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Amy Lillard, Rebecca Mitchell

The Longest Night by Andria Williams

April 29, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Rebecca Lowman, Hillary Huber, and MacLeod Andrews. Random House, 2016. 13 hours, 42 minutes. Library copy.  On January 3, 1961, a nuclear reactor in the small Idaho town of Idaho Falls melted down. It is the only nuclear disaster on U.S. soil to result in a fatality — three, actually — and yet the event has been largely overshadowed by the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania on March 28, 1979. Williams’ fictional […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Andria Williams, Hillary Huber, MacLeod Andrews, Rebecca Lowman