A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

October 4, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Barrett Whitener. Blackstone Audio, 1997. Originally published 1980. 13 hours, 32 minutes. Library copy.  My public library’s catalog record for this novel describes Ignatius J. Reilly, the main character of Toole’s Pulitzer-winning novel, as “an obese, self-absorbed, hapless Don Quixote of the French Quarter, whose half-hearted attempts at employment lead to a series of wacky adventures among the denizens of New Orleans’ lower depths”. I first encountered Toole’s novel when Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company presented […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Barrett Whitener, John Kennedy Toole

The Alienist by Caleb Carr

September 25, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by George Guidall. Simon & Schuster, 2012. 20 hours, 3 minutes. Purchased.  On a cold March night in 1896, New York Times crime reporter John Schulyer Moore is summed to the East River of New York City by his friend, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler. As a psychologist – or, “alienist”, as the profession was then known – Kriezler has been brought in by the newly appointed police commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, in examine the mutilated body and help […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Book Club, Chunkster, Crime, Fiction, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Caleb Carr, George Guidall

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

September 6, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Grover Gardner. Blackstone Audio, 2011. Originally published 1906. 13 hours, 17 minutes. Purchased. Immigrating from Lithuanian to Chicago, Jergis Rudkus is eager to live out his own American dream with his wife, Ona, and her stepmother and stepsiblings. Jergis takes a job at Brown’s slaughterhouse in Chicago, expecting to make enough to support his wife and their extended family. But the family, including the children, are all sent out to find work as the family […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Fiction, Food, North America, United States • Tags: Upton Sinclair

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

August 23, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Zainab Jah. Books on Tape, 2017. Originally published 2006. 18 hours, 10 minutes. Purchased.  Set in the 1960s, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel focused on the impassioned struggle of the largely Igbo population to establish the independent republic, Biafra, in southeastern Nigeria. In the early 1960s, readers are introduced to fraternal twins, Olanna and Kainene, and the men whom they become irrevocably tied to during the later portion of the 1960s. There is Odenigbo, a black […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Africa, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Chunkster, Fiction, Nigeria, ReadDiverse, Women's Prize • Tags: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Zainab Jah

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

August 9, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – audiobook. Read by Derek Perkins. Random House Audio, 2018. 11 hours, 41 minutes. Library copy. Based on the title, I assumed this book would provide 21 ways of how homo sapienswill need to adapt to life in the twenty-first century, as envisioned in Harari’s Homo Deus. Instead, Harari builds from one chapter to the next to explain how the current stories we collectively tell ourselves to orient our outlook and provide social cohesion are no longer accepted by […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Israel/Palestine, Middle East, Nonfiction, Religion • Tags: Derek Perkins, Yuval Noah Harari

The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami

July 22, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Neil Shah. Audible, 2015. Originally published 2014. 13 hours, 18 minutes. Purchased. In 1527, the Spanish conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez sailed from the port city of Sanlúcar de Barramedawith 450 troops, officers, and slaves and another 150 sailors, wives, and servants to the newly discovered island of La Florida (present-day Florida, which is obviously not an island). His goal was to claim La Florida for the Spanish crown and find Apalacha, a city rumored to […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Africa, Audiobook, Europe, Fiction, Indigenious Peoples, North America, ReadDiverse, United States • Tags: Laila Lalami

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

July 19, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Adjoa Andoh. Recorded Books, 2014. Originally published 2013. 17 hours, 29 minutes. Purchased. Fifteen years after leaving Nigeria to study in America, Ifemelu has decided to return home to Lagos. Everyone – her parents, her friends, even her hair braider in Trenton, New Jersey – think she is crazy to return after securing the necessary immigration papers to live in the United States indefinitely. Yet, Ifemelu has grown tired of navigating the fault lines within […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Africa, Audiobook, Chunkster, Europe, Fiction, Nigeria, North America, ReadDiverse, United Kingdom, United States • Tags: Adjoa Andoh, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Soul of America by Jon Meacham

July 5, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – audiobook. Read by Jon Meacham and Fred Sanders. Random House Audio, 2018. 10 hours, 56 minutes. Library copy. Subtitled “The Battle for Our Better Angels”, Meacham’s book draws on history to document how times of great trouble in America (i.e. racist policies, disenfranchisement of voters, marginalization of women and people of color) have occurred simultaneously with great progress. With Americans ultimately finding the “better angels of our nature”, as Lincoln stated in his first inaugural address, despite the […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, North America, United States • Tags: Fred Sanders, Jon Meacham

Niccolò Rising by Dorothy Dunnett

June 24, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Gordon Griffin. Whole Story Audiobooks, 2013. Originally published 1986. 26 hours, 16 minutes. Purchased. Set in Bruges in 1460, the first book in Dunnett’s eight-partThe House of Niccolòseries introduces readers to Claes, a teenaged dyer’s apprentice who was raised from the age of ten by his employer, Marian de Charetty. Claes believes himself to be the legitimate son of Simon de St. Pol of Kilmirren, a Scottish lord who claims Claes (or, Nicholas van der […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Audiobook, Chunkster, Europe, Fiction, Italy • Tags: Dorothy Dunnett, Gordon Griffin

The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon

June 14, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Davina Porter. Recorded Books, 2002. Originally published 2001. 55 hours, 30 minutes. Library copy. The fifth book in Gabaldon’s Outlander series opens right at the conclusion of the proceeding book: Brianna and Roger have reconciled at the clan gathering in the colony of North Carolina where the Frasers have traveled to see Jamie’s Aunt Jocasta marry Jamie’s co-revolutionist from Culloden. The wedding, however, is interrupted by the arrival of the local magistrate, who proceeds to arrest […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Chunkster, Fiction, North America, Science Fiction, United States • Tags: Davina Porter, Diana Gabaldon

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon

May 3, 2019 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Davina Porter. Recorded Books, 2005. 44 hours, 50 minutes. Purchased. As the conclusion of Voyager, Claire and Jamie Fraser found themselves washed ashore the coast of Georgia with Jamie’s nephew, foster son, and step-daughter turned foster-daughter-in-law. A hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean destroyed their ship and waylaid their plans to travel back to Scotland from Jamaica and return Ian Murray back to his mother, Jamie’s sister. At the start of Drums of Autumn, the fourth book […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Chunkster, Europe, Fiction, North America, United Kingdom, United States • Tags: Davina Porter, Diana Gabaldon

Becoming by Michelle Obama

April 17, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – audiobook. Read by the author. Random House Audio, 2018. 19 hours, 1 minutes. Purchased.  In 2009, Michelle Obama became the first African-American First Lady of the United States after her husband, Barack Obama, was elected President. Prior to that, Michelle attended Princeton and Harvard Law and worked as both a partner-tracked lawyer for a prestigious firm in Chicago and as an administrator in the University of Chicago medical system. These impressive achievements were – and continue to be […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Book Club, Feminism, Nonfiction, North America, ReadDiverse, United States • Tags: Michelle Obama