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

The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez

April 22, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Christine Avila, Ozzie Rodriguez, Yareli Arizmendi, Gustavo Res, Gabriel Romero, and Jesse Corti. Random House Audio, 2014. 9 hours, 12 minutes. Library copy. After their fifteen-year-old daughter suffers a traumatic brain injury, Alma and Arturo Rivera move from their home in Mexico and immigrate to the United States. The family ends up living in a rather dilapidated apartment in Delaware; grateful for the opportunity to come to America legally — Arturo insists at more than one […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Book Club, Fiction, North America, ReadDiverse, United States • Tags: Christine Avila, Cristina Henriquez, Gabriel Romero, Gustavo Res, Jesse Corti, Ozzie Rodriguez, Yareli Arizmendi

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

April 18, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Jeff Cummings. Brilliance Audio, 2015. Originally published 1962. 9 hours, 58 minutes. Purchased.  In 1962, fifteen years after the end of World War II, a defeated America has been split into three zones — the Pacific States ruled by Japan, the East Coast colonized by Nazi Germany, and a demilitarized zone comprised of the Rocky Mountain states. In Colorado and Wyoming, individuals who once (and still) identified as Americans live far freer than those on either […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Dystopia, Europe, Fiction, Germany, Hugo Award, Japan, North America, Science Fiction, United States • Tags: Philip K. Dick

The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott

March 28, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Euan Morton. Macmillan Audio, 2017. 8 hours, 7 minutes. Purchased. Determined to prove that his life belongs to him and only him, a married Irish immigrant by the name of Jim disconnects the gas hose to this stove and commits suicide. When his pregnant wife, Annie, returns to find the apartment barracked, she conscripts a neighbor into helping her force open the door. The subsequent explosion that occurs when the neighbor lights a match attracts […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Book Club, Fiction, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Alice McDermott, Euan Morton

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

March 14, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Maggie Gyllenhaal. HarperAudio, 2016. Originally published 1963. 7 hours, 24 minutes. Library copy. Sylvia Plath’s novel opens with her main character, Esther Greenwood, in the midst of spending the summer in New York City. Having won a fashion magazine’s contest, Esther is being mentored by editors and writers on both her chosen field and the state of her complexion — a combination of feminism and femininity — as she and the eleven other winners of the […]

Categories: 101 Great Books, 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Fiction, New England, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sylvia Plath

Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris

March 7, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Georgia Maguire. Macmillian Audio, 2016. 8 hours, 23 minutes. Library copy. To outsiders, Grace Angel has the perfect marriage. Her husband, Jack, is a lawyer representing victims of domestic violence, and he absolutely dotes on his wife. He takes her on spur of the moment holidays to Thailand, provides a comfortable home so that Grace does not have to work, and is committed to Grace’s promise to bring her sister Millie, who has Downs Syndrome, […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Book Club, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Thailand, United Kingdom • Tags: B.A. Paris, Georgia Maguire