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

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

July 5, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — print. Candlewick Press, 2009. Originally published 2008. 479 pgs. Purchased. Soon after arriving on the New World, all the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, allowing them to hear everything each other thinks. As the last remaining boy in a town full of men, Todd Hewitt isn’t allowed to converse with those who have become men, and he longs for the day he can become a man and join the ranks of those living in Prentisstown. “Everything on […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Book Club, Chunkster, Dystopia, Science Fiction, Young Adult • Tags: Patrick Ness

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, Baileys Women's Prize, Book Club, Fiction, South America • Tags: Ann Patchett, Anna Fields

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 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

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach

March 21, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. W.W. Norton, 2010. 334 pgs. Library copy.   Subtitled “The Curious Science of Life in the Void”, Roach’s book questions the efficacy of a plan by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to send a manned craft to Mars by 2030. At the time of the book’s publication in 2010, (wo)man has landed on the Moon and spent months orbiting over Earth in the International Space Station. Yet questions remain about the effect of zero gravity on the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Book Club, Europe, Japan, Nonfiction, North America, Russia, United States • Tags: Mary Roach

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