Awesome Audios!

To round out the month of July and our focus on everything audio, I present two of my favorite audiobooks. Personally, I am not an audiobook person. I appreciate the audiophiles who have such an intense love and knowledge of all things audiobook, but I seem to have a very fraught relationship with them. However, everyone once in a while, I come across one that grabs me.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

First of all, you have to read this book. Whatever format you prefer, just read this book. I highly recommend the audio version because you get the delight of a good story paired with the vocal stylings of Wil Wheaton. Actually, if you love audiobooks or Wil Wheaton, I recommend any book he narrates.

The story is set in 2044 when the Earth has been ravaged by famine, poverty, and disease. All the people who struggle with a day-to-day existence escape to the OASIS, a virtual world lacking all of the misery in the real world. The creator of the OASIS has hidden puzzles that will lead to a massive fortune, but no one has been able to unlock one until Wade comes along. From there, the story turns into a fantastic, action packed adventure into 80s nostalgia.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Authors are not necessarily the best choice as narrator for audiobooks. However, memoirs and other personal nonfiction seem to be the most logical books to be read by the author. Personal accounts of sensitive topics or life altering events can sometimes only best be read by those who lived them.  Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, Between the World and Me, is one of these books.

Coates’s poignant memoir framed as a letter to his teenage son is a must read. It discusses the impact of American history and ideals on the safety and perception of black Americans. It is Coates’s personal history and his awakening to the truth about his place in the world, which is best told in the author’s voice rather than by a disconnected narrator. 

Naomi Novak’s Temeraire series

Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series

The historical ‘what if?’  has long been one of the more fascinating questions : Victor Milan look at what if dinosaurs were still around in the 14th century, Marie Brennan looks at what if dragons were a part of nature, Eric Flint looks at what if a 21^st century West Virginia mining town was dropped it into 1632 Germany. These types of fiction let the writer mix their imaginations with (hopefully) well researched fact.

Naomi Novik looks at the Napoleonic wars if dragons were not only used, but were intelligent, speaking creatures. We follow Captain William Laurence of the HMS Reliant as he is forced from the Navy due to circumstances. While capturing a French frigate, he finds himself bound for life to Temeraire, an exceptionally intelligent dragon, and thus committed to a lifetime service in the Aviator’s Corps. The story follows the intrepid duo through battles, politicking, storms, revolts, and plague all throughout the world as they try to thwart the forces of Napoleon.

Naturally, this is primarily an adventure series, but it is obvious that Novik's imagination is only equaled by her research into the time period. Little details really bring the world together and provide and excellent backdrop for the story. Also, while it would be easy to simply write a long string of battles with dragons, the Temeraire series also brings in politics, cultural differences, class differences, philosophy, and many other fascinating elements that serve to add depth to both the characters and the story. 

The audio versions of the Temeraire series are read by Simon Vance and are most excellent to listen to during the day. Vance does an admirable job giving life to so many characters from so many different countries.

I would highly recommend both the audio and the print version for anyone that is a fan of ‘what ifs’, dragons, Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander, and Horatio Hornblower.

The Best Audiobooks!

I have been converted. I admit I am now an audiobook lover. It was not always like that and usually, I still prefer a 'good old fashioned book' in my hands to an e-book or an audiobook, but lately I have found fantastic narrators who make listening an auditory pleasure. I especially enjoy listening to multi-voiced audiobooks.  

So if you love listening to a great narrator...you are sure to enjoy these books. If you have never listened to an audiobook give it a try.   For added incentive here are a few activities you can do while listening to a book: exercise, cook, bake, garden, write thank-you cards or even housework. Just think you can get work done while hearing a fantastic book! Life doesn't get much better than that, well if you were listening to a book, while sitting on the beach...that would be heaven. I can see it now.  The sun, the waves and a beautiful story.. pure unadulterated bliss.

Audie Award Winners That I LOVE! 

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (multi-voiced edition) 
2015 Audie Award Winner: Multi-Voiced Performance and 
2015 Winner Distinguished Achievement in Production

I've listened to both the multi-voiced edition and the one read by Neil Gaiman himself. I enjoyed them both, but the multi-voiced version is fantastic! 
Nobody "Bod" Owens is an orphan and is adopted and raised by ghosts in the graveyard where he crawled to safety after his parents were murdered. This is an enchanting tale that you won't want to stop listening too. 

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
2016 Audie Award Winner: Multi-Voiced Performance

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents, including emails, maps, files, IMs, medical reports, interviews and more...Illuminae is the first book in a heart stopping trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth and the courage of everyday heroes. Beautifully voiced.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle Read by Simon Vance
2014 Audie Award Winner: Classics

Classic Sherlock Holmes made exceptional by an amazing narrator.

Mandela: An Audio History available on Hoopla (translation this book is always available, there's no waiting to listen)
2015 Audie Award Winner: Audiobook of the Year 

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr  
2015 Audie Award Winner: Fiction

Nonfiction
The Boys In the Boat by Daniel James Brown
I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

Fiction
Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
The Postmistress by Sara Blake
The Roundhouse by Louise Erdich

If you have an audiobook that you love.....PLEASE do not keep us in suspense. Please tell us (or at least me) what it is... I promise I'll give it a try.

Listen Up! Some Great Audio Books for Adults and Teens

This month the library is highlighting our Audio collection--and what a collection it is.  Books on CD, books on Playaway, and digital audios--the choices are endless.  I listen to a lot of audio books and I have discovered that some of my favorite titles are from the Young Adult section.  I discovered the Harry Potter series, devoured the Hunger Games trilogy and enjoyed many others.  The following list contains just a few of my absolute favorites.  So try one or two or all eight and I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi--Printz Award Winner--In a Gulf Coast shanty town 100 years in the future, where grounded tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota—and hopefully live to see another day. But when he discovers a clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it’s worth or rescue a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life.
The companion novel is The Drowned Cities.

Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn by Catherine Friend--Golden Crown Literary Award Winner--This is a hilarious tale of Catherine and Melissa’s trials of getting back to the land.” It is also a coming-of (middle)-age story of a woman trying to cross the divide between who she is and who she wants to be, and the story of a couple who say goodbye city life” and learn more than they ever bargained for about love, land, and yes, sheep sex.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon--Rita Award Winner--The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles and suddenly she is in a Scotland torn by war in the year 1743.  Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two conflicting lives. Followed by Dragonfly in Amber and six others and they are all read by the fantastic Davina Porter.

The Middle of Somewhere by Clifford Henderson--Foreword Reviews' 2009 INDIEFAB Book of the Year--Start with one independent, urban lesbian who cashes out her life in San Francisco for a second-hand travel trailer and sets off to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival in search of a new life.  Add to this a broken-down ’66 T-bird, a bunch of small-town Texas Baptists, a ton of fried food, and a church scandal and what you get is Eadie T. Pratt’s road trip gone awry.  Funny with great characters!

A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck--Newbery Honor Book--What happens when Joey and his sister, Mary Alice--two city slickers from Chicago--make their annual summer visits to Grandma Dowdel's seemingly sleepy Illinois town?  They help Grandma to trespass, poach, catch the sheriff in his underwear, and feed the hungry--all in one day.  And there's more--much more--as Joey and Mary Alice make seven summer trips to Grandma's, each one funnier and more surprising than the year before. Richard Peck has created a memorable world filled with characters who, like Grandma herself, are larger than life and twice as entertaining.  
Followed by A Year Down Yonder (Newbery Medal Winner) and A Season of Gifts.  These are great for the whole family!!!

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein--Edgar Award Winner and Printz Honor Book--In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage, and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can.  Code Name Verity is a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how far true friends will go to save each other.  
The companion novel is Rose Under Fire (Golden Kite Award Honor Book and Audie Award Finalist) and it is just as wonderful if not better.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld--Aurealis Award Winner and Locus Award Winner--In an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen-year-old Austrian Prince Alek, on the run from the Clanker Powers who are attempting to take over the globe using mechanical machinery, forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn who, disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically-engineered beasts.  With the Great War brewing, Alek's and Deryn's paths cross in the most unexpected way...taking them both aboard the Leviathan on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure. One that will change both their lives forever. 
Followed by Behemoth and Goliath and all are read by the superb Alan Cumming!

Blood Red Road by Moira Young--Costa Children's Book Award Winner--Scavenging from landfills to survive in her post-apocalyptic world, Saba embarks on a quest to rescue her abducted twin brother. What Saba learns is that she's a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent and that she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil and a gang of girl revolutionaries, Saba stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization.  
Followed by Rebel Heart and Raging Star and all are read by the wonderful Heather Lind.

Also, anything written by Jon Katz, Bill Bryson, or Terry Brooks are fantastic too!   
Please let me know your favorite audio or narrator!  I am always looking for new books!

July's In the Queue

Don't let summer woes get you down. Instead enjoy a great adventure from July's Get In The Queue!

Fiction
The Light of Paris by Elizabeth Brown
Feeling panicked by her empty life and marriage to a controlling and critical husband, misfit Madeline discovers a revealing journal written by her grandmother during a romantic, literary and rebellious summer in Jazz Age Paris. This inspires Madeline to have a rebellious summer of her own.

Here Comes The Sun by Nicole Y. Dennis- Benn
In this radiant, highly anticipated debut, a cast of unforgettable women battle for independence while a maelstrom of change threatens their Jamaican village.

The One Man by Andrew Gross
When A World War II physics professor with information vital to Allied forces is sent to a Nazi concentration camp, intelligence officer Nathan Blum is sent undercover to infiltrate Auschwitz and bring the professor to safety.

Make Me Love You by Johanna Lindsey
Lindsey delivers a sparkling, passionate tale of an earl's daughter who must convince a mysterious viscount to marry her and end his vendetta against her brother.

Daughters Of The Bride by Susan Mallery
With joy, love and a little trepidation Courtney, Sienna and Mallory invite you to the most emotional wedding of the year,...their mother's.

The Last One: A Novel by Alexandria Olivia
In Alexandria Olivia's thrilling psychological suspense debut, survival is the name of the game, as the line blurs between reality TV and reality itself--one woman's mind and body are pushed to the limit.

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
Assigned to review an exclusive North Sea luxury cruise, travel journalist Lo Blacklock witnesses a woman being thrown overboard and is baffled when all the passengers remain unruffled and accounted for, a nightmare that unravels as Lo struggles to convince everyone on board that what she saw was real. 

New Books By Best Selling Authors

Sting by Sandra Brown
The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke
Killer Look by Linda Fairstein
Deadly Fate by Heather Graham
Night and Day by Iris Johansen
Sweet Tomorrows by Debbie Macomber
Tuly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty
Bullseye by James Patterson
White Bone by Ridley Pearson
First Star I See Tonight by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

Non-fiction

We're Still Right--And They're Still Wrong by James Carville
The prominent liberal campaign strategist argues that Democratic policies enacted by the Clinton administration and continued by President Obama have effectively sustained and salvaged the United State's economic well-being.

Freedom: My Book of Firsts by Jaycee Lee Dugard
This raw and inspiring book reminds readers that there is life after tragedy. Jaycee uses her own life story to show how each person holds the key to personal happiness, how to find it, and how to hold onto it.

I've Got Sand In All The Wrong Places by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella
Lisa and Francesca are back with another collection of warm and witty stories that will strike a chord with every woman.