They say that childbirth is painful but you forget the pain afterwards. It must be true or we'd be a world of single children and bitter mothers. I fiThey say that childbirth is painful but you forget the pain afterwards. It must be true or we'd be a world of single children and bitter mothers. I find long train journeys in exotic countries share some of the characteristics of childbirth because I suffer horribly and then a couple of years later, I completely forget how terrible they were and book more. I am a fool to myself and now jump at the chance to take domestic flights when the chances arise but in Sri Lanka, the choice is road or rail and on balance, rail is a bit safer.
I have taken several long train journeys in Sri Lanka - first during the Civil War and more recently just a few years ago. Each time I looked forward to them, imagining the views of the lush countryside as I chugged through. Each time, without exception, the journeys were slow, rambling and deeply uncomfortable. 8 hours in a luggage compartment; not great. Another 6 or 7 hours in an 'observation' car going backwards - seeing where I'd been, not where I was going chilled to the bone by overactive air conditioning. 3 hours standing crushed in a coastal train on a Friday evening, unable to see a thing and with my nose too close to a lot of armpits.
Why do I mention this? Because that's what I was thinking of as I listened and read Anuk Arudpragasam's book 'A Passage North'. Slow, rambling, uncomfortable and with an overwhelming sense that I'd never get those hours back again.
Krishan, a Tamil living in Colombo with his grandmother, receives a call that Rani, a woman who looked after his grandmother for several years, has died, found at the bottom of a well with a broken neck. He decides to go to the funeral, worrying that perhaps Rani's family will blame his family for taking her away from them for so long. On the train, he ponders events from his life, things he's read, films he's watched, and his relationship with the enigmatic Indian woman, Anjum.
I really wanted to love this book, so much so that (without realising I'd done it), I requested both the ebook and the audiobook from Netgalley. I even loved the cover - feeling sure I'd seen that stretch of railway track. I wanted to dive in and experience this tale of a journey through the heart of Sri Lanka. I've read quite widely about Sri Lanka, through the colonial era, Civil War and Tsunami themes. This is not my first time at this particular rodeo. But, I fear it's probably my last time trying to read this particular author.
I don't want to be dismissed as insufficiently 'intellectual' to love this book. I read one comment on a review that had called the book 'boring' and found that the feedback given was that readers who think something is boring should look to themselves and not the book to understand why. I'm sorry to disagree; this book is dull to such an extreme that I'm not prepared to take the blame on my own shoulders for not liking it. Heck, I got through it - about three-quarters on audiobook and then finishing off with the ebook when I realised that I couldn't take any more of the former. Almost everything that happens could have been so much more interesting if it had happened in half the pages and with five times as many full stops. Sentences run on through multiple sub-clauses. Paragraphs take pages. No sentence starts with a clear sense of where it's going to end or what tangents it will take along the way. I take my hat off to the narrator who, despite a rather monotone deliver, cannot have found it easy to breathe adequately through some of these superlong sentences. Actually, it was only when I saw them on the screen that I realised quite what a challenge he'd taken on.
This book is like getting stuck in the corridor with the office bore whom you've casually asked if they had a good weekend and still being there 2 hours later whilst he rambles on about his historic reenactment battle and tells you all about how to make a suit of armour and how to roast a pig over an open fire whilst taking diversions into telling you which A-roads were congested and how he's 'hyper-miled' his 10-year old Ford to maximise the fuel efficiency.
The tangents this book takes are extreme. Want a rather long synopsis of the life of the Buddha? Yep, that's in there. Want an account of a Tamil leader who got his eyes gouged out? You can have that too. There's even a point where he's off the train but following a funeral procession where he recognises the scenery and then recounts (in unnecessary detail) not only the plot of a documentary on female suicide bombers but also a sex-laden trip to Mumbai with his bisexual girlfriend where they watched the documentary and then took a walk along the seafront. This felt like the longest three hundred and something pages of my life.
I'm grateful to Netgalley and the publishers of both the ebook and the audiobook for their kindness in sending me copies but I can't bring myself to endorse this book. There may well be a pretty good 100 page book hidden among an extra 200 pages of what Greta Thunberg would probably call "blah blah blah"....more
I don't know who Jessie Cave is. I don't think I needed to know, though I can imagine that those who do know her may interact with theAUDIOBOOK REVIEW
I don't know who Jessie Cave is. I don't think I needed to know, though I can imagine that those who do know her may interact with the book differently. Since I don't know her, I also don't know her sister who narrates the audiobook but I can appreciate that a book about a relationship between sisters has a certain extra poignancy if it's read by the author's sister. I got that! In my mind, I pictured the reader as the woman who sees ghosts in the TV show 'Ghosts' because that's who she sounded like.
The book made me smile. The book made me sad. It also made me shake my head. It made me feel very old since at no point in my life - regardless of who had died - could I ever imagine craving that amount of emotionally obliterating sex with people I didn't actually like. But, as I said, maybe that's a generational thing.
That said, despite the gap of age and attitude, I was deeply moved by this book and by the narrator's pain and experience. There's a raw sense of realism that drips through the book and I really wanted the world to get better for Ruth, and believed at the end that she was going to have a fighting chance of getting through her grief.
Thanks to the publishers (who so far let me have access to several of their adution books) and to Netgalley for my review copy....more
AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: I've been reading Nicci French since their very first book and have read dozens more over the years. I think this was probably the fiAUDIOBOOK REVIEW: I've been reading Nicci French since their very first book and have read dozens more over the years. I think this was probably the first time I've consumed one of their novels in audio form and it might have been a mistake.
I love really good audio - ideally with multiple voice artists or one who has a great range of voices. . Average audio risks sending me to sleep. Normally I listen in the car where I find it easier to concentrate but I no longer have a long commute and don't do that anymore. The basic problem with the narrator of 'The Unheard' is that her voice is rather flat and her delivery is (sorry) rather soporific. I'm not kidding. Several times I found myself having to go back a few chapters after I drifted off. I also have a rather fundamental aversion to books delivered in the first person.
Tess is a very protective mother to her young daughter, Poppy. She shares custody with her ex-partner, a chap who turns out to have multiple layers of previously undisclosed lies and cheating. When Poppy draws a dark and disturbing picture, starts swearing and wetting her bed, Tess is convinced she has seen something very bad. When Poppy's picture turns into a sort of prediction of the death of a young woman that Tess had met just once, she's even more convinced that something is afoot. The police won't take her seriously. Those around her think she's gone crazy. Even Tess has to doubt her own instincts and wonder who she can trust as, one after another, those around her reveal their dark sides. Suddenly all her friends are revealing that they thought her ex was a 'wrong'un'. Tess can see that his new wife seems to be struggling with his controlling ways. And every other man who comes into her orbit seems to be a suspect.
I'm confident in saying this would have been at least one star better if I'd read it instead of listening to it. Some books are just better on the page. I can't rule out that my goldfish-like attention span is the issue, but I have listened to many audiobooks over the years and don't always struggle in this way. It won't put me off though and I'll still be reading Nicci French for many more years.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy...more
I find myself with 50 minutes left of my audiobook of The Vegetarian and I just can't bring myself to listen to any more. At 84% of the way in, disgusI find myself with 50 minutes left of my audiobook of The Vegetarian and I just can't bring myself to listen to any more. At 84% of the way in, disgusted and disturbed in equal measure, I'm calling 'Enough' on this horrible tale of social, physical and emotional abuse. It's just too darned nasty for me to put myself through any more.
There are scenes in this book - the force-feeding of the vegetarian, the horrendous killing of a dog, the sexual exploitation of somebody so deeply mentally disturbed for the act to be seen as thoroughly abusive - that I am going to struggle to get them out of my mind. I've had my fill (metaphorically) of erect penises going into places they really shouldn't, of questionable consent, and of the overwhelming exploitation of somebody so disturbed that they can't truly make their own decisions.
Due to lockdown, my normal 15 hours a week in the car commuting has been cut back to around 3 hours, so my coStory - 3 stars Audiobook format - 4 stars
Due to lockdown, my normal 15 hours a week in the car commuting has been cut back to around 3 hours, so my consumption of audiobooks has taken a nose-dive. It took me several weeks to get through The Last Family in England and, thankfully, it kept my attention well, despite the long gaps between journeys.
The book is narrated by Prince, a dutiful and polite black labrador who believes wholeheartedly in keeping up the standards of the Labrador Pact. Any labrador worthy of his breed knows that his job is to be eternally vigilant to the protection of his human family and Prince, egged on by older, wiser golden lab, Henry, takes his commitment very seriously.
Prince's family is under attack from a predatory male, Simon, and his ditzy wife, Emily, each of them determined to get into bed (or up against a tree) with one of Prince's humans. There are sub-plots involving a nervous wolfhound who lives in the park, some runaway spaniels who try to tempt Prince from the straight and narrow, an aggressive Rottweiler called Lear (with audio you can't tell spellings but it seemed unlikely he was Leah) and a half-springer called Falstaff. Yes, there are Shakespearean hints throughout but they're easy enough to ignore.
Talking dogs are very entertaining but did I believe Prince would go to the extremes he did to save his family? No, not really. There's a horrible bit with a rope that I can't go into any details on, other than to say I didn't believe it for a minute. And the ending is just horrible.
The narrator is excellent. He has a great range of accents and tones and delivers the story really well. I listened at 1.5x speed and it didn't go Pinky and Perky on me at all.
One final point of warning: don't let 'book narrated by dog' make you think it's twee and whimsical. Those who don't like such things need to be aware that there's plenty of swearing, suicide themes, violence and murder (not only towards dogs), and some rather perfunctory but quite squelchy sex....more
Curtis Sittenfeld - who is apparently a woman (what is it with Americans and their gender-ambiguous forenames?) has reimagined what might have happeneCurtis Sittenfeld - who is apparently a woman (what is it with Americans and their gender-ambiguous forenames?) has reimagined what might have happened if Hillary Rodham HAD NOT married Bill Clinton; if she'd recognised him as the cheating philanderer he no doubt is, and walked away when she had the chance?
I listened to the Audiobook and it's LONG. Really long. But it's also very good. Once I'd survived Bill and Hillary's endlessly squelchy sex-life and she'd escaped, it got much better.
I don't know enough about Hillary to know what's partly fact and what's totally fiction and I'm not bothered enough to find out. I do buy into the concept that she could have been SO MUCH MORE without Bill and I enjoyed the alternative non-history that Sittenfeld pulled together.
We're confronted with the endemic sexism of American society, the myriad times when other people (i.e. men) get away with all sorts of bad behaviour but Hillary gets pulled up for being screechy, unlikeable, strident etc.
Perhaps the most fascinating idea is of Donald Trump as Hillary's cheerleader and her biggest opponent being a rather different billionaire philanderer. Lots of this is fiction but most of it has a disturbing ring of potential truth. As alternative truth in an era of fake news, it's absolutely fascinating. I enjoyed it a lot.
The narrator has an oddly unisex voice - able to project both male and female voices with equal ease. I listened at x1.25 or x1.5 speed without it feeling particularly rushed. In total, it's about 14 hours long so be sure you're ready for a marathon....more
My consumption of Audiobooks had been badly hit by working from home. I've only been to my office twice this year and with a total journey time of aboMy consumption of Audiobooks had been badly hit by working from home. I've only been to my office twice this year and with a total journey time of about 6 hours, I needed to finish this before my loan ran out, so I moved from Audio to ebook for the final 1/5th of the book. I'd been prepared and ordered both through Borrowbox. It worked!
Before moving to the ebook, I read a few of the reviews and I was really confused. Some people absolutely detested this book. They called it 'disgusting' or explicit. Dirty, perhaps! Honestly, I have no idea how this book could create such rage in people. My greatest problem had been one of indifference. I'd have loved to have felt incensed.
It's not a great choice for an audiobook. The jumping back and forth in time can get hard to follow. The reader's lovely voice has a (sadly) soporific effect which isn't ideal when you're on a long commute. Mostly I found it hard to pay attention. If 'disgusting' things had been happening, surely I'd have noticed.
Parts of it are sublime. Parts just a bit weird. Antara's mother Tara is only in her 50s but showing signs of dementia. Antara's grandparents - Nani and Nana - are still sharp as tacks. Mother Tara was a rebel who left her husband, took Antara with her and joined an ashram - perhaps a 'cult' - and became the lover of the 'Baba'. Antara's mother was, to put it bluntly, a pretty terrible mother and now Antara finds herself challenged to become a mother to her mother who in turn was never much of a mother to her. The tension between the two women lies at the heart of the story.
Antara is an artist, famous/notorious for repeatedly drawing the same face over and over again, copying each day the picture she did the day before until the eventual pictures have moved perceptibly away from their origin. That's a bit bonkers but not half so much as when we eventually find out WHO the face belonged to and why it's such a cause of anger to her mother.
The narrator is good with an English-Indian accent and a lovely range of Indian accents for the different characters - and the play time is not too onerous. However, I do think this one is better done on the page or the screen because the story it tells is a bit too rambling to follow by listening alone. ...more
Eudora Honeysett is a character who is like a cross between Eleanor Oliphant and a Man Called Ove. You just KNOW exactly what's going to happen to thiEudora Honeysett is a character who is like a cross between Eleanor Oliphant and a Man Called Ove. You just KNOW exactly what's going to happen to this curmudgeonly old lady who wants to quietly go away to Switzerland and end her life. But knowing where it's going doesn't make the journey any less of a joy.
I don't have kids and I know that if my husband goes before me, I could end up like Eudora. Maybe without the cold-water swimming and probably with more cats. She is an absolute delight.
The audiobook is beautifully narrated and the voice artist has a great range of voices and accents to deliver the characters. Her Eudora voice has more than a touch of Ann Widdicombe stridency but it's not irritating, at least not to me.
This is a book about friendship and the power of good company. Eudora's relationships with young sartorially-challenged Rose and Stanley the dog-walker are pure delight. Even her discussions with the staff of the Swiss clinic are life-affirming. I can find nothing not to like about this delightful audiobook. I also strongly recommend it in this format as I think I might have found the paper- or e-book a bit irritating at times but the audio didn't bother me in the slightest.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for this lovely experience....more
Into the Water is a book that would probably be twice as good if it was half as long - or twice as good with half as many characters.Audiobook review.
Into the Water is a book that would probably be twice as good if it was half as long - or twice as good with half as many characters. My goodness, it's overly complicated. Listening to the audiobook, I felt pretty clueless and - dare I say it, a bit bored - for the first hour or two. Once I was past the introductions to the myriad characters and started to settle in to the story, I enjoyed it a lot more.
The book revolves around a town where numerous women have drowned in the local river. Some were alleged witches (the old 'sink or swim' test), some were suicides and others most likely were inconvenient or troublesome women whose men needed a convenient way to get rid of them.
The book begins with the death of Nel, a mother who has been obsessed with the history of the so-called 'Drowning Pool'. Her death follows a young girl's earlier in the year. The two dead women are linked by Nel's daughter, Lena.
The audiobook needs several narrators to have ANY chance of not confusing the heck out of any listener. The narrators are all excellent. I was really impressed by the range of tones and accents they could employ. Hats off to whoever chose them as their job was neither easy nor quick.
The degree of intrigue is high. You're taken in a multitude of different directions, down blind alleys, shown who must have done it, only to find they didn't. It can fairly be described as complex. The ending - when you EVENTUALLY get there - has a good balance of "I never would have thought...." and "Aha! I guess that makes sense!" which is not easy to achieve....more
When Ed's daughter brings her new boyfriend to meet her family, Ed takes an instant dislike to him. He can't explain it. There's something cold behindWhen Ed's daughter brings her new boyfriend to meet her family, Ed takes an instant dislike to him. He can't explain it. There's something cold behind Ryan's eyes. He has a primal fear reaction to him that he can't set aside. When the young couple then announce they're getting married a few weeks later, Ed goes into full-on investigative mode, trying to prove that there's something wrong with Ryan and to stop the wedding.
As observers, we are torn. Is Ed right? Or are the rest of the family - who all think he's wonderful - correct and Ed's just deluded. We spend a lot of time watching Ed go into a spiral of apparent insanity, neglecting family, work, rational behaviour in his pursuit of 'evidence'. Why IS Ryan in such a hurry? What possible motive could he have for rushing into wedlock?
I listened to the Audiobook. The narrator has a good range of voices and accents but a slightly (to me) flat and humourless tone. Perhaps that's intentional - after all, we're listening to the story of a man in self-destruct mode. The pace is slow - even at 1.5x acceleration, it was a tad ploddy.
I can say almost nothing more about the plot without risk of spoilers. I can completely imagine this as a TV adaptation or a Netflix series. There's plenty going on and people will take sides whilst reading / listening / viewing or whatever. Is Ed just an over-protective parent trying to atone for not saving his toddler son many years before? Or might he be the only sane one in the room?
I picked The Authenticity Project on the basis of one of those 'If you liked X and Y then you'll probably love this' recommendations. And as the main I picked The Authenticity Project on the basis of one of those 'If you liked X and Y then you'll probably love this' recommendations. And as the main comparison was with the Audiobook of 'The Switch' (which I reviewed recently) I was happy to give it a go, even though the audio runs to nearly 10 and a half hours.
I have a long commute. I'm in my car around 2.5 hours a day so I've plenty of time for Audiobooks but I do prefer them shorter rather than longer.
The Authenticity Project won't give you too many surprises. Everything that happens is quite predictable but that's not always a bad thing. It's the audio equivalent of curling up on a comfy sofa in your PJs and slippers with a wood burner in the background and a cat on your lap. In terms of any sense of jeopardy, I can comfortably say there are no dragons or evildoers to be found.
It's a simple tale of people whose lives have a big hole where their relationships and friendships should be who are brought together by finding a notebook with 'The Authenticity Project' written on the cover. As each person finds the book and adds their candid experience to it, they are brought into one another's orbits. There's an aged artist, an uptight cafe owner whose biological clock is ticking, an alcoholic coke-head with a desire to change his ways, a young Australian backpacker, a yummy mummy Instagrammer and a couple more. Most have inner lives that are quite different from the images they project to the outside world. And there's a cast of super support characters - a gay barman, his boyfriend and his Chinese grandmother.
It's sweet. It's fun. It says some useful things about life in a big city where nobody talks to each other any more, about urban loneliness and dislocation. It's very 'now'.
Regarding the audio, the narrator is great. She has a wide range of accents although she seems to slip into slightly Australian intonation rather more than the script calls for, but I found her voice didn't irritate or annoy (and often they do).
This isn't my usual genre, but I believe it to be a good example of its kind and I recommend it....more
There is an inevitability that 'If Cats Disappeared from the World' will be compared to 'The Travelling Cat Chronicles'. Sadly for this book,AUDIOBOOK
There is an inevitability that 'If Cats Disappeared from the World' will be compared to 'The Travelling Cat Chronicles'. Sadly for this book, it's almost certain to come up wanting when such comparisons are made. Both feature Japanese men who absolutely adore their cats - to a degree that's almost a bit creepy - but ICDFTW just isn't (IMO) anything like as good. TTCC was a 4 star for me but Kawamura's book is a 2, possibly 2.5 star. To me it felt more contrived, with less well-developed relationships. I consumed both in Audiobook format.
The narrator has a terminal illness and not long to live. He lives alone with his cat, Cabbage, and his regrets for lost relationships, things unsaid, friendships broken and left unmended. He makes a deal with a devil called Aloha who wears garish Hawaiian shirts and offers him one extra day of life for each thing he eradicates from the world. Apparently only by letting go of stuff - phones, films, clocks and possibly even cats - can the protagonist learn about what really matters in life. Bit pointless, really, as he won't have long to benefit from those learnings.
There's an ex-girlfriend who tells him more about his failings than he really wanted to know. His much loved late mother crops up a lot, and he's got a ton of issues about his dad to sort out.
When Cabbage the cat starts to talk, he's like a Japanese Mr Darcy, all sirs and haughty plummy accents. Honestly, my cats wouldn't talk like that, even the posh ones. It jarred for me.
In places it's beautiful and very moving. In between those rays of light, there's a lot of repetitious and predictable filling. It's not even a particularly long book, but it feels like it takes an unnecessary amount of time to make its points. ...more
I strongly suspect that if you're going to consume 'celebrity' audiobooks, it's probably more meaningful if you have some idea who the so-called celebI strongly suspect that if you're going to consume 'celebrity' audiobooks, it's probably more meaningful if you have some idea who the so-called celebrity is. I don't know anything about Daniella Moyes - or rather I didn't before I listened to her book 'Jump'.
The book follows her through a difficult childhood (mother with cancer, distant and angry father) through school (let out early for not really knuckling down) then out into the world of 'work' (standing around in a bikini looking pretty), travel (getting Dengue fever in 'Thighland' - seriously she can't say Thailand), work again (getting to be a sort of famous Irish DJ - it's a small pond), lots of drugs and bad choices about men and alcohol, having a colossal breakdown, going off to find herself in South America and......blah blah blah.
I liked the first half. I liked the tales of growing up, getting her first job, going to Thigh-land and getting sicker than a dog with the Dengue. I played her breakdown in the car with my husband (who is currently suffering PTSD) beside me, and he was really moved by a lot of what she said. He nodded along wisely. THEN, along came the second half and I didn't love it quite so much - she went off on her travels and behaved like nothing she'd ever learned about herself counted for anything before solving all her issues in a ludicrously convenient way.
It was like listening to a slow-motion car crash as she boasted around South and Central America doing way too many drugs and not so much trying to find herself as trying to run away from herself. "Why is she doing all these stupid things?" asked hubby.
It would astonish most of the people who know me - especially those who've been in my house, or looked in my handbag, or spent more than about 10 minuIt would astonish most of the people who know me - especially those who've been in my house, or looked in my handbag, or spent more than about 10 minutes in my company- to know that I am a great fan of the Japanese tidying guru Marie Kondo. I am the antithesis of a minimalist - I like to tell people that in Kondo terms, my threshold for Joy is really low. LOADS of stuff makes me happy and having it around me doesn't drain my energy.
Unless you go into the garage. But that's my husband's problem, not mine.
Anyway, I've read all of her books and I've just listened to the Audiobook of 'Joy at Work'. It's not a long book - 6 to 7 hours or so even before you speed it up a bit. It has two narrators with interlocking and complimentary opinions. They build on one another's theories very nicely.
I don't recommend to start your Kondo experience with this book. I also don't recommend to start with an Audiobook. But if you're an old hand at Kondo tidying, then why not have a listen.
I'm less than a year into a new job, on my second office and 3rd boss (he was also the 1st boss and next year my 2nd will be my 4th) and my office and desk have not yet descended into chaos. I have a large office, I put everything away at night (not neatly, but away) as I deal with a lot of confidential stuff in a very nosy company. I lock up my coffee pods at night. In short, I don't have a problem with office or desk. Drawers? yes a bit but it's not a big issue yet.
A couple of chapters in when Marie was rhapsodising over cleaning her desk every day, thanking her erasers and her post it notes, and the perfect 'little woman in the office', I did wonder if I needed this book or if I could stomach much more of it. But around about chapter 4 when her co-editor steps in to talk about getting control of your emails, I started to pay a bit more attention. Don't over categorise, keep it simple, ignore the sent mail, trust your search functions........not bad advice. I got rather lost around 'tidying your time' but I still listened all the way through.
I'm not entirely sure that I can entirely buy in to the idea that the average worker can really expect their work to satisfy their need for Joy in their lives, and I definitely won't start going to work TWO HOURS EARLY to tidy my surroundings, but I did find the book interesting, full of observations that made me stop and think, and I probably should listen again to some of the advice on meetings and emails.
However, I defy anybody to beat the sheer Joy of a well structured underwear drawer and for that you'll need to go back to Marie's first book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up....more
Beth O'Leary is becoming the 'go-to' writer if you're looking for something lighthearted but thought-provoking. Nothing will ever happen in hAUDIOBOOK
Beth O'Leary is becoming the 'go-to' writer if you're looking for something lighthearted but thought-provoking. Nothing will ever happen in her books that's wildly (or even slightly) unpredictable, but they offer all the comfort of settling down by the fire with a mug of hot chocolate, a furry rug and a couple of cats for company. That's not my cup of tea ALL the time, but every now and then, it's just the ticket.
I listened to the audiobook. I can only assume that the publishers are expecting a lot from this book as they picked two really good actresses for the narration - Alison Steadman (yes, THE Alison Steadman - 'Abigail's Party, Gavin's mum in 'Gavin and Stacey' and many more great and highly recognisable films and shows over the years) and Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People TV series). This can't have been cheap to make.
The Switch is the story of a grandmother and granddaughter who swap lives for two months. Grandmother Eileen goes to London in search of love and romance and to bring a bit of Yorkshire 'grit' to an unsuspecting capital. Granddaughter Lena (that might be spelt wrongly - can't tell with audiobooks), had had a meltdown at work and been issued a forced 'sabbatical' to get her head straight again. The two swap homes, friends, and activities.
As I said, it's predictable. You'll know where the romances are going pretty early on and then it's just a case of sitting back and waiting for the inevitable but very welcome plots to work their way through.
The book paints a wonderful picture of inter-generational friendships, about never being too old or too set in your ways to change things anew, and it touches on some sensitive topics of grief, domestic abuse and empowerment.
I know many people are very bored with multi-narration books but this one manages to deliver two separate stories without being repetitive.
I loved it. Great stuff. And the Audioformat is ideal for dual narration stories like this. ...more
Brevity shouldn't be a key factor in choosing an audiobook. But it is. At least for me. The opportunity to get a 'book' by an author as greaAUDIOBOOK.
Brevity shouldn't be a key factor in choosing an audiobook. But it is. At least for me. The opportunity to get a 'book' by an author as great as Bernadine Evaristo and complete the whole thing in the drive home (about an hour and 20 minutes - I listen slightly speeded up) was too good to miss when I spotted this on my library's Borrowbox scheme.
It's a letter - or a monologue, I suppose, keeping in mind the format I had - from a 14-year-old boy to his mother. It's a thank you, an explanation, a 'welcome to my life', and perhaps also an apology. It's about love and the challenges of growing up young and black in gang-culture London.
I absolutely refuse to give any spoilers. It's a lovely book. The narrator has a beautiful voice. The tale is entirely believable. It has elements of a slow-motion car crash. Every parent - and every non-parent- should give this a read or a listen and try to understand how good kids get dragged into bad stuff....more
A diary format is a great way to write a book whilst making the minimum amount of effort to write a book. You don't have to give it any structure. YouA diary format is a great way to write a book whilst making the minimum amount of effort to write a book. You don't have to give it any structure. You don't need a storyline. You just trot out what you did, day after day.
That was the thought that kept going through my mind as I was listening to the audiobook of 'Diary of a Drag Queen' and (once again) breaking my 'no writers as voice artists' rule.
It started OK but very quickly the same-old-same-old repetitive stories of spending money they didn't have, having enormous amounts of transactional sex with ugly older men they'd never see again and WAY too much detail about that sex, and I was getting to the point of feeling a bit queasy.
I wanted glamour, I wanted frocks and sequins and Barbra Streisand and life-empowerment stories but it was all too focused on massive amounts of bodily fluids and violent penetration. Way too much information. As a straight woman, I thought I'd fallen into some gay male fantasy of squelching and slurping and beards and thigh-high boots. This book wasn't written for the likes of me.
I gave three stars to their friend Amlou's book 'Unicorn; The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen' but I couldn't really get excited about this one....more
AUDIOBOOK (although I also have the kindle version too).
I have a few rules I follow when choosing Audiobooks. Firstly they shouldn't be TOO long. SecoAUDIOBOOK (although I also have the kindle version too).
I have a few rules I follow when choosing Audiobooks. Firstly they shouldn't be TOO long. Secondly, they shouldn't be too 'heavy' going - my car at 6.45 am is NOT a place for literally greatness; Thirdly, and most importantly, they shouldn't be read by the author. Authors should write. Professional voice artists should read out loud.
I broke my rule for this one. Chris Atkins wrote and read his account of his time in Wandsworth Prison. And he did a pretty good job of it.
My husband is a 30 year veteran of the Prison Service, including 8 years working at Wandsworth when - in his words - it was "allegedly the best establishment in the country". That's no longer the case. Hubby always says - when confronted with questions about books, films, TV series etc about prisons - that the closest thing to reality in the British prison system is probably the old Ronnie Barker show, 'Porridge'. It takes a good dose of self-deprecating humour and a strong sense of the absurd to cope with prison life, whether as staff or 'client'.
Chris Atkins doesn't pretend that he's not guilty. He acknowledges that being a white, middle-class, Oxford graduate documentary-maker is not a particularly typical profile for a Wandsworth prisoner. He knows that he's exceedingly fortunate to be able to play the system to his advantage and he chooses to hang out with men who are - mostly - more like him than like the average. He does poke fun at illiterate and addicted men who have none of his advantages - but I'd like to think he does it with a sense of something like affection for them and disappointment in the society that created such disadvantage. He also recognises that something is badly wrong when Albanian drug dealers do better than many of the home-grown felons when administered a literacy test. It's not just the prison system that needs attention; the education system that allows people to leave school unable to read or write often leaves them few opportunities within the law. If anybody wants to moan about posh white boys doing prison tourism, they can perhaps suggest how poor illiterate men would write their own stories.
The book is filled with colourful characters - prisoners, officers, governors and various education and inspection volunteers. It's also filled with illogical and irrational procedures that generate lots of paperwork and very little action. The issues of mental health problems and drug addiction receive appropriate attention. I found the work Atkins and his cohort did as 'Listeners' very interesting. What starts as a way to get more time out of their cells quickly evolves into something very valuable and deeply upsetting for the volunteers involved.
If you want a book about a 'typical' Wandsworth prisoner, it's probably not this but often the best observer is the insider who is equally an outsider. A writer needs to stand slightly apart to register and record the absurdity of a situation.
Atkins' voice is way less annoying than most author-narrators. He does some very good accents, gives emotion where it's needed and keeps up a good pace. He's respectful but amused. He likes a lot of people across the spectrum from prisoners to staff.
One slightly irritating thing about new audiobooks is that there seems to be a tendency for authors to pop a few 'extras' on the end. It happened in my previous audiobook where the 'extras' took more than an hour, and this one also includes about half an hour or more of chitter-chatter. Honestly, I'm inclined to say "Know when to stop". ...more
I've been to Iran. Twice. That seems to surprise people. Maybe not as much as when they learn I've also been to Libya, but still pretty surprised.
I'd I've been to Iran. Twice. That seems to surprise people. Maybe not as much as when they learn I've also been to Libya, but still pretty surprised.
I'd go again in a heartbeat (but maybe not until this Covid-19 crisis is way past). My most recent trip was in 2006 and it was on an organised tour that lasted 2 weeks and took in many of the absolutely astonishing places and attraction that this pariah state has to offer. When I got home, I put 'Searching for Hassan' on my Amazon wishlist, bought a second-hand copy a few years later and then didn't get around to reading it. Seeing an updated version available as an Audiobook through my library's free audiobook service, I snapped it up.
Terry Ward, his three brothers and his parents lived in Iran back in the 1970s. His dad was something in oil - as indeed, most ex-pat workers would have been at that time. The Ward family lived in Tehran but saw relatively little of the country. Their cook and general factotum was a chap called Hassan and he, along with his wife Fatimeh, became very much part of the Ward family. Two decades after the family had to leave Iran, the boys - who are now men with children of their own - and their parents decide to take a trip to Iran to see all the things they missed back when they lived there, and to try to find Hassan and his family.
They went in 1998, at one of the relatively relaxed points of post-Revolutionary Iran. Hope was high that President Khatami would introduce a lot of changes to reduce the excesses of the Khomeini era, and somehow the family found a way to get visas for a visit. Roughly half the book is a travelogue - you can be forgiven for wondering when they'll actually START searching for Hassan as they trot around the attractions of the pre-Islamic and pre-Revolutionary eras. As somebody who has been to most of the places they visited, I absolutely recognised the authenticity of Ward's observations. I also very much appreciated that he didn't simply rehash old tour-guides as some other, lesser travel books I've read recently do. He captures the essence of the place and the fabulously curious and friendly people.
I have to be fair and say that the response to their tourist activities may not be the same if you've not been to Iran. I totally accept that not everybody will love the descriptions.
The second half of the book is about finding Hassan and reforming the most wonderful relationships with him and his family. I saw a review that described this book as one of the few 'happy ending' books about Iran and it really is a very happy story. The search was rather less complicated than the title might suggest, but the outcome was fantastic.
As the audiobook was only released this year, it includes a lot of material and updates that weren't in the original paperback that I have. Some of the updates are fascinating. As the kind of person who always wonders "But what happened next?" when the credits roll at the end of the film, I wanted to know and was happy to hear about follow-up visits. Having found Hassan and his family, the Wards were not about to lose them again. I also found it fascinating when we learn that Hassan's story has prompted lots of travellers to go searching for him themselves after reading Ward's book. It's absolutely delightful.
For everybody who ever thought that Iran is a gloomy country full of serious people living under strict control and restrictions and on standby to have another war at any moment, this book is recommended reading though you'll need to open your mind first. For those who've been to Iran, it's a great way to remind yourself of just how fabulous a place it is and for those who want to go, it's an inspiration. ...more
This is my first Netgalley audiobook and I was really worried that I would have to DNF it. About 15 minutes in, I was riled. I really did not need somThis is my first Netgalley audiobook and I was really worried that I would have to DNF it. About 15 minutes in, I was riled. I really did not need some weird bloke throwing the n-word and mother-f***er and similar words at me every couple of sentences. I can - if I choose - absolutely ignore bad or racist language on the written page. I can just let my eyes skip over the words and not sink in but with an Audiobook, it's not easy to shut your ears.
The book starts very slowly and I was pretty bored as well as quite offended. The preamble rolls on for an age before the mock 'guide' to how to think like a white man actually starts. Presented as a self-help book, it targets black men trying to make it in the corporate world. Not black women, not white women, not even Indian, Chinese, Filipino or Muslim, Jewish or Amish. It's for black me. And I'm not a black man.
I was determined to stick with it. I really didn't want my first Netgalley audiobook to be a failure. And the funny thing was, that the longer I listened, the more I recognised the issues. As a woman trying to make it in the corporate world three decades ago, my old self would have absolutely recognised a lot of the issues. White women are not a minority - heck, women are just short of 50% of the world's population (if you ignore those bits of the world where baby girls 'disappear') - but 30 years ago if you didn't want to be taking the minutes and pouring the coffees, you needed a lot of the advice in this book. Don't make a fuss. Don't stick your head up, Don't let anybody in a senior position think they are getting to you.
So my take on the book was definitely NOT what the authors intended but it pushed some memory buttons for me. It even made me realise quite how far things have changed - mostly for the better - but also how far things still have to go.
I found that the book didn't really evolve very quickly. Most of the chapters were quite similar and a lot of the 'jokes' were quite repetitive, but I was oddly lulled into sort of enjoying it. I didn't laugh out loud. I didn't roll on the floor laughing. I did often find myself thinking "Is this supposed to be funny?" and sometimes I wondered if it was really necessary to have quite so many tips at the end of each chapter. But, when I finally got to the end, I felt I'd achieved something by getting there and, even though I wouldn't want to do it again, I can honestly say it felt 'educational'....more
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