Janet's bookshelf: cd en-US Thu, 08 May 2025 10:37:56 -0700 60 Janet's bookshelf: cd 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg What Happened to the McCrays? 195391623 From New York Times bestselling author Tracey Lange, a poignant story about the resilience of family, the importance of community, and the magic of middle school hockey

When Kyle McCray gets word his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, he returns to his hometown of Potsdam, New York, where he doesn’t expect a warm welcome. Kyle left suddenly two and a half years ago, abandoning people who depended on him: his father, his employees, his friends—not to mention Casey, his wife of sixteen years and a beloved teacher in town. He plans to lie low and help his dad recuperate until he can leave again, especially after Casey makes it clear she wants him gone.

The longer he’s home, the more Kyle understands the impact his departure has had on the people he left behind. When he’s presented with an opportunity for redemption as the coach of the floundering middle school hockey team, he begins to find compassion in unexpected places. Kyle even considers staying in Potsdam, but that’s only possible if he and Casey can come to some kind of peace with each other.

Full of love and hope, What Happened to the McCrays? takes an intimate look at both sides of a failed marriage and two people who must finally confront the awful pain of their past or risk being consumed by it.]]> 352 Tracey Lange 1250328438 Janet 2 fiction, cd 4.07 2025 What Happened to the McCrays?
author: Tracey Lange
name: Janet
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/05/03
date added: 2025/05/08
shelves: fiction, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hidden Depths (Vera Stanhope, #3)]]> 1632546
But then a second body - that of beautiful young teacher Lily Marsh - is discovered laid out in a rock pool, the water strewn with flowers. Now Vera must work quickly to find this dramatist, this killer who is making art out of death.

Clues are slow to emerge from those who had known Luke and Lily, but Vera soon finds herself drawn towards the curious group of friends who discovered Lily`s body. What unites these four men and one woman? Are they really the close-knit, trustworthy unit they claim to be?

As local residents are forced to share their private lives and those of their loved ones, sinister secrets are slowly unearthed. And all the while the killer remains in their midst, waiting for an opportunity to prepare another beautiful, watery grave...]]> 320 Ann Cleeves 0330441159 Janet 2 mystery, place, cd 3.97 2007 Hidden Depths (Vera Stanhope, #3)
author: Ann Cleeves
name: Janet
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2007
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: mystery, place, cd
review:

]]> Save Me, Stranger: Stories 203579141 From Edgar Award-winning author Erika Krouse, a visceral, dazzling collection of stories set across the globe, about characters desperate for salvation.

Erika Krouse's Edgar Award-winning debut memoir, Tell Me Everything, was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as “lyrical, jarring, propulsive,� and The Washington Post as “mesmerizing on every page.� Now, with an electrifying new collection of stories, Save Me, Stranger, she further cements her reputation as an essential voice.

From the coldest town on earth, to a sex shop in Bangkok, to a haunted bed and breakfast in the Rockies, we meet characters at hinge moments. A runaway fights for her future while driving an ice cream truck in gang territory; a cleaning woman investigates the teenager who died in her stead; an Alaskan terminal patient discovers new life in helping others die. This collection explores the borderlands between humor and hurt, community and self, and hope and despair, redefining what it means to survive.

Scalpel-sharp, unsparingly funny, and achingly wise, Krouse's expansive stories build to unforgettable emotional catharses, as these men and women must decide how far they are willing to go to save each other—and themselves.]]> 224 Erika Krouse 1250240336 Janet 3 cd, short-stories 4.36 2025 Save Me, Stranger: Stories
author: Erika Krouse
name: Janet
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: cd, short-stories
review:

]]> Open Book 41571753 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

Jessica tells of growing up in 1980s Texas where she was sexually abused by the daughter of a family friend, and of unsuccessfully auditioning for the Mickey Mouse Club at age 13 with Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling before going on to sign a record deal with Columbia and marrying 98 Degrees member Nick Lachey.

Along the way, she details the struggles in her life, such as the pressure to support her family as a teenager, divorcing Lachey, enduring what she describes as an emotionally abusive relationship with musician John Mayer, being body-shamed in an overly appearance-centered industry, and going through bouts of heavy drinking. But Simpson ends on a positive note, discussing her billion-dollar apparel line and marriage with professional football star Eric Johnson, with whom she has three children.]]> 416 Jessica Simpson Janet 0 4.08 2020 Open Book
author: Jessica Simpson
name: Janet
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: currently-reading, cd, memoir-bio, music
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing]]> 59641216
So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who traveled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more.

In an extraordinary story that only he could tell—and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it—Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he’s found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all.

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening—as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for.]]> 250 Matthew Perry 1250866448 Janet 3 death, cd, memoir-bio 3.89 2022 Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
author: Matthew Perry
name: Janet
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: death, cd, memoir-bio
review:
Such mixed feelings about listening to this memoir after the author’s death—from The Big Terrible Thing, no less. Foreshadowing galore and by the end, the multiple rehab stints, excessive smoking and attempts to quit, failed relationships and bad behavior on movie & tv sets became repetitive and hard to keep track of (much is told in a non-linear way). I felt sad for Matthew Perry while simultaneously frustrated, knowing that he knew all too well what the outcome of his out of control addictions could be. RIP MP
]]> <![CDATA[Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)]]> 205126998 People) of a novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world.

With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?�

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known—“unrecorded lives,� Olive calls them—reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”]]> 0 Elizabeth Strout 0593669487 Janet 3 fiction, place, cd 4.06 2024 Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Janet
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: fiction, place, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Red Bones (Shetland Island, #3)]]> 6361885
When a young archaeologist studying on a site at Whalsay discovers a set of human remains, the island settlers are intrigued. Is it an ancient find - or a more contemporary mystery?

Then an elderly woman is shot in a tragic accident in the middle of the night. Shetland detective Jimmy Perez is called in by her grandson - his own colleague, Sandy Wilson.

The sparse landscape and the emptiness of the sea have bred a fierce and secretive people. Mima Wilson was a recluse. She had her land, her pride and her family. As Jimmy looks to the islanders for answers, he finds instead two feuding families whose envy, greed and bitterness have lasted generations.

Surrounded by people he doesn't know and in unfamiliar territory, Jimmy finds himself out of his depth. Then there's another death and, as the spring weather shrouds the island in claustrophobic mists, Jimmy must dig up old secrets to stop a new killer from striking again . . .]]> 340 Ann Cleeves 0230014461 Janet 2 fiction, mystery, place, cd 3.94 2009 Red Bones (Shetland Island, #3)
author: Ann Cleeves
name: Janet
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2009
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: fiction, mystery, place, cd
review:
Sooooooo slow on audio. Almost gave up but…Ann Cleeves.
]]> Heartwood 220259184 Heartwood takes you on a journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.

At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.]]> 320 Amity Gaige 1668063603 Janet 0 to-read, mystery, place, cd 3.92 2025 Heartwood
author: Amity Gaige
name: Janet
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read, mystery, place, cd
review:

]]> Savage Run (Joe Pickett, #2) 244105 Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett uncovers a conspiracy in this explosive novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.

When a massive blast rocks the forests of Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is called to the scene to help investigate the death of a colorful environmental activist. The case is wrapped up quickly, explained as an environmental publicity stunt gone wrong, but Joe isn't convinced. He soon discovers clues that suggest a deadly conspiracy–one that will test his courage, his survival skills, and his determination to “do the right thing� despite all costs.]]> 304 C.J. Box 0425189244 Janet 2 cd, mystery 4.06 2002 Savage Run (Joe Pickett, #2)
author: C.J. Box
name: Janet
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2002
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: cd, mystery
review:
I’ve read a couple of books in the Joe Pickett series that were pretty good. I like the character and would like to read more of the series. But this one was sooo boring and drawn out in the middle. Could’ve done with just the beginning and the end to get the gist of the story. Narrator on the audio was not too enjoyable.
]]> <![CDATA[Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike, #3)]]> 40611999 Cormoran Strike is back, with his assistant Robin Ellacott, in a mystery based around soldiers returning from war.

When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman’s severed leg.

Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed. There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible � and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality.

With the police focusing on the one suspect Strike is increasingly sure is not the perpetrator, he and Robin take matters into their own hands, and delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men. But as more horrendous acts occur, time is running out for the two of them�

Career of Evil is the third in the series featuring private detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott. A mystery and also a story of a man and a woman at a crossroads in their personal and professional lives.]]> 609 Robert Galbraith 0316349925 Janet 0 mystery, cd, didn-t-finish 4.22 2015 Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike, #3)
author: Robert Galbraith
name: Janet
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: mystery, cd, didn-t-finish
review:
The only think I liked about this book was the ending.
]]> House of Glass 195790531
A young nanny who plunged to her death, or was she pushed? A nine-year-old girl who collects sharp objects and refuses to speak. A lawyer whose job it is to uncover who in the family is a victim and who is a murderer. But how can you find out the truth when everyone here is lying?

Rose Barclay is a nine-year-old girl who witnessed the possible murder of her nanny - in the midst of her parent's bitter divorce - and immediately stopped speaking. Stella Hudson is a best interest attorney, appointed to serve as counsel for children in custody cases. She never accepts clients under thirteen due to her own traumatic childhood, but Stella's mentor, a revered judge, believes Stella is the only one who can help.

From the moment Stella passes through the iron security gate and steps into the gilded, historic DC home of the Barclays, she realizes the case is even more twisted, and the Barclay family far more troubled, than she feared. And there's something eerie about the house itself: It's a plastic house, with not a single bit of glass to be found.

As Stella comes closer to uncovering the secrets the Barclays are desperate to hide, danger wraps around her like a shroud, and her past and present are set on a collision course in ways she never expected. Everyone is a suspect in the nanny's murder. The mother, the father, the grandmother, the nanny's boyfriend. Even Rose. Is the person Stella's supposed to protect the one she may need protection from?]]> 341 Sarah Pekkanen 125028399X Janet 0 mystery, didn-t-finish, cd 3.84 2024 House of Glass
author: Sarah Pekkanen
name: Janet
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: mystery, didn-t-finish, cd
review:
Life's too short. Stopped listening to the audiobook after the first disc.
]]> <![CDATA[A Share in Death (Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James, #1)]]> 211146 259 Deborah Crombie 0060534389 Janet 0 3.72 1993 A Share in Death (Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James, #1)
author: Deborah Crombie
name: Janet
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/08
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: mystery, place, didn-t-finish, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Death Without Company (Walt Longmire, #2)]]> 236862
Craig Johnson's new novel , Land of Wolves, Ěýis forthcoming from Viking

Fans of Ace Atkins, Nevada Barr and Robert B. Parker will love Craig Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of Hell Is Empty and As the Crow Flies , who garnered both praise and an enthusiastic readership with his acclaimed debut novel featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire, The Cold Dish, the first in the Longmire Mystery Series, the basis for LONGMIRE , now on Netflix. Now Johnson takes us back to the rugged landscape of Absaroka County, Wyoming, for Death Without Company . When Mari Baroja is found poisoned at the Durant Home for Assisted Living, Sheriff Longmire is drawn into an investigation that reaches fifty years into the mysterious woman’s dramatic Basque past. Aided by his friend Henry Standing Bear, Deputy Victoria Moretti, and newcomer Santiago Saizarbitoria, Sheriff Longmire must connect the specter of the past to the present to find the killer among them.]]> 271 Craig Johnson 0143038389 Janet 0 to-read, mystery, place, cd 4.17 2006 Death Without Company (Walt Longmire, #2)
author: Craig Johnson
name: Janet
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: to-read, mystery, place, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Telling Tales (Vera Stanhope, #2)]]> 902203
For one young woman, Emma Bennett, the revelation brings back haunting memories of her vibrant best friend--and of that fearful winter's day when she had discovered her body lying cold in a ditch.

As Inspector Vera Stanhope makes fresh enquiries on the peninsula and villagers are hauled back to a time they hoped to forget, tensions begin to mount. But are people afraid of the killer or of their own guilty pasts?

With each person's story revisited, the Inspector begins to suspect that some deadly secrets are threatening to unfurl.]]> 400 Ann Cleeves 0330432516 Janet 0 fiction, mystery, place, cd 3.94 2005 Telling Tales (Vera Stanhope, #2)
author: Ann Cleeves
name: Janet
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: fiction, mystery, place, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Cold Dish (Walt Longmire, #1)]]> 109901 354 Craig Johnson 0143036424 Janet 4 mystery, place, cd 4.07 2004 The Cold Dish (Walt Longmire, #1)
author: Craig Johnson
name: Janet
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: mystery, place, cd
review:
Solid story, a bit rambling at times, but overall engaging and enjoyable. Character development was excellent, and audiobook narrative matched the style and nature of the characters that are in my head from the tv series. Can't wait to listen to more; looks like George Guidall narrates a good many of Craig Johnson titles.
]]> <![CDATA[From Here to the Great Unknown]]> 204905217
A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved and grieved.

Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, laid in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about smashing golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About getting dragged screaming out of the bathroom as she ran towards his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with her mother, getting sent to school after school, always kicked out, always in trouble. About her singular, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about being married to Michael Jackson, what they shared in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present grief. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother’s wish to reveal these memories, incandescent and painful, to the world.

To make her mother known.

This extraordinary book is written in both Lisa Marie’s and Riley’s voices, a mother and daughter communicating—from this world to the one beyond—as they try to heal each other. Profoundly moving and deeply revealing, From Here to the Great Unknown is a book like no other—the last words of the only child of an American icon.]]> 304 Lisa Marie Presley 0593733878 Janet 0 to-read, cd, memoir-bio 4.26 2024 From Here to the Great Unknown
author: Lisa Marie Presley
name: Janet
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: to-read, cd, memoir-bio
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness]]> 249042
"Compelling ... Harrowing ... a vivid portrait of a debilitating disorder ... It offers the solace of a shared experience."� The New York Times

A work of great personal courage and a literary tour de force, this bestseller is Styron's true account of his experience of crippling depression. Styron is perhaps the first writer to convey the full terror of depression's psychic landscape, as well as the illuminating path to recovery.]]> 84 William Styron 0679736395 Janet 0 memoir-bio, cd 4.01 1990 Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
author: William Styron
name: Janet
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: memoir-bio, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness]]> 13355908 12 Edward Abbey 1452655766 Janet 3 3.92 1968 Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness
author: Edward Abbey
name: Janet
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1968
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: cd, essay-general-nonfic, place, memoir-bio, travel
review:

]]> The Midnight Feast 199743738 Secrets. Lies. Murder. Let the festivities begin...

It’s the opening night of The Manor, and no expense, small or large, has been spared. The infinity pool sparkles; crystal pouches for guests� healing have been placed in the Seaside Cottages and Woodland Hutches; the “Manor Mule� cocktail (grapefruit, ginger, vodka, and a dash of CBD oil) is being poured with a heavy hand. Everyone is wearing linen.

But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. Just outside the Manor’s immaculately kept grounds, an ancient forest bristles with secrets. And the Sunday morning of opening weekend, the local police are called. Something’s not right with the guests. There’s been a fire. A body’s been discovered.

THE FOUNDER * THE HUSBAND * THE MYSTERY GUEST * THE KITCHEN HELP

It all began with a secret, fifteen years ago. Now the past has crashed the party. And it’ll end in murder at� The Midnight Feast.]]> 354 Lucy Foley 0063003104 Janet 3 cd, mystery, place 3.55 2024 The Midnight Feast
author: Lucy Foley
name: Janet
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: cd, mystery, place
review:
An intriguing puzzle pretty nicely wrapped up at the end. Listening to the audio read by different narrators kept me going. Couldn't stand Francesca or the birds but there you have it.
]]> <![CDATA[Talking to Strangers (Elise King, #2)]]> 203379826
Detective Elise King’s investigation into a woman’s murder is getting derailed by a reporter who insists on doing her own investigation in this nail-biting mystery from the author of Local Gone Missing.

When Karen Simmons is murdered on Valentine’s Day, Detective Elise King wonders if she was killed by a man she met online. Karen was all over the dating apps, leading some townspeople to blame her for her own death, while others band together to protest society’s violence against women. Into the divide comes Kiki Nunn, whose aggressive newsgathering once again antagonizes Elise.

A single mother of a young daughter, Kiki is struggling to make a living in the diminished news landscape. Getting a scoop in the Simmons murder would do a lot for her career, and she’s willing to go up against not just Elise but the killer himself to do it.]]> Fiona Barton 059390737X Janet 3 mystery, cd 3.87 2024 Talking to Strangers (Elise King, #2)
author: Fiona Barton
name: Janet
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves: mystery, cd
review:
Quirky audio narrators kept me interested until the end.
]]> The Girls Who Disappeared 63260211 9 hours, 29 minutes.


Three missing girls. A twenty year mystery. A woman who may be able to crack this cold case.

In a rural Wilshire town lies The Devil's Corridor. A road which has witnessed eerie happenings from unexplained deaths to the sounds of a child crying at night.

But nothing more puzzling than the Olivia Rutherford case. Four girls drove home but after their car crashed only Olivia was found.

Twenty years later, journalist Jenna Halliday is covering the case. But the locals aren't happy with this stranger's arrival. Least of all Olivia.

Jenna soon starts receiving threatening notes and it is clear someone wants her out of this town before she suffers a dark fate . . .

Praise for Claire Douglas
'Thrillingly tense and twisty' - B. A. Paris

'Claire is a mistress at weaving the reader into a web of domestic deceit' Jane Corry

'Twisty, exciting yet so very real' Gillian McAllister]]> 10 Claire Douglas 0063277441 Janet 3 cd, fiction 3.56 2022 The Girls Who Disappeared
author: Claire Douglas
name: Janet
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/28
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves: cd, fiction
review:
Excellent narrators on the audio version (Joanne Froggatt could read me the phone book and I'd love it) and the story started out so promising! But once again a far-fetched ending kind of spoils the whole thing.
]]> After Annie 182126971
"A wise and heartfelt novel of connection, of loss and love and the power of both."—Amy Bloom

Quindlen’s trademark wisdom on family, emotions, and the secrets of people in a small town are at the center of this novel about triumph over adversity and the power of love to transcend time, by the best-selling author of Still Life with Breadcrumbs and One True Thing.

“A new Anna Quindlen novel is always cause for celebration. After Annie might just be my favorite one yet. It's a beautiful and deeply moving story about love, loss, friendship, marriage, family and community from one of our wisest chroniclers of modern life. I treasured every page." —J Courtney Sullivan

When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her four young children and her closest friend are left to struggle without the woman who centered their lives. Bill Brown finds himself overwhelmed, and Annie’s best friend Annemarie is lost to old bad habits without Annie’s support. It is Annie’s daughter, Ali, forced to try to care for her younger brothers and even her father, who manages to maintain some semblance of their former lives for them all, and who confronts the complicated truths of adulthood.

Yet over the course of the next year, while Annie looms large in their memories, all three are able to grow, to change, even to become stronger and more sure of themselves. The enduring power Annie gave to those who loved her is the power to love, and to go on without her.

Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice, and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is a story that ends with hope, a beautiful novel about how adversity can change us in profound ways.]]> 0 Anna Quindlen 0593863054 Janet 2 cd, fiction 3.43 2024 After Annie
author: Anna Quindlen
name: Janet
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/08
date added: 2024/10/08
shelves: cd, fiction
review:

]]> Homecoming 61683285
Sixty years later, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for almost twenty years, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. A phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother, Nora, who raised Jess when her mother could not, has suffered a fall and been raced to the hospital.

Nora has always been a vibrant and strong presence: decisive, encouraging, young despite her years. When Jess visits her in the hospital, she is alarmed to find her grandmother frail and confused. It’s even more alarming to hear from Nora's housekeeper that Nora had been distracted in the weeks before her accident and had fallen on the steps to the attic—the one place Jess was forbidden from playing in when she was small.

At loose ends in Nora's house, Jess does some digging of her own. In Nora's bedroom, she discovers a true crime book, chronicling the police investigation into a long-buried tragedy: the Turner Family Tragedy of Christmas Eve, 1959. It is only when Jess skims through the book that she finds a shocking connection between her own family and this once-infamous crime—a crime that has never been resolved satisfactorily. And for a journalist without a story, a cold case might be the best distraction she can find�

An epic novel that spans generations, Homecoming asks what we would do for those we love, and how we protect the lies we tell. It explores the power of motherhood, the corrosive effects of tightly held secrets, and the healing nature of truth. Above all, it is a beguiling and immensely satisfying novel from one of the finest writers working today.]]> 547 Kate Morton 0063020890 Janet 3 fiction, cd, australia-nz 4.00 2023 Homecoming
author: Kate Morton
name: Janet
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/18
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: fiction, cd, australia-nz
review:

]]> Darling Girls 127280429 SISTERS, SECRETS, LOVE, AND MURDER... Sally Hepworth’s new novel has it all.

For as long as they can remember, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia have been told how lucky they are. As young girls they were rescued from family tragedies and raised by a loving foster mother, Miss Fairchild, on an idyllic farming estate and given an elusive second chance at a happy family life.

But their childhood wasn’t the fairy tale everyone thinks it was. Miss Fairchild had rules. Miss Fairchild could be unpredictable. And Miss Fairchild was never, ever to be crossed. In a moment of desperation, the three broke away from Miss Fairchild and thought they were free. Even though they never saw her again, she was always somewhere in the shadows of their minds. When a body is discovered under the home they grew up in, the foster sisters find themselves thrust into the spotlight as key witnesses. Or are they prime suspects?

A thrilling page-turner of sisterhood, secrets, love, and murder by New York Times bestselling author Sally Hepworth.]]> 359 Sally Hepworth 125028452X Janet 2 3.97 2024 Darling Girls
author: Sally Hepworth
name: Janet
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves: fiction, mystery, cd, australia-nz
review:
I’m only giving this two stars because I painstaking finished the damn thing, hoping there’d be some reason at the end for doing so. Nope. Most unbelievable scenario with bland unlikeable characters. Narrator on the audiobook was good, but skewed toward the jaunty side, making this story seem somehow uplifting when it was far from that. Couldn’t wait to be finished with this one.
]]> All Our Shimmering Skies 48814878 The bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton returns with All Our Shimmering Skies - a glorious novel destined to become another Australian classic. Darwin, 1942, and as Japanese bombs rain down, motherless Molly Hook, the gravedigger's daughter, turns once again to the sky for guidance. She carries a stone heart inside a duffel bag next to the map that leads to Longcoat Bob, the deep-country sorcerer who put a curse on her family. By her side are the most unlikely travelling companions: Greta, a razor-tongued actress and Yukio, a fallen Japanese fighter pilot. Run, Molly, run, says the daytime sky. Run to the vine forests. Run to northern Australia's wild and magical monsoon lands. Run to friendship. Run to love. Run. Because the graverobber's coming, Molly, and the night-time sky is coming with him. So run, Molly, run.

All Our Shimmering Skies is a story about gifts that fall from the sky, curses we dig from the earth and the secrets we bury inside ourselves. It is an odyssey of true love and grave danger, of darkness and light, of bones and blue skies; a buoyant, beautiful and magical novel abrim with warmth, wit and wonder; and a love letter to Australia and the art of looking up.]]> 448 Trent Dalton Janet 0 3.95 2020 All Our Shimmering Skies
author: Trent Dalton
name: Janet
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/06
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves: australia-nz, cd, fiction, didn-t-finish
review:

]]> The Night She Disappeared 55922299
One year later, a writer moves into a cottage on the edge of the woods that border the same estate. Known locally as the Dark Place, the dense forest is the writer’s favorite area for long walks and it’s on one such walk that she stumbles upon a mysterious note that simply reads, “DIG HERE.�

Could this be a clue towards what has happened to the missing young couple? And what exactly is buried in this haunted ground?]]> 416 Lisa Jewell 1982137363 Janet 4 cd, mystery 4.05 2021 The Night She Disappeared
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Janet
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/05
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves: cd, mystery
review:
Good story in general, but the audio read by Joanne Froggatt made this a top notch listen; her different voices are spot on.
]]> The Clockmaker's Daughter 38530939 My real name, no one remembers. The truth about that summer, no one else knows.

In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor on the banks of the Upper Thames. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins.

Over one hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing the drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.

Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets?]]> 485 Kate Morton 1451649398 Janet 3 cd, fiction, place 3.73 2018 The Clockmaker's Daughter
author: Kate Morton
name: Janet
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/10
date added: 2024/07/10
shelves: cd, fiction, place
review:
I think the *only* reason I got through this and didn't give up midway through was because Joanna Froggatt is the narrator of the audio version. Writing is also very beautiful, but oh this book was so long and so full of characters and jumps in time that I lost the point again and again. Thank you, Joanna Froggatt, for making this worth my (long) while.
]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780063251922.

"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver Janet 2 cd, equity, fiction 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Janet
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2024/07/07
date added: 2024/07/07
shelves: cd, equity, fiction
review:

]]> The River We Remember 199797829 In 1958, a small Minnesota town is rocked by the murder of its most powerful citizen, pouring fresh fuel on old grievances in this dazzling standalone novel.

On Memorial Day, as the people of Jewel, Minnesota gather to remember and honor the sacrifice of so many sons in the wars of the past, the half-clothed body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. Investigation of the murder falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations mount and the town teeters on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles not only to find the truth of Quinn’s murder but also put to rest the demons from his own past.

Caught up in the torrent of anger that sweeps through Jewel are a war widow and her adolescent son, the intrepid publisher of the local newspaper, an aging deputy, and a crusading female lawyer, all of whom struggle with their own tragic histories and harbor secrets that Quinn’s death threatens to expose.

Both a complex, spellbinding mystery and a masterful portrait of midcentury American life, The River We Remember is an unflinching look at the wounds left by the wars we fight abroad and at home, a moving exploration of the ways in which we seek to heal, and a testament to the enduring power of the stories we tell about the places we call home.]]> 448 William Kent Krueger 1982179228 Janet 2 place, fiction, cd 4.23 2023 The River We Remember
author: William Kent Krueger
name: Janet
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/06/20
date added: 2024/06/20
shelves: place, fiction, cd
review:

]]> Last Night 57010537 From the Amazon Charts and New York Times bestselling author of The Shadow Box and Last Day comes a breathtaking thriller about a family shaken by lies, vengeance, and a cold-blooded crime.

A fierce blizzard is burying the eastern seaboard, but on the icy Rhode Island shore renowned artist Maddie Morrison finds warm sanctuary from a contentious divorce at the legendary Ocean House. Hours later, her body is found buried under a blanket of snow and her little daughter, CeCe, has disappeared without a trace.

For Detective Conor Reid; his brother, Tom, a coast guard commander; and Maddie’s grieving sister, Hadley, the posh hotel becomes ground zero for an investigation. Trapped by the blizzard, they must hunker down and determine who in the young mother’s life could have possibly wanted her dead. There are stories of a twisted romantic past. Of old jealousies and resentments that still cut to the bone. And a history of greed, rage, and revenge that created the perfect storm for murder. A storm that has just begun.]]> 329 Luanne Rice 1542030218 Janet 1 mystery, place, cd 4.05 2024 Last Night
author: Luanne Rice
name: Janet
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2024/06/11
shelves: mystery, place, cd
review:
Boring yet overwrought story made even worse by the overdramatization by two terrible narrators on the audiobook. Ugh.
]]> James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Janet 0 cd, to-read, equity, fiction 4.46 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Janet
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/15
shelves: cd, to-read, equity, fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club]]> 61653268 From the New York Times bestselling author J. Ryan Stradal, a story of a couple from two very different restaurant families in rustic Minnesota, and the legacy of love and tragedy, of hardship and hope, that unites and divides them

Mariel Prager needs a break. Her husband Ned is having an identity crisis, her spunky, beloved restaurant is bleeding money by the day, and her mother Florence is stubbornly refusing to leave the church where she’s been holed up for more than a week. The Lakeside Supper Club has been in her family for decades, and while Mariel’s grandmother embraced the business, seeing it as a saving grace, Florence never took to it. When Mariel inherited the restaurant, skipping Florence, it created a rift between mother and daughter that never quite healed.

Ned is also an heir—to a chain of home-style diners—and while he doesn't have a head for business, he knows his family's chain could provide a better future than his wife's fading restaurant. In the aftermath of a devastating tragedy, Ned and Mariel lose almost everything they hold dear, and the hard-won victories of each family hang in the balance. With their dreams dashed, can one fractured family find a way to rebuild despite their losses, and will the Lakeside Supper Club be their salvation?

In this colorful, vanishing world of relish trays and brandy Old Fashioneds, J. Ryan Stradal has once again given us a story full of his signature honest, lovable yet fallible Midwestern characters as they grapple with love, loss, and marriage; what we hold onto and what we leave behind; and what our legacy will be when we are gone.]]> 340 J. Ryan Stradal 1984881078 Janet 0 3.58 2023 Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club
author: J. Ryan Stradal
name: Janet
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/12
date added: 2024/05/12
shelves: fiction, place, cd, didn-t-finish
review:

]]> A Million Junes 30763950
Who exactly is this gruff, sarcastic, but seemingly harmless boy who has returned to their hometown of Five Fingers, Michigan, after three mysterious years away? And why has June—an O’Donnell to her core—never questioned her late father’s deep hatred of the Angert family? After all, the O’Donnells and the Angerts may have mythic legacies, but for all the tall tales they weave, both founding families are tight-lipped about what caused the century-old rift between them.

As Saul and June’s connection grows deeper, they find that the magic, ghosts, and coywolves of Five Fingers seem to be conspiring to reveal the truth about the harrowing curse that has plagued their bloodlines for generations. Now June must question everything she knows about her family and the father she adored, and she must decide whether it’s finally time for her—and all the O’Donnells before her—to let go.]]> 400 Emily Henry 0448493969 Janet 0 3.80 2017 A Million Junes
author: Emily Henry
name: Janet
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/12
date added: 2024/05/12
shelves: place, cd, teen-fiction, didn-t-finish
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mona of the Manor (Tales of the City, #10)]]> 173955333 The tenth novel in the beloved Tales of the City series, Armistead Maupin’s best-selling San Francisco saga.

When Mona Ramsey married Lord Teddy Roughton to secure his visa—allowing him to remain in San Francisco to fulfil his wildest dreams—she never imagined she would, by age 48, be the sole owner of Easley House, a romantic country manor in the UK. Now, with her adopted son, Wilfred, Mona has opened Easley’s doors to paying guests to keep her inherited English manor afloat.

As they welcome a married American couple to Easley, Mona and Wilfred discover their new guests� terrible secret. Instead of focussing on the imminent arrival of old friend Michael Tolliver and matriarch Anna Madrigal, Mona will need to use her considerable charm, willpower and wiles to set things right before Easley’s historic Midsummer ceremony.

Hurdling barriers both social and sexual, Maupin leads the eccentric tenants of Barbary Lane through heartbreak and triumph, through nail-biting terrors and gleeful coincidences in 1980s San Francisco and beyond. The result is a glittering and addictive comedy of manners that continues to beguile new generations of readers.]]> 256 Armistead Maupin 0062973592 Janet 3 cd, fiction, lgbt, place 3.93 2024 Mona of the Manor (Tales of the City, #10)
author: Armistead Maupin
name: Janet
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/10
date added: 2024/05/10
shelves: cd, fiction, lgbt, place
review:
A light, short easy read/listen with a few enjoyable moments that may have been made less than enjoyable by the audiobook narrator (Mara Wilson!). Her various accents were pretty wonky, but I give her credit for trying. Was fun though to revisit some characters I haven’t thought of in a long time. And their celebrations made me want some scrumpy!
]]> Echo 22749539
Lost and alone in a forbidden forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica.

Decades later, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each, in turn, become interwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives. All the children face daunting challenges: rescuing a father, protecting a brother, holding a family together. And ultimately, pulled by the invisible thread of destiny, their suspenseful solo stories converge in an orchestral crescendo.

Richly imagined and masterfully crafted, Echo pushes the boundaries of genre, form, and storytelling innovation to create a wholly original novel that will resound in your heart long after the last note has been struck.]]> 597 Pam Muñoz Ryan 0439874025 Janet 0 4.35 2015 Echo
author: Pam Muñoz Ryan
name: Janet
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/29
shelves: cd, childrens, currently-reading, fiction
review:

]]> The Trees 56269278 309 Percival Everett 164445064X Janet 2 equity, fiction, place, cd 4.06 2021 The Trees
author: Percival Everett
name: Janet
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2024/04/26
date added: 2024/04/26
shelves: equity, fiction, place, cd
review:
While I applaud what the author was trying to do here, I would have appreciated it more if it had been handled in a more nuanced manner. The outlandish satire, full of stereotypes, similar to what the author in Erasure/American Fiction has done, just made a mockery of Everything.
]]> <![CDATA[Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents]]> 51152447 The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.�

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.]]> 544 Isabel Wilkerson 0593230256 Janet 4 4.52 2020 Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Janet
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/09
date added: 2024/04/09
shelves: equity, essay-general-nonfic, cd
review:

]]> Tom Lake 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Janet 5 fiction, cd, place 3.92 2023 Tom Lake
author: Ann Patchett
name: Janet
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/03/06
shelves: fiction, cd, place
review:
Audio read by Meryl Streep was incredible. Not sure I'd have had the same experience reading the print.
]]> <![CDATA[Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (Ernest Cunningham, #1)]]> 60879779
I'm Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I'd killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it's a little more complicated than that.

Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.

Who was it?

Let's get started.

EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE

My brother

My stepsister

My wife

My father

My mother

My sister-in-law

My uncle

My stepfather

My aunt

Me]]> 371 Benjamin Stevenson 0063279029 Janet 3 cd, mystery, australia-nz 3.75 2022 Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (Ernest Cunningham, #1)
author: Benjamin Stevenson
name: Janet
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/02/17
shelves: cd, mystery, australia-nz
review:
Fantastic and refreshing style. Audiobook reader was especially good. But I got a little lost & bogged down by all the convoluded details.
]]> The Luminaries 17333230 The Luminaries is a brilliantly constructed, fiendishly clever ghost story and a gripping page-turner.]]> 848 Eleanor Catton 0316074314 Janet 0 3.73 2013 The Luminaries
author: Eleanor Catton
name: Janet
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2024/02/08
date added: 2024/02/11
shelves: fiction, place, cd, didn-t-finish
review:

]]> Bright Young Women 101124639
The survivors, including key witness Pamela Schumacher, will be forever changed by this night. They have all become victims. But they tell their perspectives here, they remain masters of their stories. And they hunt the perpetrator on their own - against resistance from the justice system and the police; against public opinion, which idolizes the serial killer.]]> 384 Jessica Knoll 1501153226 Janet 0 3.99 2023 Bright Young Women
author: Jessica Knoll
name: Janet
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/02
shelves: cd, fiction, true-crime, currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The End of the Wasp Season (Alex Morrow, #2)]]> 11156902
Meanwhile, in a wealthy suburb of Glasgow, a young woman is found savagely murdered. The community is stunned by what appears to be a vicious, random attack. When Detective Inspector Alex Morrow, heavily pregnant with twins, is called in to investigate, she soon discovers that a tangled web of lies lurks behind the murder. It's a web that will spiral through Alex's own home, the local community, and ultimately right back to a swinging rope, hundreds of miles away.

The End of the Wasp Season is an accomplished, compelling and multi-layered novel about family's power of damage-and redemption.]]> 400 Denise Mina 0316069337 Janet 3 fiction, cd, mystery, place 3.81 2010 The End of the Wasp Season (Alex Morrow, #2)
author: Denise Mina
name: Janet
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/02
date added: 2024/02/02
shelves: fiction, cd, mystery, place
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16]]> 11569862
When he was a young boy, Kasher's mother took him on a vacation to the West Coast. Well it was more like an abduction. Only not officially. She stole them away from their father and they moved to Oakland , California. That's where the real fun begins, in the war zone of Oakland Public Schools. He was more than just out of control-his mother walked him around on a leash, which he chewed through and ran away.

Those early years read like part Augusten Burroughs, part David Sedaris, with a touch of Jim Carrol...but a lot more Jewish. In fact, Kasher later spends time in a Brooklyn Hasidic community. Then came addiction...

Brutally honest and laugh-out-loud funny, Kasher's first literary endeavor finds humor in even the most horrifying situations.]]> 303 Moshe Kasher 0446584266 Janet 0 3.74 2012 Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16
author: Moshe Kasher
name: Janet
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves: memoir-bio, currently-reading, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us]]> 59575939 A grand tour through the hidden realms of animal senses that will transform the way you perceive the world --from the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes.

The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world. This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension--the world as it is truly perceived by other animals.

We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth's magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and humans that wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile's scaly face is as sensitive as a lover's fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries which lie unsolved.

In An Immense World, author and acclaimed science journalist Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. Because in order to understand our world we don't need to travel to other places; we need to see through other eyes.]]> 464 Ed Yong Janet 0 4.46 2022 An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
author: Ed Yong
name: Janet
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/15
date added: 2024/01/15
shelves: nature, science, didn-t-finish, cd
review:

]]> The Woman in Me 63133205 The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope.

In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.

Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.]]> 288 Britney Spears 1668009048 Janet 3 music, memoir-bio, cd 3.83 2023 The Woman in Me
author: Britney Spears
name: Janet
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/01/13
shelves: music, memoir-bio, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[NPR Driveway Moments All About Animals: Radio Stories That Won't Let You Go]]> 1492901 1 National Public Radio 1598875116 Janet 4 3.61 NPR Driveway Moments All About Animals: Radio Stories That Won't Let You Go
author: National Public Radio
name: Janet
average rating: 3.61
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/12/29
shelves: cd, essay-general-nonfic, nature, pets
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair)]]> 19706303 Oscar-nominated actress Rosie Perez’s never-before-told story of surviving a harrowing childhood and of how she found success—both in and out of the Hollywood limelight.ĚýRosie Perez first caught our attention with her fierce dance in the title sequence of Do the Right Thing and has since defined herself as a funny and talented actress who broke boundaries for Latinas in the film industry. What most people would be surprised to learn is that the woman with the big, effervescent personality has a secret straight out of a Dickens novel. At the age of three, Rosie’s life was turned upside down when her mentally ill mother tore her away from the only family she knew and placed her in a Catholic children’s home in New York’s Westchester County. Thus began her crazily discombobulated childhood of being shuttled between “the Home,â€� where she and other kids suffered all manners of cruelty from nuns, and various relativesâ€� apartments in Brooklyn.ĚýMany in her circumstances would have been defined by these harrowing experiences, but with the intense determination that became her trademark, Rosie overcame the odds and made an incredible life for herself. She brings her journey vividly to life on each page of this memoir—from the vibrant streets of Brooklyn to her turbulent years in the Catholic home, and finally to film and TV sets and the LA and New York City hip-hop scenes of the 1980s and â€�90s.Ěý ĚýMore than a page-turning read, Handbook for an Unpredictable Life is a story of survival. By turns heartbreaking and funny, it is ultimately the inspirational story of a woman who has found a hard-won place of strength and peace.]]> 338 Rosie PĂ©rez Janet 0 to-read, cd, memoir-bio 4.11 2014 Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair)
author: Rosie PĂ©rez
name: Janet
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/05
shelves: to-read, cd, memoir-bio
review:

]]> Malibu Rising 55404546 Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. But over the course of twenty-four hours, their lives will change forever.

Malibu: August, 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.

The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.

Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.

And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them... and what they will leave behind.]]> 369 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1524798657 Janet 0 to-read, cd, fiction 4.02 2021 Malibu Rising
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Janet
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/04
shelves: to-read, cd, fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead]]> 59366182 In this “fun, page-turner of a novel� (Sarah Haywood, New York Times bestselling author) that’s perfect for fans of Mostly Dead Things and Goodbye, Vitamin, a morbidly anxious young woman stumbles into a job as a receptionist at a Catholic church and soon finds herself obsessed with her predecessor’s mysterious death.

Gilda, a twenty-something, atheist, animal-loving lesbian, cannot stop ruminating about death. Desperate for relief from her panicky mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church, and finds herself being greeted by Father Jeff, who assumes she’s there for a job interview. Too embarrassed to correct him, Gilda is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace.

In between trying to memorize the lines to Catholic mass, hiding the fact that she has a new girlfriend, and erecting a dirty dish tower in her crumbling apartment, Gilda strikes up an email correspondence with Grace’s old friend. She can’t bear to ignore the kindly old woman who has been trying to reach her friend through the church inbox, but she also can’t bring herself to break the bad news. Desperate, she begins impersonating Grace via email. But when the police discover suspicious circumstances surrounding Grace’s death, Gilda may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence.

With a “kindhearted heroine we all need right now� (Courtney Maum, New York Times bestselling author), Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is a crackling and “delightfully weird reminder that we will one day turn to dust and that yes, this is depressing, but it’s also what makes life beautiful� (Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl).]]> 256 Emily R. Austin 198216736X Janet 2 cd, fiction, death 3.85 2021 Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead
author: Emily R. Austin
name: Janet
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2023/09/21
date added: 2023/09/21
shelves: cd, fiction, death
review:
While I appreciated the character's off-kilter thoughts and perspectives, I don't think the overall execution was handled well. I passed over a lot of longwinded sections that weren't really going anywhere.
]]> <![CDATA[Out Came the Sun: Overcoming the Legacy of Mental Illness, Addiction, and Suicide in My Family]]> 23280224 A moving, compelling memoir about growing up and escaping the tragic legacy of mental illness, suicide, addiction, and depression in one of America's most famous families: the Hemingways.

She opens her eyes. The room is dark. She hears yelling, smashed plates, and wishes it was all a terrible dream. But it isn't. This is what it was like growing up as a Hemingway. In this deeply moving, searingly honest new memoir, actress and mental health icon Mariel Hemingway shares in candid detail the story of her troubled childhood in a famous family haunted by depression, alcoholism, illness, and suicide. Born just a few months after her grandfather, Ernest Hemingway, shot himself, it was Mariel's mission as a girl to escape the desperate cycles of severe mental health issues that had plagued generations of her family.

Surrounded by a family tortured by alcoholism (both parents), depression (her sister Margaux), suicide (her grandfather and four other members of her family), schizophrenia (her sister Muffet), and cancer (mother), it was all the young Mariel could do to keep her head. In a compassionate voice she reveals her painful struggle to stay sane as the youngest child in her family, and how she coped with the chaos by becoming OCD and obsessive about her food, schedule, and organization.

The twisted legacy of her family has never quite let go of Mariel, but now in this memoir she opens up about her claustrophobic marriage, her acting career, and turning to spiritual healers and charlatans for solace. Ultimately Mariel has written a story of triumph about learning to overcome her family's demons and developing love and deep compassion for them. At last, in this memoir she can finally tell the true story of the tragedies and troubles of the Hemingway family, and she delivers a book that beckons comparisons with Mary Karr and Jeanette Walls.]]> 288 Mariel Hemingway 1941393233 Janet 0 3.43 2015 Out Came the Sun: Overcoming the Legacy of Mental Illness, Addiction, and Suicide in My Family
author: Mariel Hemingway
name: Janet
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/03
shelves: memoir-bio, currently-reading, family, cd
review:

]]> The Midnight Library 54646022
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 7 Matt Haig 0655697071 Janet 4 fiction, cd, death, love "She had shrunk for him and he still hadn't found the space he needed."]]> 4.12 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Janet
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/08/25
shelves: fiction, cd, death, love
review:
Not my usual cup of tea, but greatly enjoyed the idea of revisiting regrets and other life choices. Lots of good lines, this is one I wrote down:
"She had shrunk for him and he still hadn't found the space he needed."
]]> Remarkably Bright Creatures 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]> 368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 Janet 0 to-read, cd, fiction, nature 4.35 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Janet
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/23
shelves: to-read, cd, fiction, nature
review:

]]> Becoming 38746485
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.]]> 426 Michelle Obama 1524763136 Janet 0 4.42 2018 Becoming
author: Michelle Obama
name: Janet
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/15
shelves: currently-reading, memoir-bio, equity, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times]]> 61355284 Listening length: 10 hours

In an inspiring follow-up to her critically acclaimed, #1 bestselling memoir Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today’s highly uncertain world.

There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers to life’s big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with readers, considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build enduring and honest relationships? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt or helplessness? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much?

Michelle Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles—the earned wisdom that helps her continue to “become.� She details her most valuable practices, like “starting kind,� “going high,� and assembling a “kitchen table� of trusted friends and mentors. With trademark humor, candor, and compassion, she also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness.

“When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it,� writes Michelle Obama. A rewarding blend of powerful stories and profound advice that will ignite conversation, The Light We Carry inspires readers to examine their own lives, identify their sources of gladness, and connect meaningfully in a turbulent world.]]> 10 Michelle Obama 0593677870 Janet 0 4.45 2022 The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times
author: Michelle Obama
name: Janet
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/15
shelves: currently-reading, cd, memoir-bio
review:

]]> Someone Else's Shoes: A Novel 61827553 A story of mix-ups, mess-ups and making the most of second chances, this is the new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jojo Moyes, author of Me Before You and The Giver of Stars.

Who are you when you are forced to walk in someone else’s shoes?

Nisha Cantor lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband announces a divorce and cuts her off. Nisha is determined to hang onto her glamorous life. But in the meantime, she must scramble to cope--she doesn’t even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in.

That’s because Sam Kemp � in the bleakest point of her life � has accidentally taken Nisha’s gym bag. But Sam hardly has time to worry about a lost gym bag--she’s struggling to keep herself and her family afloat. When she tries on Nisha’s six-inch high Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes, the resulting jolt of confidence that makes her realize something must change—and that thing is herself.

Full of Jojo Moyes� signature humor, brilliant storytelling, and warmth, Someone Else’s Shoes is a story about how just one little thing can suddenly change everything.]]> 0 Jojo Moyes 0593670566 Janet 3 cd, fiction 3.92 2023 Someone Else's Shoes: A Novel
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Janet
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/08/11
shelves: cd, fiction
review:
Full of highly implausible situations but enjoyable nonetheless. Listened to on audio, not sure I would have kept with it if not for the excellent narration.
]]> Caribou Island 8584946 On a small island in a glacier-fed lake on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, a marriage is unraveling. Gary, driven by thirty years of diverted plans, and Irene, haunted by a tragedy in her past, are trying to rebuild their life together. Following the outline of Gary's old dream, they're hauling logs to Caribou Island in good weather and in terrible storms, in sickness and in health, to build the kind of cabin that drew them to Alaska in the first place.

But this island is not right for Irene. They are building without plans or advice, and when winter comes early, the overwhelming isolation of the prehistoric wilderness threatens their bond to the core. Caught in the emotional maelstrom is their adult daughter, Rhoda, who is wrestling with the hopes and disappointments of her own life. Devoted to her parents, she watches helplessly as they drift further apart.

Brilliantly drawn and fiercely honest, Caribou Island captures the drama and pathos of a husband and wife whose bitter love, failed dreams, and tragic past push them to the edge of destruction. A portrait of desolation, violence, and the darkness of the soul, it is an explosive and unforgettable novel from a writer of limitless possibility.

]]> 293 David Vann 0061875724 Janet 3 fiction, cd 3.45 2010 Caribou Island
author: David Vann
name: Janet
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2015/05/12
date added: 2023/07/28
shelves: fiction, cd
review:

]]> Sea of Tranquility: A novel 58689992 🎧Run Time = 5 hours and 47 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 0 Emily St. John Mandel 0593552075 Janet 4 fiction, cd, travel, place 3.78 2022 Sea of Tranquility: A novel
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Janet
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/25
shelves: fiction, cd, travel, place
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Hear the Sirens in the Street (Detective Sean Duffy, #2)]]> 16162561
Still, one tiny clue is all it takes, and there it is. A tattoo. So Duffy, fully fit and back at work after the severe trauma of his last case, is ready to follow the trail of blood-however faint-that always, always connects a body to its killer.

A legendarily stubborn man, Duffy becomes obsessed with this mystery as a distraction from the ruins of his love life, and to push down the seed of self-doubt that he seems to have traded for his youthful arrogance.

So from country lanes to city streets, Duffy works every angle. And wherever he goes, he smells a rat...]]> 334 Adrian McKinty 1846688183 Janet 4 mystery, cd, fiction, place 4.03 2013 I Hear the Sirens in the Street (Detective Sean Duffy, #2)
author: Adrian McKinty
name: Janet
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/13
shelves: mystery, cd, fiction, place
review:

]]> Happy-Go-Lucky 59228249 An Audie Award Winner

David Sedaris, the “champion storyteller,� (Los Angeles Times) returns with his first new collection of personal essays since the bestselling Calypso.

Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes.
Ěý
But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.
Ěý
As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.
Ěý
In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.]]> 0 David Sedaris 1668604582 Janet 4 4.27 2022 Happy-Go-Lucky
author: David Sedaris
name: Janet
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/06/26
shelves: death, family, cd, lgbt, humor, memoir-bio, place
review:
I adore David Sedaris--he has the same love/hate relationship with humanity that I do. Many of these essays were laugh out loud funny; others reveal honest depth of character.
]]> <![CDATA[I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America]]> 56625218 In the wake of his deeply powerful viral videos ("Before You Call the Cops" and "Walking While Black"), Tyler Merritt shares his experiences as a black man in America with truth, humor, and poignancy.

Tyler Merritt's video "Before You Call the Cops" has been viewed millions of times. He's appeared on Jimmy Kimmel and Sports Illustrated and has been profiled in the New York Times. The viral video's main point—the more you know someone, the more empathy, understanding, and compassion you have for that person—is the springboard for this book. By sharing his highs and exposing his lows, Tyler welcomes us into his world in order to help bridge the divides that seemĚýto grow wider every day. In I Take My Coffee Black, Tyler tells hilarious stories from his own life as a black man in America. He talks about growing up in a multi-cultural community and realizing that he wasn't always welcome, how he quit sports for musical theater (that's where the girls were) to how Jesus barged in uninvited and changed his life forever (it all started with a Triple F.A.T. Goose jacket) to how he ended up at a small Bible college in Santa Cruz because he thought they had a great theater program (they didn't). Throughout his stories, he also seamlessly weaves in lessons about privilege, the legacy of lynching and sharecropping and why you don't cross black mamas. He teaches readers about the history of encoded racism that still undergirds our society today. By turns witty, insightful, touching, and laugh-out-loud funny, I Take My Coffee Black paints a portrait of black manhood in America and enlightens, illuminates, and entertains—ultimately building the kind of empathy that might just be the antidote against the racial injustice in our society.]]> 320 Tyler Merritt 1546029419 Janet 4 memoir-bio, equity, cd 4.50 2021 I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America
author: Tyler Merritt
name: Janet
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/07
date added: 2023/06/07
shelves: memoir-bio, equity, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Cold Cold Ground (Detective Sean Duffy, #1)]]> 13008754
Audio CD is 10 hours and 3 minutes long.]]> 11 Adrian McKinty 1441785698 Janet 4 fiction, place, cd, mystery 3.88 2012 The Cold Cold Ground (Detective Sean Duffy, #1)
author: Adrian McKinty
name: Janet
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/18
date added: 2023/04/18
shelves: fiction, place, cd, mystery
review:
I could not get going on the print version of this. Read somewhere to try the audio and that grabbed me right away. The pace and the language that I had a hard time grasping, totally came alive with an Irish accent. Love the depiction of the troubles, the "peelers," the danger, the characters. Had a bit of trouble with who Detective Sergeant Duffy became in the end, as he seemed to have lost the charm and sense of humor that came through so strongly early in the book. But I'll give him another chance if the next in the series has a reader!
]]> <![CDATA[Girl, Forgotten (Andrea Oliver, #2)]]> 60494083
From the New York Times bestselling author of Pieces of Her, comes an electrifying thriller featuring newly minted US Marshall Andrea Oliver as she investigates a cold case with links to her father’s past.

A small town hides a big secret�

Who killed Emily Vaughn?

A girl with a secret�

Longbill Beach, 1982. Emily Vaughn gets ready for the prom. For an athlete, who is smart, pretty and well-liked, this night that should be the highlight of her high school career. But Emily has a secret. And by the end of the evening, that secret will be silenced forever.

An unsolved murder�

Forty years later, Emily’s murder remains a mystery. Her tight-knit group of friends closed ranks; her respected, wealthy family retreated inwards; the small town moved on from her grisly attack. But all that’s about to change.

One final chance to uncover a killer�

US Marshal Andrea Oliver arrives in Longbill Beach on her first assignment: to protect a judge receiving death threats. But, in reality, Andrea is there to find justice for Emily. The killer is still out there � and Andrea must discover the truth before she gets silenced, too…]]> 0 Karin Slaughter 1504780302 Janet 2 mystery, cd 3.50 2022 Girl, Forgotten (Andrea Oliver, #2)
author: Karin Slaughter
name: Janet
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves: mystery, cd
review:
This started out well but I couldn't wait for it to be over. Soooooo drawn out and overwrought, particularly in the end. This story could have been told in half the pages/CDs. Didn't realize this was #2 in a series until now, so missed out on a few pieces from the backstory, but frankly, I don't care enough to go back to fill in the blanks!
]]> I'm Glad My Mom Died 59364173
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,� eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?� She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly , she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!�), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.]]> 320 Jennette McCurdy Janet 2 cd, memoir-bio 4.45 2022 I'm Glad My Mom Died
author: Jennette McCurdy
name: Janet
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/02/11
shelves: cd, memoir-bio
review:

]]> Open Season (Joe Pickett, #1) 244102
As Joe digs deeper into the murders, he soon discovers that the outfitter brought more than death to his backdoor: he brought Joe an endangered species, thought to be extinct, which is now living in his woodpile. But if word of the existence of this endangered species gets out, it will destroy any chance of InterWest, a multi-national natural gas company, building an oil pipeline that would bring the company billions of dollars across Wyoming, through the mountains and forests of Twelve Sleep. The closer Joe comes to the truth behind the outfitter murders, the endangered species and InterWest, the closer he comes to losing everything he holds dear.]]> 278 C.J. Box 042518546X Janet 3 mystery, place, cd 3.93 2001 Open Season (Joe Pickett, #1)
author: C.J. Box
name: Janet
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/01/24
shelves: mystery, place, cd
review:
Read a Joe Pickett mystery while on vacation in Wyoming and found it not half bad. Wanted to go back to the start of the series. Nice introduction to the series, but the narrator on this audio was really slooooow! Will read more.
]]> Sometimes I Lie 32326398 1. I’m in a coma.
2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore.
3. Sometimes I lie

Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?]]> 387 Alice Feeney 0008225354 Janet 2 fiction, cd 3.73 2017 Sometimes I Lie
author: Alice Feeney
name: Janet
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/01/01
shelves: fiction, cd
review:
This was like a car accident I stumbled upon and just couldn’t stop looking at the wreckage to figure out what happened.
]]> <![CDATA[What Happens in Paradise (Paradise, 2)]]> 43885964 Spend your winter on sunlit shores in the New York Times bestselling follow-up to Winter in Paradise, as secret lives and new loves emerge under the bright Caribbean sky.Ěý

A year ago, Irene Steele had the shock of her life: her loving husband, father to their grown sons and successful businessman, was killed in a helicopter crash. But that wasn't Irene's only shattering news: he'd also been leading a double life on the island of St. John, where another woman loved him, too.

Now Irene and her sons are back on St. John, determined to learn the truth about the mysterious life—and death—of a man they thought they knew. Along the way, they're about to learn some surprising truths about their own lives, and their futures.

Lush with the tropical details, romance, and drama that made Winter in Paradise a national bestseller, What Happens in Paradise is another immensely satisfying page-turner from one of America's most beloved and engaging storytellers.]]> 0 Elin Hilderbrand 1478947691 Janet 2 cd, fiction, place 3.83 2019 What Happens in Paradise (Paradise, 2)
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Janet
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2022/12/21
shelves: cd, fiction, place
review:
Well I sure am glad #3 is already published, because that ending was totally a non-ending! Listened to both this and #1 on audio and liked the reader. She does well with various voices and tone. But #1 was pretty satisfying and this was just meh. Introduction suggests you don't need to read #1 in advance but I don't think you'd have a very good understanding of the characters or the storyline if you didn't. Will go for #3 just to see what happens. (Or maybe not after reading the reviews--sounds worse than this one!)
]]> Wave 16368711 On December 26, Boxing Day, Sonali Deraniyagala, her English husband, her parents, her two young sons, and a close friend were ending Christmas vacation on the south coast of Sri Lanka when a wave suddenly overtook them. She was only to learn later that this was a tsunami that devastated coastlines through Southeast Asia. When the water began to encroach closer to their hotel, they began to run, but in an instant, water engulfed them, Sonali was separated from her family, and all was lost. In the years following, as part of a lifetime process, and to keep her loved ones alive, she wrote. And the result is a beautifully crafted, extraordinarily honest, and utterly engrossing account of the surreal tragedy of a devastating event that all at once ended her life as she knew it and her journey since in search of understanding and redemption. It is also a remarkable portrait of a young family's life and what came before, with all the small moments and larger dreams that suddenly and irrevocably ended.]]> Sonali Deraniyagala 0385366639 Janet 4 cd, death, memoir-bio 3.52 2013 Wave
author: Sonali Deraniyagala
name: Janet
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/12/07
shelves: cd, death, memoir-bio
review:
I plow through a lot of books, reading and listening to a mix of fiction, nonfiction, memoir, etc. I hadn't looked at the library label when I first started listening to this one and started off thinking it was fiction. What a great plot, I thought, until I began to realize how real it all seemed. And indeed it was. Real and unimaginable. Beautifully written with clear and heartbreaking detail.
]]> <![CDATA[Who Is Vera Kelly? (A Vera Kelly Story #1)]]> 36276437
Next thing she knows she's in Argentina, tasked with wiretapping a congressman and infiltrating a group of student activists in Buenos Aires. As Vera becomes more and more enmeshed with the young radicals, the fragile local government begins to split at the seams. When a betrayal leaves her stranded in the wake of a coup, Vera learns war makes for strange and unexpected bedfellows, and she's forced to take extreme measures to save herself.

An exhilarating page turner and perceptive coming-of-age story, WHO IS VERA KELLY? introduces an original, wry and whip-smart female spy for the twenty-first century.]]> 266 Rosalie Knecht 1947793012 Janet 4 cd, fiction, place 3.48 2018 Who Is Vera Kelly? (A Vera Kelly Story #1)
author: Rosalie Knecht
name: Janet
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/11/15
shelves: cd, fiction, place
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius]]> 20641718 13 Dave Eggers Janet 3 fiction, cd 3.17 2000 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
author: Dave Eggers
name: Janet
average rating: 3.17
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2022/11/04
shelves: fiction, cd
review:
I read this when it was first published and I wish I remembered what I thought of it then. I decided to revisit it (on audio), as a colleague mentioned she knew some of the people in Lake Forest. They were her people growing up, so I wanted to meet them again. The narrator Dion Graham really made this come alive for me. A lot of it is really self-indulgent, yes, but it's funny, heartbreaking, full of wit.
]]> The Last to Vanish 59345248 New York Times bestselling author Megan Miranda returns with a gripping and propulsive thriller that opens with the disappearance of a journalist who is investigating a string of vanishings in the resort town of Cutter’s Pass—will its dark secrets finally be revealed?

Ten years ago, Abigail Lovett fell into a job she loves, managing The Passage Inn, a cozy, upscale resort nestled in the North Carolina mountain town of Cutter’s Pass. Cutter’s Pass is best known for its outdoor offerings—rafting and hiking, with access to the Appalachian trail by way of a gorgeous waterfall—and its mysterious history. As the book begins, the string of unsolved disappearances that has haunted the town is once again thrust into the spotlight when journalist Landon West, who was staying at the inn to investigate the story of the vanishing trail, then disappears himself.

Abby has sometimes felt like an outsider within the community, but she’s come to view Cutter’s Pass as her home. When Landon’s brother Trey shows up looking for answers, Abby can’t help but feel the town closing ranks. And she’s still on the outside. When she finds incriminating evidence that may bring them closer to the truth, Abby soon discovers how little she knows about her coworkers, neighbors, and even those closest to her.

Megan Miranda brings her best writing to The Last to Vanish, a riveting thriller filled with taut suspense and shocking twists that will keep you guessing until the very end.]]> 323 Megan Miranda 1982147318 Janet 3 mystery, cd, fiction 3.52 2022 The Last to Vanish
author: Megan Miranda
name: Janet
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2022/09/26
shelves: mystery, cd, fiction
review:

]]> French Braid: A novel 58502740 A major new novel from the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author--a freshly observed, funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one family's foibles, from the 1950s up to our pandemic present.

The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever venture beyond Baltimore, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understands. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation.

Full of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel of tremendous warmth and humor that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close--yet how unknowable--every family is to itself.]]> 0 Anne Tyler 0593551621 Janet 2 fiction, family, cd 3.11 2022 French Braid: A novel
author: Anne Tyler
name: Janet
average rating: 3.11
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves: fiction, family, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter]]> 34959731 9 hours and 41 minutes

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian meets Jane the Virgin in this poignant but often laugh-out-loud funny contemporary YA about losing a sister and finding yourself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican-American home.

Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents' house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.
But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga's role.
Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.
But it's not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first kiss, first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister's story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal?]]> Erika L. Sánchez 1524782246 Janet 0 cd, teen-fiction, equity 3.81 2017 I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
author: Erika L. Sánchez
name: Janet
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/17
shelves: cd, teen-fiction, equity
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Third Mushroom (The Fourteenth Goldfish, #2)]]> 38385297
"Believe in the unexpected" with this hilarious, heartwarming, and much-anticipated sequel to the New York Times bestseller The Fourteenth Goldfish!

Ellie's grandpa Melvin is a world-renowned scientist . . . in the body of a fourteen-year-old boy. His feet stink, and he eats everything in the refrigerator--and Ellie is so happy to have him around. Grandpa may not exactly fit in at middle school, but he certainly keeps things interesting. When he and Ellie team up for the county science fair, no one realizes just how groundbreaking their experiment will be. The formula for eternal youth may be within their reach! And when Ellie's cat, Jonas Salk, gets sick, the stakes become even higher. But is the key to eternal life really the key to happiness? Sometimes even the most careful experiments yield unexpected--and wonderful--results.]]> Jennifer L. Holm 0525636153 Janet 2 cd, childrens 3.95 2018 The Third Mushroom (The Fourteenth Goldfish, #2)
author: Jennifer L. Holm
name: Janet
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2019/04/16
date added: 2022/08/03
shelves: cd, childrens
review:

]]> One Step Too Far 59008000 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner, a thrilling new novel that sends missing persons expert Frankie Elkin into a national forest in Wyoming looking for a young man who disappeared without a trace. But when the search team encounters immediate threats to their survival, Frankie realizes she’s up against something very dark—and she’s running out of time.]]> 0 Lisa Gardner 1721387625 Janet 2 cd, fiction 4.21 2022 One Step Too Far
author: Lisa Gardner
name: Janet
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2022/08/02
shelves: cd, fiction
review:
I had enjoyed the first in this series, especially the characterization of Frankie. Not as excited about this one; maybe the narrator on the audio version made things just a bit too dramatic and overwrought? I appreciated the location and camping/hiking details but the story felt too drawn out and reached a mediocre conclusion.
]]> <![CDATA[Abundance: The Inner Path to Wealth]]> 58395064 An enlightening guide to success, fulfillment, wholeness, and plenty, offering practical advice on how to cultivate a sense of abundance in times of fear and insecurity, from New York Times bestselling author Deepak Chopra.

Many of us live and operate from a mindset of lack, scarcity, and limitation. We focus on what we don't have--financial security, confidence, an intimate relationship--which keeps us feeling insecure and inadequate. We think if only I could have those things, I could be happy. But constantly striving for more often means our ego is driving our thoughts, actions, and reactions, preventing us from reaching something greater: a true sense of inner peace, acceptance, and fulfillment. And these internal experiences allow us to access the great riches of the universe and life's unbounded possibilities.

In The Yoga of Money, Deepak Chopra illuminates the inner path to abundance, helping readers tap into a deeper sense of awareness and become agents of change in their own lives. He demonstrates how to work past self-generated feelings of limitation and fear and provides meditations to help you focus and direct your attention, energy, and intuition so you can experience stability, prosperity, insight, creativity, love, and true power.]]> 0 Deepak Chopra 0593507312 Janet 3 cd, self-help-spiritual 3.50 Abundance: The Inner Path to Wealth
author: Deepak Chopra
name: Janet
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2022/06/28
shelves: cd, self-help-spiritual
review:
I'm not necessarily a fan of Deepak Chopra, but I truly got something out of listening to this audio version of his latest book. A lot was review for me, but it's always good to be reminded that abundance is available--within us and in the universe beyond. Too much focus in our society is placed upon what we don't have or what we should have instead of what we already have. I appreciated his attention the chakras and what they offer in terms of mind-body awareness.
]]> The Emperor's Children 3648 The New York Times Book Review) and "a literary intelligence far surpassing most other writers of her generation" (San Francisco Chronicle), The Emperor's Children is a dazzling, masterful novel about the intersections in the lives of three friends, now on the cusp of their thirties, making their way—and not—in New York City.

There is beautiful, sophisticated Marina Thwaite—an "It" girl finishing her first book; the daughter of Murray Thwaite, celebrated intellectual and journalist—and her two closest friends from Brown, Danielle, a quietly appealing television producer, and Julius, a cash-strapped freelance critic. The delicious complications that arise among them become dangerous when Murray's nephew, Frederick "Bootie" Tubb, an idealistic college dropout determined to make his mark, comes to town. As the skies darken, it is Bootie's unexpected decisions—and their stunning, heartbreaking outcome—that will change each of their lives forever.

A richly drawn, brilliantly observed novel of fate and fortune—of innocence and experience, seduction and self-invention; of ambition, including literary ambition; of glamour, disaster, and promise�The Emperor's Children is a tour de force that brings to life a city, a generation, and the way we live in this moment.]]> 431 Claire Messud 030726419X Janet 1 fiction, cd, didn-t-finish 2.96 2006 The Emperor's Children
author: Claire Messud
name: Janet
average rating: 2.96
book published: 2006
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2022/06/13
shelves: fiction, cd, didn-t-finish
review:
I only listened to one CD of this book before I got annoyed. I thought maybe it was just the narrator until I came here and read all the other terrible reviews & see I'm in good company.
]]> <![CDATA[A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries 2003-2020]]> 57190842 Finalist for the Audie Award in Humor

There’s no right way to keep a diary, but if there’s an entertaining way, David Sedaris seems to have mas­tered it.
Ěý
If it’s navel-gazing you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong place; ditto treacly self-examination. Rather, his observations turn a fight between two men on a bus, a fight between two men on the street, pedestrians being whacked over the head or gathering to watch as a man considers leap­ing to his death. There’s a dirty joke shared at a book signing, then a dirtier one told at a dinner party—lots of jokes here. Plenty of laughs.
Ěý
These diaries remind you that you once really hated George W. Bush, and that not too long ago, Donald Trump was just a harm­less laughingstock, at least on French TV. Time marches on, and Sedaris, at his desk or on planes, in hotel dining rooms and odd Japanese inns, records it. The entries here reflect an ever-changing background—new administrations, new restrictions on speech and conduct. What you can say at the start of the book, you can’t by the end. At its best, A Carnival of Snackery is a sort of the bitter and the sweet. Some entries are just what you wanted. Others you might want to spit discreetly into a napkin.]]> 17 David Sedaris 1549108468 Janet 4 4.00 2021 A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries 2003-2020
author: David Sedaris
name: Janet
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/04/25
shelves: cd, essay-general-nonfic, humor, memoir-bio
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music]]> 57648017
Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities ("It's a piece of cake! Just do 4 hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!") I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I've recorded and can't wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child.

This certainly doesn't mean that I'm quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it's like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.]]> 384 Dave Grohl 0063076098 Janet 4 memoir-bio, music, cd 4.44 2021 The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
author: Dave Grohl
name: Janet
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/16
date added: 2022/03/16
shelves: memoir-bio, music, cd
review:
Fun to listen to this on CD to hear Dave's voice and tone, as well as a few bursts of music. Fun to look at the book for some really great photos. Enjoyable storytelling. And I couldn't name a Foo Fighters song if you asked (but I will explore now.)
]]> Oh William! (Amgash, #3) 56294820
So Lucy is both surprised and not surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered family secret—one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people closest to us. What happens next is nothing less than another example of what Hilary Mantel has called Elizabeth Strout’s “perfect attunement to the human condition.� There are fears and insecurities, simple joys and acts of tenderness, and revelations about affairs and other spouses, parents and their children. On every page of this exquisite novel we learn more about the quiet forces that hold us together—even after we’ve grown apart.

At the heart of this story is the indomitable voice of Lucy Barton, who offers a profound, lasting reflection on the very nature of existence. “This is the way of life,� Lucy says: “the many things we do not know until it is too late.”]]> 240 Elizabeth Strout 0812989430 Janet 3 fiction, cd 3.79 2021 Oh William! (Amgash, #3)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Janet
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2022/02/25
shelves: fiction, cd
review:
The narrator on the audio version was excellent at capturing the mood of this story.
]]> <![CDATA[The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All]]> 56383033 From singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, a lyrical, sweeping novel about a young boy's coming-of-age during the last days of the lumberjacks.

In the tiny timber town of Cordelia, Idaho, ninety-nine year old Weldon Applegate recounts his life in all its glory, filled with tall tales writ large with murder, mayhem, avalanches and bootlegging. It’s the story of dark pine forests brewing with ancient magic, and Weldon’s struggle as a boy to keep his father’s inherited timber claim, the Lost Lot, from the ravenous clutches of Linden Laughlin.

Ever since young Weldon stepped foot in the deep Cordelia woods as a child, he dreamed of joining the rowdy ranks of his ancestors in their epic axe-swinging adventures. Local legend says their family line boasts some of the greatest lumberjacks to ever roam the American West, but at the beginning of the twentieth century, the jacks are dying out, and it’s up to Weldon to defend his family legacy.

Braided with haunting saloon tunes and just the right dose of magic,ĚýThe Great Glorious Goddamn of It AllĚýis a novel bursting with heart, humor and an utterly transporting adventure that is sure to sweep you away into the beauty of the tall snowy mountain timber.
Ěý]]> 304 Josh Ritter 1335522530 Janet 4 fiction, place, cd 3.71 2021 The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All
author: Josh Ritter
name: Janet
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/02/08
shelves: fiction, place, cd
review:
Boy, can Josh Ritter tell a story! He has a way with words for sure, can evoke so much in beautiful, funny, vibrant simplicity. He can set a mood and suck you right into it. Of course, half the time the storytelling was just so mellifluous (I listened to the audio version) that I really had no idea what was really going on, but that’s ok. I loved listening to his voice and could just get lost in his spot on descriptions of people, places, things, ideas, feelings. That bonus track at the end of him singing “Some Somewhere� was truly a bonus!
]]> A Little Life 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride.ĚýYet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Janet 0 4.28 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Janet
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/10
shelves: fiction, currently-reading, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Plot (The Book Series, #1)]]> 55315487 Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot is a psychologically suspenseful novel about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it.

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he’s teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what’s left of his self-respect; he hasn’t written—let alone published—anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need Jake’s help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot.

Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker’s first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that—a story that absolutely needs to be told.

In a few short years, all of Evan Parker’s predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says.

As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his “sure thing� of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?]]> 320 Jean Hanff Korelitz 125079076X Janet 2 fiction, cd 3.75 2021 The Plot (The Book Series, #1)
author: Jean Hanff Korelitz
name: Janet
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2021/11/23
shelves: fiction, cd
review:
This was a bit of a slog, especially at the beginning; was listening on CD and had to keep skipping ahead to bypass a lot of unnecessary set up. Stopped skipping, as I didn’t want to miss anything vital to “the plot� but in the end was pretty underwhelmed. Once I realized the surprise, I did a bit of
]]> <![CDATA[The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle]]> 36337550
There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit.

We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer.

Understood? Then let's begin . . .

Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others . . .

The most inventive debut of the year twists together a mystery of such unexpected creativity it will leave listeners guessing until the very last second.]]> 432 Stuart Turton Janet 2 cd, fiction, mystery 3.78 2018 The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
author: Stuart Turton
name: Janet
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2021/10/21
shelves: cd, fiction, mystery
review:

]]> Leave the World Behind 50358031
Amanda and Clay head to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they've rented for the week. But with a late-night knock on the door, the spell is broken. Ruth and G. H., an older couple who claim to own the home, have arrived there in a panic. These strangers say that a sudden power outage has swept the city, and - with nowhere else to turn - they have come to the country in search of shelter.

But with the TV and internet down, and no phone service, the facts are unknowable. Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple - and vice versa? What has happened back in New York? Is the holiday home, isolated from civilisation, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one another?]]> 241 Rumaan Alam 0062667637 Janet 1 fiction, cd 3.13 2020 Leave the World Behind
author: Rumaan Alam
name: Janet
average rating: 3.13
book published: 2020
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2021/10/11
shelves: fiction, cd
review:
Boring, bloated, overwrought.
]]> While Justice Sleeps: A Novel 57169053 From celebrated national leader and bestselling author Stacey Abrams, While Justice Sleeps is a gripping, complexly plotted thriller set within the halls of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Brilliant and mesmerizing. Abrams follows in Dan Brown's footprint with this masterfully plotted thriller that unfolds like the ultimate chess match--bold move to bolder move with lives hanging in the balance. --Lisa Gardner

Stacey Abrams is a true novelist, and While Justice Sleeps is a first-class legal thriller, favorably compared to many of the best, starting with The Pelican Brief, which it brings to mind. It's fast-paced and full of surprises--a terrific read. --Scott Turow


Avery Keene, a brilliant young law clerk for the legendary Justice Howard Wynn, is doing her best to hold her life together--excelling in an arduous job with the court while also dealing with a troubled family. When the shocking news breaks that Justice Wynn--the cantankerous swing vote on many current high-profile cases--has slipped into a coma, Avery's life turns upside down. She is immediately notified that Justice Wynn has left instructions for her to serve as his legal guardian and power of attorney. Plunged into an explosive role she never anticipated, Avery finds that Justice Wynn had been secretly researching one of the most controversial cases before the court--a proposed merger between an American biotech company and an Indian genetics firm, which promises to unleash breathtaking results in the medical field. She also discovers that Wynn suspected a dangerously related conspiracy that infiltrates the highest power corridors of Washington.

As political wrangling ensues in Washington to potentially replace the ailing judge whose life and survival Avery controls, she begins to unravel a carefully constructed, chesslike sequence of clues left behind by Wynn. She comes to see that Wynn had a much more personal stake in the controversial case and realizes his complex puzzle will lead her directly into harm's way in order to find the truth.

While Justice Sleeps is a cunningly crafted, sophisticated novel, layered with myriad twists and a vibrant cast of characters. Drawing on her astute inside knowledge of the court and political landscape, Stacey Abrams shows herself to be not only a force for good in politics and voter fairness but also a major new talent in suspense fiction.

With an audio-exclusive Original Introduction written and read by the Author]]> 0 Stacey Abrams 0593501764 Janet 0 3.58 2021 While Justice Sleeps: A Novel
author: Stacey Abrams
name: Janet
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/09/24
shelves: currently-reading, cd, fiction, mystery
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Book and Audio-CD Set)]]> 208128
This book-and-audio set offers a new way to encounter the profound meaning of this sacred text. The package contains a complete edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead with an introduction by Francesca Fremantle and insightful commentary by Chögyam Trungpa, written in clear concise language, that explains the text and offers a psychological perspective on its teachings.

Also included here is a set of three audio CDs with an introduction by Fremantle and a translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead , both read by the actor Richard Gere.

3 CDs, with a 192-page book]]> 192 Francesca Fremantle 1590304772 Janet 0 3.88 1350 The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Book and Audio-CD Set)
author: Francesca Fremantle
name: Janet
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1350
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/09/20
shelves: currently-reading, cd, death, self-help-spiritual
review:

]]> The Giver of Stars: A Novel 44139384
Set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond, from the author of Me Before You and The Peacock Emporium

Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt's new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically.

The leader, and soon Alice's greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who's never asked a man's permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Horseback Librarians of Kentucky.

What happens to them--and to the men they love--becomes a classic drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion. Though they face all kinds of dangers, they're committed to their job--bringing books to people who have never had any, sharing the gift of learning that will change their lives.

Based on a true story rooted in America's past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope. At times funny, at others heartbreaking, this is a richly rewarding novel of women's friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.]]> 14 Jojo Moyes 0525530193 Janet 1 cd, fiction 4.38 2019 The Giver of Stars: A Novel
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Janet
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2019
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2021/04/14
shelves: cd, fiction
review:
Ugh. A library colleague highly recommended this to me for obvious reasons but man, this was so not what I expected. I've enjoyed Jojo Moyes before, but in this context, the story fell flat. Predictable and overly dramatic. The audio was especially annoying; those fake voices put on by the narrator--Ugh. The real Kentucky Pack Horse Librarians deserved better.
]]> The Giver of Stars 51326903 Set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond, from the author of Me Before You and The Peacock Emporium

Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically.

The leader, and soon Alice's greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who's never asked a man's permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Horseback Librarians of Kentucky.

What happens to them—and to the men they love—becomes a classic drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion. Though they face all kinds of dangers, they’re committed to their job—bringing books to people who have never had any, sharing the gift of learning that will change their lives.

Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope. At times funny, at others heartbreaking, this is a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.

(13 hours, 52 minutes)]]> 14 Jojo Moyes 1987186907 Janet 0 cd, fiction 4.17 2019 The Giver of Stars
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Janet
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/14
shelves: cd, fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly]]> 1091955
From his first oyster in Gironda to the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, from the restaurants of Tokyo to the drug dealers of the East Village, from the mobsters to the rats, Bourdain's brilliantly written and wonderfully read, wild-but-true tales make the belly ache with laughter.]]> 7 Anthony Bourdain 073933235X Janet 4 4.01 2000 Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: Janet
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2021/03/30
date added: 2021/03/30
shelves: cd, food-and-drink, memoir-bio
review:

]]> Milkman 42740122
Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.]]> 15 Anna Burns 1974932052 Janet 0 fiction, cd, didn-t-finish 3.80 2018 Milkman
author: Anna Burns
name: Janet
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2021/01/14
date added: 2021/01/14
shelves: fiction, cd, didn-t-finish
review:

]]> Turtles All the Way Down 35553709 8 John Green 0525591028 Janet 0 cd, teen-fiction, to-read 3.95 2017 Turtles All the Way Down
author: John Green
name: Janet
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/08/06
shelves: cd, teen-fiction, to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Manhunt CD: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer]]> 146275 10 James L. Swanson 0060738359 Janet 0 3.96 2006 Manhunt CD: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer
author: James L. Swanson
name: Janet
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/07/06
shelves: cd, true-crime, currently-reading
review:

]]> The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone 40853191 'We lost all three girls that summer. Let them slip away like the words of some half-remembered song and when one came back, she wasn't the one we were trying to recall to begin with.'

So begins Tikka Molloy's recounting of the summer of 1992 - the summer the Van Apfel sisters, Hannah, the beautiful Cordelia and Ruth - disappear.

Eleven and one-sixth years old, Tikka is the precocious narrator of this fabulously endearing coming-of-age story, set in an eerie Australian river valley suburb with an unexplained stench. The Van Apfel girls vanish from the valley during the school's 'Showstopper' concert, held at the outdoor amphitheatre by the river. While the search for the sisters unites the small community on Sydney's urban fringe, the mystery of their disappearance remains unsolved forever.

Brilliantly observed, sharp, lively, funny and entirely endearing, this novel is part mystery, part coming-of-age story - and quintessentially Australian. Think The Virgin Suicides meets Jasper Jones meets Picnic at Hanging Rock.]]> 304 Felicity McLean 1460755065 Janet 2 cd, fiction 3.39 2019 The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone
author: Felicity McLean
name: Janet
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2020/07/03
date added: 2020/07/03
shelves: cd, fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Dedicated Man (Insepctor Banks, #2)]]> 10141717
Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks left the violence of London behind for what he hoped would be the peaceful life of a country policeman. But the brutality of Steadman's murder only reinforces one ugly, indisputable truth: that evil can flourish in even the most bucolic of settings. There are dangerous secrets hidden in the history of this remote Yorkshire community that have already led to one death. And Banks will have to plumb a dark and shocking local past to find his way to a killer...before yesterday's sins cause more blood to be shed.]]> 8 Peter Robinson 1400142687 Janet 2 cd, mystery 2.50 1988 A Dedicated Man (Insepctor Banks, #2)
author: Peter Robinson
name: Janet
average rating: 2.50
book published: 1988
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2020/06/30
shelves: cd, mystery
review:
Meh. I held on to the end hoping things would get more interesting, but still Meh. Characters and the mystery itself just held no interest for me. Reader was exceptional, however, with the various voices.
]]> In Pieces 37955748
One of the most celebrated, beloved, and enduring actors of our time, Sally Field has an infectious charm that has captivated the nation for more than five decades, beginning with her first TV role at the age of seventeen.

With raw honesty and with all the humility and authenticity her fans have come to expect, Field brings readers behind-the-scenes for not only the highs and lows of her star-studded early career in Hollywood, but deep into the truth of her lifelong relationships--including her complicated love for her own mother. Powerful and unforgettable, In Pieces is an inspiring account of life as a woman in the second half of the twentieth century.

]]> Sally Field 1549143077 Janet 4 cd, memoir-bio 3.85 2018 In Pieces
author: Sally Field
name: Janet
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/11
date added: 2020/02/11
shelves: cd, memoir-bio
review:
Fact as good as fiction. I like Sally Field, I really like her.
]]> The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone 46025020 0 Felicity McLean 168457174X Janet 2 cd 2.00 2019 The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone
author: Felicity McLean
name: Janet
average rating: 2.00
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2020/01/07
shelves: cd
review:
I only listened to the first and last CDs but it sounds like I didn't miss much!
]]> <![CDATA[The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike, #1)]]> 18306593 16 Robert Galbraith Janet 3 fiction, cd, mystery 3.85 2013 The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike, #1)
author: Robert Galbraith
name: Janet
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2019/10/07
shelves: fiction, cd, mystery
review:

]]> In a House of Lies 39599833
Rebus' retirement is disrupted once again when skeletal remains are identified as a private investigator who went missing over a decade earlier. The remains, found in a rusted car in the East Lothian woods, not far from Edinburgh, quickly turn into a cold case murder investigation. Rebus' old friend, Siobhan Clarke is assigned to the case, but neither of them could have predicted what buried secrets the investigation will uncover.

Rebus remembers the original case--a shady land deal--all too well. After the investigation stalled, the family of the missing man complained that there was a police cover-up. As Clarke and her team investigate the cold case murder, she soon learns a different side of her mentor, a side he would prefer to keep in the past.

A gripping story of corruption and consequences, this new novel demonstrates that Rankin and Rebus are still at the top of their game.]]> 372 Ian Rankin 0316479209 Janet 3 cd, mystery, place 4.03 2018 In a House of Lies
author: Ian Rankin
name: Janet
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2019/08/09
shelves: cd, mystery, place
review:
My first Ian Rankin. Dragged on endlessly, but audio accents kept me going!
]]> <![CDATA[Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, Books 1-2: 200 Tales of Extraordinary Women]]> 38389664 Audiobook editions of the beloved New York Times bestsellers and Kickstarter crowdfunding sensations bundled together on CD!

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls 1-2 is packed with 200 bedtime stories about the lives of extraordinary women from the past and present, from Elizabeth I to Beyonce. Painters, scientists, dancers, chefs, astronauts, jazz singers, pharaohs, boxers, writers, political leaders...from every corner of the globe! Each short biography is written in the style of a fairy tale, filling listeners with wonder and with a burning curiosity to know more about each hero.

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls 1-2 will inspire young girls (and their mothers, their aunts, their cousins...) to be confident, to dream big, to cultivate their strength. Trade in princesses for presidents. Swap out Cinderella for Cleopatra tonight.]]> 0 Francesca Cavallo 0525643508 Janet 3 childrens, memoir-bio, cd 4.46 Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, Books 1-2: 200 Tales of Extraordinary Women
author: Francesca Cavallo
name: Janet
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2019/06/25
date added: 2019/06/25
shelves: childrens, memoir-bio, cd
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali: Library Edition]]> 43216023 0 Sabina Khan 1987156226 Janet 4 cd, teen-fiction, lgbt 3.66 2019 The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali: Library Edition
author: Sabina Khan
name: Janet
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/06/25
date added: 2019/06/25
shelves: cd, teen-fiction, lgbt
review:
Enjoyed this, even though I found the way the pendulum swung from parental intolerance to total acceptance a little far fetched. Such an important story to tell.
]]>