Review of A Damsel in Distress, by P. G. Wodehouse

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Humorous, Starred Review 0

damsel_in_distress_largeA Damsel in Distress

by P. G. Wodehouse
read by Jonathan Cecil

AudioGO, 2013. Originally published in 1919.
Starred Review

I love listening to P. G. Wodehouse books. There’s no better way to stay awake while driving than to laugh, and his books guarantee a laugh every time. Normally, I listen to his Jeeves and Wooster books, but A Damsel in Distress is standalone about an American composer for musical theater, George Bevan.

George is feeling bored with his successful life, when a beautiful woman dashes into his cab in the middle of Piccadilly in London and asks him to hide her. He does, despite a fat gentleman coming after her. It turns out that the young lady is the daughter of Lord Marshmorton and lives in a castle in the country. Her family is trying to keep her at home because she has fallen in love with an unsuitable man.

Well, George finds out who she is and where she lives and rents a cottage near the castle, hoping he can be of service to her. What follows is a grand mess of plotting and mistaken identities and cross-purposes, described with P. G. Wodehouse’s quirky and apt similes and distinctive characters.

Jonathan Cecil, as always, does a wonderful job giving all the characters distinctive voices and even manages a decent American accent for George Bevan. There are numerous marriages and minimal broken hearts, and the whole thing is tremendously fun.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/damsel_in_distress.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday, by Alexander McCall Smith

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Mystery 0

comforts_of_a_muddy_saturday_largeThe Comforts of a Muddy Saturday

by Alexander McCall Smith

narrated by Davina Porter

Recorded Books, 2008. 7.75 hours on 7 compact discs.

I love Alexander McCall Smith’s books. But I do find it easier to get through his rambling Isabel Dalhousie books by listening to them on my commute. This way, I get to listen to Davina Porter’s delightful Scottish accent, and I don’t mind if not a lot happens during any one listening session. (I get impatient when that happens when I’m reading.)

Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher who meddles in other people’s lives. In this book, she’s asked to help with a genuine case, to clear a doctor’s name. Isabel and the listener do find out the solution to the case, but it’s not really because of deduction that it’s solved.

Still, it’s fun to go along with Isabel as she ponders motives in big areas as well as in the little things of life. Her son is getting bigger and she always finds ethical issues to think about.

This series makes for nice agreeable listening.

alexandermccallsmith.com
pantheonbooks.com
recordedbooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/comforts_of_a_muddy_saturday.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Call the Midwife, by Jennifer Worth

Audiobooks, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review, True Stories 0

call_the_midwife_largeCall the Midwife

A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times

by Jennifer Worth
read by Nicola Barber

HighBridge Audio, 2012. Book originally published in 2002. 12 hours on 11 CDs.
Starred Review
2014 Sonderbooks Stand-out, #9 Nonfiction

I’ve been watching the BBC series Call the Midwife on DVDs from the library. When I watched the special features after the second season, they mentioned how the producer had loved the book when she read it, and decided then and there to make it into a series. That was enough recommendation for me!

Indeed, I found the book just as charming as the television series. Mind you, they romanticized some things in the series. I was a little disappointed not to hear about any romance with Jimmy. And if Chummy has a romance with the police officer she ran down on the bike, it hasn’t happened yet. But in some ways, it’s more interesting, because it’s all true.

Jennifer Worth was a midwife in the East End of London in the 1950s. It was the beginning of the National Health Service, and in the past, pregnant women were dealt with by amateurs and charlatans, with a lot of deaths. As it is there’s plenty of poverty and eye-opening situations, and they make riveting listening.

There’s the family with 24 children, whose mother does not speak English. There’s the young immigrant girl from Ireland who got tricked into prostitution. And especially lovely are the nuns whom Jennifer works with. (I liked being able to picture them from the TV series. The reader did a great job with their different voices.)

Mind you, this is not family listening. The part where she describes the past of the young prostitute is particularly graphic. However, it also includes more about the restoration of Jennifer’s faith than the series does. The author clearly had a deep love for the people of the East End and communicates that love to the listener. I was happy to see that my library owns two more volumes on audio CD.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/call_the_midwife.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 2

whered_you_go_bernadette_largeWhere’d You Go Bernadette?

by Maria Semple
read by Kathleen Wilhoite

Hachette Audio, 2012. 8.5 hours on 9 compact discs.
Starred Review
2014 Sonderbooks Stand-out, #5 Fiction

Bee is trying to find her mother. Bernadette Fox has disappeared. Bee assembles various documents leading up to the disappearance to try to figure out what happened, and where her mother went.

Bernadette has been uptight for a long time, and has not been enjoying Seattle. What drove her over the edge? Was it the dispute with her neighbor over blackberry bushes? Was it stress about traveling to Antarctica to please their daughter and having to face the treacherous Drake Passage? Was the parents’ group at her daughter’s private school too much for her? Was it her husband’s long hours at Microsoft? Was it simply from trying to avoid interaction with people by using an internet assistant? Did she get wind of her husband’s plans to stage an intervention? Or is it nothing more than hatred of Idaho drivers?

The incidents happening around Bernadette were quirky enough to be humorous – at first. Toward the latter half, I began to think they were all simply too awful and couldn’t be overcome. A lot of little things had snowballed into big things, and let’s just say I was fully sympathetic with her for disappearing.

However, did she mean to disappear? Was she even still alive? And can Bee find her?

By the end of this book, I liked it tremendously. There were some fairly messy loose ends, but just enough to make the whole thing realistic. Bottom line, this book tells the story of a creative family who loves one another in extraordinary circumstances. And they found a realistic and hopeful, but extraordinary, way to get back from the edge of the cliff. The reader finishes with a belief that, one thing or another, they’re going to make it.

And getting there is quite a ride.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/whered_you_go_bernadette.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Queen of the Tearling, by Erika Johansen

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

queen_of_the_tearling_largeThe Queen of the Tearling

by Erika Johansen
performed by Katherine Kellgren

HarperCollins Publishers, 2014. 14 ½ hours on 12 CDs.
Starred Review

Once I saw that Katherine Kellgren, the narrator of The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place reads this book, I knew I would enjoy listening to it. She is an outstanding vocal performer. (It’s happening – I’m getting to be a fan of certain audiobook performers.) She seamlessly uses different voices for the different characters, male and female, so you can tell who is speaking just by the sound of her voice.

The story she reads is also excellent. Kelsea Raleigh is 19 years old. She’s been raised in hiding, in the forest, but she is Queen of the Tearling. The Tear is a kingdom in the New World, made from emigrants from England and America who in some distant future time made The Crossing, leaving the old world behind.

At the beginning of the book, the Queen’s Guard has arrived. They are going to take her to the capital city to rule as Queen of the Tearling.

There are many who want Kelsea dead, including the Regent, her uncle, and The Red Queen, ruler of Mortmain, the neighboring kingdom, to whom the Tear send a horrible tribute. Kelsea has been told nothing about her kingdom and nothing about what it will take to rule. She has been given a sapphire necklace, with a jewel that seems to have a magic all its own.

This story has some horrible moments – Some graphic violence, as well as awful things going on in that world. This is fantasy for adults, and it doesn’t pull away from sex or violence. But mostly, it’s a story of a young woman coming into her power, trying to make things right.

Kelsea inherits a throne that’s corrupt. On her journey to the capital city, two different groups come after her, both very dangerous. When she arrives, a horrible spectacle meets her eyes. Even when she’s “safely” in the Queen’s Wing of the Keep, more threats to her life arise.

This book doesn’t tie up all the loose ends, so I very much hope it is only the first book of a series. I liked Kelsea – tough and determined, but very young and alone. I want to find out how she will deal with the challenges that are sure to continue.

BlackstoneLibrary.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/queen_of_the_tearling.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Think Like a Freak, by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Audiobooks, Current Issues, Mathematical, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

think_like_a_freak_largeThink Like a Freak

The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain

by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
read by Stephen J. Dubner

HarperCollins, 2014. 5 ½ hours on 5 compact discs.
Starred Review

I reviewed Freakonomics back in 2005. It presented a different way of looking at problems than common “wisdom” suggests. In this book, Think Like a Freak, the authors not only show you problems they have solved, but they offer tips and suggestions for how you can solve problems the Freakonomics way.

As well as giving problem-solving tips, they also give you advice on persuading people who don’t want to be persuaded. One piece of advice is to tell stories. And this book abounds with stories and examples for every principle given. Even if you don’t take their advice, you’ll find the stories entertaining. But I’m guessing that you will also find them persuasive.

For example, to go with the tip of having gardens weed themselves, we’re told why Nigerian scammers are actually smart to mention Nigeria. It weeds out all but the very most gullible people.

In light of the principle that we should get rid of the idea that quitting is always bad, the authors tell about a huge experiment they ran, offering to make people’s decisions for them with a coin flip.

Those are just a few of the entertaining and informative examples, which are presented in an engaging way and may get you looking at the world differently. Unlike many authors, this one’s voice is as mellifluous as an actor’s. I found myself looking forward to my commute to hear more of what he had to say.

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harperaudio.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/think_like_a_freak.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, by Gabrielle Zevin

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

storied_life_of_aj_fikry_largeThe Storied Life of A. J. Fikry

by Gabrielle Zevin

read by Scott Brick

HighBridge, 2014. 7 hours on 6 compact discs.
Starred Review

After listening to the first CD of this audiobook, I was strongly tempted to quit. Put the whole book away. The book doesn’t even begin with A. J. Fikry. It begins with a woman who’s a publisher representative. She takes the difficult journey to Alice Island in Massachusetts to meet with the owner of Island Books. He hasn’t read his email and isn’t expecting her. In fact, he hadn’t realized that her predecessor is dead.

He is curmudgeonly and terribly rude to her. After she leaves, we see him get out the rare book that he’s counting on to pay for retiring from the bookselling business. He drinks until he passes out and imagines his recently-killed wife helping him to bed.

In the morning, his rare book, the one worth a fortune, is gone. The same policeman helps him who investigated his wife’s car accident.

Depressing story, right? I wasn’t crazy about the reader, either. It wasn’t terribly easy to tell who was talking by the voice.

But I continued into the second disc… and someone left a baby in the bookstore.

The baby changes A. J.’s life. In good ways. And this book about A. J.’s life ends up being delightful.

There are some dramatic plot twists thrown in. Perhaps the story isn’t entirely likely. But it has plenty of heart.

We see A. J.’s daughter grow to be a teenager, with the story focusing in on different crucial times in their shared lives. She’s a girl who loves books and reading. They are my kind of people.

By the end of the book, we’ve got a tribute to independent bookstores, and how they give a community its heart.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/storied_life_of_aj_fikry.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Careful Use of Compliments, by Alexander McCall Smith

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Mystery 0

careful_use_of_compliments_largeThe Careful Use of Compliments

by Alexander McCall Smith
performed by Davina Porter

Recorded Books, 2007. 8 hours on 7 compact discs.

This is the fourth novel about Isabel Dalhousie by Alexander McCall Smith. I’m finding them much more enjoyable via audiobook. Isabel is a philosopher. She muses and thinks about everything that she comes across. In other words, the plots of these books are extremely slow moving. This is fine when you are in the car anyway, and delightful Scottish accents add to the fun.

You’ll be disappointed if you expect a traditional mystery from these books, but Isabel does slowly encounter a puzzle about a painting she’s thinking of buying. Also in the book she explores questions about motherhood, as she has a newborn son, and about her relationship with Jamie, so much younger than she is, and her relationship with her niece Kat. She’s being cut out of her job with the Review of Applied Ethics, and has to deal with the plotters responsible.

If you want an action-packed thriller, don’t pick up these books. But if you want to explore some musings about life and love with a deep thinker, and encounter some interesting situations at the same time, these books are a delight.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/careful_use_of_compliments.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Inimitable Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Humorous, Starred Review 0

inimitable_jeeves_largeThe Inimitable Jeeves

by P. G. Wodehouse

narrated by Jonathan Cecil

AudioGO, 2009. First published in 1923. 6 hours, 18 minutes on 6 compact discs.
Starred Review

Since I was having such fun listening to Jeeves and Wooster stories, and since the library seems to have new copies of several of the books, I decided to try to listen to them more or less in order. NoveList tells me that The Inimitable Jeeves is the third book, coming after The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories, which only has one Jeeves and Wooster story, and My Man Jeeves, which the library only has in a print edition.

I do know I’ve read The Inimitable Jeeves before, sometime or other, and the events related here were also reproduced in the brilliant BBC miniseries which I have on DVD. But that didn’t keep me from enjoying Jonathan Cecil’s performance tremendously. And I enjoyed the characters and situations all the more, because I know how they will continue to haunt Bertie’s life.

Indeed, this is the volume where Bertie first gets engaged to Honoria Glossop. It happens because, while having a disagreement with Jeeves, Bertie thought he could get his pal Bingo Little (who was then in love with Honoria) out of a scrape using his own brain power. How foolish, Bertie! I found myself trying to warn him the whole time, and shaking my head with great delight as his scheme went wrong.

Of course, Jonathan Cecil adds so much. This one involves several romantic trials which only Jeeves can solve, including one involving Jeeves himself (which I hadn’t remembered). I listened to this while driving my son back to Williamsburg after Spring Break, and there’s nothing better at making the road seem short than hearty laughter, don’t you know.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/inimitable_jeeves.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Mating Season, by P. G. Wodehouse

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Humorous, Starred Review 0

mating_season_largeThe Mating Season

by P. G. Wodehouse
narrated by Jonathan Cecil

Sound Library (AudioGO), 1992. 6 hrs 51 min on 6 CDs.
Starred Review

I keep exclaiming on how much fun Jeeves & Wooster CDs are to listen to in the car. This one had delightfully absurd situations.

Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia has asked him to visit Deverill Hall, and he dare not disobey. He is to participate in a concert in the village, which is being organized by the vicar’s niece, Bertie’s good friend Corkie, who is also a Hollywood star. Meanwhile, Gussie Fink-Nottle has been told to visit Deverill Hall by his fiancé, Madeleine Basset. Living at the hall is Esmond Haddock and his five aunts.

As if that situation alone weren’t enough, Bertie ends up going to Deverill Hall pretending to be Gussie, and Gussie comes later, pretending to be Bertie. Once at the hall, romances are all tangled up. Corkie loves Esmond, but he is too cowed by his aunts. Gussie falls for Corkie, which puts Bertie in peril of being engaged to Madeleine Basset. And Corkie’s brother, Catsmeat, is in love with Gertrude Wentworth, a daughter of one of Esmond’s aunts. But Catsmeat fears that Gertrude is falling for Esmond, who is trying to make Corkie jealous.

As usual, there’s a grand comical mess, and only Jeeves can possibly hope to straighten it all out. Along the way, we get to hear Bertie’s hilarious understatements and apt similes all told in Jonathan Cecil’s wonderfully versatile British accent. He’s consistent in using different voices for each of the many characters, so you can tell who is speaking by just listening to his voice. A marvelously entertaining audiobook.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/mating_season.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!