Review of The Code of the Woosters, by P. G. Wodehouse

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Humorous, Starred Review 0

code_of_the_woosters_largeThe Code of the Woosters

by P. G. Wodehouse
performed by Alexander Spencer

Recorded Books, 1989. First published in 1938. 8 hours on 7 compact discs.
Starred Review

I’m trying to listen to all the P. G. Wodehouse Jeeves and Wooster books, since there is nothing better for putting me in a good mood while riding in the car.

The Code of the Woosters is one that was used for the marvelous BBC series Jeeves and Wooster, starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, so I was very familiar with the plot – but that didn’t diminish my enjoyment in the slightest. It perhaps helped me follow the convoluted plot all the better. It did have a slightly different resolution than is dramatized in the series, but mostly the series follows the book closely.

If you’ve seen the series, all I have to say is that this is the one with the imbroglio involving the Cow Creamer.

The book itself uses the word “imbroglio” to describe the situation we find here, and the description is apt. You couldn’t hope to come up with a more convoluted set of people hoping to marry other people and threatening to marry others and needing approval and blackmailing innocents into nefarious deeds and being in danger of disaster of all different kinds. And it’s all done with a proper British accent and Bertie’s jovial way of talking.

Entirely too much fun.

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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 Ukridge, by P. G. Wodehouse

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Humorous 0

ukridge_largeUkridge

by P. G. Wodehouse
read by Jonathan Cecil

BBC Audiobooks America, 2006. 6 CDs, 7 hours, 29 minutes. Originally written in 1960.

I’m running out of Jeeves and Wooster CDs to listen to, so I’ve turned to some of P. G. Wodehouse’s other characters, and I’m not sorry.

Ukridge is a series of short stories narrated by a writer, Reggie Corcoran, about his old friend Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge.

Jonathan Cecil, as usual, does a magnificent job of reading the books, though the character of Ukridge is one I start to get tired of. When I found myself almost calling someone “Old Horse,” I thought I should give these CDs a rest for a bit!

But I’ve always said that laughing while driving is one of the very best ways to stay awake, so P. G. Wodehouse CDs are some of the best possible listening material. Ukridge is the sort of person who never pays for anything and always has a scheme going to make his fortune for all time. Something invariably goes wrong – and hilarity ensues.

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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 Love Among the Chickens, by P. G. Wodehouse

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Humorous, Starred Review 0

love_among_the_chickens_largeLove Among the Chickens

by P. G. Wodehouse
read by Jonathan Cecil

BBC Audiobooks, Limited, 2005.
Starred Review

Listening to Jonathan Cecil read P. G. Wodehouse is getting to be my standard entertainment when driving. I will be devastated when I run out of library audiobooks. As it is, this was my first book, not about Jeeves and Wooster, but about Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge and his friend, the narrator, Jeremy Garnet.

The book starts when newly married Ukridge talks Jeremy, a novelist, into joining him in the countryside as he starts a chicken farm. Ukridge is sure chicken farming is the road to riches, so he feels free to buy all their supplies on credit. As Jeremy travels to the farm, he sees a young lady on the train whom he will never forget.

Well, the road to true love does not run smoothly. The young lady, Phyllis, and her father do end up being neighbors, but when they come to dinner at the farm, Ukridge manages to alienate the father, which he holds against Garnet as well. When Garnet hatches a plan to restore himself to good favor, it works for awhile, all the more disastrously to fail in the end.

And meanwhile, Ukridge’s adventures in chicken farming are nothing if not entertaining. Even without Jeeves and Wooster, this is a typical Wodehousian farce, with larger-than-life characters and tangled schemes, which generally work out in precisely the worst way, but also the funniest way.

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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 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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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 My Man Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse

Fiction Review, Humorous 0

my_man_jeeves_largeMy Man Jeeves

by P. G. Wodehouse

The Overlook Press, Woodstock & New York, 2006. First published in 1919. 185 pages.

According to Novelist, My Man Jeeves is one of the first books P. G. Wodehouse wrote that includes Jeeves and Wooster. The library doesn’t have it in audio form, so I settled in to reading one story per day – a lovely way to add a smile to my days.

This is a collection of short stories, not all of them about Jeeves, and the author hadn’t gotten quite as fully into the form yet. I love his book-length stories, because in those he can develop an incredibly tangled imbroglio for Jeeves to solve.

However, these were delightfully fun, and were sure to add a smile to my day every time I fit one in. Some of my favorites were actually the ones not about Jeeves, since although similar, they were a little more unexpected. In “Absent Treatment,” Reggie Pepper has to figure out how to save the marriage of a frightfully forgetful friend. (He can’t remember the date of his wife’s birthday.) And in “Helping Freddie” he helps a friend get back with the girl he was engaged to by means of a scheme that goes hilariously wrong. And there’s a similar theme in “Rallying Around Old George,” though a very different scheme that goes wrong.

P. G. Wodehouse is in top form, as always, with regard to expressions and turns of phrase that evoke a feckless young man of the twenties. Here’s Bertie when he has to spend a night in a hotel because a friend’s aunt thinks Bertie’s home belongs to the friend:

As I stood in my lonely bedroom at the hotel, trying to tie my white tie myself, it struck me for the first time that there must be whole squads of chappies in the world who had to get along without a man to look after them. I’d always thought of Jeeves as a kind of natural phenomenon; but by Jove! of course, when you come to think of it, there must be quite a lot of fellows who have to press their own clothes themselves, and haven’t got anybody to bring them tea in the morning, and so on. It was rather a solemn thought, don’t you know. I mean to say, ever since then I’ve been able to appreciate the frightful privations the poor have to stick.

overlookpress.com

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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.

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

Review of A New York Christmas, by Anne Perry

Christmas, Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery 0

new_york_christmas_largeA New York Christmas

by Anne Perry

Ballantine Books, New York, 2014. 164 pages.

I’ve gotten hooked on Anne Perry’s Christmas mysteries. They offer a wide variety of situations, and I like some better than others. But all take place at Christmastime, and all offer a quick cozy holiday read – with murder. But justice is always done and they all have an overall message of peace and hope.

My hold on this year’s novella came in just in time for Christmas, though I was already in the middle of another eagerly awaited novel, so I got A New York Christmas read a few days after Christmas.

I particularly like it when Anne Perry uses characters from her other books in the Christmas novels. I don’t know why, since I haven’t read many of her other books (some day), but it gives a sense of a window into a larger world.

A New York Christmas is told from the perspective of Jemima Pitt, twenty-three-year-old daughter of Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. The book opens with her on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic.

It was December 1904, and she was crossing the Atlantic to New York, where she would stay for at least a month. Mr. Edward Cardew had invited her to travel as a companion to his daughter, Delphinia, who was to marry Brent Albright, the son of Rothwell Albright, Mr. Cardew’s international business partner. It would be the society wedding of the year.

Not long after arriving, a murder happens, and Jemima is the primary suspect. The wealthy family she’s been staying with seems extra eager to place the blame on her. Can she use what she’s learned from her father to find out who is the actual killer? And where can she find help in New York City? And why did Miss Cardew’s mother abandon her child so many years ago? If Jemima can find out about the murdered woman, she thinks she might be able to figure out who did kill her.

It’s after Christmas now, but this story makes cozy reading at any time. This is now Anne Perry’s twelfth Christmas mystery, and it’s never too late to start a holiday tradition.

anneperry.net
ballantinebooks.com

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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.

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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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 Redshirts, by John Scalzi

Fiction Review, Science Fiction 0

redshirts_largeRedshirts

by John Scalzi

Tom Doherty Associates Books (Tor), New York, 2012. 317 pages.

I got this book at ALA Annual Conference a couple years ago, and finally got to read it when on vacation. (That’s when I finally get my non-library books read.) The premise is delightful: You know how, in Star Trek, if a low-ranking officer in a red shirt goes on an Away Mission, he’s sure to die before the commercial break? What if the Redshirts on a ship noticed this trend and tried to fight it?

Mind you, the details of how this works are pretty sketchy. Something about parallel universes, and they end up knowing they’re fictional characters. But the physics in the fictional show being mocked are terribly sketchy, too, so it’s definitely fair, in a mixed-up sort of way.

I’m usually not crazy about meta-fiction. But this book reminds me of the movie Galaxy Quest — a vehicle for poking fun at some science fiction tropes, while telling a good story as well. And the author does add a human element to his story and adds some lovely codas to the main story.

tor-forge.com

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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 my own copy, gotten at ALA Annual Conference.

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 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.

HachetteAudio.com

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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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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!