Audio Review – Page 10

Ruin Falls by Jenny Milchman

Published on October 2, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)22 Comments

Liz Daniel along with her husband Paul, and their two children, Reid (8) and Ally (6) are going on a rare vacation. Tired from travel they decide to stop and stay over in a hotel and start again fresh in the morning. Exhausted from the long travel day everyone is soon asleep.

When Liz awakens feeling refreshed and ready to go, she finds that her children have left the room. In fact, as Paul and Liz search the hotel frantically they find that the two young children are nowhere to be found.

As life spins dizzily out of control and the police are called; Liz suddenly discovers that her children were not taken by a stranger at all. Someone she trusts with her life, has committed the ultimate betrayal… and Liz will stop at nothing to get her children back.

Ruin Falls has that intriguing type of synopsis that pulls you in. Where did the children go? Who has them? And what does that mean that they are with someone the mother knows? Why would someone you trust take your children?

And all of this…

I can not tell you.

What I can tell you is that Ruin Falls has just enough creep factor skimming along it that you find yourself engaged in what is about to happen. Walking right alongside Liz as she searches… finding clues along the way that make this read go from a thriller to a chiller.

I listened to this one on audio with Cassandra Campbell narrating and she is always a good listen!

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 11 hours and 53 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Random House Audio
Audible.com Release Date: April 22, 2014

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Banned Book – True Crime)

Published on October 1, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)22 Comments

In November of 1959 a family who lived in Holcomb Kansas was brutally attacked, killed and left. The murders of the Clutter family were senseless. The family was well-respected humble farmers and had no enemies as far as anyone knew.

It turned out it was two ex convicts from the Kansas State Penitentiary had heard from another inmate who had worked for the Clutters at one time that the farmer had a safe of money. As it turned out, this was untrue and the convicts left with $43 after they killed the family.

One thing went wrong after another. The foiled crime did not give the two men the money they thought they would have to escape and start new lives. Instead they stayed in hiding, writing out bad checks to survive until they were captured and tried for the murders.

Author Truman Capote heard about the crimes and traveled with his fellow author friend Harper Lee to investigate the crimes. This book is the true account of the murders.

Richard Hitchcock (left) and Perry Smith were executed on April 14th, 1965 for the slaying of a Kansas family.

Initially this book was chosen by our book club to read for our October Classic. To me, it was also a bonus that it is a banned book. While I am not sure how a true crime book will go over in book club (it has been many years since we have read one as a group), I however enjoy a true crime now and then. Enjoy? That sounds awful.

I listened to In Cold Blood on audio mainly because I was not sure when I would get to it in book format. Narrator Scott Brick was a good voice for this style of read. Informative and crisp in his words, he read like a detective novel unfolding its story page by page. I While this is a true crime book, it reads as fiction. Truman Capote wrote this book in a story format where it is easy to slip into a fiction state of mind and forget that you are reading about horrible senseless murders.

I did enjoy (there’s that word again!) the book and learning about the crime novel that made it to a classic. There is a lot of information about the two killers before, during, and after the crime. At 14 hours and 27 minutes on audio, it felt a little drug out.

Over all… happy to say that I have read this one, but will more than likely not be revisiting it.

Why was In Cold Blood Banned?

2012

Some Glendale (CA) Unified School District officials and parents attempted to block a request by a high school English teacher to add the text to the district’s advanced English curriculum because the nonfiction book was “too violent for a young audience;” the school board voted 4-0 to approve the book for Advanced Placement students.

2001

Banned, but reinstated in an English Advanced Placement class in Savannah (GA) after a parent complained that it contained sex, violence, and profanity.

You will hear from the Bookies Book Group in October about their thoughts on the book.

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 14 hours and 27 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Random House Audio
Audible.com Release Date: January 3, 2006

Hatching Twitter … by Nick Bolton

Published on September 29, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)8 Comments

Out of a failing companies ashes, a few employees took on a project that seemed at the time just a little fun on the side. That project, was a site that allowed you to give a brief update to your life in 140 characters or less…

this “project” became known as Twitter, and through much the same sort of anguish Facebook went through… fought its was to an 11.5 billion dollar company by 2013, and attempted to be bought out by such as Oprah Winfrey, Ashton Kutcher, Al Gore, and Google.

Now with over 300 million active users, the story is shared about the hard making of Twitter… the firing of CEO’s.. and the making of Twitter with the same guy who created Blogger….

this is quite the story.

I adored the movie Social Network. I did. It is the story of the making of Facebook and I ate up every minute of the story of the young creator who took an idea that was meant to be a college meet up site to a place where people f all ages share their lives, relationships… and yes, even whats for dinner. *Guilty*

When I came across this audio of Twitter I was excited to learn of its climb to status and the audio was every bit as interesting as I hoped it would be.

With information of the start-up of Blogger and the popularity of “blogging” being at the core of Twitter, it was interesting to learn of how a team of hackers came to hind these brief 140 character updates to be as big a deal as it is. What I found even more interesting was how Twitter changed the face of social media by being able to report major events as soon as they happened in such detail – that this site is used by many agencies to capture time lines of events and accuracy.

Really… it is mind-boggling how much Twitter has changed our society.

For myself, I find it had to find time to use Twitter. I am an occasional sporadic user, not able to keep up with the day-to-day use and solely use it for bookish conversations. However, after listening to this audio, I know I need to give Twitter more credit than I do.

Fascinating stuff. Really.

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 9 hours and 35 minutes
Narrator: Daniel May
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Audible.com Release Date: November 5, 2013

Invisible by James Patterson and David Ellis

Published on September 16, 2014September 16, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)12 Comments

Emmy Dockery knows there is something more to the rash of fires across the states what all have a similar feel to them:

1. They are always in the bedroom

2. They always result in a death

The problem is, no one else believes that they are anything more than unfortunate accidents and carelessness on the home owners part. As more and more fires happen Emmy picks up on a pattern but she is more or less on her own. Even her ex-fiance field agent Harrison “Books” Bookman who would love to be on her side on this, just does not see it.

Emmy is starting to wonder if maybe she is pushing something to far… perhaps they are just off coincidences and maybe because one of these fires hit too close to her personally she just wants it to be something other than an accident…

but

what if there really is a crazy killer out there?

I absolutely adore Patterson’s books on audio. Honestly, I believe his books were my first real dabble into audio and I was wowed on what audio could be. They are of superb quality. If you are an audio listener, or would like to try – I highly recommend picking up one of his books on audio.
When I seen a chance to review Patterson and Ellis’ new book, Invisible on audio I did not hesitate to say yes. It has been a while since I have listened to any of his work and I was curious if he had maintained what I loved about his books on audio.

He had.

Invisible was set at a perfectly creepy level without ever becoming gory. Told in alternating viewpoints from Emmy, and then from our killer as he records himself in what he calls “Graham sessions”, a recording for the police or FBI to get a sample of who he is and what he does.

I personally found this book on audio to be superb listening. I have said it before, Patterson audio is high quality, this one added a lot of background tot he audio that took it to the next level. This book has not been receiving the best ratings (I just seen this today), and I am wondering if it would have come across as well in book format as the audio.

I recommend the audio version of Invisible for a great chilling read that kept my guessing and even as I finished this one and it all started to rapidly come together I was chilled to discover what was fully going on.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Book Store by Robin Sloan

Published on September 14, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)28 Comments

Clay Jannon, a San-Francisco web designer, finds work during a rocky economy as the 10 pm – 6 am clerk at a 24-hour book store. While there is not a lot of action during these strange nighttime open hours; the few people who do come in are not purchasing books, but checking out large strange volumes from the far corners of the store as allowed by the store’s owner, Mr. Penumbra.

Clay suspects that store must be somehow doing something illegal through these so-called “customers” and lending of books…but in his searching, Clay discovers something much bigger than the volumes that occupy the store….

What is it about books about books? I mean really… how dorky can I get? Yet, when a title mentions a book store, or a book club… I want to know more.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Book Store by Robin Sloan is a fun read, or in my case listen. The narration of Ari Flaikos (new narrator to me) was fun and perfect for this read. Ari gave me flashbacks of the amazing narration of Will Wheaton, and those are words of praise coming from me.

In this book, push sensible realities aside and just dream for a bit of a secret group that is centered around a book store… and not giving too much away…. perhaps…. many book stores. But how does one get to be part of the elite group? And what happens when things are not going as they should be? You are going to have to find yourself a copy of this book or grab it on audio to find out!

I enjoyed this listen and think others who like to read about book stores and bookish themes will as well.

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 7 hours and 41 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Audible.com Release Date: October 2, 2012

Diary Of A Mad Diva by Joan Rivers

Published on September 12, 2014September 15, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)9 Comments

In diary format, Joan Rivers shares a year of her life… the moments at home, the running to her shows, her conversations with fellow stars, Melissa….

but this is not a recap of Joan’s life and how she made her rise to where she was at the time of the recording – no, this is an account of her current life at the time of the writing… what she deals with as an aging star, and of course much harsh words for those who cross her path, both living and dead.

She complains about charitable cases, people with too many kids, those who starve themselves, those who are too heavy, the blind, the rich, the poor… you name it – if you know Joan, she will attack it.

I chose to listen to this audio because honestly, I know little of Joan Rivers. With her recent passing, and seeing her books on audible, I thought I should give her a try. Let me just say that Joan’s book is not for the faint at heart, easily offended, sensitivity to offensive language and lewd acts….

I will just say that while at moments she was funny, for the most part she was crude, and cruel and while I wanted to give this one a try, I will not become a fan of her work. The audio reminded me a lot of Betty White and how she has become this crude older woman who people love because the “F” word coming out of her mouth is as hilarious as it is when a two-year old pops out an inappropriate word. IMO, Betty sold herself out for this kind of publicity, I do not know when Joan became so crude or if she always has been that way, but this would explain why I never followed her career.

Personal note – when she said that Libraries were over and that we do not need them anymore… saying no one was breaking ground on new libraries… well…. now she just got personal. ~Sheila

Note: I have come to understand (really knowing little about this woman) that she was a ground breaker for women entering into comedy and being given a voice. Joan Rivers served us well in our history of women stepping into new roles and for that I am grateful.

Rest in peace Joan.

Provence, 1970 by Luke Barr

Published on September 10, 2014September 13, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)16 Comments

In the winter or 1970, the South Of France found itself with six culinary figures who more or less coincidentally all found themselves at the same place at the same time. Julie Child, James Beard, and MFK Fisher were among this group. Together this group talked, and cooked, and drank and ate – discussing taste, and recipes, and the future of food.

Cook books were being written… history was being made, and this book made from photographs and journal entries of MFK Fisher compile what happened… one season…. in 1970.

I have been looking forward to this book ever since I learned it was about food and chefs and a gathering that by all rights made history! What an exciting time! This gathering was one that changed food as we think about it.

Author Luke Barr, nephew to MFK Fisher, puts together a setting from the journals and notes MFK had written of this time and recreates a time that foodies of today would have bought tickets to see, me among them.

John Rubinstein narrates this audio very well.

While I did enjoy listening to this historical event, I did not love it as much as I thought it would. I found some points to drag longer than necessary. I have this in paperback as well, I may try it again someday in that format and perhaps I can sink more into the storyline then.

Adding this to Weekend Cooking:

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 9 hours and 7 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Random House Audio
Audible.com Release Date: October 22, 2013

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

Published on September 5, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)12 Comments

When teacher Mia Dennett goes to a bar to meet her boyfriend and he doesn’t show, she winds up meeting an engaging stranger who she goes home with. Having had a few drinks, leaving the bar with the easy on the eyes Colin Thatcher seems like just the thing.

Now…48 hours later Mia Dennett is officially a missing person.

Colin was initially hired to take Mia and deliver her to his employers, receive his pay off and be out of the picture…but Colin instead decided to take Mia with him and hide her in a cabin way up in Northern Minnesota around the Grand Marais area.

Detective Gabe Hoffman is on the case working with Mia’s very distraught mother Eve; but even they could not foresee the toll this would take on their lives.

I was interested when I heard this debut novel was being compared to the likes of Gone Girl, a book that blew me away. I usually proceed with caution when I hear such high praises on a book as I have burned too many times by the tag line “The next Harry Potter!” For the record… nothing has ever come close to Harry Potter.

And so I ventured into The Good Girl. The Good Girl was interesting enough. It held my attention but did not have the shock value and adrenaline rush of Gone Girl. I think that is the opportunity when comparing books – it sets you up for something that may or may not be there.

The Good Girl does have a lot to offer but in the end fell a little flat for me. About half way through I had an idea of things to come and I was pretty much right. Perhaps a bit predictable, but still a worthy read as long as you are not looking for anything power packed that will leave you going WOW!

I listened to this one on audio and the variety of narrators ( Lindy Nettleton (Narrator), Johnny Heller (Narrator), Tom Taylorson (Narrator), Andi Arndt (Narrator) ) did a really good job, seamless in fact – I could not tell when they switched to another.

I would be interested in hearing others thoughts on this one 🙂

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 10 hours and 38 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Audible.com Release Date: July 29, 2014

Top Secret Twenty-One by Janet Evanovich

Published on September 2, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)12 Comments

When Jimmy Poletti was caught selling a little more than the used cars from his dealership, Stephanie Plum is called to haul him in for missing his court date. *sigh* Will Trenton, New Jersey crimes ever be under control?

As Stephanie finds herself protecting the once hospital security guard Randy Brigg’s by placing him in her own home, along with ten yippy Chihuahuas (DO NOT ASK), while she tries to figure out who is dropping bodies all over town.

Of course, hot looking cop Joe Morelli is happy to share his apartment and his bed with Stephanie during this time that her own place is occupied. With Joe busy trying to get a handle on this crime wave Stephanie once again finds herself partnering with Ranger, super hot undercover security for Rangeman, and now also targeted by this mysterious group of thugs that are promising to take out those close to Stephanie – if not Stephanie herself. Never fear – Ranger is never far from Stephanie’s side.

As if that wasn’t enough, Stephanie’s grandma Mazur is on her continuing quest to attend every wake she can (who can resist a gathering of good food and friends?) while trying to check off items on her bucket list including getting a peek at Ranger and getting even with Morelli’s grandma for past transgressions.

Many many years ago I read this series as they came available year after year. I think I read the first twelve before I became a little tired of the continuous crazy antics of Stephanie and her side kick Lulu, as well as the constant “who is going to win Stephanie’s heart, Ranger or Morelli” (*cough cough… Ranger*).

I picked up Top Secret Twenty-One because the offer was made to review this one on audio, and (1) I had not listened to any of these books on audio and (2) I was curious as to where this long running series that still attracts several in my book club, has gone.

The verdict: The Stephanie Plum books are much like a soap opera. You can step away for years, and then, turn back to them one day and start with what is currently being offered and pick up right away on the story line as though you hardly missed a day. Stephanie is still pursued by two very attractive men and those of us that know the series can argue until the cows come home as to who we want to win her heart for good. But honestly.. will that day ever come? Grandma Mazur still enjoys a good wake and insists of going to each and every one looking forward to seeing her friends made up in the caskets so she can comment on how they look as well as comment or complain about the spread after the funeral. Stephanie still has cars blowing up all around her, Lulu is still a plus sized gal who dresses inappropriately and is looking for any excuse to stop to stop and pick up a doughnut.

All in all, it was a fun visit back to Trenton New Jersey and seeing that everyone is just as they were. While I did enjoy the listen (great on audio! I am just saying!) I think a visit is enough for me and I will not be staying in Trenton. While the books are fun… I can not commit to the continuing saga of nothing ever coming to a close. Kudos to those who can. 🙂

The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty

Published on August 31, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)13 Comments

Sophie Honeywell was once the girlfriend of Thomas Gordon, yet on that very day that Thomas had planned an elaborate proposal – Sophie broke up with him, feeling that he was not the one for her.

Years later as Sophie is approaching 40 years old, she is still annoyingly single, and Thomas she heard, has been happily married for years as well as a father. When Thomas calls Sophie out of the blue one day and asks to meet up. Sophie is shocked but curious as to what he will have to say. Nothing could have prepared for this conversation.

When Thomas meets up with Sophie he explains that his aunt Connie who was one of the few people who lived on Scribbly Gum Island had passed away. Sophie recalls having met Connie a couple of times during her and Tom’s courtship. When Tom tells Sophie that Connie has left her beautiful home to her, Sophie is shocked; but a letter accompanying this revelation confirms Connie’s wishes all to clearly.

Entering back into Tom’s family as the “ex who dumped him” is not easy. And Scribbly Gum Island came with much baggage…. including the famous Munro Baby mystery, that happened right inside the home that Sophie had just inherited. With a cast of interesting and quirky characters, Sophie’s life is about to change completely.

I chose this audio because I can not get enough of the incredibly engaging writing of Liane Moriarty. This is one of her older titles, written in 2010.

At first listen, I almost gave up on the audio narrated by Heather Wilds (good narration, she had many vices to keep up on!). The Last Anniversary did not jump-start right into the action as her newer titles do. About 30 minutes in, I was glad I hung in there as I could start to sense the emerging Moriarty that this author will come to be.

The Last Anniversary has some interesting characters that I enjoyed. As we enter the story, Connie has passed away however you do get a chance to know what type of person she was. Her sister Rose (now in her 90’s!) is still quite active, Veronica is a hot mess – at once angry that Sophie was given the house of her aunt and apparently struggling with identity as well, Enigma – the baby of the mystery who is now a grandma…. and more.

There is enough here of Moriarty that fans of writing will enjoy this. I did enjoy this one and as always, look forward to more from her.