Elvenquest: The Journey So Far: Series 1,2,3 and 4 (AUDIOBOOK) – Anil Gupta, Richard Pinto – Narrated by: Stephen Mangan, Alistair McGowan, Darren Boyd, Kevin Eldon, Sophie Winkleman, Dave Lamb – 22.11.20

I was quite annoyed by this audiobook, because it was the first full production/radio play audiobook I’ve listened to that I really haven’t loved, plus, I used my monthly credit to buy it whereas many of the audible productions are available free to members. It’s a farcical take on the fantasy hero quest genre, recorded in serial form as a radio show and ongoing (the plot didn’t resolve at the end). It’s a comedy, and it did make me laugh quite a few times, my problem with it thought, was that it was so blatantly misogynistic and the humour was mostly at the schoolboy toilet level. There was literally no opportunity to make genitalia jokes, innuendo or sexist comments that was not leapt on. This is not highbrow, subtle or clever. It’s a pity, because when it’s done well, I love comedy fantasy satire type things. I was also annoyed by all the main ‘good’ characters having such incredibly posh English accents, which, being a northern lass instantly puts me off something (I know, that makes me a bigot – they can’t help being post etc, but it’s the centuries of being looked down on by the upper ruling classes that still grates). Not for me.

Dittany and a Death: Mystery (The Witches of Wormwood Mysteries Book 6) – Silver Nord and Ruby Loren – 16.11.20

This series of books by Ruby Loren (or her alter-ego, Silver Nord) are my guilty pleasure! It’s a supernatural ‘cozy mystery’ series with some romance thrown in – I know, reading that description would normally make me run a mile! I hate brain dead insipid romance or genre fiction, and yet, I really enjoy these books. I think they must be really well written or they just tap into the little niche of what floats my boat, as they say. I’ve tried and given up on a few different similar series, because I love books like Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series, as well as Sarah Painter’s Crow Investigations books and was trying to find something in those lines. The Witches of Wormwood books are not really like those, being much lighter and ‘cozier’ but still I very much enjoy reading them. In this one, a supernatural circus comes to town and when one of the performers is found dead, our magical hero, Hazel Salem, teams up with her non-magical policeman friend/love interest to solve the crime.

Such a Fun Age – Kiley Reid (AUDIOBOOK) – 13.11.20

This book was longlisted for the Booker, but it isn’t at all highbrow and hard to read (or in my case, listen to), in fact, I was totally gripped by it. As an audiobook, it is what I listen to when out running or walking mostly, and this book made me want to take really long walks, and then go straight out for more walks so I could listen some more! It reminded me somewhat of the book (or perhaps even more so, the tv series) of Little Fires Everywhere, as it was mostly about a rich white woman (Alix) employing a poorer black girl (Emira) and the intense dynamic of that relationship. The book begins with the black girl, who was the family’s child minder, being called away from a birthday party to help them out in an emergency by taking their three year old daughter out of the house for a time while they dealt with it. She goes with the child to the local grocery store (as all parents know, you can kill time with a small child in almost any shop, just looking at stuff) but because she is a black girl dressed up for a party with a white child in a rich neighbourhood, she is suspected of kidnapping the child and detained in the store until they can get the child’s father to come and sort it out. The family is horrified, but Emira just wants to forget it as she is sadly used to this kind of racism. This sets the tone for the book which is written with beauty and cleverness and wit, and great character development and the plot had me gasping and desperate to keep listening to what on earth was going to happen next!

Home Going – Yaa Gyasi (BOOKGROUP) – 11.11.20

Homegoing

This was my book group read for November and a really good book. The book follows seven generations starting with two Ghanaian sisters whose lives took them on very different paths as one was taken as the wife of a British slave trader, and the other was taken as a slave and sold to America. There is a family tree in the front of the book which would have been very helpful, except as I read it on kindle it was too footery for me to keep flipping back and checking it. That said, it was not too hard to follow the structure where chapters tell the story of each generation alternating between the two families. Of course there was shocking instances of people’s cruelty to other people, but there was also glimpses of light and strength of human character, and although the book was something like a series of short stories as the main character changed each chapter, the thread of the family and how we are all products of our family histories lived through the plot. I found it very readable and well written and well worth reading.

The Zeta Family – Gretchen Enders (Audible Audiobook – Original recording) Narrated by: Natasha Lyonne , Kevin Nealon , Amy Goodmurphy – 03.11.20

I have been very much enjoying listening to Audible Original productions lately, and this was another fun one. It’s a comedy sci-fi (one of my favourite genres) although, actually now that I’ve written that down, I’m thinking maybe wasn’t really sci-fi…?? It is set in New York State and is about a young woman who decides to infiltrate a cult so she can write a story about it in order to break into a career in journalism. The cult is based on the leaders belief in some kind of parallel world alien stuff, and it is wonderfully narrated by the raspy voiced and hilarious Natasha Lyonne (from Orange is The New Black and Russian Dolls). All the characters have secrets and many of them are Canadian. I loved it.

Ayoade on Ayoade – Richard Ayoade (AUDIOBOOK) – 02.11.20

‘Surreal and Hilarious’ is the quote from The Guardian on the cover of this Audiobook and I have to agree. In my house, the quiz show ‘pointless’ is watched daily, and the two hosts, Richard and Alexander often riff with each other by one of them saying a blatantly untrue ‘fact’ and them discussing it in outrageous and nonsensical detail. This book reminded me of one of their riffs on steroids. I know and love Richard Ayoade from his show ‘travel man’ and his appearances on panel shows like ‘have I got news for you’ (I didn’t watch The Mighty Boosh, or the IT Crowd which he is perhaps most famous for) and so I was familiar with his dry often sarcastic wit. The book is a parody of overly pretentious navel gazing arty farty works and consists of Ayoade being interviewed by a second person who is also Ayoade on the subject of film and his relationship to it (he has directed two fabulously surreal movies: ‘Submarine’ and ‘The Double’ and appeared in one or two somewhat questionable movies as an actor). It is very strange. I loved that the audiobook was narrated by the author, even though he repeatedly cut in with asides asserting that the book really doesn’t work in this format and the listener really should have bought it as a physical copy. It made me laugh out loud at times, and just say ‘what the heck’ at others but on the whole, it was a very enjoyable experience.

The Connection – David Billingsley – 01.11.20

After I posted a link to this blog on Twitter, the author David Billingsley contacted me offering me a free pdf (or Kobo ebook) copy of his book in return for a review. I decided to just buy it on Kindle since I don’t like those formats and I found the premise of the book quite intriguing. For me, the book felt like a cross between Gilmore Girls and The Twilight Zone. Set in small town America (it’s a very American book, which unfortunately is off putting for me as a proud citizen of ‘anywhere but America’) it has a gentle slow feel as we get to know some of the people who live in the town and their backstories, and the mysterious element of a stranger who appears (naked) in town, and has a curious affect on people – most men get very angry and aggressive around him, and most women seem to want to marry or mother him. Like many books, the pace dipped in the middle and I struggled to retain interest, but it picked up again and the ending was somewhat satisfying. I didn’t love it, didn’t hate it. It gets a lot of good reviews from other readers, so it maybe just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Hard Time: an irresistible spinoff from the Chronicles of St Mary’s that will make you laugh out loud (The Time Police) – Jodi Taylor – 25.10.20

As is sometimes the case with books in the Jodi Taylor ‘St Mary’s’ or ‘Time Police’ series, it took me a while to get into this book, and I started to wonder if I have had enough of Jodi Taylor’s time travel sagas (I know, I should wash my mouth out with soap!), then the characters and plot started to grab me and I remembered why I keep coming back for more. Max’s son from the St Mary’s books is all grown up and a trainee at the Time Police Headquarters, and with the other members of ‘team weird’ he is busy being a maverick and not fitting it but managing to save the day with pluck and quick thinking just in the knick(ers) of time. I’ve read all the Jodi Taylor books, and while this would not be my favourite, it was still a good read and I will continue to buy and read the future books in the series.

High Strangeness – Will Maclean (AUDIOBOOK) – (Narrated by: Sophie McShera , Adam James , Anna Chancellor) – 25.10.20

I started listening to an audiobook of a different novel called The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu, but I was feeling a little bit depressed and not in the right headspace for something so serious, so I abandoned it for now and listened to this instead. I’m glad I did, as this was a lot of fun – just what I needed to cheer me up! It’s an audible production with a cast and sound effects etc, so like a radio play and would appeal to fans of light-hearted British sci-fi (like me!). It’s like the love child of Dr Who and The X-Files, with a bit of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf thrown in (you get the picture). It follows friends Cassie and Amanda who host a paranormal investigation website and get mixed up with real bad creatures from a parallel dimension and British and American special agents in a rural English village. It had laugh out loud moments as well as a rolicking plot and I really enjoyed listening to it.

The Sandman Audible Audiobook – Original recording – Neil Gaiman (Author, Narrator), Riz Ahmed (Narrator), Kat Dennings (Narrator), Taron Egerton (Narrator), & 7 more – 19.10.20

I’m a big fan of Neil Gaiman novels, and have read them all, but I’d never read The Sandman, because I kind of dismissed it as being a graphic novel, and therefore not much to it (!) Well, I was clearly wrong, as this Audible original production of The Sandman is a rich and satisfying series of interconnected stories based around Morpheus, or Dream, one of ‘The Endless’ who are immortal anthropomorphic personifications of human concepts such as death, desire, destiny, or indeed, dreaming. The audiobook has a large cast of talented actors, as well as narration by Neil Gaiman himself and is very well done. Some of the stories are quite gruesome and horrific, and others are more gentle and even sweet, but all have the surreal quality of dreams. (Apparently, the audiobook is just an adaptation of the first three volumes of the Sandman’s ten volume series – wow, there is so much in the first three volumes and it’s only a third of the total!). I’ve read some reviewers who are upset by the books outdated casual exploitation of women or members of the LGBTQ community, but as it was written in the eighties, it has to be viewed in light of the cultural habitus or zeitgeist of the time. I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook – I was gripped by the narrative and found the conclusions of the various story arcs to be satisfying . I loved the actor who played Death – she was chirpy and upbeat but also wise and kind. I liked the story about Shakespeare’s players performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream to the faerie folk, and the story about Rose Walker from The Doll’s House, although I could go on and list most or all of the stories as the ones I liked most, since I enjoyed the whole experience! I’m very excited because I just read that they are making a Netflix TV series of The Sandman (delayed by Covid…) hopefully it will appear before too long.