April Audiobooks

How did we get to the end of April so fast? I feel like I just posted books last week but as I look through the list I see that I did make it through a lot of books this month.  I start every book with great hope and excitement but the results this month were a mixed bag this month. Since I started borrowing audiobooks from the library I take more risks with the books I try. I don't care if I don't finish a free book. But the library doesn't have a huge inventory of audiobooks so I still get about half through Audible. That's still a 50% savings over my usual book expenditures. Audible does let you return books for a refund if you don't like them and I sure took advantage of that this month.

But, let's talk about the good from the month. I read two good books from William Kent Krueger. Heaven's Keep is the 9th installment in the excellent Cork O'Connor series but Ordinary Grace is a new stand-alone novel. Ordinary Grace was a wonderful story. Also in fiction I enjoyed Belgravia from Julian Fellows. It's Downton Abbey with more intrigue.

On the non-fiction side I loved Code Name Lisa, a WWII biography, and Bellevue, the history of the famous hospital. Both were excellent. I'll leave you to read through the reviews for my losers of the month.

What have you been reading? I added a couple of your recommendations to my reading list based on your comments last month. If you have read any of these books and have a different opinion, please share! It's good to have different perspectives.

Heart A History
By Sandeep Jauhar, Narrated By Patrick Lawlor

I really wanted to like this book and I generally do like medical texts written for the layperson, but I'm not sure I know what this book was. About a third of it was the history of the treatment of heart disease and development of medical science. The rest was his family medical history (including a chapter on his Mother with Parkinson's) and his his own mistakes/foibles as an intern and new doctor. The book was about 25% interesting and 75% annoying. I couldn't wait for it to end.

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Ordinary Grace
​By William Kent Krueger, Narrated by Rich Orlow

Krueger is best knows for his Cork O'Connor mystery series. This is a stand alone novel about a family in a small town dealing with personal and community tragedy.  The story, set in 1961, is told from the point of view of 13 year old Frank Drum and starts with the discovery of an unidentified dead man near the railroad tracks in town. The tragedies don't stop there and will also personally touch the Drum family. 

It's not so much a mystery, as it is a story about a family trying to come to grips with these tragedies and mixed with the responsibilities of the father who is the local minister. It's a lovely story and you will feel part of the family as you read it.

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Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter
By Ben Goldfarb, Narrated By Will Damron

I hated this book.I still don't know anything about the life of the beaver because Goldfarb didn't really cover that. I know nothing about the mating habits, dam building habits, eating habits or anything else about the LIFE of the beaver.

What I got was a repetitive narration of EVERY biologist working to reintroduce beavers back into the environment. I know how totally brilliant they all are because they are "beaver believers"  and they know that only the beaver can reverse all of our ecological damage. The beaver is the solution to everything! He actually has the audacity to propose that beaver dams might be able to replace all of the man-made dams in California to solve water issues there. He's honestly partly serious about that.

I think beavers are kind of cute and they are very cool because they are like us in that they change their environment for their benefit. The people who study beavers, by contrast, are proselytizing jerks. 

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Code Name Lise
By Larry Loftis, Narrated by Kate Reading

We are in an age of girl power and are culturally fixated on "empowering" women. If you are looking for a book to give to any woman feeling powerless, this is the book. Odette Samson was not the most decorated female spy in British WWII history, she is celebrated as the most decorated spy in British WWII history, period. Her story is well known in Britain but not so much in the US. It's inspiring and beautifully narrated by Kate Reading.

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The Waiting Room
By Emily Bleeker, Narrated by Sophie Amoss

Nine hours of wandering around in the mind of a crazy person.
​Veronica Shelton's husband died shortly after her baby was born and now she can't bear to touch the baby. All kinds of weird things are happening to her. I won't share the ending but will say that it's billed as some sort of psychological thriller when it's really like listening to the crazy person on the subway who insists on telling you about some grand conspiracy. The story is full of cliches, has a timeline that simply doesn't work and unrealistically enabling characters.

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Heaven's Keep 
By William Keent Krueger, Narrated by Buck Schriner

This is the 9th in the Cork O'Connor series. His two daughters are away at college so they are very minor characters this time. The story opens with Jo on a business trip when her chartered plan goes down with her tribal clients. Searches in the area find nothing and all are presumed lost. Months later Cork is approached by the pilot's wife to look into what happened. 

His son, Stephen, is now a teen and goes on the search with him. It's another good O'Connor story.

With this book the publisher changed narrators from David Chandler to Buck Schriner. That was a very difficult adjustment for me and I'm still not sure I like him. I looked ahead in the series and it appears that Schriner only narrated 3 books and then they returned to Chandler. I think I can deal with that. Schriner isn't horrible, he's just not right.

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The Return of the Native
By Thomas Hardy, Narrated By Alan Rickman

​Let me start by saying that I am not a Thomas Hardy fan. I get that his novels were avante-garde for his time but the stories mostly bore me and his prose exhausts me. Two hours in and you know exactly how this one was going to end. Regardless, this version is narrated by Alan Rickman and for that reason alone I had to listen to it.

One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is from Senses and Sensibility. Marianne  (Kate Winslet) is just recovering from her near-death illness at Col. Brandon's (Alan Rickman) home. He comes into the room to see if he can do anything and Marianne finally recognizes him and thanks him. Rickman conveys so much with his physical response. If you ever watch S&S again look for that moment and watch his slight body movements and facial expression. It conveys so much in that half second.

So that's why I listened to this book. I loved Alan Rickman in everything he's ever done. As far as I can tell, it's the only book he's ever narrated and, as expected, it's masterful. The story? It's fine.

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Thin Air
By Ann Cleeves, Narrated by Kenny Blythe

This is the 6th in the Shetland Island mystery series. A group of college friends travel to the Shetland Islands to celebrate the wedding of one of the travelers. One of the friends, Eleanor, disappears. Her body is found near a cliff.
Before her death, Eleanor claimed to have seen the ghost of a child that is rumored to appear only to childless women. Following seeing the child the woman becomes pregnant.

It's Detective Jimmy Perez's first case since the murder of his fiance. He, and his boss, Willow Reeves work the case. I enjoyed the mystery side of this story. The sexual undercurrents between Willow and Jimmy just don't seem to fit their personalities and it takes away from the story. But other than that it was a fun mystery.

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Bellevue
By David Oshinsky, Narrated By Fred Sanders

If you like history this will be an interesting book to add to your reading list. It's really the history of medicine told through one of the most famous public hospitals in the country. It's the story of medical research, treatment of some of the most challenging diseases, immigration and mental health treatment. Their commitment to treating anyone who needs help has made Bellevue the front line for new disease outbreaks. It was a very interesting read.

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Belgravia
By Julian Fellows, Narrated By Juliet Stevenson

If you love Downton Abbey or Jane Austen books this is the book for you. The story begins in 1815 on the Eve of the Battle of Waterloo at the Duchess of Richmond's ball. One family loses their son in battle and the other loses their daughter months later. 
Twenty five years later the events surrounding the ball impact both families.
It's a good read and the narration is perfect.​

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The Night Agent
By Matthew Quirk, Narrated By Chris Andrew Ciulla

Peter Sutherland is an FBI agent who was selected to work on the White House situation room a year ago. He's surprised because he happens to be the son of an FBI agent suspected of selling secrets to Russia. One night he takes a call from a woman named Rose with a coded message telling that her Aunt and Uncle have been killed.

Peter takes matters into his own hands and finds Rose. What follows is a series of chase scenes and murders that point to a mole in the White House. 

It sounds a lot more interesting than it is. First off, there isn't a chance on God's green earth that the FBI would hire the son of a suspected spy so the very premise of the story is laughable.The reviews for this book are mostly outstanding but about 30% are not favorable and I fall into that 30%. There was just too much luck involved to make the story play out. The Russian sky group was so large that there's no way these 2 people would have been left alive more than about 4 hours and yet they drove his car and used their personal cell phones for several days without being tracked. I strained my eyeball muscles with all the eye rolling that I did. 

The narration was so weak that I had to speed it up to 1.25 to be able to tolerate him. But about 70% of the people who have read it loved it so keep that in mind as you consider any influence of my review.

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