September Audiobooks

Wow, September sure went by fast! My book list starts on my trip home from vacation and the rest was done while ironing and packing fabric, making flowers and doing every other prep task for the big show next week. As of today my booth is ready! All of the fabric is done, the decorations and signs made and everything is packed. I only have one task left to get my Bleeding Quilt presentation ready and I'll do that this weekend. 
Today, I'm going to continue listening to my latest book and sew something.
I only finished 6 books this month but a few of them are real gems. My favorites are The House at the Edge of Night and The Woman Who Smashed Codes.
What have you read recently? Any recommendations?

The House at the Edge of Night
By Catherine Banner, Narrated by Eduardo Ballerini

Coming home from vacation I had Laura with me for the trip from Maine to Connecticut but I had to do Connecticut to Virginia by myself. I'm not a big fan of driving in any case but with a good book I 'm good to go. But the key is finding a good book and this time I lucked out.

The story is set on the fictional island of Castellamare, off the coast of Italy. Amadeo Esposito is a foundling (orphan) from Florence who is mentored by the physician that tends to the foundlings. He becomes a physician and finds employment, and love, as the first physician on the island. The story follows 3 generations of the Esposito family as the world intrudes and families leave and return to the lovely island.
It's a lovely story about a lovely place that you want to visit when the book is over. As soon as I got home I immediately put on my headphones so I could continue listening.

---

The Worst Hard Times
By Timothy Egan, Narrated by Patrick Lawlor

I read another book by Timothy Egan, The Immortal Irishman, that I loved. He does meticulous research on his subjects. But I can't say that I loved this one.

This is all about the Dust Bowl of the 1930's and there's tons of detail. It reminds me of the Ken Burns documentary productions (and in fact, Ken Burns reads the Forward) but imagine if you listened to the Ken Burns documentaries without the images. That's kind of what this book is like. Maybe Ken Burns turned this into one of his documentaries. If he did, I'd recommend watching that instead.

It's really well researched and I learned so much about that era that I just didn't know but it's story after story of one family's hardship or another. The best way to describe it is that the book is a bit too dry for my tastes. The point could have been made in a much shorter book. The repetitive stories didn't add to the overall message.

---

The Alice Network
By Kate Quinn, Narrated by Saskia Maarleveld

In 1947, Charlie is a socialite college girl who finds herself pregnant and obsessed with finding her cousin Rose who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war. Charlie shows up in London on the doorstep of Eve Gardiner wanting help finding Rose. Eve was a spy during WWI and is barely living with the scars of her experience. When Charlie mentions a particular name, Eve is determined to find the truth.

The story flips back and forth between 1947 (Charlie) and 1915 (Eve) as both stories unfold. It's well written and holds your interest. There are some brutal scenes but it's not suspense. 

---

The Woman Who Smashed Codes
by Jason Fagone, Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

In 1912 Elizabeth Smith and William Freidman were working together on the estate of a crazy tycoon doing research projects. He was studying genetics and she was working on code breaking, specifically the theory that Bacon wrote Shakespeare and inserted codes into the text of the plays. The fell in love and became the preeminent code breakers in the US. Many books have been written about William. This book tells the rest of the story about Elizabeth and her work tracking gangsters after WWII and Nazis during WWII. 
William and Elizabeth Friedman's work created the basis of the NSA and her story is fascinating. I loved this book!

---

Dead Water
By Ann Cleeves, Narrated by Kenny Blyth

This is the 5th in the Shetland Island series featuring detective Jimmy Perez. These are "edge of your seat" stories but they are good. I like the characters and the landscape descriptions make we want to visit the Shetland Islands. They are straight up murder mysteries and this one doesn't disappoint with 2 murders in pretty quick succession. The case gets Jimmy emerging from mourning back into work after the death of his fiance in the last book.

With this book they have changed the narrator and I like this one much better. 

---

On Intelligence
By Jeff Hawkins, Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki

This is an old book (published in 2004) and that's especially old for a science book. I picked it up because Audible offered it in a Daily Deal and I'm glad I read it.

Jeff Hawkins was the founder of Palm Computing and Handspring. After he made is his fortune he turned to his primary interest: neuroscience. He started a company that is researching how we create and store memory. This book is his theory of how the neocortex works to learn and store patterns.

His company, Numenta, does this research today and works on developing artificial intelligence systems based on how the brain works. The book is very interesting. Where it gets dated is in the end where he's postulating on the future of AI. Some of the challenges that he identifies have been overcome, others are challenged in exactly the way he predicted. But his explanation of artificial intelligence actually made the who concept less scary for me.

---