What are we listening to? (audiobooks)

[WT Sharpe]

Anyone else listening to Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (audiobook read by Barbara Caruso)? It's the Alexa freebie this month. I'm finding it quite enjoyable.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Anyone else listening to Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (audiobook read by Barbara Caruso)? It's the Alexa freebie this month. I'm finding it quite enjoyable.

Hmm. That's a thought. Perhaps I'll give that a try when I'm in bed. It's one of those books I pretty near memorized when I was a girl, so I wouldn't have to be compulsive about backtracking if I went to sleep.

If you're new to the story, Tom, that would be a fun one to discuss.

[CRussel]

Question about Alexa freebies. Does one only have access to it via an Alexa device? (I find listening to a book on my echo or echo dot difficult, frankly. And it annoys my DW no end!)

Otherwise, I'd enjoy listening to a good reading of Little Women

[Catlady]

In a departure from my usual reading, I listened to five nonfiction books, all of them about women.

• Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle, narrated by Barrett Whitener
  As a movement to unionize was gaining momentum, women workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, most of them young underpaid immigrants, perished because of locked doors (locked to prevent pilfering of a few dollars' worth of supplies) and the absence of safety precautions as fire swept the building. Straightforward account, good job of explaining the historical and social context.
  
• The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times by Ilyon Woo, narrated by Suzanne Toren
  Since a woman was defined by her husband and had no rights in law, when Eunice Chapman's husband joined the Shaker sect, he took their three children with him--they were his property, after all. Eunice fought a lengthy legal battle that involved special legislation to force her husband and the Shakers to return them to her. Interesting account of a determined woman.
  
• We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of the Women Trapped on Bataan by Elizabeth M. Norman, narrated by Dina Pearlman
  Military nurses in the Philippines went from living in paradise to living in hell after Pearl Harbor and the fall of Bataan, surviving bombings and the brutality of a Japanese prison camp for civilians. And then they came home and were marginalized and ignored. Hard to read about what they and the other noncombatants had to endure.
  
• Veiled Warriors: Allied Nurses of the First World War by Christine E. Hallett, narrated by Elizabeth Jasicki
  Lacking professional recognition or certification, trained nurses, along with volunteers of varying ability, struggled to provide patient care in a military environment dominated by men. Interesting but dry and rather formal.
  
• A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by Caroline Moorehead, narrated by Wanda McCaddon
  Members of the French Resistance forge bonds of solidarity that help them to endure the unspeakable brutality of the Nazi death camps. Heartbreaking and extremely sad.

Now I'm ready to go back to some mindless entertainment.

[fantasyfan]

I finished listening to Sapphire & Steel: The Surest Poison. It's episode 2 in the second series by Big Finish. The main voice actors are David Warner and Susannah Harker.

This particular episode didn't have the freezing horror of some of the quite terrifying episodes in the first series--Daisy Chain being an especial example. I found this one used a clever well-developed time travel theme with the usual play on temporal paradox. It had something of the quality one finds in Doctor Who--though with a touch of horror than one seldom experiences in the latter.

While not as disturbing as the stories in the first series, it was interesting and explored some psychological states reasonably well.

[taosaur]

I tore through the main Solar Clipper series ebooks in just over a week. It was indeed "a refreshing change of pace" as someone else noted, despite some dark turns along the way. The blurb in the back of each book, that these stories are about "ordinary people" and an "average joe," made me smirk a bit every time: sure, your everyday polymath wunderkind, refashioning every organization he joins from day one in the cafeteria. Granted, the protagonist was a super-manager rather than a super-soldier, which is distinctive enough. The world building also had a "futures past" feel, like it was a future extrapolated from late 1950s/early '60s USA, rather than the present day. That anachronistic quality was alternately charming and problematic. On the whole, though, very enjoyable, and I'm sure I'll revisit them on audio somewhere down the road. There were a lot of parallels to my own work and workplace, middle management in a fairly independent department of a much larger organization.

Right now I'm taking a break from WoT to re-read/listen to the Stormlight Archives, before diving into the new one.

[CRussel]

Glad you enjoyed the Solar Clipper series. I think what I like about them is that somewhat anachronistic quality, and the sense of _story_. Yes, some of the later books in the series are a bit darker, but they still have that quality of being about the story that comes from them being originally told as podcasts, and only after converted into books. Now, if he would just finish the latest one he's been working on...

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by taosaur

I tore through the main Solar Clipper series ebooks in just over a week. It was indeed "a refreshing change of pace" as someone else noted, despite some dark turns along the way. The blurb in the back of each book, that these stories are about "ordinary people" and an "average joe," made me smirk a bit every time: sure, your everyday polymath wunderkind, refashioning every organization he joins from day one in the cafeteria. Granted, the protagonist was a super-manager rather than a super-soldier, which is distinctive enough. The world building also had a "futures past" feel, like it was a future extrapolated from late 1950s/early '60s USA, rather than the present day. That anachronistic quality was alternately charming and problematic. On the whole, though, very enjoyable, and I'm sure I'll revisit them on audio somewhere down the road. There were a lot of parallels to my own work and workplace, middle management in a fairly independent department of a much larger organization.

Right now I'm taking a break from WoT to re-read/listen to the Stormlight Archives, before diving into the new one.

Thanks for the pointer, I picked up the first two as ebooks. I liked the first one, just started on the second.

[CRussel]

Looking for a good Audible UK WhisperSync deal. I've got £3.02 left of a credit, and would like a £2.99 or a pair of £1.99 Whispersync books to fill those slots. Even better if the source eBook is Kindle Unlimited, since I've still got my KU sub there.

Oh, and to make sure we stay on topic here, Just finished listening to Whose Body, by Dorothy L. Sayers, read by David Case.

[pwalker8]

Finished up Crusade yesterday. A good book and a good narrator. I've got a youth book (The Iron Trial) and then In Death Ground, which is the second book in Weber/White's four book series. I like to alternate books so I don't get too burned out. So far, the Iron Trial hasn't impressed me, but I'll give it a few more days.

[pwalker8]

Last year I listened to the Jim Dale version of A Christmas Carol, so this year it will be the Tim Curry version.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Last year I listened to the Jim Dale version of A Christmas Carol, so this year it will be the Tim Curry version.

Yesterday I listened to Mr. Dickens and His Carol, by Samantha Silva, narrated by Euan Morton. It's a novel about how Dickens came to write A Christmas Carol; I enjoyed it, but I wish I knew how much of it was pure invention and how much of it was based on truth. (The print version of the book has an author's note that presumably addresses this--why not include it in the audiobook, for gosh sakes? I absolutely hate it when audiobooks omit author's notes and other explanatory backmatter in historical fiction!)

Anyway, the book was enjoyable and charming. Today I may ask Alexa to read A Christmas Carol. Or maybe I'll just listen to Christmas music; who knows.

[CRussel]

Just finished reading (and listening) to Jonathan Oliver's narration of Long Summer Day, by R. F. Delderfield. An absolutely wonderful book, but a lackluster narration. There's nothing technically wrong with the narration, but it completely fails to bring life to the book. Full on 5 stars for the book, but a bare three for the narration.

[issybird]

I'm listening to Bronson Pinchot read Patrick Modiano's Missing Person. A flat and affectless reading of a flat and affectless book. Too much of a good thing! I've read and enjoyed Modiano before and enjoyed Pinchot's narration, but the combination is not working here.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Finished up Crusade yesterday. A good book and a good narrator. I've got a youth book (The Iron Trial) and then In Death Ground, which is the second book in Weber/White's four book series. I like to alternate books so I don't get too burned out. So far, the Iron Trial hasn't impressed me, but I'll give it a few more days.

Gave up on the Iron Trial around half way through and moved on to In Death's Ground. Don't think that I'll be getting the rest of the series.