by Jane Austen

read by Josephine Bailey
ages: adult
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I’ve already reviewed Pride and Prejudice here on the blog, so I’m not going to do that again. (Though, looking back, my review really isn’t much of a review.) I picked this one up again because I was inspired to do a reread of all of Austen’s works by A Jane Austen Education.  But, I decided to do something different: listen to it on audio book. (In fact, between that and listening to To Kill a Mockingbird, I’ve decided that I’ll try to listen to classics this year. We’ll see how that goes.)

So. Thoughts.

The narrator was good. Though her Lady Catherine and Mr. Darcy were wrong. I mentioned that to M, and she said that’s because I’ve watched the A&E movie too many times and Colin Firth will always be Mr. Darcy, and no one else will do. She’s right, you know.

I know some of the lines well enough that I can say them right along.

The humor came out really well when I was listening. I catch it when I read, but I actually laughed aloud when listening and that’s something I don’t usually do when I read it.

One of the themes I caught this time was how much appearance matters. They’re always talking about the way people look — whether they give off a good impression, whether they have “goodness” in their “countenance” — and that sat uneasily with me. I try very hard not to judge on my first impression, though I do have to admit that it’s a human trait: we all do it. Even if we think we don’t. The more I think about it, the more I think the original title of this one — First Impressions — is almost more accurate. There’s a lot in here about judging and being judged for they way people (not only yourself, but your family) acts in public. And the sad thing is that it’s still applicable.

It’s still a delightful read, after 200 years and multiple rereads (on my part, anyway). It doesn’t get much better than that.

by Gustave Flaubert
read by : Donada Peters
ages: adult

So,  thought I’d listen to the classics this year. And, since I’ve never read Madame Bovary, I figured why not listen to it? I admit that I had no idea what it was about going in, and also that the back blurb was singularly unhelpful.

That said, even though Donada Peters sounds vaguely like Judy Dench, I found myself highly — HIGHLY — bored with listening to this one. After a while, Peters voice began to grate on me, and I just bailed. Nothing — not a single thing — about the story was drawing me in. Not the characters, not the writing, and definitely not the narration.

So, that leaves me with this: was it the translation? Was it the audiobook? There has to be a reason this is considered a classic. Should I give it another try?

by Harper Lee
Read by Sissy Spacek
ages: adult
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I’m not going to sum this one up; everyone has read it already. So here are my thoughts from listening to this one for the first time since high school.

1. They say the n-word a lot. A lot. And, while I understand that it was part of the south in the 1930s, it sure made me uncomfortable.

2. I had to keep reminding myself that not everyone in the south is like most people in this book. That we need more Atticuses and Scouts and Jems and Boo Radleys in this world and less Bob Ewells.

3. That said, Sissy Spacek’s Southern drawl was just delightful. I got out of the car many a time speaking Southern myself.

4. Not much happens in the book, which surprised me. Check that: two Really Big Things happen, but in between it’s a lot of daily life, a lot of character sketches. And I wasn’t bored. Which also really surprised me.

5. I want to be a parent like Atticus. I sometimes wish my girls could have childhoods like Jem and Scout did.

6. Anyone who says that courts are fair is lying. Still. And that made me sad. Tom Robinson was TOTALLY innocent.

7. I think I finally understand the title now. It wasn’t something I remembered from before.

8. I’m so glad I decided to reread it. I hadn’t remembered much from the book at all, and it was delightful rediscovering this classic.

by Meg Cabot
read by Kristin Kairos
ages: adult

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I read a Meg Cabot book years ago, and didn’t have much love for it. Since then, I’ve felt I ought to give her a second chance, but nothing really pulled at me and said “READ ME!” So, I never did.

Then, one day, I found myself without anything to listen to in the car, and saw this sitting on the library shelf. I figured now was the time to give Meg Cabot another shot.

Heather Wells is in her second semester as assistant director of Fisher Hall, a dorm residence hall at New York City College. Last semester (the first book in the series, which I missed; I seem to be doing that a lot this year) wasn’t all that hot, with multiple murders, but Heather has high hopes that Fisher Hall will be able to shake its “death dorm” reputation. That is, until the head of one of the residents ends up in a pot in the cafeteria. Heather is bound and determined not to get involved this time — investigating is for the police! — but you know there wouldn’t be a book if she actually listened.

On top of the investigation for the dead girl, there’s also the problem of Heather’s ex-fiance who is getting married. Except he keeps calling her. And turning up drunk on her (well, her ex-fiance’s brother’s; he’s her landlord) doorstep. Which is not helping her plan to get together with her ex-fiance’s brother, Cooper.

So, yeah: even though there’s a mystery — and it’s not a bad one, either, even though I kind of called the ending, which I never do — it’s also a comedy and a romance. In short: just plain fun.

I don’t know if half the reason I liked this one so much was because the narrator was just so fabulous. (You know, I’ve never really determined what a “fabulous” narrator is. Maybe it’s just one of those “you know it when you hear it” things.) She made driving around town a fun experience, and I was actually a  little bummed when the book ended (and Heather didn’t get together with the guy I wanted her to!).

I’ve got to go out and get the next one (unless I need to go back and get the first one?), just so I can find out what happens next.

by Susan Vreeland
Read by Kimberly Farr
ages: adult
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Clara Driscoll is the head of the women’s department in the stained glass “factory” of Louis Comfort Tiffany. It’s the late 19th-century, and she adores her job, but there’s one caveat: Tiffany doesn’t allow married women to work for him. So, every time marriage looms, she loses girls. She, herself, at the start of the book, is coming back after her older husband died. The women’s department is an important one; they handle the artistic windows — and, eventually, lamps — for Tiffany, because Tiffany believes that women are more sensitive to color and choose it better than the men do.

 But, Clara has to deal with the changing times, with the turn of the century, with the demands of her heart, and eventually, with Tiffany’s unwillingness to appreciate her for both her art and herself.

I wanted to like this one, and sometimes I did. The narrator was good — nothing spectacular, but not annoying, either.  I enjoyed the whole stained glass part; I took a class a few years back, and that gave me enough knowledge to get a grasp on the artistic process that Vreeland was describing. And she described it well: I went, after, and looked up pictures of the windows and lamps she was describing, and they were fairly close to what I had pictured in my mind.

But honestly: it went on too long. Too much time, too few conflicts, too much describing, and too little happening. It’s not that it wasn’t enjoyable, it was just so slow. And I have other things I need to do with my time.

by Helen Simonson
read by  Peter Altschuler
ages: adult
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A while back a woman came into the store looking for some Georgette Heyer books. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any in the store (shame on us), so I started hunting around for some read-alikes. She’d read all the obvious ones (Jane Austin), we were lacking in Shannon Hale as well, and then I stumbled upon this one. I remembered, somewhat vaguely, that it was British and that it had gotten some good buzz, and so I recommended it to her. She bought it, and I crossed my fingers that it would work.

And then, I chided myself: if I recommended it to someone who liked Georgette Heyer (which I do), why wouldn’t I like it? So, I picked up the audio book to listen to while I putter around town sans kids.

The bottom line? It was a grand suggestion for someone who loved Georgette Heyer: at turns funny and sweet; very, very British; and with a lovely wedding at the end. I adored listening to it.

I do have to admit, also up front, that I adored it because Peter Altschuler is a brilliant narrator. All the right voices, all the right inflection (Roger was a Twit! I kept shouting at him. I’m sure the other drivers thought I was insane.), all the right emphasis in the right places, so I got the humor and I understood the conflict and I loved (absolutely adored) the Major.

For the five of us who live under a rock, the  basic story is one of Major Ernest Pettigrew, widower, whose brother has just died. He’s a bit at a loss the  day of, and so when Mrs. Jasmina Ali (widow), comes to collect for the paperboy, he just kind of falls into a friendship with her. He soon discovers that 1) she’s wonderful and 2) it doesn’t matter, to him, that she’s Pakistani, though it seems to matter a lot to the villagers of Edgecombe St. Mary. It’s a domestic drama: the things that happen are ordinary things. Antique guns are involved, as are American developers, and lots and lots of cultural tension. Through it all, the Major is impeccably honorable and quite British, but somehow, all comes right in the end (though there’s a bit of a tense scene wherein Islam does not come off well, and I thought was quite unnecessary), with the Major and Mrs. Ali following their hearts.

I didn’t realize that it was a modern setting, but for the most part, it all worked. The characters are really what drive this story: from the not-meaning-to-be-racist-and-yet-are village ladies; to the twit of a son Roger; to his American fiance, Sandy (I liked her too); to the orthodox, yet conflicted, nephew of Mrs. Ali, all are intriguing and complex. Very few (maybe the bumbling vicar, and the loud, obnoxious American developer) are straight-up caricatures, something which I appreciated.

A delightful way to spend a few hours.