Audio Book

Audiobook: All-Star Superman

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by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely
Read by a full cast
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Content: There is comic-book violence. It’s in the Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

In this series of collected comics, Superman deals with the madness on the backwards Bizarro planet. There is a bottled city that proves you can never go home again. A living sun hell-bent on destroying humanity. A world without the Man of Steel. Twelve impossible labors and mere moments to save the Earth. (Yes, I copied the back copy, because honestly, I’m not sure what really happened.)

I’m going to get this out of the way first: graphic novels/comics really are a visual medium, and don’t work in audio. That said, it’s kind of a fascinating experience. The narrators not only read the dialogue, they describe what is going on in the picture. It makes me wonder if they’re reading the script the writers write before the artists take it on? Or if they wrote a whole new script for the audiobook? I don’t know. It was hard for me to imagine scenes (my brain doesn’t really work that way – when I think of the word apple, I don’t see a picture of an apple in my head), which is why I don’t think the audiobook worked for me.

That said, I liked the stories. I’m glad we listened to this before going to see the movie, because there were parallels from this collection and what James Gunn did. And I can see the value of having audio versions of graphic novels, even if they are not for me.

Audiobook: System Collapse

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by Martha Wells
Read by Kevin R. Free
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Others in the series: All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect
Content: Like all Murderbot books, there is a lot of violence and swearing (Wells is a master of the artfully placed f-bomb). It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

I don’t have much to say about this that I didn’t already say two years ago. I finally convinced my husband to read this series (thanks to the TV show on Apple+) and this was the last one he had to read, so we listened to it on audio on a recent long drive. I didn’t mind revisiting Murderbot and its world, and I had heard that the audio was really good.

The audio is really good. Free does a fantastic job with the narration, with capturing Murderbot’s personality, with the book in general. He kept my interest, and it’s one of those books you don’t want to turn off and get out of the car.

And an additional bonus: K, who was in the car with us, ended up listening as well, and she’s plowed through half of the series since we got back.

I call that a win.

Audiobook: America’s Best Idea

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The Separation of Church and State
by Randall Balmer
Read by the author
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Content: It’s a bit wonky at times. It will be in the History section of the bookstore.

This is a short, impassioned history and defense of the First Amendment’s freedom of religion. The idea of not having a state religion, as Balmer asserts, has led to the freedom to have a plethora of religions, a freedom from state-mandated religious requirements, and a true freedom to worship how citizens would like. It’s that, which led to the separation of church and state, that has, in many ways shaped America.

And Balmer passionately asserts that the shift to Christian nationalism, the laws imposing religion on society, are not only unconstitutional, they are anti-American.

While Balmer isn’t a great narrator – his pace was uneven, and it was just odd at times – the subject matter was interesting enough, and it was short enough that it really didn’t matter too much. It’s an important little book, a reminder to those who would say that America is a Christian nation first, that it’s the separation of government and religion that our country was founded upon, and has allowed for so many religions to thrive. And it needs to stay that way.

Audiobook: Lady’s Knight

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by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
Read by Helen Keeley & Barbara Rosenblat
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Content: There is some violence – jousting and dragon-killing and the like; and two f-bombs. It’s in the YA Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Gwen has dreams. She is the blacksmith’s daughter, and is running the forge herself pretty much these days, but she has designed her own armor, and wants to try her hand at jousting. And one day, she earns enough money and enters the qualifying rounds of the tournament… and wins. She thinks it’s a one-off, but then Lady Isobelle finds her and convinces her to continue. It seems that Lady Isobelle is the prize for winning the tournament, and she doesn’t really want to marry any of the other knights. She convinces Gwen to be her champion in the tournament.

Gwen reluctantly agrees, follows Isobelle to the castle, where she pretends to be “Sir Gawain’s” sister, and… well, falls in love with Isobelle. There’s more to the plot – including terribly chauvinistic knights and a lady’s maid who might be an assassin – but that’s the basic premise.

Oh, this one was a delight. The back blurb (do audiobooks have a back blurb?) mentioned The Knight’s Tale as a comp, and I think that’s spot on. It’s Knight’s Tale but with lesbian girls, and I couldn’t have enjoyed myself more. It’s laugh-aloud funny at parts (LOVE the narrator who breaks the fourth wall), and yet had me ugly crying and the show of unity among women at the end. It’s fierce, it’s sweet, it’s a joy to read (and to listen to!). I can’t recommend this silly, sweet, fun book enough.

Audiobook: Wild and Wrangled

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by Lyla Sage
Read by Connor Crais, Savannah Peachwood, and Stella Hunter
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Others in the series: Done and Dusted, Swift and Saddled, Lost and Lassoed
Content: There’s a lot of swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and (while it takes a while to get there) a lot of on-page sexytimes. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

All Camille has wanted to do is get married to get her (rich) parents off her back and to secure the future for her daughter. Except things don’t go according to plan: her fiancé never shows up for their wedding, sending a note calling it off. And, to make things worse, as Cam tries to rebuild her life, her first love, her high school boyfriend, Dusty Tucker, shows up back in her life. It didn’t work out – though they tried – the first time around, and Cam’s not sure if she wants to see if it can work out a second time. But Dusty is persistent, and being in a relationship with him feels… right. Can she buck her parents and her expectations and her fears, and make it work with him again?

I liked this one better than I have the past couple Rebel Blue books, though I still think I might be over cowboy romances. That said, I really enjoyed Cam and Dusty together, and I liked the hopefulness of two people who fell in love young, finding their way back to each other. Sage does know how to write characters, and maybe I liked this one more because they were just adoptive members of the Rider family, which meant no overbearing brothers to get in the way. This one had a weight to it – with the class issues and the tension of lost loves – that I think the others missed.

I still like Done and Dusted best (the first time is always the best, no?) but this one is a solid read.

Audiobook: The Knight and the Moth

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by Rachel Gillig
Read by Samantha Hydeson
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Content: There’s violence, including violence towards women; swearing, including multiple f-bombs; and some on-page sex scenes. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Six is a diviner for the Abbess of Ashling in the country of Traum. Which means, people come to her, paying her in blood and the Abbess in money, and she drowns in the spring water and divines their futures for them. It’s all she’s ever known, and while she doesn’t love doing it (um, I would wonder if she did), she is very good. What she and her sister diviners (creatively: one through five) really want is for their ten year term to be up and for them to move on with their lives.

Except, over the course of a few nights, Six’s sister diviners go missing. Thankfully, the king and his knights are passing through, and Six escapes with them (well, with the one devilishly handsome, and yet not very nice – the use of the word “ignoble” happened more than once) to go visit each of the omens and to find out what happened to the only things (okay, they’re not “things”) she cared about.

I wanted to like this one much more than I actually did. I had issues with the world (why would you get six diviners at once, and have them all leave at the same time? Why would you NOT stagger their times of service?) and eventually, with the romance. Sure, the knight was all considerate and whatever, but when I finally got to the first sex scene, it was kind of… silly. There was absolutely no chemistry there, and I kept rolling my eyes at it all. And then the twist at the end? I’m not sure it made me mad because it was out of left field (there were clues, but not great ones), or because it was just stupid.

I finished the book (it was a book group book), but I didn’t love it, and I have no intention of reading the sequel.

Audiobook: Great Black Hope

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by Rob Franklin
Read by Justice Smith
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Content: There is drug use and lots of drinking (by adults). There is also a lot of swearing, including many f-bombs. It’s in the Fiction section of the bookstore.

When he’s arrested on drug possession in a small Long Island town, Smith – a queer Black Stanford graduate, trying to make his way in the city- finds himself in an interesting position. He comes from a wealthy Black family, one with power and prestige, so he has the money for bail and treatment, but he is Black, with all that entails, and he finds that his race complicates things.

Which is only partially what this book is about. Smith lost his best friend, Elle, to a drug overdose – another Black life taken – and because of who Elle was, her death was fodder for tabloids. His other friend, Caroline (a white woman), finds herself trying to get sober, but spiraling out of control with an affair with a married French chef. On top of all this, Smith loses his job – not because of the drugs (everyone does drugs!), but just because of downsizing – and is dragged home to Atlanta to face his parents with his less-than-successes.

Much like many adult fiction books, this is less about the plot and more about the journey, which I found interesting. Not much has changed in the past 30 years, when Gen X was in their early-to-mid-20s and having the same crises and doing the same drugs, and experiencing the same ennui. It’s good to know that nothing really changes. That said, Franklin is a good writer, exploring class and race (though I wish he had done more exploring of both) and what it means to be Black and wealthy in a city that respects money more than anything. I think the most telling scene was the confrontation between Smith’s sister (a third-year law student, planning on going into public defense) and their grandmother, whose wealth was built on being a landlord of underserved people (or, as it is lobbed at her, a slum lord). It helped, too, that Justice Smith was a good narrator, and kept me engaged in the story.

Not exactly one that I would have picked up normally (it’s one everyone at the store is talking about), but I’m glad I did.

Audiobook: Food Person

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by Adam Roberts
Read by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw
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Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and drug use. It’s in the Adult Fiction section of the bookstore.

All Isabella wants to be is a food writer. Except in this age of viral stories and influencers, someone who just wants to focus on the food (and not be on camera) is going to have a hard time of it. So when, after she loses her job at a foody-influencer e-zine, she’s offered to ghost write a cookbook for a once-beloved-but-now-down-and-out celebrity, Molly. It’s somewhat of her dream job: she would love to write a cookbook. Just not one where the other person is vastly uninterested in helping.

There are a lot of ups and downs in this one; both Isabell and Molly have big egos and are mostly unwilling to compromise – Molly wanting something that reflects “her” (or at least her public persona); Isabella wanting something that’s actually good, and something she wants to be proud of. There are hilariously awkward and weird situations (the whole deal with Isabella’s mother is a LOT), and the climax is definitely crazy.

I did like this one though. Hutchinson-Shaw is an excellent narrator, and kept me engaged in this. And Roberts isn’t bad when writing women. He was a former food-writer, so those parts were pretty amazing, and I have to admit that’s why I was there. I adore foody books, and this one absolutely hit the spot.

It was a lot of fun.

Audiobook: Return to Sender

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by Vera Brosgol
Read by Michelle H. Lee
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Content: There are some intense moments and it begins with a dead parent. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Oliver has moved a lot in the past year after his dad passed away. He has desperately wanted two things: his own bedroom and to grow up and follow his dad’s dream by opening a restaurant. He gets his first wish when his mom’s great-aunt passes away and leaves the apartment to her. Except there’s something weird in the apartment: A mail slot in the wall that goes nowhere. But, when Oliver slips in an accidental “wish” (for pizza!) and it comes true, he realizes what he’s got: his own personal wish-fulfiller. But, as his wishes get more and more grand, he starts realizing that the consequences of his actions are bigger and bigger.

I’ve enjoyed Brosgol’s graphic novels in the past, and I know she’s a good storyteller, but I didn’t know what to expect out of a prose novel from her. I didn’t need to worry (I didn’t, really): she’s an excellent writer, and this has everything that a middle grade novel needs. It reaches the kids where they are at, it’s funny and fast-paced, and it’s got a huge heart. I loved that at its heart it’s about the butterfly effect – how our actions have consequences, for good or ill – and about the disparity between rich and poor, and how unfair it is that rich people don’t often see the consequences of their actions. There’s a silly villain, there’s action and tension, and it’s just a lot of fun.

This one is good whatever way you read it: in the print version, Brosgol has included illustrations; in the audio version, Lee is an excellent narrator who makes the story that propels the story forward.

I hope many kids find this one, because it’s fantastic.

Audiobook: The Wager

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by David Grann
Read by Dion Graham
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Content: There are some gruesome details about the status of the survivors once the ship wrecked, as well as mentions of cannibalism. It’s in the History section of the bookstore.

In 1742, a small boat washed up on the shore of Brazil, holding 30 emaciated men. They said they were what was left of the crew of His Majesty’s ship, The Wager, and that they had been shipwrecked off the coast of Patagonia for months. After nearly starving to death, they escaped through the Straits of Magellan and to Brazil. When they finally made it back to England, they were regarded as heroes. Then, a few years later, three more men show up after having arrived in Chile. They told a story of mutiny and rebellion, of bad decisions and murder.

I’ve had this one on my TBR (or to-listen, actually) pile for a couple of years, ever since it came out. I knew it was going to be good; co-workers who don’t usually read history read this one and thoroughly enjoyed it. But I was still surprised just how much I liked it. Part of that was Graham’s narration – he’s an excellent narrator and he made the already compelling narrative that Graham wrote even more compelling. We listened to this one driving to St. Louis and back, and we hung on every word. So much so that we couldn’t listen to it while navigating around the town – there was no talking over the book. I knew Grann was a good historian, I just didn’t know how compelling he was. It was a fascinating story told really well and read by an amazing narrator. A perfect storm of excellence.