This was the most perfect way to re-read my favorite Austen. I love annotations, but when reading a classic that has all the notes at the end of the book, or the ends of the chapters, it can be frustrating to flip back and forth. This is the perfect answer: a page of text and a facing page full of annotations. And not just your typical footnotes – there are drawings of items of historical significance (carriages, clothing, furniture, etc.), maps, quotes from Austen’s letters regarding places or events in the novel, detailed historical explanations, as well as the typical explanations of outdated language and antiquated word usage. I can’t wait to get my hands on The Annotated Sense and Sensibility and The Annotated Pride and Prejudice!

Title: The Most Dangerous Thing
Author: Laura Lippman
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: William Morrow
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Source: Audiobook from the public library
Audiobook reader: Linda Emond
First line: They throw him out when he falls off the barstool.

I really enjoyed Lippman’s I’d Know You Anywhere, and was hoping this stand-alone mystery would keep me as enthralled. It didn’t. At first, I thought it was the reader, because her performance was just okay – but she also narrated I’d Know You Anywhere, and I listened to it on audio and was engrossed. There seemed to be an emotional distance to this one – I couldn’t relate to any of the characters. The big reveal at the end wasn’t really a surprise, either. I did, however, like the cameo appearance by Lippman’s character Tess Monaghan, a private investigator. I think I would enjoy that series, and definitely need to get my hands on the first one.

Title: Moon Over Manifest
Author: Clare Vanderpool
Genre: Middle grade fiction, historical fiction
Publisher: Yearling
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Source: Audiobook from the public library
Audiobook reader: Justine Eyre, Cassandra Campbell, Kirby Heyborne
First line: The movement of the train rocked me like a lullaby.

Books like Moon Over Manifest remind me why I still read children’s fiction. This is fiction that transcends age. Abilene Tucker is a young heroine reminiscent of Scout Finch, and her summer in Manifest, Kansas, reveals her father’s history – and her future. Along the way, she tries to solve the mystery of The Rattler, finds the letters of a young soldier fighting in the trenches of World War I, does yard work for a diviner, makes two new friends, and lives with a pastor named Shady whose church is in a speakeasy. I can’t say enough about this book – it really deserves its own review, but I allowed myself to fall behind again. Just read it. And if you like audiobooks, that is definitely the way to go with this one, as the narrators are all pitch-perfect.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, children's fiction, classics, historical fiction, jane austen, middle grade fiction, mysteries

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~ Caribousmom: Blogger Impact – inspired by author Beth Kephart’s editorial, The Value Rubric: Do Book Bloggers Really Matter?

Reviews and blog posts that have me adding to my to-read list:

~ The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye, mentioned by author Laurie King on Facebook

~ Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski, reviewed by Julie at Book Hooked Blog

~ The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomons, reviewed by Katy at A Few More Pages

Book to movie news:

~ The screenplay for the film adaptation of Catching Fire will not be written by Suzanne Collins. Uh, oh…

Other bookish links:

~ Mystery Writers of America announces the 2012 Edgar Award Nominees

~ Are you a fan of the British television series Downton Abbey? If so, publishers have a suggested reading list for you.

~ Penguin is pulling their audiobooks from library download site, Overdrive. After Brilliance Audio pulled the same thing, I’m wondering about the future availability of downloadable audiobooks at the library.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, book awards, book blogging, book to film, movies, mysteries, TBR list

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Molly Snow has always lived in her sister Robin’s shadow. Robin is the star, the marathon runner who has authored books, inspired young runners, and is a celebrated speaker. Her whole family’s world revolves around Robin and Snow Hill Nursery, the family’s business. When Molly gets a call from the hospital, telling her that Robin has had yet another running accident, Molly is fed up – tired of being at Robin’s beck and call. Assuming that the accident is a sprain or something minor, she takes her time getting to the hospital – only to discover that Robin has had a massive heart attack and is in a coma.

As Molly and her family are faced with making decisions they never could have imagined, Molly reflects on her relationship with Robin, her relationship with her mother, and her place in the family. She also discovers some things about Robin she never suspected – and the family must deal with the fallout of secrets.

While My Sister Sleeps was my second experience with Barbara Delinsky’s work; the first was Not My Daughter, which I also enjoyed. She reminds me a bit of Jodi Picoult – at least the Jodi Picoult novels that I’ve enjoyed, as she’s a bit hit or miss with me. Delinsky takes authentic characters, throws them into challenging situations, and then reveals how things play out. I really enjoy reading well-written family dramas, like this one.

I had a bit of trouble with the first third of the book, as Katherine, Molly’s mother, seemed like such a horrible person. My kids would wonder who I was snarking at while doing dishes, when I kept saying things like, “What is wrong with you?” and “Horrible woman!” while I did the dishes. The character grew on me, though, as she started to take a hard look at her relationship with each of her daughters.

The interactions between Molly’s brother Chris, his wife, and his father, Charlie, were interesting, too. Charlie is a quiet man, and so, growing up, Chris had assumed that his father was not a communicator. When he incorporated that into his own marriage, he couldn’t understand his wife’s frustration. There were some great scenes between father and son as he realizes how wrong he was about his dad.

The end of this book is not a surprise, as the reader is clear from the beginning what will happen. That doesn’t matter, as the meat of the book is in watching the characters rub against each other, learn from each other, get angry at each other, forgive each other – and ultimately come to a deeper understanding of what it means to be a family.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, contemporary fiction

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Justin Hitchcock, a divorced American art and architecture professor, is talked into donating blood in spite of his fear of needles. In Dublin, Joyce Conway undergoes a blood transfusion after a horrible accident that almost takes her life. After she leaves the hospital and tries to put together the pieces of her life, she starts to undergo some very strange experiences: knowing things she doesn’t remember learning, having dreams of people that she’s never seen before – dreams that seem to be memories. Could the new blood that is running through her veins be imparting the donor’s thoughts and past?

Thanks for the Memories was my first experience with Cecilia Ahern, and, honestly, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. I figured it would be some light and fluffy chick lit, but I wanted to listen to it because it is read by Sile Bermingham, the amazing Irish actress who reads most of Maeve Binchy’s books.

I was wrong to prejudge this book. Yes, it is definitely women’s fiction, but it was only light in the best sense of the word – that it was easy to get drawn into. First of all, there was a ton of humor in the story, most of which was provided by Joyce’s aging father, who was my favorite character in the book. I loved the relationship that father and daughter shared, the way he supported her as she tried to reinvent herself after the accident.

The writing was terrific, too, with some great descriptions of the people and places, and some fun metaphors – not so funny they drew me out of the story, but just enough to give me a chuckle. There wasn’t anything surprising in the book, but I didn’t mind that I knew how things would turn out – I thoroughly enjoyed watching things unfold. I will definitely look forward to more of Ahern’s books – and if they’re read by Sile Bermingham, then that’s all the better!

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, contemporary fiction, irish fiction, speculative fiction

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Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, read by Kirby Heyborne
From my review: “In the course of this year of his life, he writes poetry under an assumed name, worries about the obvious tension between his parents, fantasizes about the girls at school, falls into a gypsy camp, tries to overcome his stammer, and starts to become a person. In the course of listening to this book, Jason became one of my favorite young protagonists, and he was perfectly voiced by Kirby Heyborne.”

Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani, read by Cassandra Campbell
From my review: “Lucia is a young Italian woman living in Brooklyn in the 1950s, and this is her story, and it is a must-read. Actually, with Campbell reading it, you should listen to it on audio.”

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin, read by Samantha Eggar
From my review: “Alice I Have Been is one of the best works of historical fiction I have read in a while. The author perfectly captures the voice of Alice, and the world she inhabits. So intricately detailed and crafted is the world of Oxford and the time period Alice resides in that it almost reads like a memoir or autobiography. As I listened, I lived in England with Alice. I felt her feelings, understood her thoughts, cried her tears.”

The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin, read by Kim Mai Guest
From my review: “Vinnie is a character who will stay with me for a long time – and Melanie Benjamin now resides firmly on my list of favorite authors of historical fiction.”

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand, read by Edward Hermann
From my review: “This is truly an amazing story that vividly demonstrates how much the human spirit can endure. Louie Zamperini went from Olympic athlete to World War II bombardier to POW in Japan, never losing his amazing strength of spirit. His story is heartbreaking, inspiring, and ultimately, redemptive. I can’t recommend this one highly enough.”

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, read by Wil Wheaton
From my review: “I am the target audience for this book – and so is my husband. He will be reading it soon – all I had to say was: Joust, War Games, RUSH’s “2112? album, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, etc. etc. etc.”

Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher, read by Brian Corrigan
From my review: “At first glance, Whale Talk would appear to be a sports story, but it is so much more than that. It has heart without being schmaltzy. It is realistic about the evil lurking in the human soul without leaving the reader full of despair. It has moments that made me laugh and others that had me choked up. And it left me with the strongest feeling that these characters are real, that if I go to Hoopfest in Spokane next year, I’ll see a team of out-of-the-ordinary athletes led by an African-Asian-American dynamo.”

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak, read by Marc Aden Gray
from my review: “The best thing about this book, however, is the ending. While it was left a little ambiguous, the identity of the person sending Ed the messages was a true surprise – and a brilliant one, in my opinion.”

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly, read by Emily Janice Card and Emma Baring
From my review: “With this book, Donnelly did what all good writers of historical fiction do – she made me want to know more about the French Revolution.”

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, favorites

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I love the premise of this book: two high school friends in 1986 sign up for America Online, back when the internet isn’t in every home. They are automatically logged in to Facebook – which doesn’t exist yet – and see their profiles for 15 years in the future. They also discover that every time they hit refresh, their profiles change. Understanding how the decisions they make resonate into the future is most of what this story is about – but it’s also got a great love story, too.

Title: The Red Badge of Courage
Author: Stephen Crane
Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: Various
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Source: Audiobook from the public library
Audiobook reader: Frank Muller
First line: The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.

This was my last pick for the War Through the Generations Challenge this year – and it was just okay. The audiobook reader did a great job with the narration; I’m not sure I could have made it through in print. The author refers to the main character as “the youth” and this tactic distances the reader from the character and the things he is experiencing. I know this one is a classic, and the descriptions of the conditions in the Civil War are very well-written – and disturbing – but it wasn’t a favorite.

Title: A Place on Earth
Author: Wendell Berry
Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: Counterpoint
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Source: Print copy from my personal library
First line: The seed bins are empty.

What can I say? I am so glad I hosted the Wendell Berry Challenge this year. I’m not sure that anyone else completed their challenge goal – not many people signed up to begin with. But if the only thing the challenge accomplished was to prompt me to read more of this amazing man’s work, it was more than worth it. Coming in a close second to Hannah Coulter, A Place on Earth is my second favorite of his books. It isn’t a linear novel, but a collection of scenes that describe the conditions of Port William and the emotions of its inhabitants during World War II. Focusing mainly on Mat Feltner as he waits for word of his son Virgil, who is in Europe fighting, Berry shows how the war devastated not only the young soldiers, but their parents, wives, and families left behind. It is truly a beautiful book.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, historical fiction, science fiction, YA fiction

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For as long as Deuce can remember, she has wanted to be a Huntress, to be given her true name and no longer be one of the nameless brats. But when she achieves her goal, she is assigned Fade as her partner. He grew up outside the enclave, and his strangeness causes Deuce to start to question what she’s always believed, what she’s always been told. I enjoyed Enclave very much – Deuce is a complicated, fierce character, and the transformation of her world and worldview made for a fascinating story. The world-building is also excellent, as well as the interaction between Deuce and Fade. This book works as a stand-alone, but I see that the author has a sequel coming out in 2012. I’m excited to read it – not because she left me hanging at the end of Enclave and I HAVE to read it – but because the world she has built and the characters that people it are worth revisiting.

Title: Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Genre: Dystopian, science fiction
Publisher: Crown
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Source: Audiobook from the public library
Audiobook reader: Wil Wheaton
First line: Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest.

Sandy was right – this book is amazing! I’m not a gamer, so I wasn’t initially interested in reading Ready Player One. Then, Sandy posted her review, which told me everything I needed to know: chock full of 80s nostalgia, action-packed, and narrated by the brilliant Wil Wheaton. Like Sandy, I am the target audience for this book – and so is my husband. He will be reading it soon – all I had to say was: Joust, War Games, RUSH’s “2112″ album, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, etc. etc. etc.

Title: Explosive Eighteen
Author: Janet Evanovich
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Bantam
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Source: Audiobook from the public libary
Audiobook reader: Lorelei King
First line: New Jersey was 40,000 feet below me, obscured by cloud cover.

Stephanie is back, baby! I wasn’t all that thrilled with the seventeenth book in the series, but I found Explosive Eighteen thoroughly enjoyable. Sure, Stephanie is still torn between Ranger and Morelli, but there was less about that and more Stephanie and Lulu attempting to be Rangeresque bounty hunters, and that makes for lots of humor. And, of course, these books are all read by the incomparable Lorelei King – I wouldn’t experience them any other way.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, dystopian, janet evanovich, lorelei king, mysteries, non-fiction, science fiction, stephanie plum, wendell berry, YA fiction

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When Sicily Coyne was thirteen years old, she watched her firefighter father die attempting to rescue a boy from a fire. The same fire took Sicily’s face, leaving her scarred and disfigured. Shortly afterward, her mother died, and Sicily was adopted by Marie, her aunt – a fiercely loyal and amazingly strong woman. At age twenty-five, Sicily has made a life for herself. Raised to live as much of a normal life as she can, Sicily has a career that she excels at and is engaged to a man she loves. But when a horrific revelation destroys her relationship with her fiance, Sicily is left to reevaluate her life. She decides to pursue a total face transplant, a new procedure that will give her back not only her face, but her ability to eat, to taste, to smell, to kiss.

As I was writing the above synopsis, I realized that I can’t go any farther in the story than that without giving away too much of the plot. This is not a book you want spoiled for you. I will simply say that this book is stuffed full of discussion points about medical ethics, relationships, the nature of family, love, loss. And, for fans of Mitchard’s work, members of the Cappadora family (The Deep End of the Ocean, No Time to Wave Goodbye) have supporting, but important, roles in Sicily’s story.

While the last quarter of the book seemed to come apart at the seams a bit, Mitchard continues to impress me with the beauty of her writing. She writes plot- and character-driven fiction, but still has a poetic way of putting the words on the page. For the most part, I loved Sicily’s character. There were a few times when I thought she wallowed a bit in self-pity (and, yes, I know this is a woman who has lost almost everything, and has a right to self-pity) and that wallowing sometimes kept her from seeing how her actions and choices were causing others to suffer.

The subject matter and beautiful writing, though, still make this a book I would recommend. I will give you a slight warning, though, that the ending is quite ambiguous, and so if you need an ending that wraps everything up neatly, you will be disappointed. I know what I think happened after those final words, but I have no idea if what I pictured is the same thing the author imagined.

Audio notes: I believe this was my first experience with Rebecca Lowman’s narration, but she is clearly an accomplished voice artist. She gave life to the portions told in first person by Sicily. During the third-person sections of the story, she did the nearly impossible task of making several American voices all sound different. I never had to wonder who was speaking, and that is something I appreciate in an audiobook.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, contemporary fiction

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I love this series on audio. The readers for the four main characters were perfect. The resolution of this series was a bit ambiguous, but I think I know where the author was going, and I’m choosing to believe in the ending I wanted. And I really enjoyed the way the characters of Cole and Isabel were developed, the way their relationship unfolded. In fact, I’d love to see a spin-off series focusing on the two of them.

Title: Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile
Author: Bill Willingham
Genre: Graphic novel
Publisher: DC Comics
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Source: Print copy from my personal library
First line: Once upon a time.

What a fun premise for a series! Fable characters have come to live in the mundane world after their homelands were taken over by a mysterious enemy. In this first volume, Snow White, who runs things, must depend on Bigby Wolf, her chief detective, to solve the murder of her sister, Rose Red. Great art, too, even if the women do embody the comic-book idea of perfection – tiny waists, huge boobs. Definitely not one for the kiddies, but a lot of fun anyway.

Title: Beautiful Chaos
Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Genre: YA paranormal fiction
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Source: Print copy from my personal library
First line: I was standing on top of the white water tower, with my back to the sun.

Is it possible to love and hate authors at the same time? Because when I turned the last page on this one, that’s exactly how I felt about Ms. Garcia and Ms. Stohl. They wrote another completely fantastic book – even better than book two! – and then ended with a total cliff-hanger. I mean, jaw-dropping, “No. they. did. not!” type of ending. And I have to wait a year for the next book! Aaaarrrrggggghhhhhh…………

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, fantasy, graphic novels, paranormal fiction, YA fiction

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Title: Water for Elephants
Author: Sara Gruen
Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Source: I own the book, but I checked the audiobook out from the library.
Audiobook reader: David LeDoux and John Randolph Jones
First line: I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other.

Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob Jankowski, and is told as a series of flashbacks, memories that Jacob is having while living inside a nursing home. The audiobook I listened two had two readers, one for the old Jacob, and one for the 23-year-old Jacob – and they were both absolutely fabulous.

It’s the middle of the Depression. Jacob is in his final year of veterinary school at Cornell University when he receives the news that his parents have been killed in a car accident. Returning home for the funeral, Jacob discovers that his father’s veterinary practice – which he planned on joining after graduation – is mortgaged to the hilt and now owned by the bank, as is the family home. Having nowhere else to go, Jacob returns to Cornell, but is too grief-stricken and flees in the middle of the final exam. Hopping a train, Jacob finds himself in the midst of working men on the Benzini Brothers Greatest Show on Earth, a circus. His knowledge of veterinary science earns him a place on the show.

Jacob meets August and Marlena, a married couple on the show. August is in charge of the menagerie; Marlena is a performer. Jacob becomes friends with the couple, and soon discovers that their marriage is less than happy. August’s unstable and violent temper has everyone on the show afraid of him – including his wife, Marlena. In spite of her unavailability, Jacob falls for Marlena, and the ripples of consequences begin.

Sara Gruen has written a gorgeous novel full of delicious imagery and descriptions of what life on a circus was like. The book is full of the most unique characters, from the chillingly evil August, to the feisty dwarf Walter and his beloved dog, Queenie. Gruen’s love of animals also comes through, especially in the elephant, Rosie. I’m not much of an animal person, but I came to love Rosie and her quirks.

I loved this book, from it’s beginning to it’s ending, which had me wiping tears away. Highly recommended.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 36 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, historical fiction

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