2011 Audiobook Challenge Wrap-up and 2012 Audiobook Challenge Sign-up

 This year I joined The 2011 Audio Book Challenge hosted by Teresa's Reading Corner.  My goal for the year was to listen to twelve audiobooks.  I met that goal and listened to a couple of extra for a total of fourteen audio books this for the year 2011.  The audiobooks I listened to were as follows:

1.  Rescue by Anita Shreve
2.  Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff

3.  An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

4.  The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie
5.  Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

6.  The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

7.  Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie
8.  A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
9.  The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

10.  Burnt Mountain by Anne Rivers Siddons

11.  Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand

12.  The Help by Kathryn Stockett
13.  The End of Normal by Stephanie Madoff Mack
14.  Matched by Ally Condie

I listened to a lot of fantastic audiobooks throughout 2011.  I wanted to pick out a clear favorite, but I enjoyed too many of them in different ways to pick one best audiobook.   I did love learning about the history of the legendary Cleopatra in Stacy Shiff's fantastic biography.  I also loved the light hearted romance in The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie.   The Madoff scandel was brought to life in the fictional account of a wronged wife in Silver Girl by Eline Hilderbrand, and in the painful, but beautiful memoir The End of Normal by Stephanie Madoff Mack.  I enjoyed starting a new trilogy with Matched by Ally Condie and I'm almost finished with listening to the second book in the series (Crossed) right now.  The Help was a wonderful audiobook.  I loved the actors who read the parts for each of the main charactesr and brought the story to life.  Juliet Stevenson is a marvelous actress and also a wonderful audiobook reader.  Her audiobook reading of Sense and Sensibility is not to be missed. 

What didn't I like?  While The Disappearing Spoon was fascinating subject matter, I think I would have much prefered to read the book rather than listening to it.  I needed a periodic table of elements at hand to go along with a lot of the stories.  Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie just didn't have the same magic for me as The Cinderella Deal did.  Burnt Mountain by Anne Rivers Siddons wanted to be a good audiobook, but abrupt changes in genre brought the book to a rather messy conclusion.

Seven of the audiobooks I listened to I check out from the Kewaunee Public Library, five I received as review copies from Hachette Audio, and two I received from Penguin Audio.  Thirteen of the audiobooks I listened to on CD, while one I listened to as a digital audiobook on my droid.  I really liked the digital audiobook experience and hope to check it out more this year.  Unfortunately, while my library does offer digital audio to check out, most of the books I look up have a VERY long waiting list.

I am joining the 2012 Audiobook Challenge once again hosted at Teresa's Reading Corner.  I am going to aim for 12 audiobooks again this year, which is the level "Going Steady."  It looks like it will be a fun challenge again this year with a few new and intriguing features.  I'm currently listening to Crossed by Ally Condie and A Christmas Homecoming by Anne Perry.  What are you listening to or planning to listen to this year?

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (audio)

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick was one of my top ten reads of 2010. It was chosen by one of my fellow FLICKS book club members for our August book. I decided to listen to an audiobook version for a different take on the novel. For a review of the novel as well as a more in depth look at the plot of A Reliable Wife, check out my original review of the novel.

A Reliable Wife adapted well for an audiobook. It was narrated by Mark Feuerstein, who has one of those voices that I can’t stop listening to. He did a superb job. I loved listening to his reading of the description and narrative and he did unique voices for the difference characters as well.

One negative of this audiobook that I luckily had read it before and knew that it was a very sensual novel, or aka something I couldn’t listen to while doing dishes or driving the kids around. As I listened to it this time I thought, wow Ralph Truitt sure thinks about sex A LOT. A buttoned up Victorian age tale, A Reliable Wife is not.

I loved the stark description in the novel; it was almost hypnotic to listen to. The book did not give a good picture of Wisconites; there are a lot of people that go crazy from the long winters as well as a lot of hidden lust. But even today if you scratch the surface of any little Midwestern town, you may find more truth to this than one would think.

I loved this novel again and was riveted by the tale. I couldn’t remember the exact details of how it ended so I listened to it in breathless anticipation to know how it all ended. My only annoyance was how Ralph Truitt sends to Chicago ALL OF THE TIME for items such as silk for the wedding dress roses, candy, to visit “ladies of the night,” etc. If the novel takes place in roughly the Ashland area as it seems from the description, it would have been closer to take a train to Duluth, Minneapolis, or heck Milwaukee (which you have to go through on the train to get to Chicago). Some items such as this seemed off, but would probably only annoy someone like me that lives in Wisconsin.

My book club had a mixed reaction to A Reliable Wife. While some loved the anti-heroine Catherine Land and the unique plot, others did not like that it wasn’t a happy novel.

I loved the novel and I think that this was a brilliant audiobook version of A Reliable Wife. I think it would make an excellent movie (although it will have shades of the movie Original Sin that starred Antonio Bandaras and Angelina Jolie). I’ve heard rumors that a movie is in production, does anyone know anything further?

This is my eighth item for the Audiobook Challenge and eighteenth item for the Historical Fiction Challenge.

Book Source: The Kewaunee Public Library

Laura’s Top Ten Books of 2010

I read a lot of good books in 2010. I like to call 2010 the year that disappeared. With my horrific morning sickness at the beginning of the year, the birth of Penelope Rose on October 15th, and having a baby to nurse along with a 4 & 2 year old, I haven’t had as much time to socialize as I usually do. I did have a lot more time to read instead of sleeping!

Overall I read 95 books in 2010 and listened to 9 audiobooks. My number of books was up for the before stated reasons, but my number of audiobooks was down. I was in a number of challenges this year including The All About the Brontes Challenge, The Classics Challenge, The Stephanie Plum Reading Challenge, and the Everything Austen Challenge II. I was also in two book clubs, my Kewaunee Library Book Club and FLICKS Book and Movie Club.

I read a variety of books through the year, but I didn’t read as much non-fiction or sci-fi as I would usually like too. This is probably because between reading advance review copies of books, books for challenges, and books for my book clubs, I didn’t have much time to read personal picks. I need to work on this.

My top ten books are my favorite ten books that I read this year. They were not necessary published in the year 2010 and do not include books I read and enjoyed for a second, third, or fourth time (such as Pride and Prejudice, Outlander, Child of the Northern Spring) as it is obvious that I love those novels. If you are interested, check out my top 10 from 2009, 2008 and 2007.

Without further ado, my top ten favorite books of 2010 (in no particular order):

1. Room by Emma Donoghue – Room was a horrifying and heart-warming tale rolled into one told through a very unique prospective, that of a five-year old child. Jack has lived in a small room trapped with his abducted mother throughout his five-year life. The room encompasses his life, but things are about to change as Ma plans their escape. I literally couldn’t put this book down!
2. The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson – I know I’m cheating here by counting a trilogy as one selection, but I loved the entire trilogy and read it this year. Larsson weaves a unique tale set in Sweden, with a very unique heroine, Lisbeth Salander. Hero Mikael Bloomberg is a crusader who stops at nothing to get the story for his Millennium magazine and to right wrongs even if it means bringing down the Swedish government.
3. The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins – I loved this young adult trilogy set in a post-apoplectic world. The world has ended as we know it and the U.S. has been divided into thirteen districts. The districts are controlled by the capital and are kept under strict control. Each year each district is required to send two children to compete in the televised “Hunger Games.” There can only be one winner left alive at the end of the games. Katniss Everdeen is trying to keep her sister and mother alive in District 12 when her sister is chosen for the games. Katniss steps in to save her and her life is forever changed.
4. The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion by Elizabeth Chadwick – These two novels are among the best historical fiction novels that I have ever read. I love the hero William Marshal. His story is a riveting tale that I had never read about before. Chadwick is a master storyteller that is vividly able to bring the past alive. I look forward to reading more of her novels!
5. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak – This book is uniquely narrated by death during WWII and tells the story of one girl and her struggle to survive during WWII in Germany. The German people not painted as only evil, but rather shades of gray.
6. Cleopatra’s Daughter by Michelle Moran – I honestly didn’t know that Cleopatra even had a daughter! Moran’s novel is an intriguing look at the life of the famed Queen’s children after her death.
7. A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrich – A stark fascinating novel set in the depths of winter in Wisconsin. A mail order bride has arrived, but is she all that she seems to be? Lovers of gothic tales such as those written by the Brontes or Daphne Du Maurier will love this novel.
8. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas – Although it has been almost two hundred years since this novel was written, it is still an action packed novel that kept me up in the night trying to find out what happened next. It is the ultimate novel of revenge.
9. The Season of Second Chances by Diane Meier – I loved this book. It was a unique story with a unique heroine, Joy Harkness, that has moved to a small town into a large Victorian mansion that needs a lot of fixing up. The characters are wonderfully drawn and the writing is superb.
10. Life of Pi by Yann Martel – Why do we believe? This tale of a boy and a tiger on the high seas was thought-provoking.

Books that I love tend to keep me thinking about them late into the night. I read a lot of good books this year and had a hard time narrowing them down. Special honorary shout-outs go to Spoken from the Heart by Laura Bush, Alone by Richard Logan and Tere Duperrault Fassbender, The Brave by Nicholas Evans, By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan, and The Polski Affair by Leon H. Gilden. Also I have a special mention of Black Hills by Dan Simmons. This book had some of the best and most memorable scenes in fiction that I read (or listened to in this case) this year, but was brought down overall by some scenes that should have been cut (Brooklyn Bridge) and a too frisky General Custer.

Did you enjoy any of these novels? What were your favorite books in 2010?

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

I just finished a marathon reading of A Reliable Wife. It was one of those books that I literally couldn’t put down.

A Reliable Wife is a beautifully written novel set in the harsh winter of Northern Wisconsin in 1907(location: Fictional town of Truitt somewhere on the shores of Lake Superior). Ralph Truitt has lived a lonely past twenty years after a very tragic and mysterious married life. He advertises for a mail ordered “reliable wife.” Catherine Land answers his advertisement and upon arrival is not the plain Jane in the picture that she sent to Ralph. She is beautiful, and has many secrets of her own to hide. There is a roller-coaster of events that I will leave off as to not spoil the book.

The lyrical prose of this book was wonderful, starting with the first line, “It was a bitter cold, the air electric with all that had not happened yet.” The setting of the novel in the cold, bitter winter in a land of depressed people was stark and perfect for the novel. Ralph and Catherine are both troubled souls seeking redemption. As the book progresses, it is interesting to see how two people who start off seeming so un alike are actually quite similar. I enjoyed their characters and learning more about them.

The story was unpredictable and twisted and turned to an ending I certainly did not predict. It kept me riveted. I really wanted to read this book after seeing it compared to my favorite authors, Daphne Du Maurier and the Bronte sisters. While it did have a gothic sinister darkness to the plot that was also driven with despair, it is really its own novel. I did love it, but I wouldn’t rank it above Jane Eyre or Rebecca.

With the setting of the novel in 1907, one would expect it to be staid and sexless, it is anything but. At first I was put off by Ralph’s constant thoughts about sex as it just wasn’t something I was interested in reading. But sex and the way different characters handle it or have issues with it is definitely a main part of this book and I grew accepting of that.

One small complaint I had is that sometimes the setting did not seem accurate. I lived for six years in Houghton, Michigan in the Upper Peninsula, which is isolated and routinely receives 300 plus inches of snow in a year. I now currently live in Northeast Wisconsin. It seemed strange to me that the world would be so winter locked in the fall. I could see that happening around Thanksgiving and especially in January or February, but not before. I also wondered about the trips to Chicago without mention of Milwaukee or Minneapolis, both of which would be closer to Wisconsin on the Lake Superior shore. Like I said though, these were small items that seemed only out of place to me as I’ve lived in the area. It just showed to me that the author had not, but he still wove a fantastic story.

Overall, it was a great riveting tale that will keep you guessing until the end.

Book Source: The Kewaunee Public Library