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?

Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff (audio)

Cleopatra is a wonderful biography that vividly brings the infamous queen and the land she ruled to life. Cleopatra has had an image problem and many myths about her life have cropped up over the past two thousand years. Stacy Schiff explores these myths and works to bring the true story of Cleopatra to life.

Cleopatra is known for being a seductress that used her feminine wiles to seduce two of the greatest men in history – Julius Cesar and Marc Antony. Schiff sorts through the legends and shows that Cleopatra was much more than a seductress, she was a great ruler. She had fabulous wealth, a wonderful education, and a great wit. She was able to keep Egypt out of the grasp of Rome for many years. She was one of the most influential rulers along the mediterreean, but when she tried to forge a new empire with Marc Antony, it was the end for both – and for Egypt.

Schiff wrote a magnificent book that had wonderful prose. The vivid scenes of Alexandria made me feel as though I was walking along the streets viewing the City. It made me really wish I could be there, but since I couldn’t, it was the next best thing. Schiff made history come alive in Cleopatra, and she also made a non-fiction historical story read like fiction. I found myself caught up in Cleopatra’s life and although I knew how it would end, I was intrigued by the details.

I loved the detailed history in Cleopatra. The book contained not only the history of the woman, but the history of the time including that of Julius Cesar, Marc Antony, and Octavian. Of particular interest to me was the history of King Herod of Israel. King Herod is the king of biblical fame that the Wise Men visit on their way to see Baby Jesus. Yes, the evil king who kills all of the children aged 2 and under in order to rid himself of the threat of Jesus. Herod had many dealings with Cleopatra as laid out in this book. It was intriguing seeing biblical history merge with the history of such a notorious woman. It seems that Herod killing babies to rid himself of a threat was in the mainstream of the ruthlessness that rulers of the day employed to keep their crowns.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book as read by Robin Miles. I thought Miles did a fantastic job reading the book. Her voice was pleasing to listen to and let the story evolve without turning into a monotonous and dry history reading.

Overall, Cleopatra is a book not to be missed, especially for all lovers of history, or anyone who is interested in the real woman behind the legend.

Cleopatra is my second audiobook for The Audiobook Challenge 2011.

Book Source: Review Copy from Hachette Book Group. Thank-you!

Winners of Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff

I apologize for posting the two winners of the audiobook version of Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff so late. I was out of town this past weekend for my sister's baby shower and returned to a boat load of work that was due for a meeting on Wednesday. When Wednesday arrived, not one, not two, but all three of my kids came down with a nasty flu bug that included high fevers and other nasty flu side effects. Two out of the three are still sick today, but I think we've turned a corner. I'm just happy to get to my computer a bit of "me" time!

There was a lot of interest in this book, but unfortunately, there can only be two winners. And the two winners of Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff are Esme of Chocolate and Croissants and Nichole. Both winners were chosen using random.org and were notified via email. They have until next Thursday, February 3rd to send me their mailing addresses. If I do not hear from them, new winners will be chosen.

Thank-you to Anna from Hachette Book Group for allowing me to host this great giveaway! Thank-you to all who entered this giveaway! I still have one giveaway currently on my sidebar (The Perfect Bride for Mr. Darcy) and have a couple more that will be posted this next week so stay tuned!

I am currently listening to the audiobook of Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff and am enjoying it greatly. If you didn't win this book, I highly recommend picking it up!

Giveaway - Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff Audiobook

I am excited to be able to give away two audiobook copies of the new biography, Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff courtesy of Hachette Book Group. Entertainment Weekly recently had this book in its top ten non-fiction books of 2010. I can't wait to listen to this audiobook myself!

Audiobook Description (from Hachette Book Group):
The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer brings to life the most intriguing woman in the history of the world: Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt.

Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator.

Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious sister as well; incest and assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex with only two men. They happen, however, to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, among the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra had a child with Caesar and--after his murder--three more with his protégé. Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antony confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two would together attempt to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations ever since.

Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra's supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff 's is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.

About the Author (from Hachette Book Group):
Stacy Schiff is the author of Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Saint-Exupéry, a Pulitzer Prize finalist; and A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, winner of the George Washington Book Prize, the Ambassador Award in American Studies, and the Gilbert Chinard Prize of the Institut Français d'Amérique. All three were New York Times Notable Books; the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Chicago Tribune, and The Economist also named A Great Improvisation a Best Book of the Year. The biographies have been published in a host of foreign editions.

Schiff has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and was a Director’s Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She was awarded a 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Schiff has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe, among other publications. She lives in New York City.

Giveaway Details:
Anna of Hachette Book Group has been kind enough to offer two copies of the audiobook version of Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff for a giveaway.

If you would like to win a copy of Cleopatra, please leave a comment about what intrigues you about the novel. As part of your comment, you must include an email address. If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner.

For an additional entry, blog about this giveaway or post it on your sidebar. Provide a link to this post in your comment.

I will be using random.org to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is only open to US and Canadian residents (Sorry!).

No P.O. Boxes.

Winners will be subject to the one copy per household rule, which means that if you win the same title in two or more contests, you will receive only one copy of the title in the mail.

The deadline for entry is midnight, Friday January 21st.

Good luck!