Audiobook Review : Exhalation by Ted Chiang
Written By: amodini
-
Jun•
29•22
Title : Exhalation
Author : Frederik Backman
Narrators : Ted Chiang, Eduardo Ballerini, Dominic Hoffman, Amy Landon
Genre : Sci-fi
Publisher : Random House Audio
Listening Length : 11 hours 22 minutes
Rating : 3/5
Narrator Rating : 3.5/5
I picked this audiobook of 9 separate tales because they were rooted in sci-fi. And they are, but they also attempt to answer philosophical questions. While I did like some of the stories (the 1st and the 2nd), they are heavy on the science and light on character development and emotion.
Since I was expecting sci-fi, I was not quite prepared for the first story “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” which is situated in Cairo and Baghdad of the medieval times. That one read like a pleasant fable – like one from Aesop – albeit one with a time-travel gate. Still the prose seemed to flow, the events were interesting and the characters engaging. I listened on in delight.
The second story is “Exhalation” and is about a robot population which notices a dissonant note in their orderly and precise existence and analyze it to come upon a surprising and dispiriting revelation. The third tale “What’s expected of Us” is short, and finished before I had time to grasp it.
The fourth story “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” was long and about developing and growing virtual, AI-based animals. It tried to use the “animal growing” to make points about bringing up children. This one read like a litany of events. There was no character development so I didn’t really care about the humans in it. The fifth “Dacey’s Patent automatic Nanny” read like a layman-friendly scientific research paper.
While the concepts in these stories are interesting – also why I completed the book instead of giving it up halfway – these would have been better presented as essays. As stories, these, except for the 1st 2, are rather thin on the “story” aspect.
Audiobook Review : Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Written By: amodini
-
Jun•
01•22
Title : Wild
Author : Cheryl Strayed
Narrators : Bernadette Dunne
Genre : Non-fiction
Publisher : Random House Audio
Listening Length : 13 hours 2 minutes
Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Narrator Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2
Cheryl loses her mother to cancer and the loss hits her hard. When she tries to keep her siblings together as a family, it doesn’t work and they drift apart. Their step-father has moved on with his life. Cheryl is married to a loving, supportive man, but is now on the brink of divorce. Her life, in short, is falling apart and she needs a fresh start. Then she sees a guidebook to hiking the PCT – Pacific Crest Trail, and decides to hike it. Wild is the story of Cheryl hiking the PCT and as she puts it – filling the hole in her heart.
This book was better than I’d anticipated. The author keeps things interesting by describing her challenges in great detail – how she is quite unprepared for such a rigourous and extended hike, her travails with Monster – her large and over-heavy backpack, and the toll the hike takes on her body – the blisters and peeling skin, flesh wounds and lost toenails. Although she hikes alone, Cheryl peppers her narrative with the many interesting characters she meets along the trail – fellow hikers, and also the people along the rest stops, where she stops to pick up supplies. For the most part, people are nice and helpful, and Cheryl is comforted by the new friendships and the kindness of strangers.
The author also very nicely intersperses her personal life story with the descriptions of the hike itself so it melded together to form one interesting story. She is brutally honest, even describing her proclivities outside her marriage and her experiments with heroin. I quite enjoyed the book and look forward to seeing the movie based upon it. The narrator Bernadette Dunne was marvellous, and it was a pleasure listening to the book! Highly recommended!
Audiobook Review : Britt-Marie Was Here by Frederik Backman
Written By: amodini
-
May•
04•22
Title : Britt-Marie Was Here
Author : Frederik Backman
Narrators : Joan Walker
Genre : Contemporary
Publisher : Simon & Schuster Audio
Listening Length : 9 hours 18 minutes
Rating : 4.5/5
Narrator Rating : 5/5
Frederik Backman’s books are always nice and often moving. However they can be a little “glib” overdong the sweetness of some scenarios – so I kind of expect that whenever I pick up one of his books. I have to say that Britt-Marie Was Here is my most favorite of all of Backman’s books that I have read because it is just right and has all his regular ingredients – sweetness, heart-breaking sadness and poignant emotion – in perfect proportion.
Britt-Marie is married to Kent who has stopped paying her any attention. Once they were apparently in love but that time has gone, and Kent, a self-professed entrepreneur has taken to spending time away from Britt-Marie. Britt-Marie is a creature of habit and hygiene. She relaxes by cleaning and organizing her home from top to bottom – bicarbonate of soda is a cure for everything. She also loves the familiarity and routine of her everyday chores and her predictable life.
But one day, she leaves Kent and her 40 year old marriage and takes up a job in the little town of Borg as the caretaker of the community center. It is an ill-paid job and a short-lived one; the community center will be closed down soon. There, Britt Marie, an eccentric creature if there ever was once, slowly finds her footing, new friends and confidence in herself. But then Kent lands up on her doorstep, begging forgiveness, promising the world if only she will return with him to their home.
Britt Marie is a character easy to root for. She is a good person, although her goodness is hidden away under her outspoken, unfiltered, behavior where she speaks what she thinks. This good person is shoddily treated, but still manages to retain her core of kindness, and we all root for her to be her own person, and dish it back to all the naysayers in her life.
Backman builds his characters beautifully, not just Britt-Marie but all the people she interacts with – the brother and sister pair of football players and their older brother Sammy, Somebody, the pizza place owner-car mechanic, Sven the policeman and her landlady who once played football. Also Joan Walker is a superb narrator – I’d probably pick up a book just because it was narrated by her.
Britt-Marie Was Here is a fabulous feel-good book – highly recommended!
Audiobook Review : Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Written By: amodini
-
Apr•
06•22
Title : Exit West
Author : Mohsin Hamid
Narrator : Mohsin Hamid
Genre : Contemporary/Fantasy
Publisher : Penguin Audio
Listening Length : 4 hours 42 minutes
Rating : 3.5/5
Narrator Rating : 3.5/5
Exit West is about Nadia and Saeed, two people who live in a city which is soon to be overrun by violence and unrest. When they fall in love, and they do, they must come together in a very uncertain time. Nadia is an independent woman who has left her home to live and work by herself, and is now ostracized by her family and community.
When the city becomes too unsafe, the two escape via “doors”which open up to different parts of the world. Now these “doors” are something special, they are described in the book as almost magical – no science or theory behind it. They simply open up and close down. You enter on one side and exit almost instantly into a different city possibly around the world. Doors to desirable places are heavily guarded, while doors to less desirable locations are not.
With the unrest around the world, and new doors popping up everywhere, refugees move from one place to another, trying to moor their adrift lives. Large refugee populations float around the world, setting up temporary shelters and in some cases squatting on property, facing animosity and distrust from the native populations. Nadia and Saeed too go from city to city trying to find firmer roots to settle down, but ultimately this is also a test of their relationship and it affects their bond. They meet people from different countries, religions and cultures, and gravitate towards what they consider known and familiar.
I’m not sure that I actually “got” this book. The author tries to explain the refugee experience, the transitioning to a new land sans family and friends and familiarity. The main characters were intersting in the beginning as Hamid fleshed out their love story, but their story got a little straggly and disjointed with all the movement between cities and their interaction with random characters. I couldn’t identify with either character, and they always seemed at a remove.
I don’t get the hype around this book; it’s an average read at best. I did like Mohsin Hamid’s narration – could have used some emotion and inflection but it is always nice to hear an author give voice to his words..
Audiobook Review : Chances Are by Richard Russo
Written By: amodini
-
Mar•
09•22
Author : Richard Russo
Narrators : Fred Sanders
Genre : Contemporary
Publisher : Random House Audio
Listening Length : 11 hours 17 minutes
Rating : 2/5
Narrator Rating : 4/5
Three old friends meet up on Martha’s Vineyard where they’d spent many happy moments as college students. Lincoln is a real estate broker who married his college sweetheart. He’s also the one who owns the house (which was his mother’s) on Martha’s Vineyard where they all had congregated then and where they are meeting up now. Teddy, who is bi-polar and subject to sicknesses, is in publishing and Mickey, the impetuous brawler is a musician.
As each of them talks about the time gone past, they remember the lovely Jacy Calloway (they were all in love with her) and her mysterious disappearance after the Memorial Day Weekend when they all went their separate ways. They talk and they talk, and rehash the various things they remember in an effort to gather some clues. The books chapters are told from the perspective of each of the friends, but ultimately the book meanders on, to a very unsatisfying ending.
Now, with Russo, the pleasure is in savoring his words, because he writes so well about the people we are and the relationships that keep us afloat. Even if you don’t relate to a particular character because they might be so far removed from anyone you’ve ever met or imagined, you can still feel for them because of the skill of Russo’s writing. You get attached to his characters; they inspire affection.
This book however did not do that. I found the basic premise weak, and the characters not very likeable. The characters ramble on and wax philosophical, but in general that’s what Russo’s characters do. The difference here is that mostly I’m sympathetic to their plight or at least like them a little – here I didn’t really care to follow along or get swept up in the anguish of their one lost love, who disappeared 44 years ago.
I can’t recommend this book. Re-read Empire Falls instead.
Narrator Fred Sanders is great; I look forward to more of his work.
