Category Archives: Audio

March 17, 2024 · 1:57 pm

Lola in the Mirror – Trent Dalton

Lola in the Mirror – Trent Dalton

I have read all of Trent Dalton’s works. I thought Boy Swallows Universe was fabulous.

I listened to this one, which might have been a mistake, because I think there were illustrations in the paper version? I am not sure.

Here’s the blurb …

Bighearted, gritty, magical and moving, Lola in the Mirror is the irresistible new novel from international bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe and All Our Shimmering Skies , Trent Dalton.
‘Mirror, mirror, on the grass, what’s my future? What’s my past?’ A girl and her mother are on the lam. They’ve been running for sixteen years, from police and the monster they left in the kitchen with the knife in his throat. They’ve found themselves a home inside an orange 1987 Toyota HiAce van with four flat tyres parked in a scrapyard by the edge of the Brisbane River – just two of the 100,000 Australians sleeping rough every night. The girl has no name because names are dangerous when you’re on the run. But the girl has a dream. Visions in black ink and living colour. A vision of a life as a groundbreaking artist of international acclaim. A life outside the grip of the Brisbane underworld drug queen ‘Lady’ Flora Box. A life of love with the boy in the brown suit who’s waiting for her in the middle of the bridge that stretches across a flooding and deadly river. A life far beyond the bullet that has her name on it. And now that the storm clouds are rising, there’s only one person who can help make her dreams come true. That person’s name is Lola and she carries all the answers. But to find Lola, the girl with no name must first do one of the hardest things we can sometimes ever do. She must look in the mirror. A big, moving, blackly funny, violent, heartbreaking and beautiful novel of love, fate, life and death and all the things we see when we look in the mirror. All of the past, all of the present, and all of our possible futures. ‘Mirror, mirror, please don’t lie. Tell me who you are. Tell me who am I.’

Trent Dalton is very good at dialogue, I love the conversations the characters have. The body count is high in this novel (and it’s not always the people you want it to be). It is very grim.

A review.

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February 9, 2024 · 4:18 pm

Study for Obedience – Sarah Bernstein

Study for Obedience – Sarah Bernstein

I listened to the audible version of this novel (I discovered it because it was short listed for the Booker prize last year (2023)).

Here’s the blurb …

A haunting, compressed masterwork from an extraordinary new voice in Canadian fiction.

A young woman moves from the place of her birth to the remote northern country of her forebears to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has recently left him. 

Soon after her arrival, a series of inexplicable events occurs – collective bovine hysteria; the demise of a ewe and her nearly born lamb; a local dog’s phantom pregnancy; a potato blight. She notices that the local suspicion about incomers in general seems to be directed with some intensity at her and she senses a mounting threat that lies ‘just beyond the garden gate.’ And as she feels the hostility growing, pressing at the edges of her brother’s property, she fears that, should the rumblings in the town gather themselves into a more defined shape, who knows what might happen, what one might be capable of doing.

With a sharp, lyrical voice, Sarah Bernstein powerfully explores questions of complicity and power, displacement and inheritance. Study for Obedience is a finely tuned, unsettling novel that confirms Bernstein as one of the most exciting voices of her generation.

I think listening to it was a particularly good idea as it is narrated by a young women in a way that feels like she is telling the story to you. I liked her voice and her thoughts about herself, the world and her place in the world. As the novel progresses, I wondered if I should be taking her words at face value. In the end she might be an unreliable narrator or have a different view of the world than everyone else. I don’t want to give too much away – it’s a short novel, so you can read it yourself if you want to know.

A review.

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February 3, 2024 · 4:34 pm

The Improbability of Love – Hannah Rothschild

The Improbability of Love – Hannah Rothschild

Cornflower books had mentioned that she enjoyed this novel and as her recommendations are always good, I borrowed the audible version.

Here’s the blurb …

A dazzling, witty and tenderly savage satire of London life and the art world that is also a surprising and wonderful love story.

When lovelorn Annie McDee stumbles across a dirty painting in a junk shop while looking for a present for an unsuitable man, she has no idea what she has discovered. Soon she finds herself drawn unwillingly into the tumultuous London art world, populated by exiled Russian oligarchs, avaricious Sheikas, desperate auctioneers and unscrupulous dealers, all scheming to get their hands on her painting – a lost eighteenth-century masterpiece called ‘The Improbability of Love’. Delving into the painting’s past, Annie will uncover not just an illustrious list of former owners, but some of the darkest secrets of European history – and in doing so she might just learn to open up to the possibility of falling in love again.

I really enjoyed this novel – more than The House of Trelawney – it is told from the perspective of many very different characters (including the painting). I enjoyed hearing about art, food, history, and art restoration. It is rich, witty and the characters are fabulous. I loved it – favourite read for the year (so far).

A review.

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January 22, 2024 · 1:38 pm

The Fire and the Rose – Robyn Cadwallader

The Fire and The Rose – Robyn Cadwallader

As I have read and enjoyed The Book of Colours, I was keen to read this one. In fact, I got a paper and an audio version from the library. In the end I listened to it.

Here’s the blurb …

England, 1276: Forced to leave her home village, Eleanor moves to Lincoln to work as a housemaid. She’s prickly, independent and stubborn, her prospects blighted by a port-wine birthmark across her face. Unusually for a woman, she has fine skills with ink and quill, and harbours a secret ambition to work as a scribe, a profession closed to women.

Eleanor discovers that Lincoln is a dangerous place, divided by religious prejudice, the Jews frequently the focus of violence and forced to wear a yellow badge. Eleanor falls in love with Asher, a Jewish spicer, who shares her love of books and words, but their relationship is forbidden by law. When Eleanor is pulled into the dark depths of the church’s machinations against Jews and the king issues an edict expelling all Jews from England, Eleanor and Asher are faced with an impossible choice.

Vivid, rich, deep and sensual, The Fire and the Rose is a tender and moving novel about how language, words and books have the power to change and shape lives. Most powerfully, it is also a novel about what it is to be made ‘other’, to be exiled from home and family. But it is also a call to recognise how much we need the other, the one we do not understand, making it a strikingly resonant and powerfully hopeful novel for our times.

I enjoyed it. It reminded me of The Weight of Ink – female scribe plus the Jewish context. It was beautifully written with lots of historical detail; social history, Christian and Jewish history, information about the wool trade and spices, usury and living conditions. Antisemitism is endemic (quite appropriate to out times). The one thing I struggled with was the freedoms Eleanor had; I know she was poor, but to be able to support herself as a scribe and keep her baby seemed unrealistic in those brutal times.

A review

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January 16, 2024 · 3:02 pm

The Burnout – Sophie Kinsella

The Burnout – Sophie Kinsella

I think I must have come across this while browsing Borrowbox. I reserved it, there was probably a two month wait. I haven’t read anything else by Sophie Kinsella, but I have seen the movie version of Confessions of a Shopaholic, which I enjoyed.

Here’s the blurb …

Sasha has had it. She cannot bring herself to respond to another inane, “urgent” (but obviously not at all urgent) email or participate in the corporate employee joyfulness program. She hasn’t seen her friends in months. Sex? Seems like a lot of effort. Even cooking dinner takes far too much planning. Sasha has hit a wall.

Armed with good intentions to drink kale smoothies, try yoga, and find peace, she heads to the seaside resort she loved as a child. But it’s the off season, the hotel is in a dilapidated shambles, and she has to share the beach with the only other a grumpy guy named Finn, who seems as stressed as Sasha. How can she commune with nature when he’s sitting on her favorite rock, watching her? Nor can they agree on how best to alleviate their burnout ( manifesting, wild swimming; drinking whisky, getting pizza delivered to the beach).

When curious messages, seemingly addressed to Sasha and Finn, begin to appear on the beach, the two are forced to talk—about everything. How did they get so burned out? Can either of them remember something they used to love? (Answer: surfing!) And the question they try and fail to ignore: what does the energy between them—flaring even in the face of their bone-deep exhaustion—signify?

I really enjoyed this and the narrator (Bessie Carter) was fabulous. It’s a romcom so you know what to expect, but the dialogue is clever and witty, and all of the minor characters are hilarious, particularly Cassidy, Herbert, Simon and Nikolas – the hotel employees. It is quite long (over 12 hours) and could have been edited to be a bit tighter (but I always think things need editing, so it’s probably just me).

A review

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