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Book Logging (Audiobooks)
Audiobooks:
Abbott, Tony. Secrets of Droon 1: The Hidden Stairs - Audiobook read by Oliver Wyman. The file from Overdrive was the first three books, but I didn’t bother with the 2nd or the 3rd. I started listening to this while showering because I figured that, if I missed things, it wouldn’t matter particularly. The three books together ran about three hours and fifteen minutes. These books are part of a set of early reader chapter books, portals fantasies. I’m not sure how long the series is or when it started coming out, but I think I remember a book or two from the series on beginning chapter book racks when Cordelia was in kindergarten. I remember the covers being brightly colored and very busy. There weren’t any surprises in the plot, but I didn’t expect any, given the target audience.
Aiken, Joan. Arabel and Mortimer - Audiobook read by Sneha Mathan. I lost the last track or tracks on the first CD (1n was ‘not available’ to play. I can’t tell if that was the end or not). I’ve never read any of the books about Arabel and Mortimer, so this was new to me. I was expecting the story to be odder. Most of the Aiken I’ve read recently was short stories, and those often get very weird. I don’t think I’ll go on because I was mostly just irritated by the story.
August, John. Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire - Audiobook read by James Patrick Cronin. I actually liked this quite a lot. I didn’t expect to as I’d never heard of it before I tried the sample on Overdrive. It’s pretty clearly a first book in a series and in the Harry Potter sub-genre, but I had a lot of fun. Arlo’s a sixth grader who just moved to a new (U.S.) town and joined a sort of magical scouting program. There isn’t a named villain, but there are definitely dark forces in opposition. I’m not sure how much of my enjoyment was the story/prose and how much the performance, but I think that both contributed.
Bosch, Pseudonymous. Bad News - Audiobook read by Aaron Landon. This is the third book in the series. I had to get it via Overdrive because the library is shifting away from getting books like this on CD (which I prefer). The story rolls along pretty well in this one. I can’t tell if the ending is meant to be a series ending or just a middle book ending. It could go either way.
Nimmo, Jenny. The Snow Spider - Audiobook read by John Keating. This is only about three and a half hours long. I wasn’t enamoured of the vocal performance, but it wasn’t enough to put me off the story. There were parts of it I liked and parts I didn’t. The story’s a children’s fantasy set in Wales. The main character is a boy of eleven or twelve who’s just starting to come into magic powers and who doesn’t have any sort of firm guidance about what he’s doing. He does some things that he doesn’t mean to, some things that work more or less as he intends, some things that work but are bad choices. It feels very much like a first installment in a series because there are a lot things never addressed/explained.
Older, Daniel Jose. Shadowshaper - Audiobook read by Anika Noni Rose. I really liked the vocal performance by the reader here. Sadly, the library doesn’t seem to have any other audiobooks read by Rose, a number of DVDs of things in which she acted, yes, but not other audiobooks. The identity of the villain was pretty immediately obvious, but I don’t think that it was meant to be difficult to figure out, and it was beyond plausible and into probable. Older writes very good sensory stuff that’s not all visual. There’s a sequel to this, but our library doesn’t have it as an audiobook right now. I put it on my list of things to try in paper eventually, but I’ve got something like 3000 things on that list (and I’m limiting myself to things the library actually owns). YA urban fantasy with very strong sense of place and culture. Highly recommended.
Abbott, Tony. Secrets of Droon 1: The Hidden Stairs - Audiobook read by Oliver Wyman. The file from Overdrive was the first three books, but I didn’t bother with the 2nd or the 3rd. I started listening to this while showering because I figured that, if I missed things, it wouldn’t matter particularly. The three books together ran about three hours and fifteen minutes. These books are part of a set of early reader chapter books, portals fantasies. I’m not sure how long the series is or when it started coming out, but I think I remember a book or two from the series on beginning chapter book racks when Cordelia was in kindergarten. I remember the covers being brightly colored and very busy. There weren’t any surprises in the plot, but I didn’t expect any, given the target audience.
Aiken, Joan. Arabel and Mortimer - Audiobook read by Sneha Mathan. I lost the last track or tracks on the first CD (1n was ‘not available’ to play. I can’t tell if that was the end or not). I’ve never read any of the books about Arabel and Mortimer, so this was new to me. I was expecting the story to be odder. Most of the Aiken I’ve read recently was short stories, and those often get very weird. I don’t think I’ll go on because I was mostly just irritated by the story.
August, John. Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire - Audiobook read by James Patrick Cronin. I actually liked this quite a lot. I didn’t expect to as I’d never heard of it before I tried the sample on Overdrive. It’s pretty clearly a first book in a series and in the Harry Potter sub-genre, but I had a lot of fun. Arlo’s a sixth grader who just moved to a new (U.S.) town and joined a sort of magical scouting program. There isn’t a named villain, but there are definitely dark forces in opposition. I’m not sure how much of my enjoyment was the story/prose and how much the performance, but I think that both contributed.
Bosch, Pseudonymous. Bad News - Audiobook read by Aaron Landon. This is the third book in the series. I had to get it via Overdrive because the library is shifting away from getting books like this on CD (which I prefer). The story rolls along pretty well in this one. I can’t tell if the ending is meant to be a series ending or just a middle book ending. It could go either way.
Nimmo, Jenny. The Snow Spider - Audiobook read by John Keating. This is only about three and a half hours long. I wasn’t enamoured of the vocal performance, but it wasn’t enough to put me off the story. There were parts of it I liked and parts I didn’t. The story’s a children’s fantasy set in Wales. The main character is a boy of eleven or twelve who’s just starting to come into magic powers and who doesn’t have any sort of firm guidance about what he’s doing. He does some things that he doesn’t mean to, some things that work more or less as he intends, some things that work but are bad choices. It feels very much like a first installment in a series because there are a lot things never addressed/explained.
Older, Daniel Jose. Shadowshaper - Audiobook read by Anika Noni Rose. I really liked the vocal performance by the reader here. Sadly, the library doesn’t seem to have any other audiobooks read by Rose, a number of DVDs of things in which she acted, yes, but not other audiobooks. The identity of the villain was pretty immediately obvious, but I don’t think that it was meant to be difficult to figure out, and it was beyond plausible and into probable. Older writes very good sensory stuff that’s not all visual. There’s a sequel to this, but our library doesn’t have it as an audiobook right now. I put it on my list of things to try in paper eventually, but I’ve got something like 3000 things on that list (and I’m limiting myself to things the library actually owns). YA urban fantasy with very strong sense of place and culture. Highly recommended.