Sunday Coffee – Struggling for Balance

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Thistle

IMG_9262Sometimes balance is so hard. I’ve gotten much better about blog-balance in the last few years, but every time I have a major life change, I struggle to get my life back into balance. And 2015 has brought along some major changes.

I’ve begun studying for a paralegal course through UT Austin. It’s a self-paced certification course, one of the best in the country, and I have a year to complete it. I would like to complete it in half that time, however, by the time my kids leave school at the end of June. I need to put in 360 hours of studying, so that takes a lot more of the time I used to have for other interests.

In addition, I’ve begun studying Spanish. I’ve always been interested in languages, and spent much of high school and college in intensive French courses (including some study abroad). I’ve tried to keep up with French in the years since, especially reading books in French, though I admit that I’m not nearly as proficient as I used to be. I also have some basic knowledge of Italian and German. Most useful to me is Spanish – especially given that my youngest son is pretty much fluent after five years in a dual-language elementary school, my two older sons are both in intensive Spanish courses in middle school, and my husband knows a little Spanish as well. I got a great Groupon deal on five volumes of Rosetta Stone for Latin American Spanish this past fall, and I’m enjoying the learning process. But again, it takes up time.

I’m cooking more, because I’m trying to eat paleo-style most of the time. My body reacts well to this way of eating, and I feel better, sleep better, and have more energy when I’m eating properly. But it does take a lot of prep work and cooking. Jason does most of the cooking in our house, but no one else here eats this way, so I have separate meals and can’t just expect him to cook additional food for me all the time!

Plus, I’m still a stay at home mom, taking care of the kids, taking care of the household, which takes a lot of time and energy. Plus, I’m still trying to exercise. Plus, I’m trying to write and submit manuscripts. Plus, I’m trying to spend some time to myself, reserved for reading and relaxing, for my sanity’s sake. These things – kids, household, fitness, writing, submitting, me-time – were already enough to take up my full 24/7 schedule. With the extra cooking and all that studying taking up an additional 5-6 hours every day…well, let’s just say that some parts of my life are getting the shaft, and I haven’t yet found a good balance for everything.

I’ve tried simply eating what everyone else is eating, and forget eating the way I need to eat to be healthy. That’s resulted in a lot of depression, fatigue, and general unhealthiness. I’ve skipped exercise for weeks now. Not good. I’ve barely written a thing all year, or started submitting my work. The housework and spending time with the boys is getting skimped on as well. Sigh. At least I still have audiobooks as I clean, cook, and exercise (when I manage to clean, cook, or exercise…).

I’m sure I’ll get that balance back soon. I spent a few hours last week making a healthy food and fitness plan for February, which has helped. I’ve tried to better organize my day in time blocks. I’m trying to rely more on audiobooks for my reading pleasures. And I’m finding ways to push myself to write. In particular, I have two very good beta-reader friends who are going to be reading my current manuscript chapter by chapter as I go along, so push me into self-imposed weekly deadlines. Hopefully soon, after a month of floundering, I’ll get myself back on track!

Posted in Personal, Wellness | Tagged | 8 Comments

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke (audio)

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Thistle

jsandmnThis book is way too long and multi-plotted for me to try to describe on my own. I’d paste in the Goodreads synopsis, but that’s also extraordinarily long, so instead, if you don’t really know what this book is about, you can check it out at that link. Generally, it’s about the restoration of English magic, the rivalry of two magicians, and the ways in which English magic can affect (both good and bad) the people of England. And it’s built on the mythology of the Raven King, which is kinda cool, considering that my favorite series of 2014 was also built on that same mythology. I like the symmetry.

So I have an interesting story to tell about this book:

*****
Back when Ms. Manda first started blogging, she got involved with a group called Fill in the Gaps. She doesn’t believe the group is still running, but the basic premise was a personal reading challenge with no end date or deadline. You chose 100 books you felt you needed to read, and then as you read them – over as many years as you pleased – you marked them off. Ms. Manda had seen Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (hereafter known as JS&MN) all over the place. A bedrock of modern fantasy, on all of those “must read” lists. She had this vague notion that she needed to read it, despite not knowing one thing about the book. So she put it on her Gaps list.

In the summer of 2009, she found this book at her local used bookstore and bought it. The size was intimidating, and the cover art didn’t really do anything for her. [Seriously. Look at it.] When she tried to read it, she found the text dull from the very first word. She didn’t get very far. Like, maybe only a few paragraphs. Sadly, she decided the book was not for her, and re-donated it to the used bookstore.

[Okay. So this story isn’t interesting yet. I know. Bear with me.]

Fast forward a little over four years, to the fall of 2014. Ms. Manda goes walking around the audiobook section of her local library and chooses a bunch of potential listening materials. On a whim, she picks out JS&MN. It has stuck in the back of her mind as one of those books always on the “must read” lists, and she figures, hey, she’s always been more tolerant of books in audio format. Besides, in the four-plus years since she first tried to read this, she’s grown to really enjoy fantasy. Plus, she’s heard great things about the narrator, Simon Prebble. Might as well give it a chance!

Now, this audiobook is 26 disks long. There is no way Ms. Manda is going to upload all 26 disks only to give up on the audiobook in the first five minutes. So she’s smart. She uploads one disk, and previews it. And this time, she’s hooked from the very first sentence. This time, she devours the book and loves every single minute of it. This time, she wants to acquire a physical copy, in spite of the dull cover art, because she’s heard there are illustrations inside, and that would make the entire experience even more complete.
*****

Okay. I’m done telling stories. Honestly, I don’t know what happened between 2009 and 2014. I don’t know if I was just ready this time, or if it was the audio format (Simon Prebble was fantastic), or if my reading tastes have just changed a ton, or if the book was far less intimidating now that I’m no longer crossing it off an arbitrary list. Probably a combination of all those things. One way or another, I enjoyed every single word of this audiobook, and loved all the weeks I spent listening to its 32+ hours. That really doesn’t tell you anything about the book itself, but I don’t know that I could really tell you about the book itself. It’s more than a story. It’s an experience, one totally worth having!

PS – I am so looking forward to the upcoming BBC mini-series!

Posted in 2015, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , , , | 18 Comments

Top Ten Unread SF/F Classics

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Thistle

Over the last three years, I’ve developed a strong love for SF/F, especially fantasy. Having said that, there is a huge gap in my reading. There are very few SF/F classics that I’ve read, and I probably ought to read more of them. They scare me, though, and so these ten remain on my top ten “I should read them but haven’t” list.

dune1. Dune by Frank Herbert – Honestly, I really doubt I will like this book. It just doesn’t sound like my kind of book, and people who know my tastes say they don’t think I will like it. It’s so influential, though, and I feel like I should read it.

2. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – As I’ve said in the past, I’ve avoided this one because I don’t like the author. But I have a feeling I’ll like the book, whenever I do finally cave to the pressure to read it.

3. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin – Actually, anything by this author will do. She intimidates me. Though recently I heard more about The Left Hand of Darkness, and considering I’m specifically looking for non-binary fiction, I might just have to get to that one sooner rather than later.

colour4. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett – My first experience with Pratchett was  children’s book and way too young for me. I should put aside that first impression and try to get into Discworld.

5. The Hobbit (+) by JRR Tolkien – Like Dune, all of Tolkien’s books have been so influential and are ones I should read, though I doubt I will enjoy them. Of all the books on this list, this is (or, these are) the ones I feel most guilty about skipping.

6. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov – Again, any Asimov will do. But he intimidates the snot out of me.

7. the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan – Technically, I’ve read the first of the series. And didn’t get much out of it. Still, I want to keep going with it, both because it’s so influential, and because Brandon Sanderson wrote the last few books, and I adore Sanderson…

neverwhere8. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman – I tried reading this once, and quit reading on the first (vomit-related) scene. Books that open with that kind of scene are automatically no-nos for me. But I’ve heard it’s really good, and the rest of the book doesn’t follow on the same Manda-phobia paths, so I really ought to suck it up and try again.

9. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon – I imagine this would be a love-or-hate kind of book for me. And honestly, I’m a little worried about ending up on the hate-side. So I’ve avoided it thus far.

10. anything by China Mieville – Another author that intimidates me so much. But I ought to get over it and read him anyway.

What do y’all think? Any of these I ought not to be afraid of? Or biased against?

topten

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 11 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Wrapping Up January

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Thistle

IMG_9235Can I just exclaim a little at how happy a reading month I had in January? I finished five books – a steady, comfortable speed for me, especially considering I’d started one of those books in the last week of 2014. Two were audiobooks. Two were nonfiction (unusual for me, but I loved them both). My three fiction reads were all speculative (figures!) and I’d count three of five books this month as diverse. All five were new-to-me authors. All five, if I still rated books, would be 4+ stars. While it was really hard to pick a single favorite from a group of five wonderful reads, I’d have to say that All Joy and No Fun beat the other four out by a tiny margin.

In addition to having some really excellent reads this January, I did a lot of work on purging my TBR and to-investigate piles, cutting 20-25 books from those lists and making them both feel far more manageable. I also sorted my TBR into already-published and not-yet-published piles, so that the latter doesn’t bloat up my TBR and make me hyperventilate. Yes, I know, I’m weird. But it works for me.

I didn’t get nearly as much progress forward as I wished to on my loose 2015 goals, but it’s early days still, right? I have plenty of time, and I’m definitely working toward those things. Balance is proving to be difficult at times. More on that next Sunday.

Keeping it short this week. How was everyone else’s January? What was your favorite read of the month?

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 5 Comments

House of Shadows, by Rachel Neumeier

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Thistle

houseshadowsWhen eight sisters are orphaned, two must enter contracts outside the home in order for the others to survive. Karah is taken in by the most prestigious and respected Flower House (think Geisha) in Lonne. Nemienne is apprenticed to a mage in order to learn magecraft and become a mage herself. This book follows their stories and that of a foreign sorcerer, Taudde, who has snuck into the country illegally only a season before his country and the one he enters will likely go to war.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about this book. The story and characters were well-crafted and multi-layered. The pacing was a lot slower than I normally see in YA, which isn’t a negative. It was one of those books, like when I read A Game of Thrones a year ago, that I read over a longer period of time, stopping between each chapter to reflect. I love that. The world was also fascinating, a sort of medieval Europe meets traditional Japan, plus magic and politics and intrigue.

The only negative for me was that the last few chapters felt a little expository, using long drawn-out conversations to convey the thousand fall-outs from the climax. I felt like it might have been pared down a bit, but not by a lot. For the most part, it still flowed well and didn’t detract from the rest of the story. And, I admit, I did love seeing everyone’s outcomes.

Good book. This is the first I’ve read by Neumeier, and I think I need to check out some of her other novels now (both YA and adult).

Posted in 2015, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged | 2 Comments

Choose Your Own Autobiography, by Neil Patrick Harris

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Thistle

cyoaWhen I was a kid, I loved Choose Your Own Adventure novels. There’s one in particular, The Magic of the Unicorn, that I read over and over and over. Having always been a pragmatic, logical kind of person, I took a pragmatic, logical kind of approach to the unicorn book. The first few times, I read whichever path my heart desired. Then after that, I systematically explored every single possible option, one by one, in order, until I’d found every possible ending in the book. Then I went page by page through the book to verify that I hadn’t missed anything. Yes, that’s the kind of kid I was.

And really, that’s the kind of adult I am as well, except now, I have better tools. Post-it flags are my friend! I have to say, I have no idea how Neil Patrick Harris turned this into an audiobook – I might revisit the book just to see – because after the first few paths that followed fairly page-order, they started jumping everywhere in the book. My strategy? (Because yes, I had to make sure to find every single storyline.) Every time I came to a crossroads, I’d stick a flag on the “go to page XX” that I didn’t follow. Then every time I found an end to a story, or landed on something I’d already read, I’d go back to a random flag and go in a new direction.

The format of the book made it a very fun experience. It also made me read a lot faster than I would have under normal circumstances. (Especially because I don’t really read a lot of nonfiction and tend to read it very slowly.) I tore through the book in two days, until there were no more flags left to follow and it was time to skim cover to cover for anything I’d missed. Ironically, while I’d somehow missed several sections of autobiography, I’d actually found both secret hidden pages by accident well before my systematic page-by-page flipping. Success!

To note:

– This book was far better than the only other Choose Your Own Adventure book I’ve read as an adult. (To be fair, I doubt Nabokov meant Pale Fire to be a CYOA format. Even though it was, really. Only far less interesting.) (But I still like The Magic of the Unicorn best. Sorry. It’s a nostalgia thing.)

– It wasn’t entirely perfect. I admit, I could have done without ever finding the Harold and Kumar section. I know it was meant to be gross and satirical and awful, but I still could have done without it.

– My kids appreciated the magic tricks.

– I was incredibly amused at the three endings involving typical CYOA random-twists and never-to-be-filmed sequels.

– Neil Patrick Harris is awesome. Vladimir Nabokov is also awesome, though in taking himself too seriously, he missed an opportunity to pioneer the CYOA craze fourteen years before it actually began. NPH, on the other hand, does not take himself too seriously. Which leads back to the first statement of this paragraph.

The end.

Posted in 2015, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Top Ten Book Club Books

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Thistle

Back in 2006, as a new stay-at-home mom desperate for adult company, I started a classics book club at my local library. This book club thrived, and I ran it for about 5.5 years before time conflicts obliged me to give it up. I adored that book club, and have never found another one where I felt 100% comfortable. At the same time, being constrained to classics eventually became a bit tiresome, and I started wishing for a group that discussed a whole variety of books, a group of friends with like-minded interests, rotating host duties every month. Maybe one day, I’ll have a group like that. In the meantime, I present the top ten books (in no particular order) that I would love to discuss with this sort of book club!

unit1. Possession by AS Byatt – This is one of my all-time favorite books and so rich with layers. It’s also the sort of book that people either love or hate. It would create a fantastic discussion! (Bonus: Movie!)

2. The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist – I wish more people would read this book. I wish I had people with whom to discuss the ending, the ethics, the world-building…

3. Seraphina by Rachel Hartman – I loved this one so much but was never able to form coherent thoughts to review it. A book club would help me to wrap my head around why I loved it so much, I think.

26621694. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan – Another knotty, layered book with a ton to dissect. As the years passed in my classics book club, I found that this kind of book always created the best meetings/discussions.

5. The Host by Stephenie Meyer – Because it’s so much better than Twilight, and because again, there are tons of things to discuss here (ethics, humanity, discrimination…). (Bonus: Movie!)

6. Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy – Really, I just want more people to read this one. Please? (Bonus: Movie!)

7. Elantris by Brandon Sanderson – Actually, any and all Brandon Sanderson will do. But this one, being a standalone and (again) very layered, would make an excellent discussion.

little-children-novel-tom-perrotta-paperback-cover-art8. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker – Slow, literary fantasy steeped in mythology and history. Would be so fun to dissect with a group!

9. The Tapestry of Love by Rosy Thornton – The premise and story are simple; the emotions and people are not. Plus, more people need to read Ms. Thornton!

10. Little Children by Tom Perotta – I can’t not compare this one with Kate Chopin’s Awakening, which I did read with my classics club, and which did generate excellent conversation. And like Brandon Sanderson, pretty much any Tom Perotta would make for a great meeting. (Bonus: Movie!)

Alternates (because I can’t leave it at ten!): The Night Circus (Movie??), Shadow and Bone, Notes on a Scandal (Movie!), The Monk, and Howl’s Moving Castle (Movie!).

As you can see, a book club reading all these would be an extremely diverse group!

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 12 Comments

Sunday Coffee – When Enough is Enough

Posted on January 25, 2015 by Thistle

IMG_9163Last Sunday I talked about previewing books to determine if I actually want to spend the time reading them. I’m sure that on occasion, I disregard a book that I really would have loved had I kept going. Similarly, I sometimes approve books only to discover, partway or halfway or even three-quarters-of-the-way through that the book doesn’t really work for me. If it turns out that I dislike the book, I have no trouble abandoning it. The tricky part comes when the book is good enough but not great. When is enough enough?

At the end of 2013, when I thought about my lackluster year in reading, I wrote the following in my end-of-year wrap-up:

Reading good-enough books just doesn’t cut it! I read plenty of okay books this year, books that were “good enough” to keep reading, but just didn’t make an impression on me in the end. I didn’t give them up, because there was no point of giving them up – they were good. They just weren’t great.

I went into 2014 with a specific goal: quit reading books that are “just okay” no matter how far into them I get. For the most part, I did. I gave up a lot of books that I’d spent time on, or read quite a lot of. The result? The majority of my 2014 books were great reads. I’d probably consider 2014 to be one of my best reading years since I began blogging about books in 2008. I read a lot fewer books, because of the time spent partially reading eventually-abandoned books, but the quality of my read books was a lot higher. In previous Sundays, I’ve talked about the different elements that have contributed to my reading happiness, and I know this is a big one.

Already this year, I’ve given up three books, each around the half to two-thirds mark. It can be hard giving up when you’ve invested 300 pages worth of reading time in a 500-page novel, but ultimately, I’m happier for not spending another 200 pages of my time. Instead, I’m happy to have finished three wonderful books so far this year, rather some wonderful books and some that are just okay.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 10 Comments

Firstborn, by Lorie Ann Grover

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Thistle

Firstborn-Lorie-Ann-GroverTiadone is a firstborn female, and by law, not allowed to live unless her parents declare her male. They do so, and Tiadone grows up knowing that though her body is female, she is male, and must conform to all cultural standards of masculinity (more than any other male) to prove that she is worthy of life.

This is my first fiction of 2015, and it was really, really good. I’m having a hard time formulating my thoughts, so I’m just going to do this in categories. Note that there will be very minor, world-building-related spoilers, but no plot-related spoilers.

1. Transgender Issues – Okay. So this isn’t exactly transgender. In fact, I would say that Tiadone is more cisgender than transgender, as she finds herself relating more and more to feminine roles, cultural traits, and magic than those she’s expected to relate to. However, I still think this addresses a lot of transgender issues. Tiadone believes she is supposed to be male. She believes that a religious amulet received at birth makes her male, despite her female form. She works very hard to live up to what is expected of her as a young man, and is thrilled when her rapion (more on rapion in a moment) bonds with her (further proof that she is male). At the same time, she feels betrayed by her body as she gets older and begins to exhibit signs of womanhood (physically and emotionally). She is desperate to find a more powerful charm for her amulet, to rid herself of all feminine traits. She believes she is male, she knows she’s supposed to be male, and yet, she feels wrong as a male, and thus does not align with her society-given gender. This is not an area explored all that often in fiction, and I love the way it is presented and resolved in Firstborn.

2. World-building – I really appreciate great world-building in fantasy. By “great” I mean that not only is it well-developed and believable, but also doesn’t take center stage. The characters are the center of this book, but the world that they exist in is fantastically and subtly drawn. Tiadone is a first-person narrator, and so Grover walks the difficult line of “too much info-dump” vs “narrator knows the world and thus doesn’t need to explain anything.” Grover found creative ways to get the cultural differences across without ever resorting to long expository boringness. At first things are a little confusing, but not too much, and as you go along, everything becomes clearer. Also, I love the language she used in their culture. Much of it is the same as our language, with a few tiny changes. They say hair twists instead of hair or curls. Soul’s portion is self-explanatory. Backside and backend both refer to one’s rear, but the former is free of innuendo, and the latter is derogatory and lewd. Then there’s my favorite, a combination of sever and separation: severation. This is a word so charged and powerful that I wish I could use it in real life.

3. Religion and Magic – This is related to world-building as well. Both religion and magic are well-defined, with very strict boundaries. There are two religions in conflict in this book (with different ties to magic), and you meet characters on all end of the spectrum. There are those who worship devoutly on either side, some who claim faith but disobey rules, some who pretend to believe one way while secretly studying the other side, and some who don’t care and just want to survive. Tiadone herself struggles with her faith all through the book, stuck in the conflict between her family’s traditions and the reigning world order that has forced her maleness on her. Note: After reading, I looked up the imprint that published this book and discovered it’s a mainstream YA imprint of a Christian imprint of HarperCollins. If I’d known that in advance, I would have worried about Christian influence, and would have been more leery going in. I’m happy to say that I saw nothing like that in this book, and found both religions entirely fictional. The book certainly talks a lot about faith, but never felt preachy at all.

4. Rapion – I very rarely enjoy books with major animal characters, especially characters that communicate in some way with people. Rapion are fantastical birds. When a child is born, the rapion present an egg to that child. The egg is then kept wrapped to them throughout their childhood. In adolescence, the egg hatches, and the rapion that emerges either twines with or rejects the person they grew up with. (Rejection is almost unheard of.) That person then takes the rapion out to whatever service position they’ve received, a year-long service where the rapion grows to almost man-size and learns to communicate both through gestures and almost telepathically with their twin (for lack of a better word). The bond between person and rapion is far deeper than a friendship, and becomes something so physical that if one half of the pair dies, the other very well may die also. At the end of the year comes severation – as mentioned above – and the process is immensely painful to both person and rapion. Tiadone’s rapion is Mirko, and unlike usual for me, I completely fell in love with Mirko. The bond between them is written so well that it overcame my normal distaste for person-animal communication.

5. Surprise – Firstborn could have easily fallen into the seriously overdone trope of “falling in love makes it possible to save the world from oppression.” Honestly, at one point, I thought it was going to fall into that trope. There was also the strong possibility that the book might succumb to the “I’m different and that makes me the chosen one” trope. I’m not going to say what actually happens. I don’t want to give away spoilers. All I’m going to say is that the ending was entirely unexpected and absolutely wonderful. I loved all Tiadone’s reasons for everything she did. I loved the circumstances under which the religions and cultures were left at the end of the book. I loved the ambiguity and the realism. I love that this is an entirely closed story that, as far as I’m aware, has no sequels planned, but there could easily be further stories in this world.

So there you go. All the reasons I loved this book. It’s a good one. More people need to read/review it. Highly recommended.

Posted in 2015, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Top Ten Audiobooks

Posted on January 20, 2015 by Thistle

I haven’t participated in Top Ten Tuesday these last few weeks because the topics didn’t apply to me. Top debuts I’m anticipating for 2015? Um, don’t know any… Top ten books I meant to get to in 2014 but didn’t? Well, there’s only a couple… This week, however, the topic is a freebie! Top Ten whatever we want. And I want to talk audiobooks!

I didn’t start regularly listening to audiobooks until August of 2010. There were maybe three or four that I’d listened to before that time, and only one pre-blogging. I fell in love with audiobooks in 2010, however, and over the last few years, I’ve listened to 86 of them. I keep a directory of audiobooks listed by narrator, and I’ve marked the ones that are particularly wonderful performances. There are 19 marked this way, and I wanted to take today to highlight the ten best-of-the-best in my few short years of audio-listening.

1. Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy, narrated by Alan Rickman – This was the performance that hooked me on audiobooks, and remains my favorite review ever written. It’s funny, because in general, I have disliked classics on audio except for revisiting old favorites with specific celebrity narrators. Return of the Native was a first-time read, and yet I loved it. Rickman might have something to do with that. 😀

lolita2. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, narrated by Jeremy Irons – A reread of an old favorite, performed by a celebrity. I say “performed by” instead of “read by” because it really was performed. Irons was Humbert Humbert. It was an amazing performance, and helped me to understand the book far more than I did the first time I read it in print. And I’ve watched this particular audiobook turn Lolita-haters into Lolita-lovers (as in Lolita the book, not Lolita the character…), so it must be very, very good.

3. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, narrated by Donald Sutherland – is there any doubt that Donald Sutherland is the perfect narrator for Hemingway? This is a book that I’d read and loved multiple times prior to the audio version, and I never would have considered listening to an audio performed by anyone else. When I read a book enough times, it gets a rhythmic soundtrack in my head, and I don’t want that ruined by someone else’s interpretation. Sutherland was perfect, though, and enhanced the book rather than ruining it.

4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, narrated by Maggie Gyllenhaal – Another old favorite I didn’t want ruined/changed by an audio-listen. I was told this one was really good, however, and I gave it a try. Gyllenhaal added dimensions I’d never thought of before to the text, and it was brilliant all the way through. I was incredibly impressed with her subtle vocal changes through Esther’s journey downwards and upwards again. It was powerful.

Host-Stephenie-Meyer-unabridged-compact-discs-Hachette-Audio-books5. The Host by Stephenie Meyer, narrated by Kate Reading – I was leery going into The Host after my not-so-hot experience with Twilight, so I decided to try on audio, as I’m generally more forgiving of books that way. This turned out to be brilliant. Kate Reading is one of my very favorite audio narrators, and this is where I discovered her. She made the book and characters come to life. (And enter my dreams for weeks on end, heh.)

6. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, narrated by Jenny Sterlin – Sterlin was perfect for this book, and its two semi-sequels. I especially liked the subtle Welsh accent of Howl’s. This is one I’ve listened to many, many times now. I almost always revisit Howl on audio instead of in print, it’s that good. It’s one of the few audiobooks I’ve actually bought. I wish Sterlin read all of Jones’ audiobooks!

7. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, narrated by Jim Dale – Everyone raves about Jim Dale, especially his performance of the Harry Potter books. I’ve not listened to those – see my reasons under The Old Man and the Sea above – but he certainly did a fabulous job with this book. The audio made me love the book even more than I did in print.

Good-Omens-3397438. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, narrated by Martin Jarvis – As I said with The Host above, Martin Jarvis really made this book come alive for me. Yes, I would have loved the book in print, but the audio was just so much more. The voices Jarvis gives the characters are so distinctive and memorable. This is one I’ve listened to multiple times.

9. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, narrated by Rebecca Lowman and Maxwell Caulfield – I’m not always a huge fan of multiple narrators in an audiobook, but as this one was mostly Lowman, and Caulfield only read out the excerpts at the beginning of each chapter, it worked for me. The story and narration together combined to make this one a nonstop listening experience for me, something that rarely happens with me and audiobooks.

10. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark, narrated by Simon Prebble – I admit, this one is a bit of a cheat answer. I’m not all the way through this audiobook yet. It’s 26 disks long! However, as I’ve listened to 16 of them at this point, I can already tell that this is going to be one of the best-of-the-bests on my audiobook list. I’m particularly enamored with the way Prebble manages the footnote sections. And despite its length, I am very happy I chose to experience this book on audio instead of in print. Though I’ve recently found out there’s illustrations, and therefore must acquire a paper copy, too…

So what’s your favorite audiobook? Any narrators or performances you particularly enjoy(ed)?

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

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