Erin - Audible

Well-written, sharp, wry, sarcastic, genuine, at times heartbreaking, and full of a lifer's experience as a restaraunteur. Gabrielle Hamilton is not to be missed - nor messed with. From the quickly described recipes to climbing the oleander for Mama, Gabrielle poingantly describes her life's journey as a daughter, mother, sister, chef, writer and woman - she'll have you laughing right along with her.

When I bought Paris, I was skeptical - How do you fit millennia of history about one of the greatest cities in the world into forty hours? But with Rutherfurd’s other titles so beloved, I thought I’d give it an hour or two. Those two hours turned me into a believer.

Edward Rutherfurd illuminates pieces of Paris throughout her graceful aging – Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the student uprisings, even the Crusades – and builds a complete camera obscura through the lives of several protagonists: protagonists that I came to care more about in five pages than most authors can convince me to do in entire books.

It turns out what makes the history of a city so interesting is not the changing of the city itself, but the people who carve themselves into it, whether that be tradesmen building the Statue of Liberty or young men of noble lineage who do not deserve the great names bestowed upon them. Jean Gilpin is a smart narrator who never seems to talk down to you, despite any difficulty of the text, and I thoroughly enjoyed her brightening of the picture Rutherfurd has made for us. When you’re looking for something lush and enveloping to lose yourself in, Paris is always a good idea.

Not as cyberpunky and fantastical as the first book. I enjoyed Scarlet as a character and the culture and part of the world she lived in, in conjunction with Cinder's world. But I would have loved to see a similar, fast-paced tone in Scarlet... it's solid, but not up to the first one's standards.

My biggest issue is that we get to clearly see how Asia has changed in Cinder, and I would've loved to see the same world-building in Scarlet. Rural France seems to perpetually be rural France, despite spaceships and the changes in transport and all of that. It didn't feel believable.

Bloody Jacky Faber, scourge of the seven seas, returns in her second adventure where she makes Boston her own.

Lots of good adventure with neat historical details, and of course, an excellent cast of characters both high-born and low for Jacky to charm, get too close to, and run away from. There were shades of Ella Enchanted in Jacky and her finished school, which I really loved, and I thought Amy was a perfect foil for Jacky's headstrong ways.

The romance between Jacky and Randall was a little unbelievable, as Jacky's generally right sharp and did see through him immediately... but accepted his favor anyway? It was a little unlike her.

As usual, it was a fairly predictable story, but all around good fun and I'm looking forward to listening to the next installment.

As for Ms Kellgren's narration, we again get to hear more of her lovely singing voice, and she whizzes through the action. Sometimes its hard to keep on working during the action scenes as everything happens so fast, and sets my heart to racing.

I listened to it while I was at work - my job allows me to do such things - and I can't say there was something I would rather have been listening to. It was a nice distraction from the mundanity, but I wouldn't have listened to it on my own time.

I would have made May a little more dastardly, a little more compelling. You don't have any particular sympathy for her - and I would've fleshed out Frank a little more, made that story longer. As it stands, the trial was most of what we got with her and it was relatively dull otherwise. I would've made Frank more of a partner-in-crime.

I also would've done a little more research on the pricing of jewellery in the era - a $4,000 black pearl brooch versus a $7,000 yellow diamond necklace? Doesn't quite match up.

I have not, but I'm inclined to check into her other books.

It did not, unfortunately, inspire me to go shopping for vintage clothing.

China Mieville is verbose and dense, there's nothing more to be said about it. His descriptions are rich. Maybe I'll try reading the physical book, that does seem to go better.

Cowley's narration is simply flat. It sounds as though he was unfamiliar with the writer and the subject matter, and even the underlying theme of the book. I'm sure he's done great work previously, but I'm not sure he's suited to this type of dark, misty SF.

The Grimm Legacy is a well-paced fantastical adventure novel set in modern day New York City. It is appropriate for all ages, though aimed at the 8-14 set.

Julie Whelan does a nice job narrating all the different characters - she doesn't fall out of voice, each piece of dialogue is very distinct. Her younger characters are a little shrill, and I had trouble believing her three-year-old, but that's to be expected and I'm sure it would've been incredibly annoying had she actually gone after a real three-year-old's timbre.

The idea of magical items being stored in a circulating repository is an original one. The trust that adults place in teenagers is great - it's such a positive book. It has its moments that are meant to be scary, but overall it's gentle, and of course, all the good guys win. I would have liked to see a little more conflict in getting rid of the bad guys, but it went over all right. The exploration of how magic fits into the mundane world was also excellent - as was the idea that magic items are almost never as safe as you think they are.

An idealistic self-proclaimed JAP goes out into the wilds of world to change the face of it and fight AIDS. Instead, she fails to finish her Peace Corp mission (completely understandable, under the circumstances), and heads off to Uganda where lies around and whines about not being able to do any good deeds because she lives in the middle of nowhere.

Eve does a good job of explaining the various issues that stood in the way of her accomplishing anything of weight in Uganda - the bureaucracy, the corruption, the poverty - but eventually I couldn't take any more of her whining. Especially about the smells of Uganda. Oh, and a baby.

I got 3/4 of the way through, it was compelling enough, but once the drought happened and she started getting into the Difficult Pregnancy section, I'd had enough.

Jeffrey Eugenides likes to wander when he writes - he wants you to know the backstory to every single little character in the book. And it's important to know that backstory, because even the briefest mention of a man belies his importance later on in the story. Characters enter, characters leave, and characters come back again, because Eugenides is a wanderer. While this is wonderful throughout most of the book, I found myself wanting to skip over certain parts, wondering what was relevant to the story at hand - the one he interrupted to give you this backstory. It's still wonderfully written, and not at all tedious, just a little distracting.

Tabori's narration is more than impressive - it's ebullient. From the gruffest of Milton's rage, to the Grecian grandmother, each voice flows seamlessly together, and the novel keeps moving. He keeps the pace well, I was never bored listening, although I was able to stop listening and go do other things if I needed to do so. Tabori is like the old man at the bar, whom you know you can interrupt and come back to - his story will still be there. You won't want to interrupt, though.