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Fuzzy Nation
Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi Published: 2011 Narrated by: Wil Wheaton This is the third novel I’ve listened to Wil Wheaton narrate, the second written by John Scalzi, and he always does a great job. I don’t know why I seem to go into these books thinking I’d rather have someone else reading, but by the end of the first chapter I’m always enthralled. Scalzi is officially in my good books after this one as well. Things were a bit patchy after RedShirts, and I was happy to find I loved Old Man’s War, but I was still a bit wary going into this one. In a way this book…
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Gun Machine
Gun Machine by Warren Ellis Published: 2013 I really did not like Crooked Little Vein, Warren Ellis’ first novel, but I love his comics, so I decided to give his second novel a try. I’m happy to say he improved enormously this time around. My main complaint with Crooked Little Vein was that it had virtually no plot. It was just a series of bizarre fetishes he found on the Internet, strung together with a silly secret government treasure hunt. This novel actually had distinct characters, a story, conflict – you know, all those things that novels need. Gun Machine is a hard-boiled detective novel set in New York City,…
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Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach Published: 2013 Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller I loved Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers when I read it last year, so I was quite excited to pick this up. It’s all to do with the digestive system and the research that goes into understanding it and treating its problems. It’s a topic that must have a lot of bizarre stories, which is what Mary Roach likes to dig up. As someone with Crohn’s disease, I figured this would be right up my alley. They even mentioned it in the blurb! I wanted to love this, but I found a…
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Old Man’s War
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi Published: 2005 Oh, right! I have a weblog… Sorry for my absence. Life’s been a bit much lately, and I’ve mainly been hiding under my bed, but I’d like to get back into this now. I read Old Man’s War nearly a month and a half ago, and I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get to it. I’m a naughty blogger. My dad hounded me for ages to read this, but it just wasn’t high on my priorities. I read Redshirts last year, and it didn’t leave me wanting more of his writing, but I’m glad I decided to give him…
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Mother Night
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Published: 1961 My fourth Vonnegut, and I’m more in love with his writing with each one. This is the fictional autobiography of Howard W. Campbell, who is being held in an Israeli jail for crimes against humanity. He was born in America and moved to Germany as a adolescent. As Hitler began gaining power, he stayed in the country and worked as a playwright, but as the war drew near he was approached by an American spy to work undercover for them. He worked on the radio, sending coded messages out under the cover of Nazi propaganda. Unfortunately, he was maybe too good at his…
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The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman Published: 2013 Narrated by: Neil Gaiman A man returns to his childhood home after attending a funeral and finds himself drawn to the neighbouring home of a little girl he once knew but had forgotten. Memories start flooding back, and he remembers himself as a young boy stumbling across a tragic scene, one that allowed the unworldly access to our world. I don’t think I was in the right frame of mind for this novel. I love Neil Gaiman and have read everything by him, except for most of his comics (and his Duran Duran biography obviously), but something…
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Housekeeping vs. The Dirt
Housekeeping vs. the Dirt by Nick Hornby Published: 2006 Nick Hornby’s thoughts on his monthly reading and book buying habits continue with this second collection of his Believer column. I still wasn’t entirely sure what the Believer was, so I just hopped over to their website and had a quick look. I’m very pleased to announce that it’s not a Christian magazine, as I had briefly suspected. They describe the magazine as follows: The Believer is a monthly magazine where length is no object. There are book reviews that are not necessarily timely, and that are very often very long. There are interviews that are also very long. We will…
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The Liar
The Liar by Stephen Fry Published: 1991 You can tell this was Stephen Fry’s first novel. He is one of my favourite humans, and he can do no wrong in my eyes, but even I have to admit that this was a little scattered. It was structured that way on purpose, but I don’t think it worked as well as was intended. We follow Adrian Healey as he advances through school and into adulthood. The story jumps around a little throughout his life, and interlaced are short chapters featuring characters identified only by their clothing. They use code names and speak ambiguously, their identities and the identities of those they…
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Journey to the Center of the Earth
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne Published: 1864 Narrated by: Tim Curry I’ve been meaning to read Jules Verne for quite a while now, so when I saw that Audible had Journey to the Center of the Earth available, the movie adaptation of which I remember liking as a child, and it was narrated by the legendary Tim Curry, I knew I had to have it. At first the story was very reminiscent of The Lost World (or the other way around I supposed, but I read The Lost World first). They both begin with a slightly mad older scientist setting off on a journey and…
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Treasure Island
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Published: 1883 Narrated by: Neil Hunt Pirates! Treasure maps! Long John Silver! Pieces of eight! Shiver me timbers! It’s the classic adventure story that lives on, not just through this original novel and the writers it influenced, but also through the continuous stream of direct adaptations that are still happening 130 years after it was first published. The story begins in the family inn of young Jim Hawkins. An old drunken sailor, Billy Bones, takes up residence with them, and it soon comes out that he’s in hiding. The pirates in chase eventually arrive, and in the midst of the chaos of this encounter,…