Books Read
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The Double
The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Published: 1846 Translated By: Jessie Coulson (from Russian in 1972) Length: 144 pages Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin is a government clerk, a faceless bureaucrat, who is struggling both in work and in his social life. After a particularly emotional encounter at a party, while walking home through a cold night’s fog, he finds himself face to face with his double, a man identical in look, background, and even name. At first, they becomes friends. Golyadkin even shares his home with him, but before soon his doppelgänger begins to take over his life. Golyadkin is awkward with people, but this double is charismatic and popular. Golyadkin isn’t…
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His Bloody Project
His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet Published: 2015 Narrated by: Antony Ferguson Length: 10:22 (280 pages) It’s 1869 and Roderick Macrae, a young man from the Scottish highland village of Culduie, is being held in jail after a gruesome murder. He’s a smart young man, shy and insightful, and he never denies committing the act. The question is what drove him to do it. This is a novel composed of found footage, essentially. First we’re shown police statements taken from the residents of Culduie, some praising Roderick as a wonderful kid and others calling him a animal-abusing lunatic. The story ends with a transcript of the trial and various…
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Ex Libris
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman Published: 2000 Length: 162 pages I love books about books, but this is probably the first time I’ve read one so purely about the love of reading. Ex Libris is a collection of essays about the reading, storing, and sharing of books, something I imagine many people would find incredibly dull, but I love it. If you’re someone who spends their spare time reading book blogs, you probably will too. It begins with one of my favourite essays, Marrying Libraries, which recounts the compromises and sacrifices that go into the merging of two personal libraries. The bookshelves in the Loose…
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Gourmet Rhapsody
Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery Published: 2000 Narrated by: Full cast Translated By: Alison Anderson (from French in 2009) Length: 04:03 (160 pages) A renown Parisian food critic, the greatest alive, is on his deathbed. He’s lived a life of eating, where food mattered more than the people around him, and in his last hours he strives to find comfort in that passion by tracing his memories back to the truest taste of his life, in an attempt to experience it again before he’s gone. This is presented as a series of vignettes, short scenes from his life. Half of the chapters are from his point of view as he…
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Sleeping Giants
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel Published: 2016 Narrated by: full cast Series: Themis Files #1 Length: 08:28 (304 pages) A young girl falls through the earth and lands cradled in a giant metallic hand. Seventeen years later, that woman is now a brilliant physicist leading a research team to discover the mystery behind the discovery. When they find another body part buried in another area of the world, there’s a new goal: to reconstruct. I really enjoyed this. It’s written as a series of interviews, similar to World War Z, except the interviews take place as the story progresses rather than looking back afterwards. Some chapters are solo journal entries…
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The Vintage Caper
The Vintage Caper by Peter Mayle Published: 2009 Series: Sam Levitt #1 Length: 223 pages I love Peter Mayle’s Provence books, where he details his life after moving there from England. He apparently also has a series of detective novels that focus on food and wine, a combination of two things I enjoy quite a bit, so I thought I’d give them a try. Mayle’s a strong writer, and that does come through here, but the story itself was a bit silly. This follows Sam Settler, a once-thief now working as a private detective, as he tries to track down millions of dollars of stolen wine. I imagine his alliterative…
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The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark Published: 1961 Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes Length: 04:45 (150 pages) I’ve been trying to read a bit more Scottish fiction in the last year or two, and this is a novel you’ll find on every Scottish list around the Internet. I had heard of Muriel Spark, but to be honest I didn’t know anything about her, not even that she was Scottish, so I picked this up as blind as one could be. Miss Jean Brodie is an unorthodox teacher for a group of ten-year-old girls in an Edinburgh school in the 30’s. We follow the group as they progress through…
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Fool’s Quest
Fool’s Quest by Robin Hobb Published: 2015 Series: The Fitz and The Fool, #2 Length: 768 pages I’m so happy to have gotten back into reading Robin Hobb. I’m spreading the books out, partly because they’re quite chunky and partly because I don’t really want this story to come to an end. I’ll console myself with the fact that I have two other related trilogies to go back and read, as well as whatever she comes out with next. Robin Hobb is a brilliant writer, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. Her novels are beautifully written, and she expertly draws the reader into a complex, but understandable,…
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Morning Star
Morning Star by Pierce Brown Published: 2016 Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds Series: Red Rising #3 Length: 21:50 (524 pages) This is the third novel in the Red Rising trilogy, and I thought it came to a very satisfying conclusion. Brown is apparently planning a follow-up trilogy, one that will follow new characters living with the result of this story, and I will probably read through those as well. The first one is due out later this year. In this world, the people are divided by colour class. The golds rule at the top, treated as gods by some of the lower colours, and at the bottom of the class…
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Born a Crime
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah Published: 2016 Narrated by: Trevor Noah Length: 08:50 (224 pages) I never sit down and watch The Daily Show, but over the years I have seen quite a lot from people just sharing the videos. Since Trevor Noah took over, very few clips have made their way to me, so I wonder how well the switch from Jon Stewart is going. I imagine it’ll take some time for him to find his stride on there, and I do hope he’s given the chance, because, from watching his stand-up and reading this book, it’s clear he’s the type of person that needs to be on…