audiobook

Standalone fantasy novels are rare and precious. This one was not bad.

Starless by Jacqueline Carey

December 27, 2018 by Malin 1 Comment

Khai was destined from birth to become the Shadow of the Sun-blessed princess Zaryia. Both born during the same eclipse, Khai was the child who caught the hawk’s feather thrown by the selected priestess, thus confirming that he was the chosen one. Raised by warrior priests deep in the desert, Khai is trained in all the deadly arts of stealth and fighting, and gets his first chance to kill a man at age nine. He hones all his abilities to become the very best Shadow to his soul’s twin, destined to guard and protect her against all evil. Yet when […]

12/27/2018 Malin's CBR10 Review No:107 |

I was expecting something different

Twain's Feast by Andrew Beahrs

November 7, 2018 by crystalclear Leave a Comment

I did not like this. It’s not even the material, but the production that I was not on board for. After listening to the masterful rendition of Emma and weird but well put-together I’m From the Sun, I was expecting good quality from an Audible Original. It immediately said “podcast” to me, which is fine if you want a podcast, but I was expecting a book. And this is a book, or at least based on one. The production quality just wasn’t there. There are weird gaps and changes in sound quality, and it’s very obvious when one person is […]

11/7/2018 crystalclear's CBR10 Review No:48 |

Don’t let this happen. Go out and vote!

1984 by George Orwell

November 6, 2018 by crystalclear 3 Comments

Holy crap this is depressing. And terrifying. We have our main character, Winston, who’s 39. He starts off by doing a forbidden thing: writing in a diary. He is terrified that the Thought Police will find him and kill him, or if not that then send him to 25 years of hard labor. The Thought Police can find you anywhere. There are screens that are constantly on playing propaganda news and military music and whatever else they want the people to see, and the Thought Police can see and hear you through the plethora of screens in every room, including […]

11/6/2018 crystalclear's CBR10 Review No:44 |

“I am not an angel,’ I asserted; ‘and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.” (BINGO 5!)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (author), Thandie Newton (narrator)

November 5, 2018 by faintingviolet 2 Comments

For many, Jane Eyre is part of the reading undertaken during their education. For some it is read in high school, for others college, but for me it never joined the reading lists of my various courses. In fact, until several years ago when I read Agnes Grey I had read nothing at all by any of the Brontes. It is however fully in the milieu of a reader’s culture; I understood it enough to get the jokes in Texts from Jane Eyre and Hark! A Vagrant. I have seen cinematic versions of the story (quite enjoying the Mia Wasikowska […]

11/5/2018 faintingviolet's CBR10 Review No:53 |

“I can’t be less of a hero than a spoon!”

The Wizards of Once by Cressida Cowell

November 3, 2018 by crystalclear Leave a Comment

This was my other drunken audiobook choice from my library’s wine tasting. It had a cool title, and then I saw David Tennant was reading, so I grabbed it! The language is very clever, or maybe it just seems so with David Tennant reading it. (And he has to sing at one point, and he’s using a sprite voice, and I don’t think he enjoyed that part.) A long time ago, before England was England, there was a great forest from sea to sea. And there were two kinds of people: those with magic, and those without. The magic people […]

11/3/2018 crystalclear's CBR10 Review No:43 |

Drunk book choices are the best book choices

Kenny and the Dragon by Tony DiTerlizzi

November 3, 2018 by crystalclear 2 Comments

So I brought fantingviolet to my library’s annual wine tasting, because my library is awesome like that. With the advent of the self-checkout feature on their app, we get the lovely combination of drunken book selections! We were drinking in the children’s section (being the youngest group at the wine tasting) and so I was able to peruse the lovely selection. I picked up the audiobook of Kenny and the Dragon, because it looked interesting. After I chose it, I realized that it was narrated by Alan Cumming! Good job, drunk me! Alan Cumming does a fantastic job reading this […]

11/3/2018 crystalclear's CBR10 Review No:42 |

And not a duck to be seen!

Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen

November 3, 2018 by crystalclear 3 Comments

Quackery: A Brief History on the Worst Ways to Cure Everything is indeed what it says on the box. We have an intro into what each method is, and then how awful it was and why. It’s very informative, but for each thing it comes across as a Very Big Deal. Each of these methods were indeed used, but it seems like the authors over-inflate their importance. Mercury (I’m sure everyone knows by now that medically, Mercury is a Very Bad Thing) Antimony (I wasn’t familiar with this, and forgot it was even an element (Number 51, Sb). […]

11/3/2018 crystalclear's CBR10 Review No:37 |

I Am The Consuming Fire

The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi

October 27, 2018 by emmalita 2 Comments

Good news! I didn’t have to wait until 2019 to get The Consuming Fire. Don’t read this review if you haven’t read The Collapsing Empire.

10/27/2018 emmalita's CBR10 Review No:44 |

Caitlin_D on “I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.”I actually found the book because of the adaptation!
Tracy on Diets Don’t WorkI'm glad it was helpful. There was also some info about exercise that stood out. For years I've joked that I don't have endorphins, and...
Alexis on would you say it’s time for our viewers to crack open each other’s skulls?I am impressed that you had the fortitude to read this. Assuredly I do not. Most of the bestselling nonfiction books now are political in...
narfna on Not Every Essay ResonatedI ended up not rating this one because it was so hard to get through in a way that was unrelated to the actual writing....
Scootsa1000 on The girl anchors the stage, sucks in the male gaze, and, depending on who she is, throws her own gaze back out into the audience.I’m in a Starbucks right now and Kool Thing is playing. Weird. How did I not know this existed? Buying on audible right now!