Tag Archives: audible

Quick Review: I am Your Judge by Nele Neuhaus (read by Robert Fass)

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Back again with another Bodenstein and Kirchoff mystery. Like the previous books, this one also involved multiple murders and a race against time. But unlike the previous books, there were secondary and new characters that I thought were really well written and compelling. At least compelling enough to mention that they were good in my review.

This story follows an sniper as he picks off people in what starts off as appearing completely random. But, as the bodies pile up, a pattern emerges that points to a really devastating motive. Kirchoff and Bodenstein investigate with the help of the daughter of one of the early murder victims. As they uncover a pattern, she uncovers some really sketchy behavior that implicates her father and others in a vast conspiracy.

I am Your Judge really made me sad. Not only were the deaths themselves absolute bummers, but the underlying motivation for the murder spree was horrifying. I think this is the best of the four, but it was also incredibly heartbreaking. It was a tale of vengeance served cold. Of the four of the novels in this series, this is probably the one I’d be the most likely to recommend, but only if you were looking for a detective story that was a serious downer.

Weekend Reads: Runaways

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It is January and the holiday season is over which means most of what is fun about winter is over. Except for the curling up with a good book, that is! Here are some suggestions of stories that involve travel, in case you’re stuck inside thiinking it would be better to be anywhere but here, where ever here is.

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart

Genuine Fraud follows the friendship of Jule and Imogen, in reverse chronicle order, leaving you as the reader to put together the pieces of how the characters ended up where they ended up. The characters go from  London, San Francisco, Puerto Rico, Martha’s Vineyard to New York. Sounds like a wild ride to me!

The Caraval Trilogy by Stephanie Garber

The Caraval trilogy is the story of sisters who are obsessed with a magical game. The sisters accept an invitation and travel to the game to find themselves at the center of the game where one of them must search for the other. If she fails, her sister could disappear forever.

The Dispatcher Series by John Scalzi

I never actually wrote a review of these books after I posted them as ‘What I’m Reading’. They’re super interesting. In an alternate timeline, if you are murdered, you turn back up again as you were moments before your death. This is horribly inconvenient for anyone who wants to commit murder, but is obviously nice for potential murder victims. It is also nice for other reasons, like if you are about to die during surgery, your doctors can be given another chance. Dispatchers are people who are officially sanctioned to murder people in certain circumstances. But there is a whole grey area where Dispatchers can also be employed. Zachary Quinn reads the audiobooks and he does an excellent job. These were interesting and enjoyable mysteries. I don’t love that they are exclusively from audible, since I prefer to get things from the library, but this is the world we live in.

The Pros and Cons of Audio Books

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I have mentioned before that I do most of my reading on my commute to work. I haven’t been commuting as often since I have moved to a hybrid schedule. I have also recently cancelled my Audible premiere subscription. I only got it because Comic Con a couple of years ago I got a free month to download Part 1 of The Sandman comic. Totally worth it but I haven’t really used it much since then. I did listen to Britney Spears memoirs, which honestly I think it’s the best way to read because Michelle Williams did such a great job of brining Britney’s voice to life. I’ve been holding out cancelling because I’ve been waiting for Part 4 The Sandman but since there is still not a release date. I don’t want to keep paying for something that I don’t use. Well I had a bunch of credits to use before cancelling. I have already listened to Love, Theoretically and I’m going to listen to Yellowface next. There are a lot of benefits I’ve noticed to listening but also some drawbacks. Let’s go through them.

PROS

  • I can listen faster then I can read.
  • I can start listening from the moment I leave my apartment. I haven’t figured out how to read and walk at the same time.
  • I can also listen while I’m at work. No one knows what I’m listening too when I have my earbuds at my desk.
  • The narrator can sometimes bring the book to life in ways that I cannot.

Cons

  • On the train, without a book or my e-reader to hold, I have keep my eyes down to avoid eye contact
  • Reading a book and having earbuds in invites less people (mostly men) from talking to me. Only have earbuds, men still think I have a chance.
  • It’s much easier for me to tune out while listening to an audiobook then I do with a physical books. And not as easy to back up to figure out where I stop paying attention.
  • Bad narration can really take you out of the book and effect how I feel about it.

What’s the conclusion? I think I do prefer to read physical books then I do listening to it. I like feel of a book in my hand. The smell of the paper. I like having a book not only gives me something to do and look out at the train because while most days go by without incident there are a lot weirdos out there and they always seem to find me on days I’m already in bad mood so anything I can do make myself less interesting to them is a benefit.

That being said, I do like the freedom that audio books give me. It is one less thing I have to carry in my bag. I don’t have to worry about having space to hold up my book in a crowded train. I really do believe there are some books that really benefit from being listened to. A good example is Britney memoir I mentioned earlier. So while I think I’ll keep reading physical copies I think I’ll be adding more audio books in the mix too.

What I worked on in April while I was listening to audio books

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One of the things that I like about audiobooks is that they keep me company while I’m working on things. Sometimes I listen to them while I’m trying to complete a boring task, like cleaning. But other times I listen when I’d like a little something and I’ve already had way too much screen time. One of those things is doing fiber arts.

I’ve been a knitter for about twenty years and a serious crocheter for only about three. In April, I did a little of both!

I started a new crochet cardigan. Before last year, I’d only knit two sweaters in my entire knitting career. In the past year and a half, I’ve doubled that number. I’ve also crocheted a sweater now, too. I finished my first cardigan earlier this year and I don’t know why it took me so long to get over my fear of sweaters. The Revival cardigan starts with granny squares before moving building the rest of the hoodie around them. I like doing granny squares because they are portable. And, because if I want to stay up for only a chapter or two, I can do a square and that’ll be it. I have a habit of buying single skeins that catch my eye when I’m at different yarn stores or some kind of event, which means I have a stash of single skeins that don’t necessarily have a project attached. Thankfully, I tend to buy the same few colors over and over again, so something I’ve been trying to do this year is build projects around yarn I already own. The yarn for this is all DK weight and I love them. they’re so fun together.

I also started working on a sample shawl for my local yarn shop. This pattern has a nice little repeat that lends itself to a rhythm that’s made it pretty easy knitting. It’s also made in Dream In Color Smooshy Cashmere, which is, in fact, smooshy and so, so, soft. I’m definitely going to have to make something for myself with it. Cashmere is expensive, but oh, does this. yarn feel nice. I would say it’s definitely worth it.