Bookish Quote of the Day!!

"To read fast is as bad as to eat in a hurry." Vilhelm Ekelund

Happy Audiobook Week -- June 25 through 29, 2012!!

If you have not listened to any great audiobooks lately, here's a short list of places to find audiobooks to suit your interests:

1) Audible.com

2) Audiobooks.com

3) iTunes

4) Librivox.org

5) Your Local Library

6) Podiobooks.com 

Audiobooks are wonderful to listen to any time of year!

Do You Listen to Audiobooks?

I don't listen to audiobooks all that frequently. Usually, I enjoy listening to audiobooks on long car trips, train trips, or plane travel, but unfortunately, I don't travel much by plane or train and long car trips are usually taken with my hubby... So, the two of us end up talking most of the trip or listening to something altogether differently then an audiobook... Like music or talk radio.

When I do listen to audiobooks, I prefer listening to the unabridged version, if it is available.  I was rather pleased recently, when I was able to obtain a couple of unabridged audiobooks on compact disc from Amazon's bargain section and decided to listen to them at home instead of waiting until my next lengthy trip.

Ghost Radio

The first audiobook I listened to was Ghost Radio by Leopoldo Gout. Ghost Radio is a novel that falls into the horror genre, which I thought might be kinda of fun to listen to in audio form.... However, this audiobook failed to entertain. The dramatic reading of this novel was nicely done, but the story fell short of being entertaining... At least for me anyway. The story's premise started off grabbing my attention, but the last quarter of the book lost my attention completely as the story just seemed to unravel.

The following is a product description of Ghost Radio from the author, Leopoldo Gout's website:

From the cramped bowels of a dimly lit Mexican radio station, Ghost Radio is beamed onto the airwaves. More than a call-in show to tell scary stories about vampires and poltergeists, Ghost Radio is a sanctuary for those sleepless denizens of the night, lost half way between this world and the next.

Joaquin, the hip, melancholy host sits deep in a fog of cigarette smoke, fielding calls from believers and detractors alike. He is joined in the booth by his darkly beautiful girlfriend, Alondra, and his engineer, Watts. Before long, a radio conglomerate offers to syndicate their cult show in the U.S., and Ghost Radio becomes a national success - a price at success which Joaquin’s soon begins to regret having paid.

A former punk rocker, Joaquin has had two devastating near-death experiences—accidents of shocking and horrific proportions. He emerged the sole survivor after these events, walking away even as his parents and later, his best friend and cohort in music and mischief, Gabriel, perished. Though a charismatic host, he remains a skeptic even as he begins to notice a curious and troubling phenomenon. Joaquin feels himself drawn further and further into the terrifying stories he solicits on the radio. Slowly he loses control over his circumstances, and finds himself unable to distinguish between the real world and the world populated by the nightmares on Ghost Radio. He is not alone, and as the voices of the dead begin to drift onto the airwaves to tragic results.

Joaquin suspects that someone from his past with a grudge to pay is the agent forcing him to confront his own mortality, save that which is most precious to him, and repair the crumbling wall between the living and the dead.

Perhaps someone else will enjoy or appreciate the storyline more than me.

The Scandal of the Season Book Cover

The second audiobook I listened to was The Scandal of the Season by Sophie Gee, which is historical fiction. The following is a synopsis of this novel found on Amazon:

London, 1711. As the rich, young offspring of the city's most fashionable families fill their days with masquerade balls and clandestine court-ships, Arabella Fermor and Robert, Lord Petre, lead the pursuit of pleasure. Beautiful and vain, Arabella is a clever coquette with a large circle of beaus. Lord Petre, seventh Baron of Ingatestone, is a man-about-town with his choice of mistresses. Drawn together by an overpowering attraction, the two begin an illicit affair. 

Alexander Pope, sickly and nearly penniless, is peripheral by birth, yet his uncommon wit and ambition gain him unlikely entrance into high society. Once there, privy to every nuance and drama, he is a ruthless observer. He longs for the success that will cement his place in society; all he needs is one poem grand enough to make his reputation. 

As the forbidden passion between Arabella and Lord Petre deepens, an intrigue of a darker nature threatens to overtake them. Fortunes change and reputations -- even lives -- are imperiled. In the aftermath, Pope discovers the idea for a daring poem that will catapult him to fame and fortune.

For a debut novel, I found The Scandal of the Season to be very entertaining. The following is a YouTube interview of Sophie Gee, the author of The Scandal of the Season, about the book that I think you'll enjoy.

Until my next post, happy reading!!

Yoko Ono's Top Five Must-Reads Books

So, what would Yoko Ono read? If you ever wondered, check out the article titled Yoko Ono's Top Five Must-Reads in the Guardian. Come on you know you want to!!

Bookish Quote of the Day!!

"Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness." Helen Keller

Books That Shaped America Exhibit at the Library of Congress

In Michael Dirda's article titled 'Books That Shaped America’: a reading list as big as a nation published in The Washington Post, he writes the following:

Happily, the Library of Congress’ latest exhibition, “The Books That Shaped America,” ignores the familiar high-culture shibboleths and embraces cookbooks (Irma Rombauer’s “The Joy of Cooking”) and schoolbooks (McGuffey’s “Primer”), mysteries (Dashiell Hammett’s “Red Harvest”) and science fiction (Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”), political tracts as well as poetry, both Dr. Seuss and Dr. Spock.

Running from Monday to Sept. 29 in the Thomas Jefferson Building, the exhibition — its titles chosen by the library’s staff members after considerable wrangling — puts on display what one might call the classics of upset and trouble making. When first published, these books shocked people, made them angry, shook up their deepest beliefs. They shamed readers with accounts of racism, greed, corruption, Puritanism and provincial narrow-mindedness. Here are the impassioned works that made us look behind the curtain, into the bedroom and closet and boardroom, at what we were afraid of and at what we covered up. Just skimming through the titles of “The Books That Shaped America” underscores that in this country anything can be questioned, nothing is set in stone, everything can be changed. We are, after all, a nation founded on and grounded in revolution.

This sounds like an exciting exhibit to see in person!! To see the list of books that will be part of the 'Books That Shaped America' exhibit, click on the link above.

Expanding One's Reading Horizons

Do you pretty much read books from the same genre(s) or books written by a few select authors you enjoy reading? Or do you frequently branch out and try reading new authors and reading books from many genres?

If you're like me, then it's some sort of combination of the above. Sure, I'm like most people and stick to my favorite genres and authors, but I also like to branch out and read new books by different authors and from different genres. I enjoy reading a wide variety of subjects and also discovering new authors.

So, how do go about expanding your reading horizons? For me, it can be a recommended book or author from a trusted friend whose taste in books is one you can trust. I also read a wide variety of nonfiction books based on my current interests... For instances, I enjoy reading biographies and memoirs from a diverse crowd ranging from the famous to not so famous. 

I am currently interested in reading books from writers of different countries. I came across an article on the Flavorwire website titled 10 Contemporary Japanese Writers You Should Know and decided to check out the article. Some of the Japanese authors mentioned I had heard of before and some I had not... I've not read any books by these writers, so now I'll see which titles are most appealing to me & discover new talent! 

My biggest problem is that there are so many great books out there to read and so little time to read them all!! Until my next post, happy reading!!

Do these books REALLY make ONE undateable??

A couple of days ago, I stumbled across a post on Flavorwire by Emily Temple titled These Are the Books That Make You Totally Undateable. Curious by the title of the article, I decided to see which books made the list. 

I can't seem to to take this article, nor its list of book titles seriously! How can a person be totally undateable due to having a particular book in their personal collection of books? It seems kind of shallow, in my opinion, to deem a person undateable because they have a particular book title in their library. I'd hope that people would have a better reason for not dating someone than this.

I also don't understand why owning/using a Kindle or other eReader would make one totally undateable either. No explanation was given by Ms. Temple as to why owning an eReader made one undateable.

So, what are your thoughts? Do certain books make someone undateable or is the whole notion ludicrous?

Impressive Looking Book Sculptures by Jonathan Callan

British artist Jonathan Callan makes very cool looking, stacked book sculptures! Check out the Colossal Art & Design website to view Jonathan Callan's works of art!

Bookish Quote of the Day!!!

"It's difficult to beat making your living thinking and writing about subjects that matter to you." Eleanor Holmes Norton