Because I’m spending so many hours a day driving the RV and pulling over to the side of the road with the engine running waiting for Roger to catch up to me on his bicycle, I’ve had the luxury of listening to a lot of audiobooks. I’ve enjoyed listening to all of the books listed below. If I had thought about it earlier, I would have written short reviews of each book after I read them. Now, I will try to play catch-up and say a few words about the books I’ve read.
1 - The Library Book, by Susan Orlean
The great Los Angeles Library fire of April 29, 1986 was overshadowed by news of another disaster that took place that week: the Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion. Four hundred thousand library books were lost, and another seven hundred thousand were damaged. Orlean’s carefully researched book explains how the fire traveled through the building and also goes through the history of libraries and librarians, arson investigation techniques, and the case of Harry Peak, an actor who was suspected of setting the fire. Read by the author.
2 - Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng
This novel, which takes place in 1997, involves a wealthy family with four very different teenagers and their interactions with a secretive, transient artist and her teenaged daughter. The relationships are changed when the residents of Shaker Heights, Ohio, take sides in a white couple’s adoption of an Asian baby left at a fire station by a mother who wants her baby back.
Note: As an adoptive mom myself, I’ve always been fascinated by stories involving adoption. I’m sensitive to issues involving all parties in the triad, such as birthparents’ rights, and I can see both sides of the issues in this story.
3 - Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
Two plot lines make up this very interesting story about a young backwoods girl who is forced to grow up on her own as her family members leave the house one by one. The book alternates between her life and the investigation of a murder in the area.
4 - Whistling Past the Graveyard, by Susan Crandall
A nine-year old girl being raised in Mississippi by her disinterested grandmother in 1963 begins a journey to search for her mother and forges a relationship with a lonely, abused woman along the way.
5 - Educated, by Tara Westover
This fascinating book is the true story of Westover’s upbringing in rural Idaho with no formal schooling in a religious family that was always preparing for the End of Days. How she showed up in a classroom for the first time at age 17 and ended up with a PhD from Cambridge is mind-boggling.
6 - Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger
This is the story of a family’s struggle during a bitter winter in 1960’s South Dakota when the 17-year-old son makes a decision that carries consequences. His two younger siblings are the main characters, and their characters are well developed. I loved the strong image of a young girl’s independent spirit, creative imagination, and writing ability. Read by Chad Lowe.
7 - Lab Girl, by Hope Jahren
Who knew that a fact-based book filled with descriptions of scientific experiments involving seeds, leaves and trees could be so interesting? Hope Jahren’s life has included the struggle to be taken seriously as a female scientist in a profession dominated by men. Her lab partner plays a prominent role in her life, as do (in more recent years) her husband, her son, and the diagnosis/ treatment of of her bi-polar medical condition. Read by the author.
8 - Becoming, by Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama reads this autobiography herself, which makes it all the more poignant as she describes her life from her childhood and youth in South Central Chicago, her college years at Princeton and law school education at Harvard, her time spent practicing law at a private law firm and later in lower paying jobs that allowed her to help people in under-served communities, through her years as First Lady, where she worked tirelessly on projects to eliminate childhood obesity and increase education opportunities. Central to her story is her supportive parents, her life with Barack Obama and her favorite role as the mother of her two daughters.
Note: I wrote down several wonderful quotes from this book on a piece of paper that has since disappeared. One of them was from the pivotal conversation she had with Barack when he was deciding whether to run for president, and it was something to the effect of, there is so much that needs to be done to make the world a better place, and we’ve been so fortunate to have had opportunities, how can we not work to help others who are less fortunate?
9 - Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
I love Trevor Noah. He is a South African comedian who gained fame in the U.S. when he took over the Daily Show from Jon Stewart in September 2015. The title of the book, read by the author, refers to the fact that at the time he was born (in 1984), it was illegal for a South African woman to have intercourse with a European man, punishable by up to 4 years in prison. His mother was black and his father was Swiss. (Neither was imprisoned for his conception.) The law was changed a year after he was born.
The book is mostly tales of his childhood, when he was classified as “coloured” and was not entirely accepted by either the white children or the black children he came in contact with during his school years. There are some hilarious stories of his antics, with his strong, loving mother guiding him through his youth, as well as tales of suffering under the hand of his stepfather and under poverty and racial prejudice in South Africa. Unfortunately, the book ends during the years when he was just starting to achieve some fame in South Africa, when I would have liked to hear more about his career.
10 - Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate
This is a novel based on the horrible, true history of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society and its founder, Georgia Tann, who stole children from poor people in the south and sold them to wealthy people for adoption (including some celebrities), from the 1920’s to 1950.
The story takes place in two eras with two different readers taking on the roles of the lead characters. In 1939, Rill is a ten-year-old girl with three younger sisters and a brother who live with their parents on a river shanty boat in Memphis until they are taken away by the Society while their parents make an emergency trip to a hospital. Avery is a modern day attorney who learns of an envelope containing her grandmother’s secrets that sparks a search for information on her family’s history. The two stories are intertwined, but not every loose thread is tied up in the end, just as the real families who were Georgia Tann’s victims did not find all of their answers after the corruption was revealed and the Tennessee Children’s Home Society was finally closed.
11 - Calypso, by David Sedaris
In his book, Sedaris describes various humorous events in his life and interactions with members of his large family. It Is read by the author, and it had me laughing out loud. Sedaris also makes some poignant observations, such as this one between himself and his father as they struggle to communicate: “We’re like a pair of bad trapeze artists, reaching for each other’s hands and missing every time.”