What I'm Listening to Now

I've been listening to audio books while I exercise and while I'm trying to fall asleep (highly recommended, by the way). I've got the Hoopla app which lets me borrow these for free -- if your library is a Hoopla subscriber, you can probably do that too.

This are my recent favorites:

Kathrine Addison, Goblin Emperor, narrated by Kyle McCarley

I love Addison's books about this goblin/elf world anyway (there are also ghouls and dragons), and McCarley does a fine job narrating. This are books where the main characters acts with decency, intelligence, and as much justice as they can manage, despite being from categories -- like being half-goblin -- and past circumstances (being treated unjustly, and even abused) which make that difficult. Addison's world is richly developed, with several cultures, religions, and multiple languages. If you're listening to it instead of reading it that might be a problem -- the book has an appendix of characters, places, and words. But since I've read this one a couple of times already, I'm having no problem following it. The story in this one concerns Maia, the fourth and half-goblin son of the emperor of Elfland, who has been relegated to a distant hunting lodge with an abusive guardian, rather than being brought up at the court, since no one thought he would ever inherit the empire. Then his father and all his brothers are killed when their airship crashes, and Maia has to take over. This is my current go-to-sleep book.

Shirley Jackson, Raising Demons, Life Among the Savages, narrated by Lesa Lockford and Kirsten Potter

These are Jackson's two books about bringing up her four children from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. They're kind of twee but also charming and occasionally very funny. Jackson herself called them a "disrespectful memoir of my children." Lockford and Potter do an excellent job with the narration. Some of this material was also published in various women's magazines before being reworked for the two books. If you've only read Jackson's horror novels and stories, these are entirely different, and a lot of fun.

I also listened to these while going to sleep. They're perfect for that -- nothing bad happens, and very little is at stake.

Naomi Novik, The Temeraire novels, narrated by Simon Vance

I read the first two of these a long time ago, and then our library didn't have the rest and that was when we didn't have any money, so I just didn't read any of the others. So now I'm listening to them while I exercise. Vance is an excellent narrator, so much so that I sometimes exercise just a little longer so I can find out what happens in the scene. If you don't know these books, they're about a minor member of the nobility during the Napoleonic wars, who is serving as a ship's captain when he accidentally "harnesses" a dragon, and thus must leave the navy and join the aerial corps -- a very different kind of service indeed. The bond between him and his dragon, Temeraire, makes him willing to put up with the disruption of his life. A knowledge of the history of the time helps, but I know only what I've learned from reading Georgette Heyer novels and Jane Austen novels, and I'm pretty well able to follow it. These are the first audiobooks I've listened to without reading the novel first, and I'm enjoying them a lot. 

Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News? narrated by Ellen Archer

This is my favorite of the Jackson Brodie novels, and Archer either has or does an excellent Scottish accent. This is the first novel Reggie is in -- she's about sixteen in this book, and her mother has just died, leaving her an orphan (though apparently legally of age in Scotland?). There's some violent deaths in the background, but mostly in the novel we see Reggie and her mentor Dr. Jo as well as Jackson Brodie and Louise, a Scottish police officer, handling things as well as they can, while also (both Jackson and Louise, who are hot for each other but married to other people and thus unable to admit the attraction to each other.)

The Scottish accent is at least 20% of why I liked this one so much. But also Reggie is a great character. I listened to this one while I exercised and it make the process practically enjoyable.

Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries, narrated by Kevin Free

Also bedtime books. These are about a construct security unit who hacks its governor module and becomes a rogue unit, but instead of murdering people watches a lot of media instead. Then he makes friends with a giant space ship and...oh, who doesn't know the plot of these already? Free is less good in the first volume, but he rapidly improves, and since I know these so well by now they're a good going to sleep listen.