Audiobook Review: COLOUR SCHEME by Ngaio Marsh

I fell in love with Ngaio Marsh last year when I read Vintage Murder for the Vintage Mystery Challenge. How can you not love a writer who devises a death-by-champagne-bottle plot? So when I put together this year’s list for the Vintage Mystery Challenge 2012, I created a “Vicious Vacations” theme (murders that take place in a location I’d kill to visit!), and knew I had to put another of Marsh’s New Zealand-based books on the list. The only one I was able to find on audible was Colour Scheme, so I downloaded it. And it finally came up on my gym cue last week. The fact that I logged an extra hour and a half on the treadmill indicates that my second Marsh title didn’t disappoint.

Maurice Questing is an insufferable, conniving, lascivious man. A long-term resident of Wai Atta Tapu*, a small thermal spring resort, it’s clear from the beginning that Questing has some kind of hold over Colonel and Mrs. Claire, the stuffy but good hearted expats who own the spa. The book takes place during World War II, and the daily blackouts and shipping reports that were part of the daily life of New Zealanders at the time feature prominently in the book. The setting allows Marsh to put together a fascinating group of characters and possible motives for Questing’s inevitable – and quite gruesome – murder.

In addition to the Claires and Questing, other expats include the Claire’s adult children, ugly duckling Barbara and son Simon, who is working to perfect his Morse code in advance of being called up to the air force. There’s also the famous (and high-maintenance) Shakespearean actor who is taking a cure of lumbago in the mud baths, Geoffrey Gaunt, along with his entourage: personal secretary named Dikon Bell, a New Zealander, and his British dresser and man-Friday, Calley. Another guest at the hot springs, Septimus Falls, is totally agreeable, but evasive about his background. Spa handyman Smith is known to hate Questing openly, even accusing him of attempted homicide.

One of the things that made this book particularly interesting was the inclusion of Maori characters, including a retired Member of Parliament, Rua. Marsh treated the Maori characters and their traditions with dignity, while still illustrating the tensions between the three cultures: Brits, “colonials,” and native New Zealanders. One of the possible premises for Questing’s murder stems directly from the Maori element in the novel, since he is accused of stealing Maori artifacts for illicit sale to collectors. The second premise is indirectly related to the Maori, as there appears to be a fifth column spy signaling from the Maori reserve lands where Questing is known to wander in the evenings.

I never figured out the murderer, in part because I didn’t pay as much attention to the title as I should have. There are a couple of interesting twists toward the end, and more than a few red herrings, but I love it when I think back and the solution to a mystery was difficult but fair, which has been the case in both of the Marsh titles I have read. I’d call it good fun.

I am finally on the board for another challenge, Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge 2012, hosted by Bev at My Reader’s Block! I have some catching up to do, but that’s what summer is for, isn’t it?

*An apology – since I listened to the audiobook, and couldn’t find a complete list of characters online, I have likely spelled some names wrong. I have gone with the most common spellings.

Audiobook Review: The Sunday Philosophy Club

CAUTION: Snarky Review Ahead. Because Isabel Dalhousie annoyed the heck out of me!

Having enjoyed a number of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books by the same author, my husband and I downloaded Alexander McCall Smith’s The Sunday Afternoon Philosophy Club for a recent drive to Chicago. I’d heard the main character in the series, Isabel Dalhousie, was an academic, and we both thought that might make for an interesting twist on her sleuthing. We started the audiobook somewhere in Central Pennsylvania.

When it finished up as we cruised past Chicago’s U.S. Cellular Field, my hubby turned to me and deadpanned, “Well, that’s eight and a half hours of our lives we’ll never get back.” Indeed.

First books in series are difficult – rather than focusing on the mystery at hand, authors often wind up focusing on “setting up” the characters and their relationships. I get that. But in this case the main mystery and the subplot mysteries were very thin – and were solved through serendipity. Isabel Dalhousie didn’t demonstrate any great intellectual prowess or cultural acumen in solving the problems, just a combination of nosiness and dumb luck.

As for her characterization, the whole discussion of her work as a journal editor was off-putting to me. I know a couple of extraordinarily hard-working academic journal editors – at least one of whom is a pretty regular reader of this blog. Most of them do the job against the background of their own considerable work as professors and researchers. It’s a huge undertaking, not the dilettantish endeavor that McCall Smith makes it out to be. Phew — getting a manuscript in the mail. And then actually sending it out to a couple of reviewers. Excellent day’s work – time for a glass of wine and an omelet with the favorite niece’s old beau. Well done.

But what annoyed me most about Isabel Dalhousie went beyond the subpar mystery and the thinness of the characters. Rather than entertaining me, I had the impression that the Scottish journal editor was lecturing me the entire time. Me and everyone else who came within her general vicinity: family, friends, servants, dog walking strangers. I know Alexander McCall Smith is an ethicist. But what about the ethics of badgering your readers? What about the ethics of acting like a smartypants? This isn’t Sophie’s World, for crying out loud. It’s supposed to be a cozy mystery, not a lecture from a Problem of Evil course. I just couldn’t get over the disturbing flashbacks to freshman year at college.

(No wonder her Sunday Philosophy Club never meets. I can just imagine a club member's calculus on a sunny Sunday morning. “What shall I do on this beautiful Edinburgh day? Well, I could amble through the Royal Botanical Garden. Maybe take in the Ceilidh Culture Festival. Or I could go over to Isabel Dalhousie’s and be hit over the head with a Kantian imperative. Hmmm. The Royal Botanical Garden it is then.”)

Narrator Davina Porter does her absolute best with this audiobook, let me underscore that. She executes a wide range of characters skillfully and credibly. I especially liked her characterization of the men in the book – very engaging, and each very different. I just don’t think she had a lot to work with in this case. I would happily listen to her read another title – just not in this series!

After I finished the book I looked at some other reviews, and they were all over the board. Some people love the series, and some just hate it. Count me among the peeved.

SNARK ATTACK OVER!

Audiobook Review: In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

Alexander McCall Smith’s sixth installment in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, has a wonderfully intimate feel. Each of the mysteries covered in this book is very personal to the characters that series fans have already come to know and love. The book starts with Mma Ramotswe attempting to foil a theft in the bizarre. Then there’s the mystery of the intruder in her house on Zebra Drive. And the question of the perfect pumpkin left on her porch. Most importantly, there’s the strange goings-on at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s former residence – and the chance that they may have something to do with ladies’ man apprentice Charlie. As with all of the books in this series, the mysteries themselves are secondary to the human interactions and observations that lead to their resolutions.

Since the first book was published in 1998, McCall Smith has had plenty of time to develop the main characters, and their increasing complexity is indeed part of the charm of the book. We see Precious Ramotswe’s lingering self-doubt for the first time in the series. And we experience Grace Makutsi’s loneliness – after all, even if you can be justifiably proud of your astounding 97% result on the final examinations at the Botswana Secretarial College, you can’t cuddle up with it at night.

But McCall Smith isn’t letting things get dull in Gabarone. This book introduces two important male characters: Phuti Radiphuti, Mma Makutsi’s kind but clumsy dancing partner, and Mr. Polopetsi, a very honest man who paid a terrible price for someone else’s mistake, and is now trying to find work in an unforgiving city. As ever, I love the compassion with which McCall Smith treats his characters.

One of the reasons I chose this for what I knew would be a long car ride was because it was read, like the other books in this series, by South African narrator Lisette Lecat. Her beautifully accented reading evokes warm sunshine, African bush tea, and the slow but changing rhythm of life near the Kalahari Desert– probably because she grew up not far from Botswana. She is Precious Ramotswe to me. And Grace Makutsi. And Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. I can easily listen to her for hours, forgetting (or at least trying to forget) the demolition derby driving on the Capitol Beltway. Lecat’s range is outstanding. Each of the voices she creates is so distinctive that I no longer need the text to tell me who’s speaking. And unlike other readers’, I haven’t found any of her characterizations off-putting, even those of the minor or transitory ones.

These audiobooks have wide appeal, and because the themes are very traditional, and morality and culture are discussed often, they make a great choice for family listening. My husband and at least one daughter enjoy them as much as I do. Highly recommended for lovers of mysteries, lovers of fiction set in other countries, and people who love smart, compassionate, female protagonists.

This book wasn’t for any of my challenges, but I will be linking this review to Audiobook Jukebox, a great place to find audiobook reviews and recommendations. June was Audiobook Month, so I really wanted to get something linked over there before the end of the month!

Audiobook Review: The Namesake

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake felt like two different stories to me. The first one is the immigrant story of Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, a story I found beautiful, compelling and warm. The book begins with the recently married Ashima in the delivery room of a Massachusetts hospital, thinking about what the experience would be like if she were at home with her family –the traditions, the help, the familiarity. She struggles through the American way, though, and delivers the boy they call “Gogol,” after the Russian author, until they can find out the name bestowed upon him by Ashima’s grandmother in India. Unfortunately, the letter never arrives, Ashima’s dear grandmother dies, and Gogol the little boy remains.

The first story is driven by Ashima’s strong desire to succeed, despite the unfamiliar situation in which she finds herself. Lahiri paints a wonderful character – you love her from the moment she impetuously slips her feet in to Ashoke’s American-style shoes when the families meet to arrange the marriage. Like so many immigrants, she is torn – missing her old life desperately, but finally thriving in the new one. Ashima builds a family of sorts from the Bengali immigrant community, doing her best to recreate the huge, extended family that her children would have had in India.

Gogol’s lifelong attempt to define himself drives the second story – a story that was far less satisfying for me than the first one. Frankly, Gogol struck me as a bit of a brat, but I wasn’t sure if that’s what Lahiri intended. He’s smart and privileged (his father is an engineering professor, so he flouts family tradition by going to Yale rather than MIT, oh the horror) and not even bad looking, and yet he seems to be obsessed by the fact that his name is weird. Or at least it’s weird for a Bengali-American kid.

Perhaps Lahiri was trying to underscore the differences between the immigrant generation and their children – differences that seem to be exacerbated by our hyper-mediated society, which thrusts even first generation Americans into the mainstream far faster than in previous migrations. But in the end Gogol seemed like a whiner to me – by the time the book got to its climax, I wasn’t too worried about what would happen to Gogol. In fact, I liked the women in his life better than him, and was pretty sure that moving on would be the right move for them.

That’s not to say the book wasn’t enjoyable though. I listened to the audio version, read beautifully by Sarita Choudhury. She has a truly lovely voice, and mixed Indian and American accents well. And she had a lot to work with – Lahiri truly has a gift for language. I loved how most of her narrative kept you constantly aware of where the characters were – place, especially unfamiliar places, are so much a part of the immigrant experience. Maybe that’s why I was disappointed by Lahiri’s ending – arguably the most important incident in Gogol’s life gets related in a flashback: the reader has been present for so much of Gogol’s story, and it felt like Lahiri shut us out of a critical episode. It was a strange choice.

Still, this is a fantastic audiobook, easy to follow and a pleasure to hear. I recommend it highly for those who like contemporary literary fiction, immigrant fiction, and fiction featuring characters from South Asia. The story is both entertaining and wise, and the characters are very real – real enough to annoy me in one case, true, but that’s still pretty real!

This book was a triple threat – it counts for the Book Bloggers Abroad, Immigrant Stories, and South Asia Reading Challenges. That’s a good thing, since the end-of-semester crush has seriously cut into my reviewing time! Thanks to Judith at Leeswammes, Colleen at Books in the City, and Swapna at S.Krishna’s Books for hosting! And don’t forget to check out Audiobook Jukebox for audiobook recommendations – I’ll be posting a link to this review there!

Audiobook Review: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

If a book can be distilled to a chapter, a chapter distilled to a sentence, and a sentence distilled to a word, then the word for Winifred Watson’s Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is “charming.” I listened to Frances McDormand’s narration of the audiobook, and I have to say it was wonderful.

Miss Pettigrew is the literary equivalent of a screwball comedy, and it’s easy to see why Persephone Books chose to pluck it from obscurity. Unemployed and unaccomplished governess Guinevere Pettigrew reports to what she believes is an interview for another dull position, only to be thrust into the glittering high society world of actress Delysia LaFosse. Miss Pettigrew quickly becomes an ally to Miss LaFosse, and an asset to her circle of friends, because of her quick wits and straight-forward style.

The book takes place over a one-day period, and we watch the dowdy, downtrodden Miss Pettigrew blossom with every small triumph. She can hardly believe her luck, and dreads the end of the wonderful day, when she believes all her fun must come to an end:

For years she had lived in other people’s houses, and had never been an inmate in the sense of belonging. And now, in a few short hours, she was blissfully and serenely at home. She was accepted. They talked to her. And how they talked. She had never heard the like before. Their ridiculous inconsequence. Every sentence was like a heady cocktail. The whole flavor of the remarks gave her a wicked feeling of sophistication. And the way she kept her end up. No one would ever dream that she was new to it. “I never believed,” thought Miss Pettigrew with pride, “that I had it in me.” (1:54:58, Audiobook).

You can’t help but root for Miss Pettigrew to embrace this new lifestyle on a permanent basis!

I imagine this was a rather racy book when it was first published in 1938, what with Miss LaFosse maintaining three love affairs at one time – I suppose that’s what makes it feel so “modern,” overall. However, it also contains some shocking cultural signs of its times, including ethnic slurs aimed at Italians and Jews, that are decidedly out of step in 2011. The character of Miss Pettigrew – the spinster who’s sure life has passed her by, only to find she may have one last chance at happiness – is truly timeless.

Frances McDormand, who played Miss Pettigrew in the 2008 movie (I haven’t seen it, but would really like to), reads this book beautifully. You can practically watch prim Miss Pettigrew’s hair come down through her narration. The men are gruff, but not overdone. The women’s voices are all very unique, and capture their personalities perfectly. This was really a perfect match between book and reader – McDormand’s comic timing enhances the book tremendously. I highly recommend it for those who love literary fiction, humor, and fiction about women. And if you’re thinking of trying an audiobook for the first time, I would definitely suggest this one – it will give you an idea of how pleasant the experience of listening to a book can be. This is one of only four Persephones available as audiobooks, and I certainly hope they will do more.

This book counts for a Life Stage in the What's in a Name 4 Challenge. Thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting. I'll be posting a link to this review on Audiobook Jukebox – if you’re looking for audiobook reviews, that’s the best place to start!

Audiobook Review: Old Filth

Jane Gardam’s Old Filth is a portrait of successful barrister at the end of his life. To outsiders, Sir Edward Feathers’ journey appears to have been uneventful, charmed even. He attended a boarding school for young gentlemen during the Great Depression, served in a prestigious unit deployed in the English countryside in World War II, read law at Oxford directly after the war, and was admitted to the bar quickly. His legal success was legendary, his marriage was long and happy, his wealth was enviable. Gardam emphasizes this “outsider” view by starting each of the parts of the book with a dramaturgical scene, with acquaintances discussing Feathers in the format of a play: scene setting and character names followed by lines.

Of course, the interior life doesn’t match the exterior, and Gardam reveals the hidden sorrows of Eddie’s life through a present, first-person narrative and disjointed flashbacks in the days after his wife’s sudden death. We slowly learn about his miserable life as a “Raj orphan,” one of the thousands of children sent back at the age of 4 or 5 from the British Empire’s outposts in tropical Asia to be fostered by perfect strangers, who were paid to bring them up in the English way.

We also learn about the preternatural fear of homosexuality that the boarding school culture engendered. “Sir,” Eddie’s headmaster, impresses on the boy from the start that he runs a “clean school.” His friendship with another boy, Pat Ingelsby, is suspect, and it appears that the schools went to great lengths to keep young men from forming close and exclusive friendship, for fear that they signaled something “unsavory.” Not surprisingly, his childhood experiences leave Eddie emotionally distant and distrustful.

Gardam’s use of language is spare and evocative. Eddie’s seemingly serene life winds up packed with adventure, pain, and loss. The subject matter is heavy, but like all lives, there are wry moments, as when we learn why Sir Edward coined his own nickname (“Filth” stands for Failed in London, Try Hongkong). There’s plenty of irony too, as the least “savory” characters he’s met in his life prove to be the closest things he ever has to real friends.

The Raj orphan phenomenon was new to me. I found myself wondering why their parents bothered to have children that they had no intention of raising, but I suppose it made perfect sense at the time. Gardam paints a pretty unflattering portrait of the British Empire bureaucrats, who cannot seem to get far enough away from England, but don’t seem to be able to leave it truly behind and embrace the warm and sensuous cultures in which the find themselves.

The book was very good, but I did have some definite problems with it. The stream of consciousness musings were often disjointed. This may have been particularly pronounced as I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Graeme Malcom. The dramaturgical passages, especially, were read so fast that I felt some of their meaning was lost. Old Filth is a great character, but some of the plot twists rang false, and one or two interesting storylines simply petered out. I waffled between 3 and 4 stars on this book, but in the end it came down to enjoyment – I simply didn’t enjoy listening to it as much as I have other recent audiobooks. Gardam shares a great story, though, and I wouldn’t hesitate to read The Man in the Wooden Hat, which recounts the Feathers’ marriage from his wife Betty’s point of view. But I will read it, not listen. I’m not sure Gardam’s complex style is the right fit for an audiobook for me. Her work appears to take more concentration than I can muster at the gym, which is how I generally fit audiobooks in to my schedule.

Audiobook Review: Bitter Sweets

Scandalous lies. Sweet lies. Treacherous lies. Nimble lies. Lies of omission. Roopa Farooki’s Bitter Sweets tells the story of a Bangladeshi family built on a lie – and of three generations of suffering because of all the subsequent lies it takes to hold the unhappy group together.

Henna, a lazy and illiterate shopkeeper’s daughter from Dacca, convinces wealthy Anglophile and Oxford student Rashid (Ricky) Kareem that she is his poetry-loving, tennis-playing soulmate – a pretense that she manages to keep up until their wedding night. The first lie yields a second, as Ricky covers up his wife’s inadequacies for the sake of family honor. And the lies continue from there, each piece of happiness marred by some part of the truth missing.

Henna and Rashid’s only child, Shona, lies to keep peace. She falls in love with Parvez, a Pakastani, and they elope to London, where they start married life living over a confectioner’s shop. Intelligent and driven, Shona works tirelessly to create a perfect world for her little family. But even her kindly-meant lies take their toll, and eventually have repercussions for her twin sons, Omar and Sharif. (**Digression: Yes, that’s Omar and Sharif. Like the actor. It makes total sense when you read the novel, I promise.**)

Bitter Sweets is a solid family saga, romantic, funny, sad, and suspenseful in turns. I liked the complexity of the characters. Everyone has mixed motives, so their actions aren’t predictable. In fact, the ending provided a great plot twist that I never saw coming. I love that.

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook. Tania Rodrigues is a wonderful narrator, with a range of accents and voices that take the reader from Bangladeshi high society to the streets of London effortlessly. I had a couple of “driveway” moments while listening to the book, sitting in the car to listen to the end of a chapter – she has a great voice that you don’t tire of.

I’m starting to realize how very important the narrator is to the success of an audiobook. Actually, this book has me thinking about doing an experiment: I plan to read the actual book, and compare the two formats, to see how much of my enjoyment was because on the narration. Based on the mixed reviews I read of the book, and my own enthusiastic response, I wonder if Rodrigues’ masterful performance may have accounted for quite a lot my positive review.

Or maybe this is just my cup of tea. I will report back.

This book counts for THREE challenges: that’s a personal record. It counts for Evil in the What’s in a Name 4 Challenge, as well as for Immigrant Stories and the South Asia Challenge. Thanks to Beth Fish Reads, Colleen at BooksNYC and Swapna at S. Krishna’s Books for hosting.

Oh, and I’ll also be putting up a link on Audiobook Jukebox. It’s a great blog I recently found out about, with links to hundreds of reviews for audiobooks.

Audiobook Review: One Corpse Too Many

The New Year’s resolution to rock a bathing suit for my 20th anniversary trip to the Caribbean has been thoroughly productive from one perspective: the audiobook perspective, that is. Looking for something light and engaging enough to keep my mind off the treadmill miles, I chose the second Brother Cadfael mystery, One Corpse Too Many. As expected, it was very entertaining.

Set against the backdrop of the siege of Shrewsbury Castle during the dynastic struggles of King Stephen and Empress Maude, the novel follows the scrupulous Brother Cadfael’s search for the murderer of a minor noble whose death was not warranted by King Stephen, unlike the other 94 men of the castle who were brutally but legally hanged for their participation in the siege: the “one corpse too many” of the title.

What I love about the Brother Cadfael novels is the unfolding of the deductive reasoning process. The unorthodox monk, who lived the worldly life of a Crusader before taking up the cowl to tend the abbey’s herbarium, brings his life’s experience to bear on every problem. And this book presents a lot of problems. Along with the solving of a murder, Cadfael also must save the life of a courier, outwit the cagiest of nobles, protect a young woman from the King, and hide the truth about a crime from an innocent orphan.

One of the most charming parts of the audiobook for me was Patrick Tull’s excellent narration. His accent changes from heavy Welsh to proper British falsetto effortlessly. And his voice is soothing, but not at all dull. As mysteries go, this is good, clean, historical fun. I liked this one even better than A Morbid Taste for Bones, and I think it would stand on its own, even if you didn’t read the first one. This book is highly recommended for lovers of deductive mysteries and historical mysteries.

This is my first book for the What's In A Name 4 Challenge: A Number. It's such a fun challenge, and the categories are so open that you can always fill them with something you wanted to read anyway, but didn't make time for. Thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting. And it clears some of my backlog, so it's a Bloggiesta chore as well!

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency: Solving African mysteries, great and small

Botswana is suddenly on my Bucket List, and it’s all because of Precious Ramotswe.

I had already put Alexander McCall Smith’s The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency on my reading list for the R.I.P. V Challenge when Karen over at How Mysterious gave a great review to the second audio book in that series. With a trip to New Jersey looming, and a 1-book credit on audible.com burning a hole in my digital pocket, I decided to download the audio book.

Another great call, Karen.

Precious Ramotswe is a gatherer – a gatherer of people, a gatherer of skills and a gatherer of information. A non-traditional woman in a traditional but changing society, Mma Ramotswe takes her inheritance and puts her considerable deductive powers to work by opening Botswana’s first female owned and operated detective agency. As a new business owner, she takes almost any case that comes her way, from tracking down pampered pooches to exposing insurance cheats. She constructs each case as a puzzle, and she uses her knowledge of Botswana –culture, flora, fauna, history – to make the pieces of the puzzle fit.

I especially loved the idea of having Precious solve lots of different mysteries, rather than have the book dominated by one case: you got to know her and the supporting cast of characters better as you encounter both her successes and failures during her first months on the job. And there’s a good deal of humor to go along with the sleuthing, because Precious can both laugh at herself and laugh at the world.

This is a particularly engaging audio book. With Lisette Lecat’s African-accented narration, the story truly springs to life. I loved Lecat’s graceful pronunciation of the Setswanan names, and the changes in her voice that signaled different characters were consistent, clear and never cutesy. The only thing I might have wished for was some of the sounds of Botswana – fires crackling at a cattle station, traditional music drifting from a neighbor’s turntable, birds calling from the thorn bushes.

It’s been a long time since a book prompted me to think about traveling to some way-out destination, but I found myself trolling the Internet for photo safaris in Botswana when I got home from New Jersey today. That’s the transportational power of a good read in action.

Audio books save the trip: Percy and the Olympians and Ellie

Faced with a ten-hour car ride to Wisconsin, and a pre-teen who was already missing her older sister (who was flying in later) and her parents (who were leaving her in Madison with her grandparents to attend a conference), I racked my brain for a way to make the trip more enjoyable. Ellie was in the middle of reading Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief, and loving it. (This is great news, as Ellie has up-to-now been the kind of kid who avoided certain titles because they looked “too long.”) So I figured we could get the audio books of both The Lightning Thief and the second book in the series, The Sea of Monsters, and make the trip a lot more fun for all of us.

For those who don’t know, Riordan’s Percy and the Olympians series chronicles the exciting and dangerous life of Perseus Jackson, a modern-day son of Poseidon with an uncanny ability to attract monsters – and mayhem – as he battles to save the world from the forces of the evil Titan Kronos. His friends include a host of other demi-gods and mythical creatures, most importantly Annabeth (a gray-eyed daughter of Athena) and Grover (the satyr who identified Percy as a demi-god, or half-blood, in the first place).

Generally, I am not a reader of Young Adult titles*, at least on my own. But I have enjoyed reading many of them with my daughters over the years, and I was excited when Ellie decided to read this series – I remember going through a phase where I couldn’t get enough Greek and Roman mythology myself. I thought it might be just the thing to push her into the next level of reading achievement. Turns out I was right.

Let me say that there is nothing groundbreaking in either of the titles. The same formula – take a seemingly regular kid and surround him/her with a collection of unusual friends in the combat of some great evil – worked in other great series, like The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, and Harry Potter. The particular fun of Riordan’s books, however, is in the juxtaposition of archetypical Greek characters with thoroughly modern settings. Mount Olympus is found at the top of the Empire State Building. The Gray Sisters share their eye to navigate a supernatural taxi service. The entrance to Hades is – of course – in Los Angeles, with Charon reimagined as the snarky receptionist of D.O.A. Records. Hilarious! Actually, I'd say this series is a perfect choice for multi-generational listening, because there are a lot of jokes that are clearly meant for the parents.

Audio books include another factor – the reader. Both The Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters were read by Jesse Bernstein. His mild New York accent worked well for Manhattan-based Percy, but my daughter thought he sounded a bit too old to read Percy’s first-person narrative. Also, some of the accents he employed to differentiate the characters were simply awful, and not consistent within characters when they reappeared. But Bernstein does have a gentle voice, and it didn’t grate on me even after a long car ride, so I think his interpretation was mostly successful.

So listening to the audio books made the long car trips lots of fun. I always thought of audio books as kind of a “cheat,” but having listened to one, I now think of them as a whole different form of entertainment. Even better, Ellie’s next trip to the library netted D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths, and she hasn’t had her nose out of it since. She knows a Satyr from a Centaur, and a Nereid from a Dryad. She has even chosen her costume for Halloween: Artemis. Her rationale: she’s the only goddess who doesn’t want to smooch boys all the time! I’m glad that even though her reading tastes are maturing, she isn’t growing up too fast – she is my baby after all.

*Although this summer has been an exception, I admit, with Looking for Alaska and the Percy Jacksons