Latest Listenings, Part 1

     I recently watched a scene in a television show in which a character showed contempt for people who listen to audio-books.  The point was that people who read are smarter (and possibly better in every way) than those posers who pop in their ear buds to absorb a book.  Well, I disagree.  I might look like a raggedy old lady when I'm squatting in the back yard, wrist deep in potting soil, my Kindle droning on and on, but I am multi-tasking, enriching my internal and external landscapes at the same time.
     Here's what I heard recently:

Fiction

     When a Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare - Okay, you have me on this one.  Reading a book like this is not proof that I have anything much going on between my ears.  It's a fluffy romance, especially for those who are obsessed with the Outlander thing.

Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner - The author uses the London Blitz during World War II to tell her story.  A single mother sends her two daughters out of London to a foster home in the countryside, so they will be safe from the German bombing.  The older child is smart and headstrong; the younger one is unbelievably sweet and devoted to big sis.  The foster mother is a saint.  A little mystery develops that is tied up completely in the end.  Some people criticize the book for being a bit too formulaic.  Others say Susan Meissner, an American, failed to be convincing as a Brit telling a British story.  
    
Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks - It's a story about Puritans and Wampanoag Indians.  The female protagonist, Bethia Mayfield, finds her emerging self at odds with her Puritan upbringing.  She is more attracted to Cheeshahteaumauck (anglicized to Caleb), a Wampanoag Indian boy, than she is to the fellow Puritan suitor approved by her father.  Caleb was a real historical figure, the first Native American to graduate in 1665 from Harvard University.  The history presented was interesting, and so was the story of Bethia's coming of age.

The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg - Fannie Flagg is an actress turned author.  She wrote the book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and the screen play for the film, Fried Green Tomatoes.  The All-Girl Filling Station is an homage to the WASPs of World War II.  I wouldn't be surprised to see this book turned into a movie some day.

Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk - Agent Number 67 (nicknamed Pygmy by his host family because of his small stature) is one of many secret agent children sent to the United States by an Asian nation (Korea, maybe?).  The child agents masquerade as exchange students; their mission is terrorism.  The book is a series of dispatches from Pygmy to the home country in which he reports the progress of his mission using his unique command of the English language - sort of a mash up of Oh in the cartoon Home, Yoda in Star Wars, and Jadis, the scavenger, in The Walking Dead.  Some of the violent stuff made me queezy, but other stuff really tickled my warped sense of humor.

The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman - A Coney Island girl has to spend her life in a huge fish tank playing a mermaid.  The author uses two historical fires - the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the Dreamland Fire of 1911 to set the story.
  
The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomons - Elise Landau is a Viennese Jewish girl who in 1938 is sent to Tyneford House in  England to escape the Nazis.

Trapeze by Simon Mawer - Marian Sutro is the child of an English father and a French mother.  She is bi-lingual so ends up being recruited for undercover operations during World War II.  She is told her chances of coming home alive from a mission are 50/50, but she goes anyway.  You'll have to read the book to find out if those odds worked out in her favor.

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant - Eighty five year old Addie Baum tells her life story to her twenty-two year old granddaughter.  It's a nice story about being the child of immigrants.  I loved Linda Lavin's reading of this book.  I think her narration was the best I have ever heard, and I have listened to lots of audio-books.

Non-Fiction

One Ranger by H. Joaquin Jackson - This is Jackson's recounting of his colorful career as a Texas Ranger.  After retiring from law enforcement in 1993, Jackson graced the cover of Texas Monthly Magazine, did some acting, and ran a private security firm.  He said he is the last of his kind, and he represents the end of an era.