Alexandria
by Lindsey Davis
narrated by Christian Rodska
"It's AD 77. Egypt was the destination of choice for Roman tourists, being home to not one but two Wonders of the Ancient World. Unfortunately, when Marcus Didius Falco pays a visit, he discovers it's also a hotbed of schemers and murderers."The trouble with murder mysteries in audio form is the difficulty in remembering who is who, which means the revelation of the murderer can be quite the anti-climax. Especially when all the names are Roman or Greek, there are five deaths (poison, crocodile, strangulation, falling from a tower, fire), and none is particularly straightforward. But it wasn't bad really.
Anthills of the Savannah
by Chinua Achebe
"Chris, Ikem and Beatrice are like-minded friends working under the military regime of His Excellency, the Sandhurst-educated President of Kangan. In the pressurized atmosphere of oppression and intimidation they are simply trying to live and love - and remain friends."I can't say that I enjoyed this book, partly because it describes a violent revolution in an African nation and partly because I didn't really understand the roles or motivation of the characters. And there was some local dialect that I couldn't make out. Another ticked off the 'Classics' list, but not liked.
Can You Forgive Her?
by Anthony Trollope
narrated by Timothy West
"Alice is torn between marrying her ambitious but violent cousin George or the bland but gentlemanly John Grey, ending up both accepting and rejecting each of them in turn and thus transgressing from the Victorian moral code. In contrast, her friend Lady Glencora is forced to marry the rising politician Plantagenet Palliser to prevent the worthless Burgo Fitzgerald from wasting her vast fortune."The first of the Palliser series and free with my Audible subscription, which is useful because I've only one book credit left before June. I think it's clear that the nineteenth is my favourite century when it comes to literature, and this example doesn't disappoint. The usual social history is there - what happens when an independently wealthy woman agrees to marry a man, and then changes her mind? How is she influenced by the women around her, and how is she manipulated by the men? I forgive her - in fact there were many people to forgive here.
Girl, Woman, Other
by Bernardine Evaristo
"We follow a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They're each looking for something - a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope."At last, a modern novel that interested me and didn't put me off with its subject, content, attitude or poor plotting. Not to say this was a conventional read, but I enjoyed the way that sentences were laid out, sometimes without punctuation, more like consecutive thoughts than narrative. And the women take centre stage, and I hadn't realised how that place is normally reserved for the men, and how refreshing when they aren't there.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
by J. K. Rowling
"Harry has been burdened with a dark, dangerous and seemingly impossible task. Never has he felt so alone, or faced a future so full of shadows. But Harry must somehow find within himself the strength to complete the task he has been given."Well, it's over at last and I doubt I'll read the series again. This last book attempted to draw together all the strands into a coherent conclusion, and managed to succeed at least partly, but it could have done with tighter editing to focus on the important stuff and lose some unnecessary padding, which would have clarified the key parts of the plot leading to the climax. But I can't take away the glorious popularity of the series, which I believe has got young people interested in reading again, and that's got to be a good thing.
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