We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin
narrated by Toby Jones
"In the totalitarian society of the OneState of the great Benefactor, in a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, is a world where people are numbers, there are no individuals, only numbers. Even nature has been defeated, banished behind the Green Wall."A precursor to Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four, this is a Russian author imagining a future in a rational world where Freedom and Happiness are considered to be mutually incompatible, and happiness is produced by the removal of freedom. It's another Classic that has a literary style, so quite a bit of political discourse at the cost of plot, so I can't say that I enjoyed it.
Rubyfruit Jungle
by Rita Mae Brown
narrated by Anna Paquin
"Beautiful, funny and bright, Molly figures out at a young age that she will have to be tough to stay true to herself in 1950s America. In her dealings with boyfriends and girlfriends, in the rocky relationship with her mother and in her determination to pursue her career, she will fight for her right to happiness."I think it makes a great difference with audiobooks whether I listen to them in just a few sittings or over a longer period. I'm sure that I enjoyed this one more because I didn't leave great gaps between listens. It was a fairly ordinary story about a woman growing up as a lesbian in the American South and then later in New York, and nothing wrong with it at all. Unusually, the narration wasn't as good as usual because there was almost no difference in the voices of different characters.
Piranesi
by Susanna Clarke
"Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls."I'm not sure what to say about this - it starts in a magical realist way, narrated with a very particular, naïve voice, and then it starts to become interwoven with a modern voice, and it all comes together at the end except that the mystery is never explicitly solved. What exactly happened remains mysterious, but slightly less mysterious by the end. I think I liked it. It was certainly much more fun to read than The Satanic Verses.
The Blue Flower
by Penelope Fitzgerald
narrated by Thomas Judd
"Set in Germany at the very end of the eighteenth century, the passionate and idealistic Fritz needs his father’s permission to announce his engagement to his ‘heart’s heart’, his ‘true Philosophy’, twelve-year-old Sophie von Kühn. It is a betrothal which amuses, astounds and disturbs his family and friends."Another literary 'Classic' book which failed to provide any interest or engagement, despite being based on the early life of a German poet and philosopher. Perhaps if I were interested in German poetry or philosophy...? Despite this I'm finding it very enjoyable to be able to borrow audio books freely from the library, even though the range is a little limited and four out of five books I'm interested in are out on loan. I'm going to start experimenting with the 'Reserve book' option next.
The Satanic Verses
by Salman Rushdie
"Just before dawn one winter's morning, a hijacked jumbo jet blows apart high above the English Channel. Through the debris of limbs, drinks trolleys, memories, blankets, and oxygen masks, two figures fall towards the sea: Gibreel Faishta, India's legendary movie star, and Saladin Chamcha, the man of a thousand voices."I get the feeling that I would have got more out of this book if I knew more about Islam and the Koran and the Prophet Mahound, but given that I don't know a great deal, I didn't get much enjoyment in the reading. In fact, I'd describe it as quite a slog.
The Group
by Mary McCarthy
"Eight Vassar graduates meet a week after graduation to watch one of The Group get married. After the ceremony, the women begin their adult lives - traveling to Europe, tackling the worlds of nursing and publishing, and finding love and heartbreak in the streets of New York City."Another from the Classics list, and this time it was rather interesting. Written in 1963 about a group of women graduates in 1933, it sheds light on that era without being overtly political. I found it enthralling.
The Art of Statistics: Learning from Data
by David Spiegelhalter
"Drawing on real world problems to introduce conceptual issues, we are shown how statistics can help us determine the luckiest passenger on the Titanic, whether serial killer Harold Shipman could have been caught earlier, and if screening for ovarian cancer is beneficial."I can't deny that although the book is interesting, it was also very hard going, and I skimmed quite a lot of the explanations and equations. At one point he writes something like "people often say that probability is a difficult and unintuitive idea... after forty years of researching and teaching in this area, I have finally concluded that it is because probability really is a difficult and unintuitive idea." Which pretty much sums up the book.