A fellow social worker I knew from grad school shared this book on her Instagram story and recommended it. I was on a hold list for the ebook at my local library for weeks, but now, I have it. I’m also listening to the #audiobook read by the author.
I find I can't stomach most fiction anymore, especially anything written since about 1990. But Vanessa Chan's "The Storm We Made" is a powerful exception. Minutely and lovingly observed and the emotional punches it delivers are all earned and deserved.
It's set in #Malaysia in the 1930s during the British colonial period (when it was still called "Malaya") and the #Japanese wartime occupation of the 1940s, and its principal characters are Malay and Japanese. So right away that sets it apart from anything I've ever read before.
What's more, most of the principal characters from whose points of view we see the story are women and girls.
It is so rare, in #English language fiction, to have a glimpse into the dynamics of #Colonization when it's not practiced by a Western state.
The #Audiobook is beautifully narrated by Samantha Tan, a woman of #Asian ancestry.
Would love to hear #TootSEA thoughts on this book.
@rabia_elizabeth@bookstodon yes a very dark story, Hadji Murat is a shorter work that would be up your street. His last writings are a collection of shorter stories and much deeper in quality.
War and Peace took me months to read lol
Actually, the "virtual voice" technology is not AI. It's the same sort of text-to-speech system that's existed for decades, just in a more refined form. A considerable amount of time (money) and (human) effort was still required to make hundreds of subtle adjustments too how it reads that particular book, which would be worthless and inapplicable to any other. At the end of the day, it's a tool, used by a human, like a word processor, pagination software, or any sort of audio/video editor. Moreover, if I hadn't used the tool, I would have simply done the narration myself, as I did for the audiobook of my first novel, so the only person who might have potentially lost a job to it was me. 🙂
Listening to the English audiobook of "A Man Called Ove" by Fredrik Backman narrated by J.K. Simmons. While I enjoyed Tom Hanks in the English film adaptation, Simmons would have made a truly FANTASTIC Ove / Otto. I don't normally do audiobooks (I have a book group that I really need to finish the book for) but this one has been nice.
(Full disclosure: @WilWheatonRSS reads my name at the end because I was publicly enthusiastic about #RedTeamBlues, the first Marty Hench novel, on social media. If you haven't read it, add it to your queue. It doesn't matter which order you read them in.)
"It's complicated" is the most accurate non-spoily way to describe it. I also finished it waaay too quickly.
You will especially like it if you enjoy people talking about their passions. They may or may not align with your passions, and it doesn't matter because you /want/ to know more.
I like Marty. I have yelled at him for doing stupids, but I'm a geezer and sometimes it's about #experience, not brainpower.
He would be a cool person to know, and not because of his professional skillset, rather, because he's ... interesting.
In this book, I discover that I am not alone in this opinion. I also rediscovered that his #heart is bigger than his head.
There's #sex, #drugs. and .... #soul ... in this story. It's fictional, but packs a /lot/ of #fact. You can easily believe stuff could happen that way. And some of it did, though without Marty's participation.
I backed the #kickstarter; you can find the #audiobook on Libro.fm and support your local bookstore /at the same time/. You can also get the #ebook or a print copy in the usual places.
If you hurry, you can get /all/ the Cory Doctorow ebooks on #HumbleBundle. You won't be disappointed and your purchase supports @eff.
Just finished listening to the #audiobook version of Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow, on #drmfree#mp3. Thoroughly enjoyed the book and learned a lot, even though it's an engrossing work of fiction. I'm going to have to take a break before buying the sequel because I've now fallen behind on my work as a result! @pluralistic
Here's an author link. Buying directly from authors generally helps them way more than buying from a bookstore or the publisher.
Five stars: What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds by Jennifer Ackerman (2023) is a survey of our current understanding of owls. The audiobook is read by the author.
@pussreboots@bookstodon This could be interesting, thanks. I've long been fascinated by the fact that the owl is revered as a symbol of wisdom in the West and contemned as an icon of stupidity in Indic languages
A @bookstodon question for mood readers especially.. Do you find that your book format goes through moods as well?
I almost always have an #AudioBook in-progress, but I also go through stretches of either reading print books or ebooks, and my TBR piles of both keep growing :).
Rarely do I have audio, print and ebook in active progress at any time, as print and ebook essentially need the same kind of attention from me.
@patl@bookstodon I used to read ebooks on my phone on the train when I commuted to work, and print books at home, but now I WFH I’ve maybe read five books a year on my Kindle app, but get through scores of actual books. My local bookshops are happy with me, mind.
There's a separate issue here for those of us who have to buy a print copy of a book we've read in ebook or audio, just to display on our shelves like trophy.
But I'm al for keeping local bookshops happy. They keep me happy :)
#book 22: Book 22: MAX IN THE HOUSE OF SPIES by Adam Gidwitz -- This middle-grade story set during WWII softens tough topics through the use of humor. Read in print or audio: the #audiobook is fantastic.
First contact! Conspiracies, government agents, conspiracy theories, warring alien factions - this book has them all in spades. And yet, the story almost seems languid for much of it. This was not a drawback for me. I liked the slow burn for much of the novel, with the reveals coming slowly.
The main focus was on how completely disparate life forms and societies would interact. Where would we understand each other, and where would we be horrified. Quite nicely done.
The narrator was mostly quite good, but overdid it a few times.
Listening to A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (#audiobook versions of both books are wonderful). I just got to the part where Dex and Mosscap are heading to Dex's family's house and Dex is explaining their family, and I'm just melting with happiness at how normalized it all is. No spoilers. Just read it. :)