The End of the Affair

 An Audible Exclusive

Fiction by Graham Greene

https://www.audible.com

This story, set in the 1940's, is about a love affair between a writer an a married woman. It's also about her husband, and quite a bit about whether or not God exists. (Are you thinking: wait, what? Because I was.)

It was almost entirely interior monologue, with very little plot, and everyone is very very SAD. This was not a good story.

Colin Firth's narration was the only good thing about it.

I also listened to recently by Audible Originals: Unhappenings

Unhappenings

 Audible Original Fiction by Edward Aubry.

https://www.audible.com

When Nigel Walden is fourteen years old, things suddenly start un-happening to him. For example, he kisses a girl in his class one day, and the next day no one remembers that she had ever existed. His science teacher becomes a completely different person, and the class doesn’t realize that anything has changed. His parents' car changes from one model or color to another several times, and each time they seem to think the car has always been like that. Someone is altering the past, over and over, but Nigel is the only person who notices it.

This is a really interesting premise to me and I really enjoyed this book. It explored a lot of ideas: How much of what happens to us is fate? How much can we really control our own destiny? What is the most important thing in a life? Very deep!

The only thing I didn't like was the ending; I felt like the author didn't know how to wrap it up and just decided to chop it off. Still, it was a good book!

I also listened to by audible originals recently: Orlando People

I'll Be Gone in the Dark

Subtitled: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer 

Nonfiction by Michele McNamara

https://www.amazon.com

Michelle McNamara was a writer obsessed with finding a serial killer. She spent years and years researching and writing about the "Golden State Killer," a name she coined for a man the media had called the East Area Rapist in the late 70's and early 80's and who had become a murderer as time had progressed.

Then Michelle died unexpectedly before finishing her research. This book, therefore, was partially written by her and partially constructed after her death from her notes and magazine articles. The result seemed a little muddy to me, and I felt like the story lacked focus. It rambled around, and I thought it should have been way more interesting than it was.

Still, I read the whole thing because I wanted to know if they ever caught this guy....

Never Far Away

 Fiction by Michael Koryta

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was an exciting thriller about a woman who fakes her own death to save her family from a killer. It was fast-paced and interesting but a little over the top in some way.

I also read by this author: How it Happened

Inside Out

 Nonfiction by Demi Moore

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was a pretty good celebrity memoir.

I'm interested in Demi Moore because of her career and her romantic relationships, and she gives good details on both things. It probably wouldn't be interesting to anyone who hadn't heard of her, or Bruce, or Ashton, but a sizeable number of folks have definitely heard of all three of them.

Number the Stars

 Fiction by Lois Lowry

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This is a classic but I hadn't read it before. It's about a Danish girl with a Jewish friend during World War Two.

I think it is really good for giving today's kids the emotional impact of wartime without the full horror of its reality.

 

Parasites Like Us

 Fiction by Adam Johnson

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

I did not finish this book.

I picked it up at the library "Free Book Friday" table; after reading the back cover where it said a man had "unwittingly unleashed the apocalypse," I thought it sounded interesting.

Well, I got to page 65 and the apocalypse had not happened. Also I found the man unpleasant; I did not like him, or his students, or his weird shrine to his dead stepmother. I decided it was time to pursue other books.

When You Disappeared

 Fiction by John Marrs

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

One morning when Catherine wakes up, her husband Simon is gone. At first she assumes he's just gone for an early-morning run, but it soon becomes clear that he has vanished. It takes twenty-five years before she finds out what happened to Simon, although the reader will know some of the answers already, and when everything is finally revealed there will be quite a few surprises.

This was an exciting thriller!

I also read by this author The Good Samaritan

Hazards of Time Travel

Fiction by Joyce Carol Oates

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Adriane Strohl lives in a dystopian future where the US government has used the 9/11 terrorist attacks as an excuse to have Homeland Security control everyone's lives for their own protection. One can be accused of ambiguous crimes like "treason-speech" and "questioning of authority," and promptly be jailed, exiled, or deleted, which is somehow worse than execution.

The time travel mentioned in the title may or may not be real, and seems strangely ancillary to the plot. The story is slow and difficult. I've read a few books by this author and they are all pretty dark and cerebral, as is this one. But this was too disconnected for my taste. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it.

I also read by this author: Pursuit

Orlando People

 Audible Original Fiction by Alexander Kane.

https://www.audible.com

Gretch Wolgast is 21 years old and is one of a few unusual young folks called the Orlando People, or OP's. OP's are born with varying degrees of telekinetic ability, and all of them born within a year or two of each other in the area in and around Orlando, Florida. Some OP's have amazingly strong powers and can lift cars, control tools, and possibly even murder people with their minds. 

Gretch can only lift very light objects three feet or less. And she has to be sitting down to do it. Still she, along with every other OP, has to officially register as a telekinetic and be subject to FBI oversight and governmental monitoring of all her activities. This is of course a real buzz-kill.

Then someone is murdered right in front of her, and Gretch finds herself caught in an FBI investigation. She has her own ideas about detective work and is full of funny observations for the reader. Things get exciting pretty quickly, and the story is super engrossing.

This was a super fun book, and the narrator is fabulous too!

I also read recently by this author: Andrea Vernon and the Superhero Industrial Complex

I also listened to recently by audible originals: Inside Jobs

Recursion

 Fiction by Blake Crouch

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

At the beginning of this story, we discover that some people have recently begun suffering from False Memory Syndrome (FMS), a disorder in which they suddenly have two sets of memories for the past several years, one real and one false. No one understands this disorder or how it might be transmitted. 

When police detective Barry Sutton finds Ann Vos Peters on a skyscraper ledge, he is taken aback when she reveals she has FMS. She says she can't live with the double memories in her head, because the false memories seem so much more compelling that the real ones. Barry is torn between wanting to save her and fearing to touch her. But she inspires him to investigate this strange new problem.

Is FMS really a disease people have somehow caught? Or could the false memories be real? Is someone, somehow, changing the past? 

This was an exciting story!!

I also read recently by this author : Eerie

One to Watch

 Fiction by Kate Staymen-London

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story has an interesting premise: What if the "Bachelorette" was a plus-sized woman?

Bea Schumacher is the woman in question, a popular fashion blogger and attractive person. Still, the fact of her dress size makes casting her pretty controversial. 

This was a fun story.

Diary of a Witness

 Fiction by Catherine Ryan Hyde

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Ernie is a fifteen-year old kid with too many enemies, a fat kid who is an easy target for school bullies. He does have one friend, Will, who shares his love of fishing... and unfortunately also shares Ernie's status as punching bag.

This was a great book about friendship and doing the right thing even when it's difficult. That sounds way too cheesy-after-school-special, but it's really a good story!

I also read recently by this author: The Year of my Mysterious Reappearance

Dear Child

 Fiction by Romy Haussmann 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

At the beginning of this book, there is a girl injured in a hit and run accident and brought to the hospital with her young daughter. The child says her mother is called Lena; and there is a missing woman by that name the police have been seeking for years. But is this the same person? And who is the child?

This story, set in Germany and originally written on German, is billed on the back cover as "Room meets Gone Girl." That's a pretty accurate description, and it's quite as good a thriller as those two books.

Inside Jobs

 Audible original fiction by Ben Winters

https://www.audible.com

This is a collection of short stories, scripted with a full voice cast, about things that happened during quarantine. The opener, with a mob boss holding a conference on zoom, seriously cracked me up.

All three stories were good, although I'm not a huge fan of short stories in general. I prefer novels.

I also read recently by audible originals: Andrea Vernon and the Superhero Industrial Complex

From a Distant Star

 Fiction by Karen McQuestion

https://www.amazon.com

Seventeen-year-old Emma is sitting by her boyfriend Lucas's bedside every night hoping for him to wake up. Lucas has been dying of cancer for months and his family has all but abandoned their hope, but Emma will not give up. She's even consulted a local "wise woman" who has given her a magic potion to revive Lucas. The reader knows that such a thing can't possibly work; however, there are other forces in play that Emma is unaware of. (Like ALIENS!!)

This was a fun and exciting book; I really enjoyed it. Also there was no inappropriate content; I note this because the story is meant for younger people.

I also read recently by this author: A Scattered Life