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. 🙂
Remembering the time I played a friend a little clip from the audiobook I was working on and they asked if I was wearing a velvet choker while recording it.
Okay, this hot weather is way too hot, so I'm highlighting one of my snowiest mountain man romances! 🥵❄
In Saved by the Mountain, a runaway bride crashes her car on an icy mountain road & is rescued by a sexy recluse. It was a blast to narrate, & it has an incredibly steamy shower scene. It's fun, light & spicy.
We're back to Blackwood! The long, hot summer days are the perfect weather for some chilling, weird, and spooky tales from one of the greats, so why not head over to https://www.twitch.tv/chilliteracy and listen in!
Starting soon
#BookReview Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers
Read on audio
Narrator: Stephen Jack for RNIB
Pub. 1932, 499pp
Victor Gollancz
I picked up this novel for the continuation of the relationship between private detective Lord Peter and novelist Harriet Vane that started in Strong Poison, and I’m looking forward to going on to her famous novel Gaudy Night after this one as they appear together again there.
This novel has a grisly murder (or was it suicide?) centred around a seaside town that Harriet’s visiting. She discovers the body on the beach and Lord Peter hot foots it down to help her try to figure out the details and ensure she’s not considered a suspect. Throughout the mystery Lord Peter and Harriet seem to have more creative ideas than the local police and Harriet even moves into the victim’s old lodgings!
The victim, Alexis, was a dancer at a large hotel and had been engaged to be married to one of the wealthy guests, and the mystery concerns the question of why would he have contemplated suicide when he had a secure life ahead of him?
There are so many quirky little moments to lighten the mood as things progress, such as this description of a policeman taking notes during an interview:
“The pencil happened to be an indelible one and had left an unpleasant taste in the mouth.he passed a pink tongue along his purple stained lips, looking to Mr Perkins’s goblin-haunted imagination like a very large dog savouring a juicy bone .”
Lord Peter continues to try to romance Harriet and she is still not having any of it, resulting in some amusing exchanges between them and this book is strongest when they’re interacting.
I also enjoyed the description of Harriet reading through the books on the victim’s shelves as she tried to jog her subconscious for her detective novel, then turning to crosswords to try to get her writing going again.
The eventual solution was rather long winded with an overlong description of solving a cipher (which was tedious on audio), but otherwise entertaining. It took me a long time to read and the ending was rather abrupt, with Lord Peter and Harriet solving the mystery then speeding off to London to go out to lunch! A good read but not my favourite of hers so far. #bookstodon#audiobook#AmReading@bookstodon
It's true! You can get the brand-new audiobook edition of "Shards" for just $4. That's over seven hours of spine-tingling speculative fiction for way less than a dollar per-hour. Grab it now before I come to my senses and start charging what it's actually worth! 🎧🙂👍
Starting very soon, Lucy's got more of Jane Austen's classic 'Pride and Prejudice'! Make yourself cosy, then come on over to https://www.twitch.tv/Chilliteracy and listen in!