Audiobook: The Man on the Beach, Anna Ihrén

Read by Imogen Wilde

This Swedish crime novel I enjoyed considerably more than the Secret Book and Scone Society, albeit not a Swedish novel, a crime novel nonetheless. I wonder if the Scone book had the same narrator, whether I might have enjoyed it marginally more. Probably not, as the characters in this book were considerably less grating.

What I really enjoyed about this book, was the insight into Swedish life. We are all very familiar with American and British traditions of Thanksgiving, Guy Fawkes and Halloween. So it was fascinating and refreshing to learn more about the celebration of Midsommar and how it is a family celebration with a May pole, all the delicious traditional fair of gravad lax, herring pie and all the berries and the beautiful daisy head wreaths. The celebration of Midsommar is something which is definitely now on my bucket list to experience.

Book review: My Year of Meat, Ruth L. Ozeki

Years ago a friend told me how this book had changed her life and how she no longer ate meat because of it. I don’t share this sentiment. It took me ages to finish reading it. I found the story lines rather tedious, and unnecessarily graphic in some places, which made it all feel very disjointed. 

There is however, quite a delicious stew recipe that I’ve made a few times (I used pork instead of beef); it’s really not all that healthy seeing that you stew the meet in Coca-Cola, but it is delicious! 

Audiobook: The Secret Book & Scone Society, Ellery Adams

Read by: Cris Dukehart

Not exactly the greatest literary piece of work I've listened to. I love 'whodunnits', scones and New York Times Bestselling authors. Unfortunately, this one just didn't hit the mark. 

It was OK for a December listen, but, for lack of a better word, it was 'fluff'. It got tedious, and perhaps because I wasn't too invested, all the names got confusing. 

Audiobook Review: Manhattan Cult Story, My Unbelievable True Story of Sex, Crimes, Chaos and Survival, Spencer Schneider

Read by: Austin Rising 

Intriguing to learn more about ‘School’, a cult that Spencer Schneider got involved with in the ‘80’s in Manhattan. He was a part of it for 20 years. I am all for the collective conscious but, the immediate alarm bells was that they were not allowed to speak about ‘School’, or even engage or recognise each other outside of ‘School’, not even to let their spouses know. Sharon Gans, the leader, controlled everything and even encouraged affairs. It all sounds very sordid.  

It is all a bit bizarre. What I don’t understand is that he is a highly qualified lawyer, and by the sounds of it, most of the people at ‘School’, were in high profile positions, so, pretty much, one would presume to be intelligent people. Yet, they were taken for a ride for a very long time. You can hear in the narrative that Spencer Schneider is very cross, hurt by the betrayal and disillusionment of it all. He does come across quite bitter towards the end. Who wouldn’t be after 20 years of your life being dictated to by someone like Sharon. 

I also asked myself why he stuck with it so long, I suppose that's what the manipulative nature and brainwashing of a cult is all about. 

Audiobook: History of a Drowning Boy, Dennis Nilsen

This is a fascinating book. Normally serial killer books are written from a third party perspective, but this one is written from the killer, Dennis Nilsen himself. 

He killed 12 young men. He did glaze over how he was caught (Google said it was because of plumbing, the pipes in his apartment got clogged with human remains (!!) and the plumber reported it.)

It was also interesting to get detail and insight into what it is like in a prison.

All in all very very sad. 

It does sound like he did have remorse later in his life for his actions.

Audiobook: Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman

Four thousand weeks is the average number of weeks we get (if we take 75 to be the average age that people live to).

My take home from this book is that there are a lot of productivity programs out there, but the long and the short of it is, that regardless of how productive you want to be, there isn’t really a point to it. The main aim is to enjoy the here and now. Projects that you work on will always take longer than anticipated regardless of how well you try and plan them.

Small increments of work each day gets much more done than trying to do it all in once.

People who take breaks at the same time, e.g. over weekends / holidays, are a lot less stressed, because you don’t feel guilty or stressed about not being at work while others work. I think that is why Christmas / December is just such a magical time in South Africa.  

I didn't enjoy the book as much as I would have liked to. I found the narrator (author)'s voice a bit grating the more tired /irritable I was.

3/5

Audiobook: You are the star in N.P.H’s Life Story. Neil Patrick Harris. Choose Your Own Autobiography. Read by the Author.

What a fun book! Neil Patrick Harris has written his autobiography as an adventure book. A book where you can decide what happens next, and which chapters to flip to. As this is an audiobook, flipping through chapters isn’t possible, but, you still get to hear all the different options. It’s fun. What’s also great about the audiobook version is that he has included the audio clips of e.g. his speech about optimism when he was eight years old.

He has a marvellous sense of humour.

5/5