Owls Well That Ends Well

 

by Donna Andrews (read by Bernadette Dunne) c. 2005

Meg Langslow, Book 6

24 Festive Tasks 2021: Door 5

Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 10-24-16

Language: English

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC

ASIN: B01M675VLK

Publisher's Summary

Meg Langslow was actually looking forward to  renovating the old Victorian mansion she and her boyfriend Michael  bought. But she wasn't thrilled by the lifetime of junk accumulated by  the house's eccentric previous owner, Edwina Sprocket. The easiest  solution: hold the end-all and be-all of gigantic yard sales. But when  the event attracts the late Miss Sprocket's money-hungry heirs, the  over-enthusiastic supporters of some endangered barn owls, and customers  willing to go to any lengths to uncover a hidden treasure, Meg suspects  things have gotten a little out of hand. Then, an antiques dealer is  found stuffed in a trunk with his head bashed in - and the yard sale  turns into a days-long media circus.

Another series to keep me happy!

This is my first "Meg Langslow" and I've jumped in to the middle of things but I have wanted to try something from this series for a long time -- and for half a credit, I could be a sport.  Author has a light-hearted touch and populates her world with zany, larger than life characters (kind of like the zoo I have lived with all my life). Right now, she is getting 9 hours of mileage out of a yard-sale and the weirdos who frequent them. Any book that starts with the MC dumping a jug of water on a yard-sale early bird ringing her door bell before dawn can't be all bad. This is cozy done well and you bet I will be visiting again.

Three and half stars

A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth: Stories

 

by Daniel Mason (read by Michael Crouch, Susannah Jones, Jay Ben Markson, Lucy Rayner, Joel Richards, Gary Tiedemann) c. 2020

Audible Daily Deal

24 Festive Tasks: Door 6

 

 

 

 

 

Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 05-05-20

Language: English

Publisher: Hachette Audio

B087LB2H1V

Publisher's Summary

On a fateful flight, a balloonist makes a  discovery that changes her life forever. A telegraph operator finds an  unexpected companion in the middle of the Amazon. A doctor is beset by  seizures, in which he is possessed by a second, perhaps better, version  of himself. And in Regency London, a bare-knuckle fighter prepares to  face his most fearsome opponent, while a young mother seeks a miraculous  cure for her ailing son.

At times funny and irreverent, always  moving and deeply urgent, these stories - among them a National Magazine  Award and a Pushcart Prize winner - cap a 15-year project. From the  Nile's depths to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, from  volcano-racked islands to an asylum on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro,  these are tales of ecstasy, epiphany, and what the New York Times Magazine called the "[S]truggle for survival...hand to hand, word to word", by "[O]ne of the finest prose stylists in American fiction".

Expanding My Horizons: Audible Daily Deal Lucky Find

Usually the Daily Deal offerings are variations of the same crap that I have no interest in reading -- too violent, too depressing, too dysfunctional, too maudlin, too much the same as every other book they offer. But, every now and again, they find a title that sparks my interest.  Please don't ask what grabbed my attention the other day when I decided to buy this title. I have no idea who the authors is, what his background is, what kind of books he writes.  There was something in the title, the cover, the description, the price; before I knew it, I was buying it.

I lucked out on this buy. Much to my surprise, especially as I listened to the first story and wondered what I was getting myself into, not only did I like the stories but I liked the writing. The stories are challenging. They are layered. They make you think. Where the heck did the author come up with these ideas? This is definitely not the light storytelling of Christie or Jeffrey Archer; this is 'literary fiction,' storytelling on a whole different plane. In fact, Mason's stories make me think of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar, two wizards of short fiction.

Four and a half stars -- for the writing and for the imagination of the author.