I’ve actually listened to this twice—once when it first came out, and then again when my book club picked it.

Both times, I enjoyed it. Vowell reads the audiobook herself, and I love the way she delivers lines.

One of the biggest problems I had with the book was that it was hard to keep track of the people, even though I minored in history and still read history and had heard of most of the people she was talking about. Probably this was a problem because I was listening rather than reading.

The other problem I had was that it felt too short, somehow, like it was just getting good and then it was over. I wanted more information about Williams and Hutchinson, especially. Of course, some of my fellow book clubbers didn’t like the book enough to finish it, so perhaps for them it was too long.

I liked it. I liked the focus on how intellectual the early settlers were, and how each of the people Vowell describes had their own firm beliefs, which were actually quite different from each other (and occasionally rather internally inconsistent, especially with regard to the indigenous people). I think Vowell did a good job of picking apart the settlers’ fussiness about God and laws, state vs. religion, and showing how it still affects us now. Plus, funny.

Carol O’Connell is probably my favorite mystery writer. I just listened to her most recent three books. I had read two of them a few years ago, but I forgot most of the twists. Her books are always so layered and complicated and twisty. Man, I love them. I can never tell how things are going to turn out, and that is important! It’s not crucial. I read lots of mysteries in which the criminal and the motives are obvious, yet I still enjoy the story.

But O’Connell builds up such complex piles of people and emotions and motives and secret activities—it’s just amazing to watch it all line up at the end.

She has some kind of thing for lost kids, particularly lost kids who have lost a parent, or parents who have lost kids. Still, it never gets boring. It gets melodramatic, but that’s okay. The regular characters, especially Mallory, the main character, are all smart and cool and perfect.

So I say to you, if you have not read O’Connell, start now. Read the Mallory novels. Read them in order. They have different titles for the British and American versions, but lots of lists on Amazon will steer you right. Go, go, go.

I got this from Audible because Nick Hornby told me to read it. The whole time I listened to it, I couldn’t stop talking about it.

The book is set in 1980, just before the Carter-Reagan election. Vince is a very minor mob guy from New York who rolled on some other mob guys and then got put in witness protection and moved to Spokane. Since he was a convicted felon from his teens, Vince has never been able to vote. But with his new identity, he gets a voter registration card. He gets excited about voting. He asks everybody around him who they’re voting for, and why. And then he gets all fucked around by various mob guys and petty criminals.

It’s just an awesomely entertaining book, and you can read it as a neat little mobbish caper or as a comment on citizenship and responsibility or both. I’ll be checking out Walter’s other novels, and I’ll definitely reread Citizen Vince. Maybe even on paper this time!

The reader on the Audible version is pretty good; he has a great accent for the voice of the novel.

This is the latest in a mystery series by Carolyn Haines. I like this series, but I think I can read only one book in it at a time. I can’t go on a big binge and reread them all, because I get kind of tired of the ultra-southernness of the atmosphere.

I mean, I like that Haines sets her novels in the south and doesn’t make fun of us. I like that. I don’t so much love that her characters all live in old plantation houses and actually have names for the houses. Excuse me, homes. That’s the part that gets tedious. The fact that the main character can’t just say, “Come out to my house.” She has to say, “Come out to Dahlia House.”

And . . . I have to say that I can predict the killer and the killer’s motive pretty damn quickly in these books.

BUT the fun in this series is in the characters, not in the plot. Even though I knew who and why very early on in this one, I still enjoyed reading about the characters. And there’s an interesting device that Haines uses—the ghost of a black maid who lived in Dahlia House at the time of the Civil War. The ghost, Jitty, is a permanent reminder of the history of the land, and she has an ongoing schtick dressing up in fashions from various historical times, mirroring whatever mental crisis the main characters, Sarah Booth, happens to be going through.

Also, I love Tinky.

I listened to the final Lemony Snicket book, and it was all right. I kind of got burned out on those books, but this one got me interested again. I . . . would like to say something smart, but it was a few months ago and now I forgot all the smart stuff I thought at the time. Beth wrote a lot about it, so go read that.

I’ve been in a mood for a few months now that causes me to need comedy around me at all times. So I’ve been downloading all the Terry Pratchett books that Audible has to offer and having little binges. I went on a Vimes binge, then a Granny Weatherwax binge, and now I’m on a Susan/Death binge. I never go on a Rincewind binge; Rincewind is boring. But if you like Pratchett and you need some funny, you can’t go wrong with any of those other main characters. I particularly enjoyed Hogfather, which is a good Christmasy sort of thing to listen to. Both the readers on the Audible recordings are good, too—fun to hear.

Ooo, I also read the third book in Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series, Wintersmith. It’s enjoyable. I like Tiffany, and of course Granny Weatherwax was in this one, too. And the Nac Mac Feegle. I listened to the previous two books in this series, read by Stephen Briggs, and he does the Feegles really well.

And, finally, I read a bunch more C.J. Cherryh books. Since I’ve read all the Foreigner series currently published, I started on the Fortress series. I like it, but not as well as I like the Foreigner books. I think Cherryh is trying a little too hard to be deep and mysterious with this one, and really I got a little bogged down in Tristen’s endless self-doubt and everybody else’s endless faith in him. I have read all the books in this series except the newest one, Fortress of Ice. I think I’ll wait until I can get it from the library. Even though the last book ended on a cliffhanger, I’m kind of tired of all the earnest good wishes of everybody in these books. I need to take a break and read some meanness.