Got a stack of audiobooks queued up ready to go. One thing about me is I spend a lot of time cycling to and from work and at my desk (sitting and standing), so I can get through a lot of audiobooks and podcasts. The list below will keep me going for about a month I would say.
Audiobooks
Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds
Wendell Floyd is an expatriate American living in an alternate version of 1950s Paris. In this world, the Nazi invasion of France failed, and Hitler was deposed by the German High Command. Without World War II, technology in this world has stagnated at 1930s levels, and Fascist political parties have gained power in France.
Floyd is a part-time jazz musician whose career has stalled since his ex-girlfriend, Greta, left Paris to pursue a musical career touring with another jazz band. He and his band-mate André Custine earn a supplemental income working as private detectives. When the novel opens, Floyd and Custine are hired by a concerned landlord to investigate the death of one of his tenants. Blanchard, the landlord, is certain that the death of Susan White, which the Parisian police have written off as an accident, is murder. Floyd is not so certain, but he’s willing to investigate.
In a scene seemingly from another novel, Verity Auger finds herself responsible when her archaeology dig beneath the frozen ruins of some far-flung future Paris results in the death of one of her students. During her trial she is caught up in political infighting, and maneuvered into accepting a high risk assignment, without knowing what it entails.
But when she is summoned on a mission to Mars by the top-secret security agency Contingencies, Auger is more than relieved to be exempt from her tribunal and the years of prison that she would otherwise have to face. However, when she is taken to a secret underground base on the Martian moon Phobos containing an ancient alien relic that opens a portal to a distant part of the galaxy, and told that she is to go through it, she begins to have second thoughts about continuing with her mission. Things get even more bizarre when she finds out that at the other end of the portal is an alternate-history version of Earth in the year 1959 — almost 300 years behind her present-day — and that she is to retrieve a tin of documents that was left behind by Susan White, an earlier agent sent to “Earth Two”, who died under mysterious circumstances.
Jedi Quest: The Way of the Apprentice – Jude Watson 4hrs 32mins.
Jedi Quest: The Way of the Apprentice is the first in a series of young reader novels that chronicle the adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker between the events of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace and Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones.
Fourteen-year-old Anakin Skywalker is strong in the ways of the Force. His lightsaber skills are exceptional, and his piloting is legendary. He should be an ideal Jedi apprentice. And yet, there is so much he still has to learn.
It is up to Obi-Wan Kenobi to teach him these things. But on a mission to a planet threatened by toxic disaster, Obi-Wan and Anakin are separated. Anakin and three other apprentices—one of them his rival—must work together in order to survive. Anakin’s instincts are clear…but are they right?
Anakin Skywalker’s destiny will determine the future of a galaxy. These are the events that form his fate
Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen – P. G. Wodehouse
Concerned by pink spots on his chest, Bertie goes to see E. Jimpson Murgatroyd, the Harley Street doctor recommended by his friend Tipton Plimsoll (who himself saw Murgatroyd for spots in Full Moon). On the way, Bertie sees Vanessa Cook, a headstrong girl he once proposed to but no longer wants to marry, leading a protest march. She is with her fiancé Orlo J. Porter, an acquaintance of Bertie’s. Orlo and Vanessa are unable to marry because Vanessa’s father, the trustee of Orlo’s inheritance, refuses to give Orlo his inheritance because Orlo is a communist.
Jeeves in the Offing – P. G. Wodehouse
Jeeves is on holiday in Herne Bay, and while he’s away the world caves in on Bertie Wooster. For a start, he’s astonished to read in The Times of his engagement to the mercurial Bobbie Wickham. Then at Brinkley Court, his Aunt Dahlia’s establishment, he finds his awful former head master in attendance ready to award the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School. And finally the Brinkley butler turns out for reasons of his own to be Bertie’s nemesis in disguise, the brain surgeon Sir Roderick Glossop. With all occasions informing against him, Bertie has to hightail it to Herne Bay to liberate Jeeves from his shrimping net. And after that, the fun really starts.
Thank You, Jeeves – P. G. Wodehouse
‘I mean, if you’re asking a fellow to come out of a room so that you can dismember him with a carving knife, it’s absurd to tack a ‘sir’ on to every sentence. The two things don’t go together.’ The odds are stacked against Chuffy when he falls head over heels for American heiress Pauline Stoker. Who better to help him win her over but Jeeves, the perfect gentleman’s gentleman. But when Bertie, Pauline’s ex-fiancé finds himself caught up in the fray, much to his consternation, even Jeeves struggles to get Chuffy his fairy-tale ending.
The Code of the Woosters – P. G. Wodehouse
`The prose . . . is so gloriously funny you can relish the book over and over again.’ The Times (five best British comic novels) `To dive into a Wodehouse novel is to swim in some of the most elegantly turned phrases in the English language’ Ben Schott `There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, “Do trousers matter?”‘ `The mood will pass, sir.’ Aunt Dahlia has tasked Bertie with purloining an antique cow creamer from Totleigh Towers. In order to do so, Jeeves hatches a scheme whereby Bertie must charm the droopy and altogether unappealing Madeline and face the wrath of would-be dictator Roderick Spode. Though the prospect fills him with dread, when duty calls, Bertie will answer, for Aunt Dahlia will not be denied.
The Inimitable Jeeves – P. G. Wodehouse
Follow the adventures of Bertie Wooster and his gentleman’s gentleman, Jeeves, in this stunning new edition of one of the greatest comic short story collections in the English language. This classic collection of linked stories feature some of the funniest episodes in the life of Bertie Wooster, gentleman, and Jeeves, his gentleman’s gentleman—in which Bertie’s terrifying Aunt Agatha stalks the pages, seeking whom she may devour, while Bertie’s friend Bingo Little falls in love with seven different girls in succession (he marries the last, bestselling romantic novelist Rosie M. Banks). And Bertie, with Jeeves’s help, just evades the clutches of the terrifying Honoria Glossop. At its heart is one of Wodehouse’s most delicious stories and a comic masterpiece, “The Great Sermon Handicap.”
Very Good, Jeeves! – P. G. Wodehouse
An outstanding collection of Jeeves stories, every one a winner, in which Jeeves endeavours to give satisfaction: By saving a grumpy cabinet minister from being marooned and attacked by a swan – in the process saving Bertie Wooster from his impending doom…By rescuing Bingo Little and Tuppy Glossop from the soup (twice each)…By arranging rather too many performances of the song ‘Sonny Boy’ to a not very appreciative audience…And by a variety of other sparkling stratagems that should reduce you to helpless laughter. This early collection shows P.G.Wodehouse at the top of his game, writing with sublime wit and delicacy of plotting.
Ready Player One – Ernest Cline
IN THE YEAR 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade’s devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world’s digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator’s obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.
But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade’s going to survive, he’ll have to win—and confront the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.
Hyperion – Dan Simmons
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope – and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.
Podcasts
I’ve had a bit of switch around with my podcasts since my last post. It was time to drop a few and add one or two into the mix.
- Stuff You Should Know
- No Such Thing As A Fish.
- Friday Night Comedy BBC4.
- Very Bad Wizards.
- Mission To Zyxx.
- Omnibus!
- Conspiracy Theories.
- Unexplained Mysteries.
- Behind The Bastards.
- The Infinite Monkey Cage.
- Pratchat.
- The Dark Side Of…
- The Archers Omnibus.
- Waveform.
- Nasa Cast.
- Fall Of Civilizations.
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