Over the past few months, I’ve had two experiences that required me to limit my reading. That’s been a hard thing to do. As I struggled with this, it occurred to me that audiobooks could be a solution. Fortunately, we have a wonderful library in Johnson County, Kansas, so I’d like to give a shout out to them. By adding the Libby app to my phone, I can easily access the library’s audiobooks.
Most important, though, is I’ve rediscovered the wonder of listening to someone read. As a child, one of my favorite memories is my mother reading the Sunday funnies to me and my siblings. When my older sister learned to read, I huddled beside her as she read me books from the bookmobile that came to our small town. And now, audiobooks allow me to listen to books once again.
Two of my favorite audiobooks have been Charles Frazier’s The Trackers, narrated by Will Patton, and Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here, narrated by Marin Ireland, both produced by HarperAudio.
In The Tracker, Charles Frazier’s vivid description and characterization capture life during the Great Depression. When Valentine (Val) Welch, a WPA artist painting a mural in a rural Wyoming post office, is provided housing at the ranch of an aspiring politician, he becomes entangled in the lives of the rancher and his beautiful wife, Eve. Eve’s years of riding boxcars, living in camps, and a gig as a singer ultimately led her there. When Eve leaves without notice, her husband commissions Val to find her. This leads him across the country from homeless camps on the West Coast to the poverty of backwater Florida and the violence that permeates them all. Will Patton’s voice is supremely suited to this novel. I hated for the book to end.
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson is described as a ”laugh-out-loud” book. While I didn’t laugh out loud, I loved the quirky and engaging characters and the outrageous humor in the book. The book examines the relationship between two young women, Lillian and Madison, former college roommates whose economic and family lives are at the upper and lower tiers of society. Like The Trackers, there is an aspiring politician and a beautiful wife. To protect her husband from political fallout, Madison enlists Lillian, who is down on her luck, to take care of her husband’s twins from a former marriage. The challenge is that when the twins get upset, they burst into flames. Only their clothes burn, but the flames create a risk to anyone and anything around them. This creates an occasion for much humor as Lillian and the politician’s assistant struggle to contain the many outbursts of flames. In spite of the dominance of this unlikely situation, the relationships Lillian has with Madison, her inadequate mother, the twins, and the politician’s assistant become the larger and most intriguing aspect of the book. I was pleasantly surprised by this, and I highly recommend the book. Again, the narrator, Marin Ireland, played a key role in making this an entertaining and enjoyable book.
Thank you to each narrator and the producers of these audiobooks, and, of course, Charles Frazier and Kevin Wilson, the authors. What a gift to all readers and, in this instance, to me.
Karen T Miller 