Voice of the Violin by Andrea Camilleri


rating: 3 of 5 stars
Audiobook. 4th in a series of Inspector Montalbano mysteries (first one I've read). Montalbano is down-to-earth with a healthy disrespect for authority. Set in Sicily. Bonus food porn. Grover Gardner does a good job of narrating. I will probably pick up the other books in this series at some point.



Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell


rating: 3 of 5 stars
Audiobook. Consists of several interlinking stories of different genres -- historical fiction, mystery/thriller, comedy, science fiction. On the audiobook, each story has its own narrator. I became engrossed in it while listening to it, but ultimately I found it annoying - first of all, I didn't like most of the protagonists, and second, I don't tend to like books that constantly remind me the author is trying to do something clever. Also there is some heavy-handed moralizing.



Ha'penny by Jo Walton


rating: 5 of 5 stars
Paper book. Ha'penny is the 2d in an alternate history trilogy set in a past in which Britain made peace with Hitler and then started down its own path to fascism. Jo Walton brilliantly describes the attitudes and choices of a variety of characters who get caught up in a situation that's spinning out of control.


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