Wibbo's Words

Best of 2018, part one

I listened to a lot of audiobooks this year, partly because I've been busy doing hours and hours of sample knitting for new designs.

My audiobooks of the year are Chris Ould's Faroes Trilogy, The Blood Strand, The Killing Bay and The Fire Pit. Matt Addis gets a special mention for his superb narration.

My top two fiction choices are William Shaw's Salt Lane and John Harvey's Body & Soul - both excellent reads.

Non-fiction best-of-the-year are The Spy and the Traitor, Ben Macintyre, and Viking Britain, Thomas Williams.

Listening

I listen to a lot of audiobooks; they're perfect listening while I work.  I have an Audible subscription and also download audiobooks from Brighton & Hove Libraries free BorrowBox service. There's list of this year's books (including physical books, e-books and audiobooks) on Pinterest.

This audiobook is my best non-fiction listen so far this year; it's an incredible story that sounds like a good spy novel but it's all true. 

 

Back in the land of the living....

Well, I'm almost there after three weeks of flu. My hacking cough has gone, I no longer have a head full of cotton wool and food tastes like food instead of cardboard!

In other news, I'm working my way through all the Harry Potter audiobooks again. I've nearly finished Book 4, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and  thoroughly enjoying them. Stephen Fry is a genius narrator and makes the books perfect knitting listening.

Two other things - I'm seriously delighted that the wonderful Def Leppard have released their back catalogue on Spotify (other streaming services are available...) and the new Magnum album sounds pretty good after a couple of listens. I love my music!

Best of 2017, part one

Best audiobook of 2017 has to be The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, all 50 hours of it, even though I've read the book several times before. Ignore the rubbish cover, this is a wonderful retelling of the Arthurian legends and it's beautifully narrated. Oh, and I'd forgotten what a irritating drip Guinevere is. Honourable mention of 2017 goes to What Does This Button Do? written and read by Bruce Dickinson. I'm not an Iron Maiden fan but after hearing Mr D reading extracts on the radio I figured I would take a chance on the audiobook. Absolutely brilliant and very, very funny.

Best book of 2017 was any one of William Shaw's Breen and Tozer books, all set in 1960s London. I bought the first one, A Song from Dead Lips, after reading a review and liked it so much that I bought the rest of the series and read them straight after each other. Interesting characters and his take on 1960s London is spot on. I'm now waiting for his next book, Salt Lane (not in this series), due to be published in May 2018.