Reading is one of my favorite things to do.  Give me a pool, a beach, a cabin, a cruise ship, a coffee house (basically anywhere) and a good book and I’m in heaven.

However, my opportunities for doing that lately have become slim to none.  Which is perfectly fine because this season of life is full of a beautiful baby girl!  However, work has taken me to several places that have kept me in the car for longer stretches of time and the perfect compromise has been listening to books instead of reading the hard copy.

Ben has listened to Audible for years and I’ve been able to take advantage and listen to some of his books too.  But when I found an offer earlier this summer for 2 free months/books, I jumped on it.  Mine and Ben’s taste in literature differ just a touch so I didn’t have to feel guilty asking to use any of his credits to download anything :-)

Both books were actually recommendations from other bloggers that I follow.  The first came from Emily at Jones Design Company.  I love historical fiction so when I saw one of the books on her list was exactly that AND that it was set during World War II, I didn’t hesitate.  And it was 100% worth it!

Secrets of a Charmed Life was everything I love about historical fiction from this time in history.  The truth of what happened from the fictional viewpoint of someone living during the horrors of it all is just fascinating to me.  And this particular story switches back and forth between the 1940s and present day, which only adds to a bit of the mystery the author works in.  I love it!

But part of a good audio book is not just how the author tells the story, but how the reader reads it.  Susan Meissner does an incredible job weaving everything together and Alana Kerr was fantastic switching between British and American accents and varied voices for the different characters.

Honestly, I hated having to turn this off when I got out of the car!  And I was especially sad when I reached the end of the book because I’d gotten so wrapped up in the characters and story line that I just never wanted it to end.

 

The book I read in August was recommended by Jasmine Star through an Instagram photo she posted not too long ago.  And really, if it has to do with space, I’m there.

As she said on her Instagram post, this one is full of science and engineering lingo and occasionally is difficult to follow, especially when listening to it.

However, the engineering side of my brain and the part of me that truly wanted to be an astronaut and even secretly hoped to be on the first manned mission to Mars, LOVED it!  For the first half of the book, I was able to pretend that I really did get to go… and by the middle of it, was actually pretty glad that I wasn’t on that mission after all!

But, I still couldn’t put it down.  In fact, we recently purchased a bluetooth speaker for our house so when I was at home cooking or washing dishes, I would listen to it then.  I may have even listened to some of it when I took Catherine on a walk last week :-)

Andy Weir does such a fantastic job with the story line – yes it’s full of NASA talk and engineering terms that you may forget as soon as you hear them, but it’s also driven by a compelling story.  And the bits of humor are always RIGHT on target!  I will warn you that there’s some harsh language in there, but if you can get past that, this book is completely worth reading.  And the best part??  The movie comes out on October 2 this year.

So, I would love to hear what you guys have been reading this summer!  Anything I should pick up or download to “read” next??