AMI Audiobook Review

It’s a rapid-fire review bonanza. Me, Nisreen and Jacob are finally participating. However, Community Reporter on Kelly and Ramya, Julie Martin, from Pictou County, Nova Scotia joins us to get it all started.

On this week's episode: Sometimes, we need to take a step back from our busy lives and just appreciate the simple things. And what better way to do that than by immersing yourself in the living world of greenery and beautiful landscapes? If you’re not an outdoors person, the next best thing is reading books about the wild. We wanted a guest to help us with this topic and it only felt natural that that had to be none other than Lawrence Gunther of Outdoors with Lawrence Gunther. Plus, our very own audiobook curator, Aamer Khan, joins us with this month’s recommendations, with the theme, Magic, Mythology and Malaysia.

Red Széll, host of My Life in Books with Red Széll, is with us, all the way from some place called England. Drawing on his years of experience as host of My Life in Books on AMI-audio, interviewing countless authors, it’s safe to say he’s somewhat of an expert on what makes authors tick. Looking forward to getting into it with Red. Plus, we have more responses to our most recent question to the book club: What are books that left you with strong mixed feelings? (i.e., books that had you equally enthralled and frustrated.) That’s for later though.

Is our obsession with rigidly classifying every book into a set list of genres a bad habit that desperately needs breaking? That’s a loaded question. There are no doubt a whole lot of issues that come with our feverish compulsion to sort everything, and that’s what we’ll be talking about today. Later, we’ll be getting into some responses to our book club question: What are some books that left you with strong mixed feelings? (i.e., a book that left you equally enthralled and frustrated.)

We’re discussing the always-fascinating fantasy author, Brandon Sanderson, who’s fully embraced the audiobook revolution despite using his massive platform to condemn what he calls, “Audible's unconscionable business practices,” and casually breaking the record for the most successful Kickstarter campaign of all time in the process. And later, Sarah Hillis drops in for our Know Your Narrator segment; Edoardo Ballerini is our featured narrator this week.

Karen and Theresa of CELA, the Center for Equitable Library Access, join us for another book review, this time for the highly-anticipated memoir, The Woman in Me, by Britney Spears. And later, Aamer Khan shares with us three authors that have piqued his interest in the past month.

Dave Brown, of the world-famous NOW with Dave Brown, which airs live weekdays at 9 a.m. Eastern on AMI-tv, joins us for an in-depth review of Success by Martin Amos (where our quote of the week is from), one of his very own book recommendations . Later on, Jacob and I continue our recommendations with more of our personal favourites.

This week, we finally take a moment to present our own book recommendations, in the thriller/mystery and non-fiction categories. On the second half of the show, Greg David, Communications Specialist at AMI, is subjected to the Rapid-Fire-Review segment. He also gives us his in-depth review of Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre.

Karen and Theresa make their monthly appearance on the show. This time, we discuss the many reasons why so many people read horror. Why do we willingly want to feel fear and discomfort? There’s a lot to unpack. Plus, Sarah Hillis presents/raves about one of our personal favourite narrators, Julia Whelan, as part of our Know Your Narrator segment

This week, Ramya and Jacob convene with the book club to have an in depth discussion on what specifically makes a book enjoyable. Everyone shares their ranking of the following 4 elements in order of personal importance to their enjoyment of a book; Plot, writing, characters and setting. Spoiler alert, opinions differ. We also wrap up banned books week, which ended on October 7th, with a few shocking statistics from the ALA, American Library Association as well as take a look back at the history of book bannings

We’ll actually make an effort to live up to this show’s name and review a book for once. The invisible Life of Addy Leroux, by V.E. Schwab, is what we’re reviewing today with the help of fellow book nerds Debby Giroux and Amer Khan.

On today’s episode, two avid readers are coming on to discuss their recent reading adventures. Karen Magee, Content Development Specialist at AMI is first, followed by Jennie Bovard of the Low Vision Moments podcast after the break.

The meat of this episode is our Know your Narrator chat with Sara Hillis, she features long time, legendary narrator, George Guidall. And we touch base on taboos in Literature including 50 Shades of Grey and Love Times Three. Plus, we talk to Bill Shackleton about the bookmobile.

We speak with Rod Michalko and Dan Goodley, authors of Letters with Smokie, a collection of letters providing a lively exploration of human-animal relationships and space to interrogate disability as disruption, disturbance, and art.

We introduce a new member to the Audiobook family and discuss books that are purposely provocative, edgy, and explore taboo topics. Also, we're back with our monthly CELA Talk with Karen McKay and Theresa Power, finally getting into our review of The Whispers by Ashley Audrain.

Aamer Khan features three Pulitzer Prize Winners, books focusing on important, melancholic times in history, where the main characters are on a journey to change the times.

On today's episode: Bill Shackleton, a live reporter at AMI, brings us up to speed on cozy mysteries. This is a genre of light, dip your toes in, small town vibe mystery stores.

On Know Your Narrator, Sara Hillis features the 2023 Audiofile Magazine Golden Voice, Kevin R. Free, whose voice is on over 450 fiction, non-fiction, children's, and adult books.

We discuss Obama's Booklist with Karen McKay and Theresa Power from the Centre for Equitable Library Access, getting into why his booklists are unique, how they're curated, and why he continues to release them past his presidency.

Aamer Khan brings us his book reviews of July, including My Oxford year by Julia Whelan, a title he’s giving a standing ovation to