Audiobook: An Anonymous Girl
Category: Audiobooks
Choice Magazine Listening – and it is FREE
Choice Magazine Listening (CML) is a nonprofit organization that provides audio recordings of memorable articles, stories, interviews, essays and poems from outstanding current magazines, completely free of charge, to blind, visually impaired, physically disabled or dyslexic adults in the United States. Based in Port Washington, NY, CML has proudly served the blind and print-disabled community since 1962.
Every winter, spring, summer and fall, thousands of eligible people in the United States receive Choice Magazine Listening in a specialized format exclusively for use by people with disabilities. The special digital talking-book player needed to listen to CML is provided, free of charge, by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress. The player is portable, extremely easy to use, and offers outstanding sound quality. These audio selections will not play on just any computer, phone, or portable player because special formatting is required for them to work. If you are already a member of the National Library Service, then you are well on your way to even more interesting reading.
New recordings are made available four times a year. All eligible people can download complete and unabridged selections from the CML website or, by choice, have a digital cartridge mailed to them.
For more information, please visit their website. While you are there, sign up for their newsletter. Enjoy!
Choice Magazine Listening
Audiobook – Educated: A Memoir
By Tara Westover
Everyone has a story. I enjoy reading memoirs because it is always a long, hard look into someone else’s unique life. This memoir is striking.
Tara Westover is the youngest of seven children. The family lives on a mountain in Idaho. It is remote, sparsely populated, no telephone, no schooling. The government is the enemy, the medical world is the enemy. Y2K is approaching and that will surely be the end of the world – unless you are prepared. Even the youngest work the junk yard, finding what they need for survival, and for their livelihood.
There is recklessness beyond words, numerous near-death experiences, accidents that defy survival, and love that looks like anything but.
Where they come from and what they achieve in a world of chaos is unfathomable. This is Tara’s story. Be prepared to wallow in the muck, wander fearlessly, experience physical and mental torture, and search for love.
This book leaves me with a lot of questions and a lot of food for thought. For instance, I would like to hear from the medical community about how people (yes more than one in this family) can experience brutality, suffer brain injuries and other severe medical injuries, yet can survive, with no medical attention, and even return to normal living, or at least what is normal for them. I would like to hear from psychologists and sociologists to explain how people can live in the type of environment that was described and emerge financially successful. Three of the seven children were reported to succeed educationally at the doctoral level without any educational foundation whatsoever, while four of the children remained uneducated and immersed in the lifestyle of their upbringing. Perhaps I just want to hear from other readers!
Be warned, all who enter. This is not an easy story to read.
9 Ways to Get Free Books
So many choices! Books and magazines in various formats including print, ebooks, audiobooks, and braille. Selections cover every topic and genre imaginable – from current bestsellers to classics, fiction and nonfictioin. Take your pick!
This list is primarily for an American audience. Readers from other countries may find similar services with the help of a little googling and perseverance.
1. American Action Fund – Sign up to receive in the mail a free braille children’s book – one every month.
- Pictured: Screenshot of the American Action Fund website, and link.
2. BARD – Audiobooks and magazines ready for immediate download without limits or wait times from the National Library Services. Membership required.
3. Bookshare – eBooks galore and braille books in BRF, all ready for download. Currently there are 729,659 titles with more added all the time. Membership is free to students
4. National Library Services – Coordinates with local talking book libraries. Membership and eligibility required. A free digital audio player is provided that is fully accessible.
5. Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg offers over 59,000 free eBooks. Choose among free epub and Kindle eBooks, download them or read them online. You will find the world’s great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired.
6. ShareBraille – A free service from the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults that facilitates the exchange of Braille books through an online community-run library.
7. SightExchange – An e-mail list for the free exchange of any blindness-related item. Braille books and magazines are frequently offered. Membership required, as well as requirement to share a minimum of one item per year.
8. YouTube – Complete audiobooks are just a listen away. Go to YouTube.com, or download the YouTube app to your device
9. Your local library – Many local libraries have print books and magazines and audiobooks to lend as well as ebooks and digital books available for download. Most public libraries also have videos and TV shows on CDs for circulation. Membership usually required and subject to local rules and regulations.
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Talk to me! I’d love to hear from you!
Audiobook: A Place For Us
by Fatima Farheen Mirza
- Pictured: Book cover for A Place For Us, a New York Times bestseller. It shows a small silhouetted house against a large image of the moon in the night sky.
How does the loving relationship between a father and son go so awry?
Raffiq and Layla are Muslims born and raised in southern India. They have three children: two daughters Hadia and Huda, and their youngest child, a son Amar. While the family was still young, Raffiq moved them to California. There they struggled with keeping their traditions and values intact while somehow assimilating into American life. Notable was a particular struggle with how each member of the family coped with the events of 9/11 as they anticipated and feared religious persecution as a result.
The path of each member of the family was traced from birth to adulthood. Their trials and tribulations were explored. As the children grew to adulthood, each struggled with changes in relationships, new relationships, their beliefs, and their own experiences and understanding of their place in a changing world.
As Raffiq reflected upon his life – his childhood, his coming of age, marriage and parenthood, and wondered what he could have done differently, and bemoaned what he should have done differently, he wondered how he had affected the lives of his children. Because of his decisions and his influences, he wondered, “I brought them here. My wife and my children and my grandchildren. And I will leave them here And what will the world be like?” But what gnawed at his gut was his failed relationship with his only son.
I normally shy away from books with strong religious themes or an abundance of religious ritual. Yet this book was different. This book enlightened me. It introduced me to another world, another culture. Although I do not walk through my daily life in many the same ways, I was able to relate to every character.
If we all opened our minds and our hearts to other cultures, the world would be a better place. For sure. This book is a good starting point.
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This book is available as a free BARD download as well as a free Bookshare download for members.
Novel Characters
Are you looking for a good book?
The following list of novels features characters who are blind or visually impaired. All of these books stand out as great reads and are recommended. This list is a work in progress. Additional books featuring characters who are blind or visually impaired will added to this list as they become known. This page can be accessed at any time under the BOOKS tab at the top of this and every page on this blog.
Click on a hyperlink if you are interested in reading my review.
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All the Light We cannot See by Anthony Doerr
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Blind Curve by Annie Solomon
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Blindness by Jose Saramago
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Confessions of a Guide Dog by Mark Carlson and Musket
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Girl, Stolen by April Henry – young adult
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Seeing by Jose Saramago (sequel to Blindness)
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The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
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Audiobook: The Silent Patient
by Alex Michaelides
Alicia Berenson shot her husband in the face five times.
She and Gabriel had lived a very comfortable life, she a famous painter and he a notable fashion photographer. One night, he came home late, at 11 p.m., after a photo shoot when Alicia pulled the trigger. Alicia did not admit to the murder, she did not speak of the crime. In fact, she did not speak again. She was taken to a facility, away from public scrutiny, and there psychotherapists tried to work with her.
Theo Faber was fascinated by the case. He worked long and hard to find his way into her world. As a psychotherapist, he was pleased to finally be assigned to work with Alicia in a dual effort to satisfy his curiosity and unlock her secrets that so far were sealed away without words.
A comparison emerged between Alicia Berenson and Alcestis, a woman from Greek mythology, presented by Euripides in a Greek tragedy. Alcestis was a woman who sacrificed her life to bring her husband back from the dead. Is that why Alicia did not speak? Or was it perhaps her tormented mind that crawled to a halt and sequestered her words.
This is a psychological thriller with lots of twists and turns, and even one audible gasp from me! A page turner for sure.
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The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides is available as a free downloadable audiobook from BARD for all National Library Services members.
Legally Blind 