Happy August everyone! It’s mind boggling to think that the summer is almost over. As Xan mentioned in her July wrap up, sometimes quarantine life makes me feel like we’re still in March. But as the season comes to an end, I figured I could share some of my most recent listens. I’ve made my way through some audiobooks recently while managing my family’s gardens. I’ve also, of course, been working on my monthly playlists and CELEBRATING the release of Taylor Swift’s folklore album. Some of my closest friends from college zoomed with me and we listened to it together when it first dropped. Considering that we’ll all be apart this fall, it was so nice to reconnect over an artist we all love. In an era when sending each other mixtapes is a little obsolete, sending friends Spotify playlists seems to have slid right in as a perfect solution.
The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia | translated by Simon Bruni
Technically I started listening to The Murmur of Bees this past fall on a road trip back up to Middlebury from the Berkshires. It was engrossing and the perfect read to keep me engaged for the long drive. I continued to pick it back up throughout the winter and into the spring on my walks around campus and afternoons gardening once I was sent home. The Murmur of Bees falls into my favorite category of books: multi-generational family stories. The characters were spectacular, the writing was vivid, and I knew from listening to the first chapter than this would be a new favorite of mine. I also cannot recommend the audio enough. The voice narration flips between a male and female voice, but both fit the contextual circumstances of the chapters that they read, and it really enriched the listening experience. The Murmur of Bees, in print or on audio, is not one to sleep on.
The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister | To be entirely honest, I pick my audiobooks unlike I pick other books I read. Of course, I pay attention to titles that I am otherwise already interested in, but I pay attention specifically to which audiobooks are doing particularly well. This list tells me what people are enjoying listening to, and that is how I found The Scent Keeper. Of course, it turns out that this was also a pick for Reese Witherspoon’s bookclub, and I have yet to read one of her picks that I didn’t like. However, when I first started listening to The Scent Keeper I really struggled to get into it. The protagonist, Emmeline is living through her childhood for the first part of the book, and I wasn’t as interested in that at first. As Emmeline grew older and her world starts to crumble, the story started to pick up and I was addicted. The character growth in this novel was absolutely spectacular, and I don’t think I’ve read anything quite as descriptive since Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians. This is ALSO another new favorite and I cannot recommend it enough.
monthly playlists
favorite Taylor songs
If you are a huge Taylor fan like me, you definitely need to do the ultimate Taylor sorter that I found on Tumblr. I’ve currently just got a playlist with my favorite 25 songs, but I think I’ll make one with my top 50 as well. I’m typically a big fan of listening to the albums in their entirety (and in order, no shuffle!) but sometimes it’s nice to mix it up. I also don’t think that the songs on folklore are quite as high on my list as they will be eventually. They’ve got to soak into my soul a bit more.
