Tag: audiobook

Margerumalia – Anne of Green Gables

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – July 18, 2025

Hey, look at that! I designed a book cover. Pretty good, I think. (Okay maybe it’d be better without the manhole cover.) 

I thought I’d take time this week to recommend a classic book that I ran across when looking through free Apple Audiobook options. In fact, I was listening to it while walking on the path in the photo.

I worked in a bookstore for about three years in L.A. and became familiar with a lot of titles and authors. One we were constantly re-stocking was the Anne of Green Gables collection in the children’s section. My mom had read several of the Little House on the Prairie series to me and my brothers, and I tended to think of the Green Gables books as pretty much the same thing.

They’re not. 

First of all, Green Gables is in Canada. Second, Anne is one of the best characters ever written. She’s is witty, charming, optimistic, dramatic, and verbose! I mean, this gal can talk the ear off a pitcher! 

I was literally laughing out loud while listening to this audiobook. When a passer-by on the path was startled by my guffaw I felt the need to explain to her that I was laughing at an audiobook. I think her expression could be described as tolerant. And she probably labelled me as “odd but not dangerous.”

Kudos to the narrator, Kae Denino, for capturing the essence of Anne’s character and for spouting long paragraphs of Anne’s speeches almost without stopping for breath. 

I’m working on narrating my own book and, believe me, I know what Denino has accomplished here! 

The rest of what makes Anne’s incessant chatter hilarious is that she was “adopted” by two quiet elderly people—a brother and a sister—who are completely taken aback by the child they’ve brought into their home. They were expecting a boy! Anne wins them over, of course, but not without a lot of drama and many what-are-we-going-to-do-with-her moments.

At one point in the story I knew Anne’s words would get her into trouble once again and I kind of thought of skipping ahead. “We’ve already seen this episode,” I thought, but, to the author’s credit, Anne did learn from her mistakes and grew more mature with time. Don’t we all? 

Another compliment to the narrator is that Anne’s pitch and tone at the end of the book reflected a character who had grown up and taken on more adult attitudes. I really believed this was an older version of the same person. Subtle, but solid. 

There’s so much we can learn just by paying attention to someone else’s work, whether it’s a writer, a narrator, or a graphic artist. My design for this newsletter reflects what I learned from someone who designed many of my theatre posters at Carthage College. 

Everyone in your life is a teacher. If you pay attention, you may learn something.

TTFN

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Margerumalia – The Museum of Ordinary People

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – January 17, 2025

The Museum of Ordinary People – by Mike Gayle

I begin most mornings with a walk through the woods and last fall I decided to listen to Gayle’s book that I discovered on Chirp when it was on sale.

Since my book bears the title of The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles this title jumped out at me like a complete opposite from mine. An antithesis, if you will. For a few bucks I could download it and get a good look at the opposite end of the museum spectrum. I’m glad I did. 

The narrator, Jess, has mixed feelings about disposing of an old set of encyclopedias her mother had bought her as a child. The process of clearing out her mother’s home after her death left her with new appreciation for possessions and their meanings to people who owned them.

Jess learns of The Museum of Ordinary People and decides to cart the box of books to the museum rather than send them off to the tip (what Brits call the dump). There she learns of an uncurated collection of items that had been donated over the years and suddenly a fire is lit within her. She had always aspired to work as a museum curator and asked the owner for permission to inventory these items, working after hours and on weekends to set up and open the museum to the public.

The novel includes a love story but I wouldn’t say the book should be called a romance. I’ve read thrillers, sf, and historical fiction with love stories and wouldn’t call them romances either. Women’s Fiction is fairly accurate but I’d rather refer to it as general fiction…with a love story. And the first person narration on the audiobook is charmingly performed by Whitney White who lends a sincere authenticity to Jess’ story. 

There’s a kind of cozy mystery quality to the story with ordinary people experiencing a moment in time that alters their life perspectives. No murder needs to be solved, but there is an engagement to be broken (not a big spoiler), a mother’s illness and death to be processed, and a life to be rediscovered and lived. All in all, a rather good formula for a successful story. 

The supporting cast of characters are well fleshed out and equally engaging, as are the side stories of items in the museum that have their own histories, including that set of encyclopedias that began the whole tale. Hitchcock would have called those books a MacGuffin—“an object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). 

Unlike my story of the Shafer family and their adventures in MAMLA, these characters don’t take an elevator up to the clouds, nor adventure in the antediluvian era of Southern California, nor even step into a work of art, but I was wholly engaged with what would happen next and whether the Museum of Ordinary People would finally get the opening it deserved. 

The novel also made me consider the many possessions that my parents left behind, especially the ordinary ones. Does the badly mangled book that my mother received from a beloved teacher, signed and dated inside the cover, have any value to me or my family? What about my Dad’s high school yearbook with one picture of him, and a love note from a girl who would be “thinking about him every day” next year? My older brother counseled me to be ruthless, but that was someone’s life. The Museum of Ordinary People brings those questions into meaningful focus. 

You can learn more about Mike Gayle and his many books at mikegayle.co.uk. Oddly this novel is not included in his list of books but it’s easy to find on Amazon. I recommend it and plan to read more.

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles