Archives staff member, Robin Melland, recommends listening
to the audiobook version of Maria Semple’s novel. “It is a silly and fun book
where crazy, weird things keep happening – pure entertainment.”
Student worker, Colleen Roach, recommends reading
the hardcover edition from the fourth floor browsing collection. “This book has just enough drama and
mystery in it to keep you hooked but not so much that you get sick of the story
and characters. It is interesting to see the path that Bernadette's life takes
in response to her successes and failures and how that path affects those
around her.
It was an easy book to stay interested in because of the slight
twists that happen throughout the story.”
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
By Maria Semple
New York: Hachette Audio, 2013 (9 CDs) or
New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2012
Available in the library on 4th floor.
Call number:
PS3619.E495 W54 2013 (Audiobooks)
PS3619.E495 W54 2012 (Browsing books)
Janet Maslin from The
New York Times writes “The tightly constructed “Where’d You Go,
Bernadette” is written in many formats — e-mails, letters, F.B.I. documents,
correspondence with a psychiatrist and even an emergency-room bill for a run-in
between Bernadette and Audrey. Yet these pieces are strung together so wittily
that Ms. Semple’s storytelling is always front and center, in sharp focus. You
could stop and pay attention to how apt each new format is, how rarely she
repeats herself and how imaginatively she unveils every bit of information. But
you would have to stop laughing first.
Everyone in this sparkling novel is wily, smart or even
smarter. The brainiest character is arguably Elgin, who works at Microsoft and
leads the design team for what, the book says, is Bill Gates’s favorite
project. Elgin is famed for not wearing shoes, for giving the
fourth-most-watched TED talk and for generally being Microsoft’s version of a
rock star.” Full Review
