As the eighties crash down around him in images of newly divorced women and unusably long nails, Macon emerges as a peculiar species of American male bent on reorganizing the world. Author of guidebooks for businessmen who hateThe Accidental Tourist Anne Tyler::George Guidall

It is so civilized to recognize that one is old, so English. Mary Sharp is a spritely, frank, practical English lady, retired, and almost 60. She has lively, vivid opinions and wobbly upper arms and lives in a not veryNo! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club by Virginia Ironside Read by Sian Phillips

An adulterous wife, a cracked small town doctor, a crooked partner, and a handful of gun-nuts, rednecks and vets are trapped inside this book like 5 men and 4 cowboy hats in a trailor. Third Degree by Greg Iles read by David Collacci

Ever since Tracy Ullmann quipped that being in your early 50s was a wonderful time for most actresses, I've been watching for a script. Here it is. The next Meryl Streep movie: what better role for an over 50 actressFly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner read by Judith Light

When she catches some of her wealthy highschool students plagiarizing their English papers, Carly wants to fail them. Instead, the School Headmistress tells her that she is being vindictive, and that Carly must overlook the "childish lapse in judgement" andA Table by the Window by Lawana Blackwell read by Andrea Gallo

Well crafted words read by a dulled, depressed and depressing voice. Read it instead.Paint it Black by Janet Fitch read by Jennifer Jason Leigh

Wry, infinitely bored, softhearted ex-cop holes up in the Upper Peninsula, runs his snow plow up and down the block, and hangs out in a Scottish pub, drinking Canadian beer. Then trouble comes knocking at his door.... The Hunting Wind by Steve Hamilton read by Nick Sullivan

Fri Feb 20, 2004 Interesting how beauty and moral corruption are coupled in Lescroart's typical female. Especially the typical female lawyer. Messaging sexuality, too rich, too smart, too independent, too competitive:: the wet dream bitch of every lawyer wearing panties underneathThe Second Chair by John T. Lescroart

It is not unusual to hear unflattering descriptions of Americans in the press, but when did Americans get so ugly in fiction? Consider a white haired couple who seem to be wearing each other's clothes inBlood from a Stone by Donna Leon::David Colacci

The open-faced innocence of Anna Field's voice offers up a ripe acoustical image of a woman artist in New York: Faith Crowl. Faith is commissioned by an old and wealthy New York City socialite to paint the ballroom of herTrick of the Eye by Jane Stanton Hitchcock read by Anna Fields

War stories are love stories. Boys unsaved, unburied, unremembered. Violent, emotional, harrowing stories, told and retold and told again, afterwards, of boys too young, too dead, too Vietnam.The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

How is it possible to account for irrationality in a scientific way? What kind of a science, what kind of a scientist studies the the irrational side of human behavior? How, moreover, can irrational decisions be measured, explained andThe Upside of Irrationality by Dan Arielly

Short, spoiled and operatic is the 14 year old Persian Jewess who charms Gabe, the poor little rich foundling now living with Peter and Rena Decker. Gabe is a little lovable, a little weird, and very horny. But he isGun Games by Faye Kellerman read by Mitchell Greenberg

A wagonful of new Agatha Christie audiobooks ("lesser" works?) shows us an Agatha knee-deep in Freud, perhaps, indeed, an "English Freud". Here she experiments with the entire merde ridden hagiography of psychoanalytic terms: pathologies, neuroses, Agatha Christie, differently

Women are divisive. Among themselves and between their generations. Go to any academic women's conference and see for yourself. Or listen to Blair Brown's crisp, young, feminine voice reading The Senator's Wife. And listen for this divisiveness. In the pasteurizedThe Senator's Wife by Sue Miller read by Blair Brown