Savages by Don Winslow read by Michael Kramer

A ruthlessly intelligent localization of the seven deadly sins, California style.

19 Years of Reviews

Incongruous, unlovable, post-Vietnam: a weatherman and a reporter make the Minnesota TV newsroom hummm. Dixie Quinn locks into the weather and doesn't let go. Rick Beanblossom, burn-victim, works behind the scenes, behind his mask. Their curious, uneven characterizations are ambushed midway by a grim, hopeless plot. Quotes: "Y'all take care now" (The weatherman's lastThe Weatherman by Stephen Thayer read by George Guidall

Slightly tighter, sharper, more ascerbic Carolyn Brown "women helping women" novel. 5 military wives cling together to comfort yet another soon to be divorced wife of a retiring military husband who, incidentally, is unfaithful. It is not altogether a celebratory narrative. The wives take a camping trip to theThe Empty Nesters by Carolyn Brown

Painfully resonant, funny, wise: legacy. Whose legacy?: the immigrant's, the jew's, the orphan's, the escape artist's. Brilliantly performed by Christopher Lane with all the accents right: Bronx, Harlem, Brooklyn, Westchester, Polish, German and of course Santa Barbaran.Moving Day by Jonathan Stone Performed (!) by Christopher Lane

There should be and will be a measure of a good writer, which is the number of words it takes for the reader to be INSIDE the story. Up, up and away. Peter Robinson: 10. Kristin Hannah/Hannah Kristin: 25. Ernest Hemingway: 4.The Measure

CJ Critt's sweet, well enunciated, sing song voice turns even a murder mystery into a fairy tale. Once upon a time, Judge Knott (pronounced Judge not!) found a book of manners, probably given to newly engaged 19th century women preparing for wedding, marriage and domestic life. Each chapter begins withRituals of the Season::Margaret Maron::CJ Critt

We get information in clumps, tangles, bunches. There are facts, mixed up with opinions, references, foreign words, sounds and descriptions referring to where we are talking, what is going on where we are talking, the distraction-ridden machinery of a technologically frenzied environment, analogies dragged in from confused personal archives,Fiddlers by Ed McBain read by Charles Stransky

Stitched into textiles by young girls in the early 19th century, some terribly bored, are poems. These needlepointed poems are featured as epigraphs in another "cozy" mystery about a woman who returns to Maine. Life in a small town in Maine is mostly monotonous and cold. It is also cumulative.Lea Wait, Thread and Gone read by Christina Delaine

"Dear Chatter: To answer your question, when a Southerner looks at you with a blank smile and doesn't answer you right away, it's because he doesn't trust you and he's lookin' you over and seein' how much damage you can do as a human bein'...Have a nice day!" Chatter is aSouthern Living by Ad Hudler read by Cynthia Darlow

Hope Springs: A foster child lovingly raised in an old Victorian house comes back, buys the old house, and opens up a Bakery Cafe where she can sell her special brownies.The Second Chance Cafe by Alison Kent read by Natalie Ross

Chris Faulkener has a new job and a new friend, and comes home to a beautiful mechanic named Carla, who is his wife. He doesn't believe in violence, but he works for a conflict investment firm, which studies, tracks and finances the small wars of the world.Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan read by Simon Vance

At what point can one say that a man is a cheat? When he buys a house from you, when he tells you how to avoid paying income tax, when you help him misrepresent himself, when he helps you find a woman you can marry, when he callsGood Faith by Jane Smiley read by Richard Poe

At what point are you willing to pay for an audiobook? When you encounter a quote by Kipling that you have never heard before, and you want to memorize it ... When the reader has such a faraway voice, with a thousand ligatures, selective, discretionary accents, which gives a dDavid Ignatius, Bloodmoney, read by Firdous Bamji

Although I didn't see her face, I knew that the woman in the coloring chair was beautiful. It wasn't just because she had long, lush, gorgeous hair, but because she was tearing out a page of WWD, where she had eyed another beautiful woman with long hair. And beautiful womenI Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron read by Nora Ephron

Archives: October 2004 Thu Oct 21, 2004 Trace by Patricia Cornwell read by Kate Reading "Let's start the day with a reminder of our boundaries, Henry." Indeed. But some boundaries are more forgettable than others... Consider, for example, the boundaries between Scarpetta and Marino... Posted by: admin on Oct 21, 04 | 5:11Archives October 2004

Rest, it seems, is a peculiarly English thing. Restfulness in all its timorous, melancholic glory cushions the indoor lives of Oscar and Dorrie Livingstone, in a peculiarly English way. Not as the accidental sidebar of an otherwise busied existence but as an aspiration, a calling, a rigorous end in itself.A Friend From England by Anita Brookner read by Cherie Lunghi