The Measure > recordedbookreview.com

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.

19 Years of Reviews

In between rolling translations of Anglo-Saxon chronicles, poems, histories, M.C.D. Drout hawks 566 years of kings, pirates, popes, monks, wars, buildings and battles. But most and first of all, he hooks us with language, giving us bits of Anglo-Saxon poems, lists of Old English words (some, siton,The Anglo Saxon World by M.C.D. Drout

A town is the scene of what people do, become and have. Stabenow describes happy slow small towns with unusual people who are ever so slightly insane. Who might shoot people over candy bars, or murder them in quaint hotel rooms or share fried bread with a wolf. There are townsWhisper to the Blood by Dana Stabenow read by Marguerite Gavin

Schumpeter once wrote that the Stock market is a poor substitute for the holy grail. In other words, capitalism is more or less incapable of producing belief in itself. And yet, there are people who do believe in it. Ziad Abdelnour is one of them. ForMeet the Giants: An Interview with Ziad Abdelnour

"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

A family is a system. For Annabelle, aka Tanya, aka Sienna aka Sophia, it is a rigorously cheerful, rigorously protective, rigorously mobile system. It packs up and moves every 18 months. Until Kansas City, when the system's mother drinks herself to death, and the rules are preserved byHide by Lisa Gardner read by Maggie-Meg Reed

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

Author of 41 books of Christian fiction (and never a best seller) gets used to living with her annoying mother-in-law and her hapless daughter while she complains about her life to God. It is not at all evident that God is interested. A Case of Bad Taste by Lori Copeland read by McMurdo-Wallis, Cristine

Although less terrible than usual, Brick can't do funny. And this book can be funny. The ram rod straight CIA trainer; the queer, ruthless, demented Director of Operations; the stubborn, nerdish, accidentally lucky pseudo-operative determined to avenge his murdered girlfriend..... Then of course he bumps into a woman who canThe Amateur: A Novel of Revenge by Robert Littell read by Scott Brick

This is so well read, so well thought out, so well organized that it stands out as a motherlode of precious advise for anybody who wants to work better, be better, CHANGE. Remember your fifth grade teacher? The one that was a little pretty, a little strict, a little scary? TheBernadette Dunne reads Work Less Make More by Jennifer White

"You know how Thais are: totally fair minded Buddhists until their personal income is threatened." For we farang, the improbability of Thailand is as good as fiction. Where else would one find a dejected pot-smoking homicide detective and his long-haired assistant, a "Kathoey transsexual who has not yet scraped together theThe Godfather of Kathmandu by John Burdett read by Stephen Hogan

This second in the "Allison Campbell Mystery" series is disappointing. It would have been nice to come back to a different kind of detecting woman -- a woman whose job it is to detect -- and re-configure -- a social image. The image of a person is of course aDeadly Assets by Wendy Tyson read by Tanya Eby

Gruff, base, raspy, cutting: a voice with a fist wrapped around it. That sandpaper thing, that tough, tight, testosterone thing. That private dick thing, Slovak style. Ex-cop ex-husband Milan Jacovich spits out violently funny running commentary on the seraglio of rich snobbish dames, old time bosses and stubborn Slovenes that populateThe Cleveland Local by Les Roberts::Les Roberts

Wed Sep 15, 2004 Leave the Grave Green by Deborah Crumb. Narrated by Christopher Kay. Clipper Audio. c2001. Bland, unexciting, English pudding: a boy-inspector, his prissy girl partner, a murder and a family. The plot is overboiled, the storytelling unremarkable. But there are some fascinating droplets toward the end: the respectableLeave the Grave Green by Deborah Crumb. Narrated by Christopher Kay.

Another Nantucket version of Three Sisters, with three orphaned unmarried daughters living in the same old to-be inherited house. The sombre, fat, defensive A.B.D., teaching English at a Community College is writing a book about May Alcott - no, not Louisa May just May Alcott, her neglected younger sister.Island Girls by Nancy Thayer read by Cassandra Campbell

Discretion is the name of a D.C. Escort Service, so exclusive that it doesn't advertise on Back Page or Eros. The most expensive and popular "provider" at Discretion is "Sasha" who is rated "9s" and '10s' in the Appearance and Performance categories on Trick Adviser-- an on line Ratings serviceDiscretion by Allison Leotta read by Tavia Gilbert