Hollywood Nate Archives > recordedbookreview.com

It is not obvious that what happens to English in L.A. is natural, because what is natural in California is not natural anywhere else. But if nature is not local, what is? What localizes language? Why does Hollywood Nate understand another cop who asks him whether an Indian girl is feather or dot?

19 Years of Reviews

Mild cozy historical mystery about an unliked lady and owner of property who was discovered stabbed in her house at night, and presumed by the mean Inspector Nivens to have been killed by a burglar. To prove the silly inspector wrong Mrs. Jeffries & her 19th century crime solvingMrs. Jeffries Questions the Answer by Emily Brightwell read by Lindy Nettleton

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" and give them another chance. It is on that veryA Table by the Window by Lawana Blackwell read by Andrea Gallo

Forget the tax on sugar. Tax bad dialogue, dreadful characterizations, idiotic psychological profiles. To wit: When he was a child the twitch had made him the target of merciless teasing and bullying. It had made him burn with hatred. And that hatred had driven him to succeed. Victor Orlov wanted toThe Defector by Daniel Silva read by Phil Gigante

Couples. Kellerman's shrink narrator is full of meticulous, obsessive, data-driven characterizations of L.A. couples and couplings. Milos and Rick, for instance. Rick gets his hair trimmed every two weeks at a high priced West Hollywood salon. Milos drives every two months to La Brea and Washington where he hands hisKellerman's Gone

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

There is a kind of being found among artists, a being-with peculiar to art school graduates, children of artists, girlfriends of artists, gallery owners and oglers and agents and wives, proximate to art, attached to it but uncertain of it, what or where or whose it is. BothThe Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber read by Eric Conger

Four narrators read back to back the recollections of five 'Angry Housewives' in Minnesota. Each voice adds to the prism of personalities which reflects how different five women sound from one another, even when they are reading the same books. Unlike the women in Mary McCarthy's The Group, which was perhapsAngry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik Performed by Ruth Ann Phimister, Christine Mcmurdo Wallis, Christina Moore, Kate Forbes and James Jenner

The girl reading this is California cool, with a strawberry blonde voice, that emerges just slightly bored from a long lean body, a finely boned neck, a tight mouth. John Lennon's death begins not only a book but a mood: a being-in-a-fucked-world mood, a being-towards-the-next-cigarette mood, theDraft: Paint it Black by Janet Finch

Despite a perfect narrator, with a perfect Italian pronunciation of pithy Italian sayings, the mystery lacks a singularly compelling plot, indeed any plot. Disappointing because the author has a lot to say. .... Murder in Tranquility Park by J.D. Griffo

Your average everyday Mohammedan maniac, trained by your friendly neighbourhood terrorist, puts on a baseball cap,whistles 'Freebird' and disintegrates the 14th street bridge, the Dallas-Ft Worth Airport, and suburban D.C. before his Tourist Visa even expires. Welcome to America, stay as long as you want, come back anytime.The Enemy Within by Larry Bond read by Michael Russotto

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 very nice part of West London with a sweet young lodger.No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club by Virginia Ironside Read by Sian Phillips

1948 is a strange time to be a Jew. For Lonzman, the hero of this tale, it is the year the Jews in Israel are driven into the sea, and get a small beachside strip of Alaska as compensation. It is the year Lonzman's father arrives in downtown Sitka whereThe Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon performed by Peter Riegert

Grainger has a way of 'teasing out' the most annoying characteristics of altogether too familiar personality types (aka 'too old intransigent & traditional to live', 'career girl with delayed children', 'bureaucratic ox', 'resentful government serf', 'the thug who will not die', 'the devotedly inattentive son'...) and presenting them in livingLane by Peter Grainger read by Henrietta Meire

A divorced, unemployed home organizer with a drug-addict son is hired to empty out the hoarded contents of an aging artist. Uncluttering the house is accompanied by a series of decisions about why and why not something is or is not valuable. An interesting and entertaining study of people andObjects of My Affection by Jill Smolinski read by Xe Sands

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 underneath his three piece suit. The black-oriental female associate working at HardyThe Second Chair by John T. Lescroart

Tag: Hollywood Nate

Hollywood Moon by Joseph Wambaugh