Philip Rose Archives > recordedbookreview.com

The bored and boring life of a typically immoral English banker in the city of London in the 1960s.

19 Years of Reviews

As Marcus Aurelius would say, there are good mixtures and bad mixtures. Consider: A man, a dog, a Ford Explorer. An American, a surfboard, a wave. Or: an experiment, a scientist, the DOD. Good or bad? Koontz doesn't say. But incredible the speed with which we move to position ourselves behind the good, or theSeize the Night by Dean Koontz read by Keith Szarabajka

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

Ethically demented, seriously ambitious police detective brutalizes innocent, unthinking little boy. Heartwrenching. A must for prosecutors.The Rag and Bone Trade by Robert Cormier

What begins as a story about a girly James Dean with two wicked sisters and a drunk mother becomes a story about a CPW apartment building and its history, its doorman, its neighbors. Tina Finn is outrageous and outraged, at everyone with a bank account or a stable identity, at herTwelve Rooms With A View by Theresa Rebeck read by Marguerite Gavin

Remarkable introduction to a remarkable detective novel. The introduction explains that Crofts was an engineer who mapped out detailed specifications for his detective fiction much the way an engineer would draw up plans for a house or a bridge. Knowing this transforms the way we read and appreciate theThe Hog's Back Mystery by Freeman Wills Crofts with an introduction by Martin Edwards read by Gordon Griffin

Millie is a happy widow who is a member of the Red Hat Club. She has just dyed her hair cinnamon. She wants to travel and step down from her job as 'domestic goddess', but she has two sons who are slobs. One has moved into her basement apartmentThe Red Hat Society's Domestic Goddess by Regina Hale Sutherland read by Cynthia Darlow

L.A./Hollywood relived by a suicidal ex-husband ex-producer ex-Jew with a screenplay. The screenplay is fresh off the bus from New Jersey, delivered to Charlie (post suicide) by his 21 year old nephew, Lionel. It is about Disraeli but that doesn't matter. The screenplay is his property, and all Charlie needsThe Deal: A Novel of Hollywood by Peter Lefcourt read by William H. Macy

Within the first minute and 34 seconds you know you are going to understand this book because Denning quotes James Dyson: "Of the world's ten largest corporations by revenue, 9 make big, heavy things, like cars." This is easy to follow, sensible stuff - and just the kind of obviousness thatThe Bull Hunter by Dan Denning

Journalists must either eat or be eaten by more and more information. How to eat? Well, there's Excel. And if Excel can't make sense of "the new types of data" that Wikileaks was producing, then maybe a "data visualization expert" could make a pretty picture out of bomb explosion statistics.WikiLeaks by David Leigh, Luke Harding, Ed Pilkington, Robert Booth, Charles Arthur, narrated by Paul Michael Garcia

A sweet perfectly staged gem of a romance, with no excessive sexual details and no drawn out “chapter 4” breakup before coming back together. An uncle’s unusual bequest puts a hold on Molly’s hotel management career: she is compelled to help out an old friend by agreeing to marry andPamela Kelley Six Months in Montana

Charlie has been a guest and a prisoner of the dictator of Batanga for 12 years when he has an affair with the dictator's favorite wife. After the wife is tortured, Charlie extradites himself to America, and stands trial for an old murder. The crime is investigated, reconstructedPhillip Margolin, Fugitive, read by Jonathan Davis

Is it the caterer or the husband or the ex-husband? Or the best-friend? When the hated mother of the bride is poisoned at the wedding, the wedding planner and her favored caterer are at the top of the suspect list... For those who want to read about weddings and murder atBetter Off Wed by Laura Durham read by Stephanie Spicer

Only if you want to listen to a spoiled wife's marriage problems while her husband, the surgeon, has chemotherapy for his brain cancer. A long array of the usual complaints, followed by forgiveness and a touch of rural religion.Pirate Queen by Patricia Hickman read by Flora Plumb

Forget Harley Street. The latest design in shrinks is a six foot 250 pound lesbian weight lifter who runs a pub with her bosomy girlfriend, and offers bed, morning after breakfast, and laundry service. This is what the 21st century male patient wants: a powerful, intuitive M.D. who canThe Chameleon's Shadow by Minette Walters read by Simon Vance

How is it that Anna Jacobs always swaddles you into a world that feels cozy and safe and hopeful? Here is another story about a working woman who wants to retire but puts it off until she is at the edge of the world and has to fight her way backChanging Lara by Anna Jacobs

Tag: Philip Rose

George Evans by A.F. Gillotti read by Philip Rose