The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

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.

19 Years of Reviews

It is wrong to suppose that language is about communication. James Hall does not communicate. He sniffs a piece of the invisible, picks it up with his mouth and lays it on our doorstep. What we call language is sometimes a body, sometimes a carcass, sometimes a feather, sometimes aFrank Muller reads James Hall:: Red Sky at Night

No mystery here. Lots of recipes, though. Maybe you could play it in the kitchen, as background noise for baking chocolate cake. Devil's Food Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke performed by Suzanne Toren

Increasingly, the essay, the critique, the report and the annunciation are being reconfigured in the form of fiction. Michael Crichton has mastered this form. His Next is more than a story about the re-distribution of genomes; it is Critique, Satire, Farce and Science Report, with: just the right amount of ironyNext by Michael Crichton read by Dylan Baker

Sydney has a sister, a reporter, who is murdered. Dissatisfied with her powerful mother's decision to stop the investigation, she traces the last story of her sister's career, and discovers some very dirty truths. The Betrayed by David Hosp read by Richard Ferrone

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

Warped, lusty, utterly female voice of this slut-goddess kicks you in the groin, cuffs you to the radiator, and feeds you sex and ham sandwiches. "You belong to me, D-o-l-l" she says to Steve Carella. And you do. Or want to. As does Steve Carella, detective and good guy ofDOLL by Ed McBain (Pouty D, drag the O, tongue heavy on the L.)

Imagine overhearing the comments of secretaries, girlfriends, GS-11s, GS-18s, CIA heads of station, assistants to CIA heads of station, busty, born-again Texan society matrons, outrageously charming right-wing politicians with more friends than God, superstitious immigrants and sons of immigrants, Muj(ahadeen) terrorists, Afghani torturers, Pakistani tyrants, Egyptian defenseCharlie Wilson's War by George Crile read by Christopher Lane

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 in Donna Leon's Blood from a Stone: The woman wore a flannelBlood from a Stone by Donna Leon::David Colacci

Libby, an archeological historian who works on historic preservation is informed that she has inherited a run down inn in a beach town where her father lived. "Why isn't this place in the historical register?" she asks the Sheriff, who is helping her find her kidnapped friend. The kidnapping makesTidewater Inn by Colleen Coble read by Devon O'Day

"The thing you have to understand and understanding this explains so much about Murdoch's success is that happy newspaper families are alike and unhappy newspaper families are, well, quite alike too: in the end they all lose their papers. As cautionary tales go you could hardly find a more hothouseThe Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch by Michael Wolff read by Paul Boehmer

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

Connor O'Brien, our man in Pluto, does Tanenbaum, and all of his staggeringly brilliant, souls: Butch Karp, ex pro basketball player & New York A.D.A.; Mar-LENE, his smart, sexy, Sicilian one-eyed private eye wife; ex-cop Dead Harry, who props up the depressive position; Tron, Viet Cong assassin & Noodle maker,IRRESISTABLE IMPULSE by Robert K Tanenbaum::Connor O'Brien

Jealous, child-bearing women live and love. A Soft Place to Fall by Barbara Bretton read by Wendy Tremont King

Good defense attorneys are familiar with the figures of vulnerability: the good father of a mad, ungrateful daughter, the young grieving widow, the secretary who knows too much. And they are familiar with the figures of corruption: the oversexed politician, the narrow-minded small town sheriff, the power hungryThe Suspect by John Lescroart read by David Collacci

When the big brained businessmen of Europe come home, they don't want brainy, brilliant, succulent text. They want fashionable, gossipy, obscenely stupid words popping out of fashionable, gossipy, obscenely stupid secretarial types. On heels. They want to come to America, for a night. And wake up inDrek, in pink: Wolves in Chic Clothing by Karasyov and Kargman, read by Gasteyer