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

Sad, unnerving story of two sisters, untended during childhood, who are each singularly wounded by their past, their parents, their theories of who they are and what they deserve. An Emergency Room physician who has written off relationships finds her addict-sister in New Zealand after years of believing sheWhen We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O'Neal

Like listening to a brand new Stones album (if you're old enough to know what an album is...) If a video of you coveting your neighbor's wife captured the downing of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 would you rally to the Flag and turn it in? Night Fall is full ofNIGHT FALL by Nelson Demille Narrated by Scott Brick

When and if you have to describe beauty don't do it from the front. Do it against the public eye, and against the visual. This is a book not a movie, so listen: He felt her looking at him, her eyes amused behind those little round glasses like the hippies usedBait by Kenneth Abel read by Frank Muller

The voice is everything. Instead of the typical pomposity of a haughty OBE accent, spouting that mixture of bad faith, betrayal, and malice so characteristic of the displaced British upper class, we have a whisper, a tempered, middle brow tone telling a tale about a slightly fat slightly alcoholic NottinghamROUGH TREATMENT by JOHN HARVEY::JOHN WILKINSON

What starts off as a sweetly original, Jobs-like desire-mined story about a woman's relationship with the net: before and after marriage, turns into a stupid, GOOFY-Lucy-type plot about a wife and mother who tries to hide her need to be free from her straight laced and slightly idiotic husband. TooHacker Mom by Austin Rachlis

Women are trained to make excuses for bad behavior. Here are some for Stuart Woods' latest fictions: 1. Since James Bond, we all know that there are no married heroes of crime novels. Stone Barrington can't survive as Stone: cool, urban, sexual gourmand, in married bliss. The minute Stone married ArringtonSon of Stone: Drek II

A serious Swede, heir of a prestigious Accounting firm, talks to his tour bus driver who must, like him, return to an unwanted fate, a little farm waiting for him to take it over: "I'm no good at going out looking for sheep that have got stuck on their backA Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy read by Rosalyn Landor

Well crafted words read by a dulled, depressed and depressing voice. Read it instead.Paint it Black by Janet Fitch read by Jennifer Jason Leigh

CLEVER, hip, femme-politik story about lovably lost fbi anti-type and girl mountain climber fight Systemic corruption. Swell characterization; plot just short of really believable. Kyle is getting better all the time.Free Fall by Kyle Mills read by Michael Kramer

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

The skinny long legged girl with patch pockets shimmies down the fire escape to meet him, and hovers just a little bit above the ground, hanging, swinging above Castle street, in his dream, and forty years ago. After the dream, the old man wakes up, and hears the neighborhood kidsButchers Hill by Laura Lippman ready by Deborah Hazlett

Remember once upon at time when you watched BATMAN because the last episode had Batman hanging by his toes over a vat of melted rubber hoses? And you had to tune in to the same Bat time, same Bat station to find out what happened? And even though you knewRobert K. Tanenbaum: Gotham

This is a charming very digestable story about one sister told by another. The sister in the spotlight is a freckled lovable morning news show host, with a perpetual trousseau of people who dress her, praise her, and advertise her friendship. A black limo brings herRise and Shine by Anna Quindlen read by Carol Monda

A hotel room. Vegas. A whore, with a gun at her forehead and a cock in her mouth. They told her downstairs that the guy was important, a banker. And that's what she tells her friend when she gets home. Her friend is Colonel Eddie Manso, who has always knownLawrence Block, The Specialists, read by Fred Sullivan

Reacher heard the rack of the slide twenty feet behind him. He heard it very clearly. It was exactly the kind of sound he had trained himself never to miss. To his ears, it was a complete, complex split second symphony and every component registered precisely. The scrape of alloyBad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child read by Dick Hill