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Spoken word audios for February
REVIEWS BY SUKEY HOWARD
By Adam Gopnik Highbridge, $24.95 ISBN 1565114914
Love in the time of jazz
Imogene, the beautiful, society-deb daughter of a top-drawer Cincinnati lawyer, fell in love with a big-time prohibition bootlegger and he fell madly for her. Although she's brutally murdered by this man who loved her in the very first scene of Craig Holden's new novel, The Jazz Bird, she remains the central, captivating character. The story moves from present to past and back again, from the courtroom where the bootlegger is being tried for murder to Imogene's years as his wife and the desperate game she played to get him out of jail and back in her arms -- at least that's how it seems. Holden has plotted this so cleverly that the more you find out, the less you know; the more you see Imogene in action, the less certain you are of who is double-crossing whom. Based on the real-life murder trial of George Remus, this is a well-drawn portrait of the roaring '20s with all its glitz and jazz, finely narrated by Boyd Gaines.
By Craig Holden Simon & Schuster Audio, $26 ISBN 0743520351
Love on the rocks
Love may be a many splendored thing, but when that splendor splinters and the fervor flags, many of us seek the advice of a pro. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, well-known radio host and best-selling author, is a pro who has been advising the multitudes for years. Her latest epistle to the puzzled and perplexed is Ten Stupid Things Couples Do to Mess Up Their Relationships, which she delivers in her inimitable style. Dr. Laura has strong opinions, and she has never been reluctant to voice them. So don't expect coddling or cajoling; she offers tough-love and takes no prisoners. Even if you don't agree with everything, there's sound advice on what constitutes stupid mistakes and how to correct them. Take a page from Dr. Laura's book, and you might avoid a volume of heartache.
By Laura Schlessinger HarperAudio, $18.95 ISBN 0060000554
King Teddy
The second part of Edmund Morris' brilliant biography of Theodore Roosevelt (the first part was published 21 years ago), Theodore Rex, read by Harry Chase, spans the years Roosevelt spent in the White House from 1901 to 1908. Our youngest president (he was only 42 when he assumed office after McKinley's assassination), TR began work happy and full of energy and left much the same. He was happy about the large things he had been able to achieve -- the settlement of a major coal strike, the peace treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese War, anti-trust regulations that stymied the abuses of business barons, a muscular foreign policy and the creation of our national parks. He had traveled the country in all directions and was honored and loved by the people. He shines from Morris' chronicle, often in his own words, bubbling with good humor, animated, outspoken and ebullient. A bully bio for a bully president.
By Edmund Morris Random House AudioBooks, $32.95 ISBN 073930013X
Three women
I was delighted to find some of my very favorite short stories included in Classic Women's Short Stories. There are five in all by Katherine Mansfield, Kate Chopin and Virginia Woolf, superb crafters of the short story who wrote at the close of the 19th century and in the first decades of the 20th. These unabridged stories are about women, drawing nuanced portraits that could only have been done by a woman with a woman's inner eye. They are wonderfully read, with a woman's nuanced understanding, by Liza Ross and Teresa Gallagher.
Naxos Audio Books, $13.98 ISBN 9626347384
Sukey Howard reports on audiobooks each month. |
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Adam Gopnik's love affair with the city of light began as a teenager and intensified when he moved to Paris in 1995 with his wife and infant son. Because he is a writer by trade and talent and, as it turns out, an observer extraordinaire, his highly personal observations, brought together in Paris To the Moon, offer a superb profile of Paris and an American in Paris, of a man with a curious intellect dealing with the differences, dilemmas and delights of living in another country and culture. Gopnik has a good eye and a good ear -- he makes a good reader too -- and an outsider's instinct about the inside of Parisian life. He stayed for five years -- long enough to make a fascinating distinction between French culture and French civilization, to know the streets, the shops, the food, the foibles and the fantastic allure of this magical city, long enough to know himself better and to know when it was time to go back to New York. If Paris is in your past, future or just on your mind, don't miss this audio.