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Heart of a hero
REVIEWS BY SUKEY HOWARD
By James B. Stewart Simon & Schuster Audio, $26 6 hours, ISBN 0743527267
Victorian secrets
By A.S. Byatt Harper Audio $39.95, ISBN 0060527099
Sparks of love
By Nicholas Sparks TimeWarner Audiobooks, $26.98 5.5 hours, ISBN 158621439X
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In the midst of the horrors of 9/11, many became heroes, putting the lives of others before their own. We've heard
much about firemen and policemen. Now, with James B. Stewart's Heart of a Soldier: A Story of Love, Heroism, and
September 11th we learn about a man who did what many others
would not and could not have done. With deft strokes, Stewart paints vivid portraits of Rick Rescorla and a life
that led to heroism; his closest friend and buddy-in-arms, Dan Hill; and Susan, the loving wife and soulmate he met
in late middle-age. Rescorla was a soldier's soldier, a fearless fighter in colonial Africa and three-times decorated
in the Vietnam War. As head of security for Morgan Stanley on that sunlit September day, it was his preparation and
deep sense of duty that helped save the lives of 2,700 Morgan Stanley employees in the South Tower; he died, as he
would have wanted, setting an example. George Di Cenzo's calmly intense narration on the audio underscores Stewart's
"you-are-there" journalism and Rescorla's resolve.
The movie version of A.S. Byatt's Possession may have received mixed reviews, but the unabridged
recording is cause for audio elation. For me, this is one of
those books that is much easier on the ears than on the eyes. In other words, I had trouble reading
the novel, but found listening to Virginia Leishman's reading a 23-hour pleasure. With consummate skill,
Byatt not only recreates the passionate, disastrous love-liaison between two Victorian poets, the
scholarly detective work that uncovers it, and the accompanying academic jostling and jousting, she
actually recreates the poets' work—their journals, sagas, poems and their extraordinary letters.
It all adds up to an amazing, amusing literary tour de force.
Get out your handkerchiefs and keep your casting list handy. Nicholas Sparks has done it again.
Nights in Rodanthe, read by JoBeth Williams with
just the right warm understanding, is as heart-wrenchingly romantic as its best-selling predecessors. At 45,
with three children, a father in a nursing home and a husband who has left them all for the proverbial trophy
wife, Adrienne is muddling through with little hope for the future. Enter, Paul, a surgeon whose single-minded
ambition has driven his wife and only son away and who is finally facing up to the error of his ways. They
meet in a B & B on the beach in the Outer Banks and have five days together—five days that forever change
their lives. You can guess the outcome—it's told in flashbacks with just a hint of those Madison
County Bridges—but vintage Sparks is well worth your listening time.