Sukey's Favorite

Confederates in the Attic
By Tony Horwitz
BDD, $25, 6 hrs
ISBN 0553525832

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Prize-winning war correspondent Tony Horwitz covered his boyhood bedroom walls with a mural of Civil War battles. Years later, wanting to understand the enormous, enduring appeal of this bloodiest of all American wars, Horwitz set out on a two-year trek. The result is Confederates in the Attic, a humorous, perceptive journalist's journey through 15 states and into the minds and motivations of people for whom the War is as alive today as it was in 1865. Horwitz took part in Civil War reenactments and even embarked on a "wargasm" with a hardcore reenactor. This involved intense, arduous touring of historic sites, under period conditions -- wearing faintly fetid uniforms and eating frightful food, among other grim realities. Beyond chiggers and rain-soaked nights, the grimmest realities Horwitz found are that race remains a raw, unresolved issue, and remembrance can often be an excuse for divisiveness. Don't miss this clear-eyed blend of history, travelogue, and intelligent observation.

Hear! Hear!

REVIEWS BY SUKEY HOWARD

Listen in -- listen up -- it's audio month! Time to call extra attention to the wonderfully diverse, wonderfully produced selection of audio titles available -- everything from engaging, entertaining fiction, knock-out nonfiction, probing political reporting, to the sublimely erudite.

Serial material

We haven't had a serious serial killer for a while, but Tami Hoag's latest, Ashes to Ashes, convincingly read by Melissa Leo, makes up for that. The Cremator, as he's called in the press, may take the prize for gruesome ghoulishness. What makes him more vile than many of his evil ilk is that he knows what he is, he's studied his compulsion, and he revels in it without a flicker of remorse. And what makes this fast-paced thriller so involving are the good folks determined to get this monster. Front and center is Kate Conlon, a tough, smart, very appealing former FBI fast-tracker, who has come back to Minneapolis (don't worry, you'll find out why) and is now the witness advocate in charge of a sad, foul-mouthed young streetwalker, the only person ever to see this predatory perp. Working with her is a team of wise-cracking, dedicated cops and an FBI expert sent in from Quantico. As the action heats up, so does the danger to Kate -- and so will your tense curiosity.


Cooking up a storm

Robin Cook, that master of medical malevolence, is back on the thriller scene with Vector and a new storm of bio-terrorism. This time, forensic pathologists Jack Stapleton and the woman he should pay more attention to, Laurie Montgomery, face double trouble -- Yuri, a deeply disillusioned Russian emigre who wants to punish America, and the People's Aryan Army, a shadowy group of neo-fascists and angry skinheads who want to destroy the government. Yuri, who had been a biotech worker in a Russian weapons plant, and the nasty leaders of the PAA have not only found each other, but found that their combined talents can bring off "Operation Wolverine," a deadly variation on the theme of Oklahoma City. Jack and Laurie, involved in tracking down the source of an unusually devastating disease, find themselves face to face with the horror of a modern bioweapon in the hands of fanatics. Robin Cook, always at his demonic best in this kind of it-can-happen-here shocker, is in great form here.


Bar belle

Blond, blue-eyed Bennie Rosato would probably bristle at that appellation, but she'd never deny that she's a tough, top-notch lawyer. Back for an encore appearance in Lisa Scottoline's new legal thriller, Mistaken Identity, Bennie is called in by Alice Connolly, who is accused of murdering her live-in policeman lover. Bennie doesn't want to defend Alice, but when they're together she thinks she's looking in a mirror. Can this stranger be her twin, as she claims? And if so, how can she turn down her defense? Drawn by the irresistible idea of finally finding family, Bennie takes the case and finds herself in a whirlwind of drug-dealing, double-crossing, dissembling, and danger. Scottoline knows the courtroom scene and knows how to pace her fast-moving plots, and reader Kate Burton knows how to make it all the more plausible in this audio version.


Look for the silver lining

Popular author Iris Rainer Dart knows the L.A. scene, knows how to set her captivating stories in it, and knows how to pull at your heartstrings while she's making you laugh. All her know-how is abundantly evident in When I Fall in Love. Lily, a single mother and successful sitcom writer, is in the business of making people laugh, but when her teenage son is paralyzed by a bullet meant for her, wit seems light years away. To confound her problems, she has to deal with Charlie, her new boss, whose irreverent take on the world and his own severe physical challenges do little to ease her fragile feelings and growing worries. But Charlie knows that humor can be a magic elixir in overcoming disability and self-pity. So -- does Lily learn to see Charlie with new eyes, to see her son in proper perspective, and to see what real love is all about? Has Ms. Dart given us another bestseller? There's only one answer and it's yours for the listening.


Mitford mania

Jan Karon's Mitford series is a phenomenon -- in just two years, her books have sold over 2.5 million copies, there's a Mitford newsletter, and this summer Hallmark will introduce Mitford greeting cards. In the audio versions of her books (also super-sellers), Ms. Karon reads. That's an added attraction; her sweet Southern voice is the very sound of Mitford and its marvelously warm-hearted characters. What's new in a A New Song is a new setting and a new set of memorable neighbors. Retired Episcopal rector Father Tim Kavanaugh has agreed to leave the tree-lined streets of his beloved Mitford and become interim minister of a small church on Whitecap Island. Not surprisingly, Tim and his wife Cynthia find both joy and sorrow on Whitecap and find that the members of this new congregation are as challenging and rewarding as any they've known before. Don't worry about old friends; the Mitford folk are never too far away from the Kavanaughs' everyday life and thoughts.


Climb every mountain

David Breashears, the well-known cinematographer and mountaineer, turns the lens on himself in High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places. As a rootless boy, Breashears devoted himself to climbing. As he grew older, he realized that the risk inherent in scaling majestic mountains carries its own rewards and provides as profound a sense of self-knowledge as anything else on this earth. Philosophy aside, this is a true tale of rigorous, unworldly adventure. Breashears's honest descriptions of his climbs -- and the men, women, and hardy Sherpas who went with him -- are taut with the hair-raising dangers they faced and as full of suspense as anything you'll find in fiction, especially his account of the deadly season in 1996 when nine people perished on Everest while attempting to reach the summit. Michael Gross reads with affecting intensity and Breashears adds an overview in his own voice.


The personal and the political

George Stephanopoulos was a true believer. He was awed by Clinton and his immense potential, saw his flaws, and gratefully overlooked them. But, by the end of two presidential campaigns and four years in the White House, he came to see the object of his devotion as a true deceiver, and therein lies the tale. Listening to George Stephanopoulos read his best-selling confessional-chronicle All Too Human, you have to wonder whether the title refers to Clinton, to the teller of the tale, or to both. Stephanopoulos wants to be candid; he allows early on that he too was a "natural" at the game of politics, that he too was carried along by his "raw ambition," and that he saw Clinton as his "ticket to the top." It took him much longer to see politics as a blood sport that can sully the soul.

Stephanopoulos peppers this saga of trials and tribulations at the apex of power with insider close-ups of Hillary, James Carville, and Dick Morris, among others; includes reports of conversations, confrontations, his own wild highs and devastating lows; and ends with an epilogue on more recent events, revealing again his own all-too-human take on this all-too-human President.

Moving right along, we go from inside the White House to inside the media probing the White House. When Stephanopoulos was trying to keep the Paula Jones allegations from rising above the category of "trash for cash," he came up against Michael Isikoff, then a reporter at the Washington Post. The indefatigable Isikoff, who moved on to Newsweek, was hell-bent on getting the Jones story and everything else he could on Clinton's sexual misconduct. He got more about Jones and Lewinsky (and maybe a few in between) than about anybody else, but he also got involved with sources who had big-time political agendas. Uncovering Clinton, read by the author, is Isikoff's first-hand account of who did what to whom, who knew what when, and more intriguingly what happens when a reporter becomes part of the story he's reporting on, a player influencing the other players. Isikoff spent years tracking Clinton's indiscretions, but maintains that the story is not now and never has been about sex, that it's only about telling the public what really happened, fairly and accurately. Maybe so, maybe no. Listen and make your own informed decisions.


Cherchez la femme

We can't leave the personal and the political without hearing from the woman who made the political all too personal. Monica's Story, as told to Andrew Morton, is an account of Monica from babyhood in Beverly Hills to White House intern, obsessed with "the person she loved," the most powerful individual in the free world. The bad guys, the agents provocateur involved in what Monica considers her entrapment, are all here -- Tripp, Starr, even Isikoff among them. It's a seamy, steamy story, but one that obviously fascinates.


The Feynman phenomenon

Richard P. Feynman, one of the most revered scientists of this century, left a lasting impression on almost every aspect of modern physics. He was l'enfant terrible of Los Alamos and the atomic bomb project, a critic of the space shuttle commission, Nobel Prize winner for his work on the development of quantum electrodynamics, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology, and an exceptional educator. Beginning in 1961, he reorganized and taught the introduction to physics at Cal Tech. This historic two-year undergraduate course was a monumental achievement -- the world according to Feynman -- which became the renowned three volumes of "The Feynman Lectures on Physics." Now, the complete collection of audio recordings of Feynman's lectures (111 in all) are being published. Last year, the first two volumes, "Quantum Mechanics" and "Advanced Quantum Mechanics." appeared. This Spring, Volume 3: From Crystal Structure to Magnetism and Volume 4: Electrical and Magnetic Behavior have been released. It's an exciting, extraordinary experience to actually hear Feynman's New York-nuanced voice, his exuberant enthusiasm, and his colorful analogies as he goes through the grand themes of modern physics.


Lock your doors!

The silence of the lambs has been broken again -- Hannibal, Thomas Harris's fascinating fiend, arrives on audio on June 8th.


Sukey Howard reports on spoken word audio each month.

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