Let's hear it for the holidays

REVIEWS BY SUKEY HOWARD

Nothing could be hotter than a tape of Harry Potter, and now Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone -- the first of J.K. Rowling's wildly best-selling series, the one that started the craze and clamor -- is on tape and at the top of my holiday gift list. Children first, then adults, fell under Ms. Rowling's spell and fell into her magical world of witches and wizards, trolls and goblins, centaurs and unicorns, wands and flying broomsticks. And Harry is an ever-appealing, classic hero -- only a boy and pitted against dark forces that would dismay and defeat a lesser soul. It's hard to know exactly what makes this tale of derring-do so compelling, but now that I've been initiated, I'm just wild about Harry. Reader Jim Dale, who conjures up the perfect voice for each character with a sorcerer's ease, may just be a wizard himself.


The Nicholas Sparks phenomenon

Sparks's third, best-selling, "get out your handkerchief" novel, A Walk to Remember, is the story of a 17-year-old boy who finds real, transforming love with an unlikely partner who changes his life forever. You'll get the full force of the poignant charm Sparks's fans find so irresistible in this unabridged version read by the author.


The Roddy Doyle phenomenon

Doyle, wonderful writer and reader, winner of the prestigious Booker Prize (the only Irish novelist ever to do so), portrayer of the gritty underside of urban life in Ireland today, has turned the historical clock back to the first two decades of this century in A Star Called Henry, the first of a promised, promising trilogy. Henry, born in 1901, goes from barefoot street urchin to active participant in the 1916 Easter Rising to loyal IRA assassin. Handsome, strong, reckless, a passionate lover of women and the cause, he's used to hard knocks and gives as good as he gets. Doyle mingles historical characters with fictional ones, but his history is impeccable. This picture of the complicated political past helps explain the complicated political present.


The Scott Turow phenomenon

Personal Injuries is Turow's fifth book and, like its best-selling predecessors, it's a legal thriller set in Kindle County. It is also, like its predecessors, a fine novel that looks closely at the intricacies of love and loyalty, ambition and morals, and goes beyond the bounds of genre. Turow's protagonist, Robbie Feaver, involved up to his eyeballs in judicial corruption, is a liar and a crier, but not without qualities that could redeem his more than flawed life. Joe Mantegna reads.


Every last word

Unabridged audios offer hours and hours of unabridged pleasure and make great gifts for the listeners on your list. Here are a few recent arrivals you might consider. Hearts in Atlantis, Stephen King's latest, is a brilliant collection of five interconnected narratives. Though the stories move in time from 1960 to 1999, it is, at heart, a '60s saga, shadowed by the Vietnam War and its hollow, haunting aftermath. The reading, by Mr. King and William Hurt (who make a dynamite duo), runs for 21 hours on 16 cassettes.

Simon Winchester's highly acclaimed bestseller, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, was released in abridged form last year. Now, fortunately, "the linguistic detective story of the decade" is available in its fascinating entirety, read by the author and including an interview with him.

The same happy fate awaited Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe, one of the most extraordinarily instructive and entertaining audios I've ever heard. Lucky listeners who find this new, unabridged version in their Christmas stockings will hear Donal Donnelly read for eight wonderful hours.

Michael Lewis's old thing was the provocative Liar's Poker; his new thing, The New New Thing, is a detailed profile of Jim Clark, the quintessential techie genius and mastermind of new new things, which in his case includes Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon. Lewis, as insightful as ever, follows this fascinating billionaire-geek on his triumphal march through Silicon Valley, the economic frontier of the '90s, where new new things are poised to change the world and where the creators of new new things are poised to make big big money.


Christmas classics

Nothing could be more classic than Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, and there are at least three good recordings: Patrick Stewart, John Gielgud, and a full-cast dramatization.

There is, however, listening life beyond the "Carol." Dylan Thomas's sonorous reading of his small masterpiece, A Child's Christmas in Wales and Five Poems, is a seasonal gem that never looses its appeal. On a more contemporary note, best-selling author Maeve Binchy offers us This Year It Will Be Different, her own special "Christmas treasury" of non-nostalgic stories about people dealing with problems that don't go away for the holidays. But if you are looking for nostalgia, you'll find it for sure in The Christmas Box, Richard Paul Evans's super-popular, sweetly sentimental story of a widow and a young family, performed by Richard "John Boy" Thomas. Andy Williams, starting a tradition of his own, has recorded The Greatest Gift, the story that inspired the film It's a Wonderful Life, and adds his rendition of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" to the package.


Sukey Howard reports on spoken word audio each month.

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