So Many Books....So Little Time: July 2013

Monday, July 29, 2013

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris

"This detailed and riveting book from award-winning historian McCullough traces the lives of several high-profile Americansincluding Oliver Wendell Holms, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Mark Twainwho, in the 19th century, found themselves in Paris. McCullough limns the impact that Parisian sojourns had upon these travelers and contrasts their lives in France with events occurring in the United States. Co-narrator (and actor) Edward Herrmann provides a stronger narration than the author, however. While McCullough, with his deep voice, grabs listeners' attention initially, he lacks the ability to maintain that interest, as his emphasis, tone, and energy wears over time. Herrmann's ability, on the other hand, to emphasize different facts through deliberate speech and tone, while moving more quickly through less complicated material, makes listening enjoyable and easygoing" (Publishers Weekly)

Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music

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"The Grammy-nominated Collins has recorded more than 40 albums and still is writing and performing today at age 71. At the height of her career, Collins knew nearly everyone associated with the folk scene, and her story is filled with just as many tales of famous acquaintances such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, and Joni Mitchell as there are on the singing legend herself. Her own story, however, remains truly fascinating. She was a woman of her time, embracing the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll that went with the job, as well as the social activism that accompanied the era. Collins, who narrates in a dreamy voice, tells her story with honesty and doesn't gloss over the dark parts, including a failed marriage, an eating disorder, alcoholism, and a troubled son. The best parts, however, are the snippets of Collins singing throughout as well as the five bonus tracks at the audiobook's end. VERDICT As Richard Farina once said, "[I]f amethysts could sing...they would sound like Judy Collins."

Public Speaking Survival Kit: Expert Training to Dazzle Your Audience (Library) ( Made for Success Collection )

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Compact Disc

" In this self-paced audio series, two of world's top communicators share their powerful techniques to help you create and deliver a dazzling speech for any occasion. You'll learn how to think on your feet, play off your audience, and banish anxiety and stress."

Awake and Sing! ( L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre Collections )

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Compact Disc

" Starring Mark Ruffalo, Clifford Odets 1935 masterpiece brings to urgent life the struggles of a working-class family aspiring to the promise of the American Dream. Even as they endure the countrys worst economic nightmare, three generations of an immigrant family are crowded into a Bronx tenement, fiercely determined to stay afloat, no matter what the cost. A full-cast performance featuring: Mark Ruffalo, Jane Kaczmarek, Richard Kind, Ben Gazzara, Emily Bergl, Jonathan Hadary, Peter Kybart, Raphael Sbarge and Peter Smith."

Thursday, July 25, 2013

American Pastoral [sound recording (unabridged CD audiobook)] /

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"Symbolic of turbulent times of the 1960s, the explosion of a bomb in his own bucolic backyard sweeps away the innocence of Swede Levov, along with everything industriously created by his family over three generations in America. Unabridged. 14 CDs."

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's special AudioBook Show taped on May 30, 2013

The Nightingale's Song [sound recording (unabridged CD audiobook)]

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" Robert Timberg weaves together the lives of five well-known naval Academy graduates to reveal how the Vietnam War continues to haunt America. "This is an amazing piece of work that could make you cry over descriptions of bravery so bold and so big that you wonder how our country deserves such men. . . . It is about the soul of a nation".-(-Mike Barnicle, The Boston Globe Books.)

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's AudioBook show taped on May 30, 2013

Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives [sound recording (unabridged CD audiobook)]

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"Welcome to the savage and surprising world of Zoo Story, an unprecedented account of the secret life of a zoo and its inhabitants, both animal and human. Based on six years of research, the book follows a handful of unforgettable characters at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo: an alpha chimp with a weakness for blondes, a ferocious tiger who revels in Obsession perfume, and a brilliant but tyrannical CEO known as El Diablo Blanco. Zoo Story crackles with issues of global urgency: the shadow of extinction, humanity's role in the destruction or survival of other species. More than anything else, though, it's a dramatic and moving true story of seduction and betrayal, exile and loss, and the limits of freedom on an overcrowded planet-all framed inside one zoo reinventing itself for the twenty-first century. Thomas French, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, chronicles the action with vivid power: Wild elephants soaring above the Atlantic on their way to captivity. Predators circling each other in a lethal mating dance. Primates plotting the overthrow of their king. The sweeping narrative takes the listener from the African savannah to the forests of Panama and deep into the inner workings of a place some describe as a sanctuary and others condemn as a prison. All of it comes to life in the book's four-legged characters. Zoo Story shows us how these remarkable individuals live, how some die, and what their experiences reveal about the human desire to both exalt and control nature." (Publisher Description)

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's special AudioBook Show taped on May 30, 2013

A Walk in the Woods [sound recording (Playaway)]

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"Following his return to America after twenty years in Britain, Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with his native country by walking the 2,100 mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. The AT, as it's affectionately known to thousands of hikers, offers an astonishing landscape of silent forests and sparkling lakes--and to a writer with the comic genious of Bill Bryson, it also provides endless opportunities to test his own powers of ineptitued, and to witness the majestic silliness of his fellow human beings." (Publisher Description)

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's special Audiobook Show taped on May 30, 2103

Walking the Bible [sound recording (abridged CD audiobook)]

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"One part adventure story, one part archaeological detective work, one part spiritual exploration, Walking The Bible vividly recounts an inspiring personal odyssey--by foot, jeep, rowboat, and camel--through the greatest stories ever told.
Feeling a desire to reconnect to the Bible, award-winning author Bruce Feiler set out on a perilous, 10,000-mile journey retracing the Five Books of Moses through the desert. Traveling over three continents, through five countries, and four war zones, Feiler is the first person to complete such a historic expedition. He crosses the Red Sea, climbs Mt. Sinai, and interviews bedouin and pilgrims alike, as he attempts to answer the question: Is the Bible just an abstraction, or is it a living, breathing entity?
Both a pulse-pounding adventure and an uplifting spiritual quest, Bruce Feiler's Walking the Bible is a stunning and elevating work of courage, scholarship, and heart that revisits the inscrutable desert landscape where the world's great religions were born--and uncovers fresh answers to the most profound questions of the human spirit." (Publisher Description)

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's special AudioBook Show taped on May 30, 2013

The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America [sound recording (unabridged CD audiobook)] /

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"A leading Supreme Court expert recounts the personal and philosophical rivalries that forged our nation's highest court and continue to shape our daily lives. In this compelling work, Jeffrey Rosen recounts the history of the Court through the personal and philosophical rivalries on the bench that transformed the law and, by extension, our lives. Rosen brings to life the perennial conflict that has animated the Court-between those justices guided by strong ideology and those who forge coalitions and adjust to new realities." (Pubisher Description)

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's special AudioBook Show taped on May 30, 2013

The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court [sound recording (unabridged CD audiobook)]

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"From the awkward swearing-in of President Obama by Chief Justice Roberts to Obama's caustic reaction to the Citizens United ruling to Roberts' support of Obama's health-care law, the tumultuous relationship between the administration and the Supreme Court has been increasingly evident...Legal analyst Toobin offers a vivid inside look at the personalities and politics behind the fractious relationship...Among the highlights: Ginsburg's scathing dissent on a ruling against a claim of pay disparity, in which she urged congressional action; Souter's caustic dissent in Citizens United that questioned Roberts' integrity; and Scalia's bitter disappointment in Roberts' decision on the health-care law. A revealing look at the ideological battle between the White House and the Supreme Court. (Booklist)

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's AudioBook Show taped on May 30, 2013

My Life

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6 sound discs (6.5 hrs.) Abridged.

Read by the author.

"Condensing a 900-page text into a six-and-a-half-hour audiobook is no small challenge, but this production proves that it can be done-and done well. Inevitably, people will wonder what has been left out. The answer: anecdotes from Clinton's childhood; blow-by-blow accounts of his gubernatorial and presidential races; a plethora of details regarding his smaller accomplishments as president; and some blistering indictments of Kenneth Starr and other conservatives. What's left is a moving but all-too-brief portrait of Clinton's troubled childhood and an in-depth look at the battles he fought before and after being elected. It should come as no surprise to anyone who has heard Clinton speak that the former president narrates his autobiography with aplomb. His voice rings with mirth when he relates an amusing anecdote and expresses sadness when he describes how his abusive, alcoholic father faced death with more courage than he did life. Clinton covers the expected topics-Whitewater (a "bogus scandal"); his "immoral and foolish" dalliance with Monica Lewinsky; his attempts to balance the budget and bring peace to the Middle East-but the most illuminating details are the small ones (such as when he recalls, with a smile in his voice, impulsively buying a house and telling Hillary: "Remember that little house you liked so much? I bought it. You have to marry me now, because I can't live there alone"). Although not all of the transitions between topics are seamless and listeners may wish John McElroy, who created this abridgment, had included more details from Clinton's younger years, Clinton's legendary charisma shines through in his reading, making this audiobook a rare treat." (Publishers Weekly)
Selected as part of Joe and Zina's special AudioBook Show taped on May30, 2013

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

At Home [sound recording (unabridged CD audiobook)] : [a short history of private life] /

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"Popular UK-based writer Bryson (www.billbrysonbooks.com)—whose Aventis Prize-winning "A Short History of Nearly Everything"(2003) is also available from Books on Tape/Random Audio—here uncovers the stories of how various ordinary objects in his home came to be, taking listeners along on one wild historical tangent after another. He explores everything from the spice trade to the toilet bowl, revealing the hilarious and revolting details of our private lives from Roman times to the present. Bryson's fact-based writing seems almost fiction-like because of his ability to tease eccentric facts and characters out of even the most banal topic. He himself narrates, reading in a deadpan voice perfectly suited to the text. Fans of Bryson's previous works will be pleased, as will those who enjoy their nonfiction with a fun, witty edge."(Library Journal)

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's special AudioBook Show taped on May 30, 2013.

Mistress of the Art of Death [sound recording (unabridged CD audiobook)]

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11 sou nd discs

Read by Rosalyn Landor .

"In medieval Cambridge four children are murdered. The Catholics blame the Jews so they are placed under the protection of the King Henry II. The king sends for someone to do a scientific investigation into the deaths. The person sent is an Italian woman doctor, but in medieval Cambridge she must conceal her true identity to keep herself safe."

A Possible Life: A Novel in Five Parts

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"Earphones Award Winner. "Samuel West's melancholic, refined air and emotional register reflect Geoffrey's experiences as a British schoolteacher turned concentration camp escapee. Christian Rodska's lower-class British accent and animated pacing telegraph Billy's rise from workhouse poverty to literate family man in Victorian England. Lucy Briers plays storyteller for Elena's journey from farm girl to famous scientist in a futuristic Europe. Sian Thomas's soft voice and spot-on French accent are perfect for Jeanne's transformation from Catholic orphan to maid for a mid-nineteenth-century bourgeois family. Rupert Degas seamlessly switches from male to female, British to American in the final story of American hippie Anya's musical career." -( AudioFile Magazine)

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's special AudioBook Show taped on May 30, 2012

The Secret Life of Bees

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Unabridged CDs, 8 CDs, 10 hours
Read by Jenna Lamia

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's special AudioBook Show taped on May 30, 2013