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America the Beautiful
Confederacy of Dunces
Mark Twain: A Life
Vanish
America the Beautiful
Poem by Katharine Lee Bates
Illustrated and read by Wendell Minor
Live Oak Media
Book and CD set
In this most famous of all poems celebrating our country, Wendell Minor's beautifully spare rendering of the poem's lyrical images make up the book America the Beautiful. The artist's reading of the poem, with a soaring Coplandesque accompaniment in the background, is accented by ambient noises such as birdsong and waves breaking on the shore. Minor doesn't stop with the verse everyone knows but lavishly brings to life each verse and refrain from “pilgrim feet” to “alabaster cities.” The source locations for each of the images are included in the back of the book, along with the musical notations and a reproduction of Bates' original poem. Minor's reading of the poem is impassioned and measured, giving the words the weight they deserve. A lush choral arrangement caps this well-thought-out package. - Ellen Myrick, Editor, The Heard Word
Confederacy of Dunces
By John Kennedy Tooele
Read by Barry Whitener
Blackstone Audiobooks
Unabridged, CDs
There's a certain eerieness to listening to this brilliant first and last novel in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The city of New Orleans is as much a character in the story as the larger-than-life Ignatius J. Reilly and the oddball characters that people this contemporary classic. A Confederacy of Dunces makes for a grand audiobook as brought to life by Barrett Whitener, a multiple Earphone Award-winner. Whitener easily and transparently brings to life the desperate pomposity of Ignatius, the plaintive pleadings of his mother, and the Cajun menagerie. As New Orleans has a multitude of authentic accents, hearing a master perform them all will enrich any devotee of Tooele's story. —EM
Mark Twain: A Life
By Ron Powers
Read by the author
Simon & Schuster Audiobooks
Unabridged, CDs
With all the proof one could wish for, Mark Twain's position as the most important voice in American literature is given in Mark Twain: A Life. Perhaps even more crucial in a biography, the listener gains an understanding of just how radical a writer and person he was through first-hand accounts. Twain created a new kind of literature, more than once, and the maverick sensibility that characterized his life is here given its just due. Ron Powers reads his book with gusto, clearly reveling in his subject's idiosyncrasies but never losing sight of his impact. An enhanced CD provides a bonus that will be of interest to any fan of Huckleberry Finn and its creator: a silent film by Thomas Edison of Mark Twain himself. —EM
Vanish
By Tess Gerritsen
Read by Anne Heche with Ilyana Kadushin
Random House Audio
Abridged, Cassettes
I don't know who would be the more surprised when a corpse opens her eyes and wakes up in a morgue--the medical examiner Maura Iles or the corpse herself. The young woman previously thought to be dead kills a security guard in her panic to escape and then takes hostages in the hospital where Jane Rizzoli of the homicide squad is beginning labor with her first child. The case becomes more complicated by the moment with Jane's FBI husband working to have his wife released and the demands made by the hostage taker and her partner. The story is told both in current time and in flashbacks to explain how the young woman came to be in the morgue and why it is so important to tell her story. Anne Heche reads the story well, easily differentiating the characters and keeping the pace of the novel building to its conclusion. Some of the story is told with a Russian accent, which should give you a clue that this is an international story, with unusual twists and turns. —Norma Lilly, MLS
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