Tuesday, March 31, 2009

 

ART by Patrick McDonnell, read by Bobby McFerrin

Art, a little boy who loves to draw, shares his art. Author/illustrator McDonnell's story takes flight with the innovations of Bobby McFerrin's narration. Listeners don't get just one narration and, true to McFerrin's celebrated style, each has different trills, vocal jazz, and improv.




Listen now. Time 2:38

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
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Monday, March 30, 2009

 

LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER by Maya Angelou, read by the author

With the careful phrasing and emphatic pacing of a poet, and her distinctive and original voice, Angelou offers her meditations on life to the many daughters she's never had yet considers to be her extended family.



Listen now. Time 2:34

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
Scholastic Audio, Hachette Audio, and Full Cast Audio.

Friday, March 27, 2009

 

CURSE OF THE BLUE TATTOO by L.A. Meyer, read by Katherine Kellgren

With sass and song, Kellgren continues her portrait of Jacky Faber. Fighting off pirates in BLOODY JACK barely prepared Jacky for the battles she faces after being given the heave-ho as midshipman on the HMS Dolphin and being sent to a Boston boarding school.



Listen now. Time 2:30

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
Scholastic Audio, Hachette Audio, and Full Cast Audio.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

 

WINTERGIRLS by Laurie Halse Anderson, read by Jeannie Stith

Two best friends had been competitors in anorexia, and now one is dead. Still alive, Lia hides her self-starvation and cutting from the perplexed adults who want to save her. In print the author uses visual textual representations of Lia's torment. Stith has just her voice.





Listen now. Time 2:24

Download an excerpt as an mp3 file. Size: 1.4 MB

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

 

THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett, read by Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, Jenna Lamia, Cassandra Campbell

Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. White ladies playing bridge and sipping ice tea. Colored maids cooking, cleaning, and loving the white babies. The separate, intertwined paths of these worlds are going to collide. Audio is the way to be inside this story, brilliantly cast with four voices.



Listen now. Time 2:49

Download an excerpt as an mp3 file. Size: 1.7 MB

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

 

OUTLIERS written and read by Malcolm Gladwell

Did you ever wonder why very successful people become very successful, while other equally smart people don’t thrive? Gladwell's book takes a good look at this question, presenting sociological, cultural, and generational analysis in easy, accessible language. Reviewed by Bob Grundfest.



Listen now. Time 2:44

Download an excerpt as an mp3 file. Size: 2.6 MB

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
Scholastic Audio, Hachette Audio, and Full Cast Audio.

Monday, March 23, 2009

 

TOP SECRET by Geoffrey Cowan and Leroy Aarons, read by John Heard, Susan Sullivan, James Gleason, and a full cast

Urgent, poetically earthy, and extremely listenable, BBC Radio's full-cast dramatization of Odysseus's treacherous ten-year journey home is outstanding audio theater.



Listen now. Time 3:09

Download an excerpt as an mp3 file. Size: 3.7 MB

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
Scholastic Audio, Hachette Audio, and Full Cast Audio.
This exciting production from LA Theatre Works was recorded before a live audience. It dramatizes the WASHINGTON POST's struggle with the Nixon administration over the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Much of the dialogue is lifted straight from the historical record.



Listen now. Time 2:29

Download now as an mp3 file. Size: 2.9 MB

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
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Friday, March 20, 2009

 

THE SECRET SCRIPTURE by Sebastian Barry, read by Wanda McCaddon

Ninety-nine year-old Roseanne McNulty reexamines a life lived during the Irish "troubles" and within the confines of a sectarian, conformist country. The hospital director of the mental hospital where Rose lives tells his version of her story.




Listen now. Time 2:33

Download an excerpt as an mp3 file. Size: 1.5 MB

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
Scholastic Audio, Hachette Audio, and Full Cast Audio.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

 

THE LAST CENTURION by John Ringo, read by Dan John Miller

Bandit Six, the Last Centurion, and his band of soldiers are trapped in Iran in 2019. Left behind to secure a military base, Bandit Six and his men fight their way back from Iran to Turkey to the U.S. The story is laced with crude language and dark images of the future, and Dan John Miller's reading is straightforward and army tough.



Listen now. Time 2:19

Download an excerpt as an mp3 file. Size: 1.4 MB

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
Scholastic Audio, Hachette Audio, and Full Cast Audio.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

 

THE ART THIEF by Noah Charney, read by Simon Vance

This deftly plotted mystery is filled with art, French food, and delightful heroes (or are they thieves?). Charney’s knowledge of the art world is extensive, so this romp is not only entertaining, but educational. Vance “ooo-la-las!” his way through a series of gastronomic adventures as the plot shifts between Rome, London, and Paris.



Listen now. Time 2:38

Download an excerpt as an mp3 file. Size: 1.6 MB

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
Scholastic Audio, Hachette Audio, and Full Cast Audio.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

 

THE BLACK HOLE WAR by Leonard Susskind, read by Ray Porter

Here's a melding of memoir, reportage, and cutting-edge science. It's heady stuff in theoretical physics, but Ray Porter's skilled reading goes beyond Susskind's engaging and (reasonably) comprehensible writing. He delivers the sometimes very challenging material with admirable clarity.



Listen now. Time 2:10

Download an excerpt as an mp3 file. Size: 1.3 MB

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
Scholastic Audio, Hachette Audio, and Full Cast Audio.

Monday, March 16, 2009

 

THE LAST GUN FIGHTER 4: The Forbidden, by William W. Johnstone, performed by Ken Jackson and a Full Cast

The latest addition to the Graphic Audio "Movie in Your Mind" series is an epic story of revenge in the Old West. Outlaw Frank Morgan wants to find some peace but instead finds himself between two feuding factions. Remarkable sound effects and a great cast in this rousing adventure transport you to the Wild West.



Listen now. Time 2:54

Download an excerpt as an mp3 file. Size: 3.4 MB

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SoundReview support comes from Harper Audio,
Scholastic Audio, Hachette Audio, and Full Cast Audio.

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