Eileen Stevens's youthfully vibrant narration perfectly complements this audiobook, set in the New York independent music scene of the 1990s. The audio format suits Zink's inventive language, which is beautifully delivered by Stevens. Her gift for characterization is evident in her nuanced portrayals of a trio of friends--Joe, Daniel, and Pam--who form a lasting bond after connecting through music. She sensitively conveys the maturing voice of Pam and Daniel's daughter, Flora, who becomes interested in environmental activism. While much of the narration moves at the spirited pace of young lives, Stevens slows the tempo to one of somber contemplation when depicting the events of 9/11. An intriguing listen, full of nostalgia for the recent past and questions about the future.
Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
Duration: 12 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780062930569
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
American colleges are favorable locales for ghastly event and hair-tearing circumstance. There is, for instance, a good deal of pleasure to be had out of professor and past-prodigy Grady Tripp's awful life, as portrayed by Michael Chabon in WONDER BOYS. There is a certain amount of slapstick here, but it's balanced by Chabon's superb portrait of a gale-force mid-life crisis, a soul-destroying albatross of an unfinished novel and the mind-numbing inconsequence of writers' conferences. David Colacci sounds a little starved for oxygen in his reading, but that's not exactly out of keeping with Grady Tripp's personal gestalt.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: N/A
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Class lurks in varying degrees behind every great English comedy, its ineffable code being so endlessly conducive to ironic subtlety. QUEEN LUCIA, the first of the great Lucia novels of E.F. Benson, is imbued with it. Nonetheless, social striving rather than class per se gives the novel its real comic force. At its center is Lucia, the regnant, self-appointed social and cultural leader of a genteel, middle-class circle. She’s a schemer and poser of awesome theatricality and self-delusion. Although the narrative is conducted in the third person, the characters’ doings, most especially Lucia’s, are as often as not reported in the light in which the perpetrators hope to be viewed. Still, the true facts and motivations, usually base, shine luminously through. Geraldine McEwen’s reading truly enhances the work, being a model of cultivated discretion and ironic pacing.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 9 hrs
Publisher: ISIS Audio Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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