Neil Hellegers and Rebecca Stern bring this comic send-up of a caper story cleverly to life. The humor works. They deliver their lines with restraint, keep the protagonists' wildest ideas plausible through tone and tempo, and propel the comic proceedings, set in Tel Aviv, with the right cadence. They straightforwardly deliver the hijinks, crisp dialogue, and wild thinking. Both performers allow the central characters--four aging folks, two men and two women--to be absurd. The four are lifelong friends. The plot engages when their famed economist pal dies suddenly just before the announcement of the Nobel Prize, which he may win--if he's alive. They crazily agree to hide his death until after the announcement. A funny and entertaining listen.
Pub Date: 2023
Duration: 11 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780063310841
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
As a group of men bring their own emotional baggage to their football-obsessed reunion, R.C. Bray delivers his usual solid narration. He shifts his tones slightly but enough to put the listener in the motel with the men, revealing their foibles as the story progresses. The narrator's role in this book is a descriptive one, and Bray is a good guide. His narration becomes extra important because this is a rare instance when there almost isn't a protagonist. The author's well-written story--which alternates between serious and laugh-out-loud funny--uses quarterback Joe Theismann's 1985 injury, a broken leg, as a McGuffin.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 5 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781681680057
Publisher: HighBridge Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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