Narrator Steven Crossley brings fans of world literature this treasure: three autobiographical novellas by Bosnian writer Semezdin Mehmedinovic. Crossley is brisk and emotive as he conveys the dislocation of a man in his 50s who is reflecting on his life as a refugee fleeing conflict. Crossley's strong British accent may be distracting for some listeners, but this will likely be overcome by the many harrowing and interesting events he conveys. Beginning with a heart attack and going all the way back to early memories, the work unfolds key moments of Mehmedinovic's past. Crossley gives a capable performance, evoking the regret many feel in middle age. Listeners will enjoy this collection, which is part essay, part memoir, and part story.
Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2021
Duration: 6 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781662092503
Publisher: Dreamscape
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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