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The death of the republic
A new semester of commuting to the journalism school at Chapel Hill provides new opportunities to listen to outstanding audio books. Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson DICTATOR. By Robert Harris. Read by David Rintoul. Random House Audio. 11 CDs; 14 hours. $45. Also available in print from Knopf, $26.95. Cicero comes down to us through…
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Maggie Hope, back in the U.S.A.
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson MRS. ROOSEVELT’S CONFIDANTE. By Susan Elia MacNeal. BOT (Random House). Read by Susan Duerden. 10 ½ hours; 9 CDs. Also available in paperback from Bantam, $15. This is the fifth novel in Susan Elia MacNeal’s Maggie Hope mystery series, and, like the others, it combines the intrigue of a mystery,…
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Faster, higher, freer
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson CIRCLING THE SUN. By Paula McLain. Read by Katharine McEwan. Random House Audio. 12 ½ hours; nine CDs. $46. Also available in print from Ballantine Books. As she did so ably in The Paris Wife, the story of Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, Paula McLain once again tackles in fiction a…
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Behind the lines
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson MADELEINE’S WAR. By Peter Watson. Nan A. Talese Doubleday. 366 pages. $26.95. World War II is grinding toward an end in Europe, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less dangerous to be a spy in occupied France. If anything, the Nazis, knowing an Allied invasion is imminent, have grown more…
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Mixed results
By Linda C. Brinson I didn’t read Sara Gruen’s 2006 novel Water for Elephants, but I heard high praise for it from a number of people. Back then, I was editing and writing for a newspaper’s weekly book-review page, and I rarely had the luxury of reading a book that someone else was going to…
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Frankly, my dear
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson A TOUCH OF STARDUST. By Kate Alcott. Random House Audio. Read by Cassandra Campbell. 11 hours; 9 CDs. $40. Also available in hardback from Doubleday. Kate Alcott has done it again. She’s written another historical novel that’s a romance – the adventures and travails of one fictional young woman –…
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When they were young
Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury bohemians are a well-known part of our literary heritage. Even those of us who haven’t really studied them have heard a lot about them. But Virginia, her sister Vanessa and their friends and family come alive in a new way in this highly entertaining and intelligent novel. The audio version…
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A step back in time
For 16 novels, Charles Todd has brought us the detective adventures of Ian Rutledge, who returned to police work at Scotland Yard while battling the lingering effects of his time as a British officer in World War I. Now, the mother-son writing team that is Todd brings us a prequel: The newest novel steps back…
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Small packages – when less is more
So many of the audio books I “read” go on and on. That can be good if you want to get hooked into a book that will be with you for a while, say on a long road trip. But it’s refreshing to encounter a couple of novels that are more understated. Each of these…