January 2009
AUDIO BOOK REVIEWS
by Jonathan Lowe
With parallels to The Great Gatsby,
the revived 1961 novel REVOLUTIONARY
ROAD by Richard Yates is now a film
starring Leonardo DeCaprio and Kate
Winslet. As in Fitzgerald's novel, Yates'
book, recently re-released in paperback
(and new on audio), tracks the disillusionment
of the times following a major world
war. The time is the mid-1950s, but
the suburban angst resonates even today,
ever more so as we plunge into a new
kind of soul searching brought on by
the housing crash. Frank Wheeler wants
to believe he and his wife April will
be happy in consumer driven suburbia,
even with his dull job and their mutual
lack of fulfillment. Having started
a family too early, they feel trapped,
and talk of moving to France, even as
they pretend moral superiority over
the neighbors. Yet the bitter realization
of their entrapment, and of time closing
in on their dreams, forces them to lash
out at each other, even over trivialities.
Soon their fate is sealed. As narrated
by Mark Bramhall, whose theater experience
brings an elevated tone of authenticity
to the denouement, the book is both
humorous and tragic. Like all great
art, it leaves one pondering the complexities
and ambiguities of life. Or in the American
Dream. (Random House Audio; 11 1/2
hours unabridged) |
If you wonder what average Iranians
think of us, wonder no more in LAUGHING
WITHOUT AN ACCENT by Firoozeh Dumas.
In this funny memoir about an Iranian
American growing up in Southern California,
the cultural clashes inherent between
us are all explained with a dry wit
and a droll turn of phrase. For example,
what's this American custom of a man
with a beard coming down the chimney,
anyway? Scary. And Americans put melted
marshmallows on yams? Why? Dumas endures
American misconceptions of Iranians
as terrorists too, even as she takes
a road trip to Iowa with an American
once held hostage in Iran. Then, as
a mother, she faces chaos when she removes
the television from her house. (Why
is her father addicted to The Price
is Right, when it's all wrong?)
As narrator of her memoir, Dumas entertains
as Erma Bombeck might, minus any accent.
(Audible; 6 hours unbridged) |
If you've watched much TV, no doubt
you're addicted to excess. Television,
after all, is about more and bigger.
You're urged to consume in gluttonous
abandon at every turn, never mind the
environment or your own health. Even
high fat, processed junk foods are touted
as "healthy fast food," although the
additives and chemicals in them require
paragraphs of tiny print to enumerate.
So what to do, once you've weaned yourself
off the boob tube, and entered the real
world in time to save it from crumbling
around you? Try GREEN LIVING FOR DUMMIES
to start. Editors Yvonne Jeffery, Liz
Barclay, and Michael Grosvenor find
voice in narrator Brett Barry in compiling
a wealth of ideas to pinch pennies while
improving your health, and the health
of the planet. Covered are the uses
and abuses of plastics, CFLs, the reuse
of paper, jars, (even birthday cards),
plus food selection and packaging impacts
related to transportation. Also, why
you should avoid eating cod and certain
other depressed fish stocks; car sharing;
electric bikes; buying new appliances;
and exercise. If you put this audiobook
on your iPod, and go for a hike while
listening, you'll be far enough away
from the TV, too, so you won't be ordering
that deluxe meat lover's pizza expressly
forbidden by your cardiologist. (Harper
Audio; 3 1/2 hours abridged) |
Do you believe that science can ultimately
solve all our problems? If so, you should
listen to PROUST WAS A NEUROSCIENTIST.
According to Jonah Lehrer, the more
we study the brain, the more we realize
how little we know about who we really
are. His thesis here is that science
is not the only path to knowledge, and
that art plays as much a role in understanding
consciousness. It's a case of the whole
being more than a sum of the parts,
because mere molecules and chemical
reactions cannot explain what art knows.
Lehrer follows Proust, Cezanne, Gertrude
Stein, Noam Chomsky, George Eliot, Stravinsky,
and even the great chef Escoffier as
they discover subtleties of perception
which hint at the divine, (or at least
at the essence of what it means to experience
life). Narrated by Dan John Miller,
the audiobook is part biography and
part criticism, but its broad approach
is appealing in that it makes no case
for either art or science being superior.
It is about the merging of each into
what, again, is a clearer approximation
of truth. (Brilliance Audio; 7 hours
unabridged) |
What do you get when you combine Superman,
Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, and
the Green Lantern? Well, that's the
Justice League of America, of course.
(Folks we could use right now to fight
terrorists, Somali pirates, and the
evil forces pervading Madison Avenue
and Wall Street.) In THE FLASH: Stop
Motion by Mark Schultz, though, the
fireballs from space and the forces
causing deaths in Keystone City have
nothing to do with sociopathic banking
CEO scumbags, but rather an evil scientist
or creature who can move even faster
Wally West. Is it from another dimension?
What has our heroes perplexed, anyway?
Not without intrigue, this full cast
and sound production is dubbed a movie
in your mind, and thereby requires imagination
(a muscle rarely used watching television).
The effects employed to aid plot movement
here are diverse and interesting. With
a narrator telling most of the story,
accompanied by background sound or snippets
of music, this is the kind of escapist
fiction which the major publishers don't
have time to produce, as it also includes
19 actors, each with their own distinct
personalities. (Graphic Audio; 6
hours unabridged) |
Finally, CEOs nab huge paychecks, even
as they apply for bailouts. Hedge fund
managers score record bonuses, even
as the individual investor suffers record
losses. In his new book ENOUGH author
John C. Bogle decries the recent obsession
with speculation on Wall Street. Bogle
is founder of the Vanguard Mutual Fund
Group, and espouses a return to investing
for the long term instead of speculating
and day-trading. The latter is what
has brought us to the brink of financial
meltdown, when a perfect storm amassed
to beach the sharks, even amid their
feeding frenzy. To return to sanity,
we need to realize that when our values
are in line, we may discover that we
don't need more, regardless of the incessant
urgings of get-rich-quick schemes that
turn out to be a dead end. Read on audio
by Alan Sklar, with additional commentary
by the author, ENOUGH presents a reasoned,
rational approach to life and business,
devoid of the hype which Hollywood promotes
as the only way to succeed. He explores
the errors of speculation on all levels,
from commodities futures to complex
derivatives, and concludes that no one
can know the future, or see the proverbial
and inevitable black swan approaching.
Bottom line? Shortcuts are for criminals
and other losers. Don't believe them.
(Highbridge Audio; 6 1/4 hours unabridged) |
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