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Audiobooks for Postal Employees!
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BOOKS TO READ WHILE WORKING
March 2010 - Audiobooks reviewed by Jonathan Lowe |
 Back
in the day when white collar crime was a bit more quaint, and no one
but criminals believed in the fast buck, America had a few more
redeeming qualities. Nowadays it seems that nearly everyone--instead
of producing products of value--either wants to be bailed out at the
expense of their neighbors, or get rich quick by cheating the system.
In his first book THE QUANTS, Scott Patterson
profiles some of these Wall Street paper-pushers (ie. "whiz kids"
turned robber barons) who believed they'd created a formula to beat
the market by the use of robotic trade computers which automatically
calculated the values or potentials of securities, bought and sold
them, then deposited the commissions and fees in their own private
accounts. So certain were longtime poker players Peter Muller, Ken
Griffin, Cliff Asness, and Boaz Weinstein of their business acumen,
that they kept their own company stock holdings, along with the
requisite toys billionaires buy. So when the Great Collapse came in
the Fall of 2008, they were nearly taken out of the business, along
with the investors they'd duped. As their hedge funds bled at the
jugular, they maintained their alpha male stance by denial, and still
maintain their innocence, even as the Fed bails out the biggest
investment banks with taxpayer funds. Of course, back in the Dark
Ages, these guys would have been hung in public, their heads taken off
and displayed on posts. Today, we shake our heads and turn the
channel. The word "quant" refers to someone who analyzes statistics,
especially in the context of using the information for business
advantage. So certain were the managers of PDT, CIG, and AQR that
they'd created a perpetual motion money machine (which also defied
gravity) that they created new financial "instruments" (not a
barometer, though) which could leverage risk even higher. The result,
when gas ran out, was that God laughed, and they were without wings
(albeit a golden parachute). Patterson is staff reporter for the Wall
Street Journal, and while he doesn't go into the wider implications
for America, he does paint the targets while being informative and
entertaining. The audiobook version is narrated by actor Mike
Chamberlain.
Conceptual art inspires concepts of what keeps friendships together in
ART, a Tony award winning play by Yasmina Reza. Performed by actors
Brian Cox, Bob Balaban, and Jeff Perry, the play's drama is initiated
by the purchase of a five-by-four canvas which has nothing on it
except a few white "lines" painted on white. Because one of the
friends paid an exorbitant sum for the painting, saying it "moved"
him, another friend turns on him, attacking his sanity and questioning
the very basis for their friendship. The third friend takes a neutral
position, but is also emotionally invested in this downwardly
spiraling triangle because he's about to be married to someone he
probably shouldn't, and needs the other two to support him, which they
are increasingly no longer doing. It's a smart and volatile
performance that shimmers with interconnecting images of character in
the same way that viewers sometimes see "who they really are" in their
own Rorschach reactions to paint--or the lack of it--on canvases of
modern art. In a sense, apart from the question of what defines art
and how to put a price on it, the play is also a love triangle between
three men who need each other in their own ways, and come to see
themselves in a new light by peering into the void. Funny, too, to
hear guys emote on this level. Quirky piano stylings provide
transition while coloring the evolving moods; interviews with some of
the principals are also included in the audiobook. (L.A. Theatre
Works)
We all hope to live to be a hundred (in relative good health, that
is), although only one in a thousand actually do. But what if you
could live even longer, given scientific breakthroughs in genetics and
hormone therapy? Greg Critser has a new audiobook out, narrated by
Eric Synnestvedt, titled ETERNITY SOUP. It's about the anti-aging
industry, where he reveals what's genuine science and what's quackery.
It's a huge market, obviously, given all the baby boomers retiring in
the coming decades, only to live longer. Should we even want extra
decades, given our already strained natural resources and a collapsing
economy? Who should you listen to regarding all the vitamins and
products out there claiming to prolong your life? It's a subject that
interests me, having written a suspense novel utilizing longevity
science (Geezer). Critser suggests that because old people enjoy being
around younger people (although the reverse isn't true) city planners
should incorporate older communities into new, young ones so that
aging won't be as much of a trauma. One thing he hasn't considered is
that, unless there's means testing for Social Security, it's likely
going to be war between young and old, the former claiming there's no
money to pay wealthy retirees anymore, and the latter demanding what's
"due them." Subtitle of the audiobook is "Inside the Quest to End
Aging." The author's previous books were Fat Land and Generation Rx.
Is there a down side to positive thinking? What do Tony Robbins, Joel
Osteen, Dale Carnegie, Ken Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Norman Vincent
Peale, and Rhonda Byrne have in common? According to author Barbara
Ehrenreich in her new book BRIGHT-SIDED, they blind-sided us into the
notion that the way to wealth and success comes through mind control,
that consumption is a worthy--even Godly--goal, and that what goes up
never comes down for those who project the right thoughts and maintain
a smiley face. Sadly, the science behind this eternally optimistic
worldview is lacking, even as it is drilled into executives and church
goers alike. The fundamental fallacies are now evident in a collapsed
economy, caused by the self delusions that were virally spread via
motivational speakers and self help bestsellers like "The Secret" and
"Your Best Life Now." (Note that this reviewer panned both.) The
subtitle to the book is "How the Relentless Promotion of Positive
Thinking Has Undermined America." The title of the book could also be
"Smile or Else" or, in another sense, "Something for
Nothing--America's Obsession With Free Lunch." Jack Welch is but one
of those skewered here, (along with the TV preachers and corporate
coaches who were dispatched like the SS to indoctrinate anyone who
doesn't conform to the "law of attraction," although exposed as idiocy
by Scientific American magazine.) Welch fired anyone who
underperformed, while flying high in the corporate jet party (money
orgy) that included the overpaid CEOs of Lehman, Bear-Stearns, and
Enron. Profit being a vengeful God, always ready to punish anything
negative (in brain or balance sheet), Welsh dipped his hands deep into
the cleansing bowl of positively pure Evian water, (stained red as it
swirled away, unnoticed, down the drain.) As for Ehrenreich, she is
also author of "Nickel & Dimed," and not only exposes this smiley face
industry as culprit in our amassing unsustainable debt, including the
multi-billion dollar gambling industry, but points to realism and
sanity as our salvation. While there is something to be said for a
positive outlook on life, there is a down side, even a dark side, when
common sense is left behind. This is an important book, not to be
missed. Narrator of the audiobook version is Kate Reading, whose
perceptive performance matches the text, and who guides the listener
from one astonishingly simple (yet somehow missed) revelation after
another. (MacMillan Audio)
Finally, note that Blackstone has released some old Stephen King
titles on audio for the first time, including IT, CHRISTINE, CUJO, THE
DARK HALF, EYES OF THE DRAGON, FIRESTARTER, THE LONG WALK, THE
TOMMYKNOCKERS, ROADWORK, and THE RUNNING MAN. My interview with
narrator Jonathan Davis will appear in the next issue of AudioFile.
(Jon is best known for his narration of many Star Wars titles, several
video games, and the SF masterpieces Snow Crash and The Windup Girl.)
Plus I've posted several of my own previously published pieces for the
first time at
jonathanlowe.wordpress.com. |
BOOKS TO READ WHILE WORKING
February 2010 - Audiobooks reviewed by Jonathan Lowe |
 Death.
We all face it. What can you do about it? Well, you can get up off the
couch, put down that soda and chips, and go jogging after a meal of
veggies and vitamins. (Hopefully with an imaginative audiobook).
Still, though, you will face death eventually. (Incidentally, the
argument "why bother, then?" is the same as saying "death--the sooner
the better." Plus my mother also informs me, at age 93, that the
reason she's still around is "pickled beets," although changing her
bed pans is no longer as much fun.) What to do about death, then,
instead of obsessing over it, or fearing it? Try laughing at it.
That's just what Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein do in their new
audiobook HEIDEGGER AND A HIPPO WALK THROUGH THE
PEARLY GATES. Heidegger, as you may or may not know, is an
existentialist philosopher. The authors of this new audiobook (which
they also read) are former Harvard philosophy majors who,
respectively, either dropped out of divinity school or wrote jokes for
standup comedians. Their last book was "Plato and a Platypus Walk Into
a Bar." What better way can there be to face your fears than to laugh
at them? You can also talk about your death and philosophy in general,
which the authors also do here, with examples taken from history,
science, and religion. (Random House Audio)
It's a mystery why Michael Crichton's last novel (he died in 2008) is
not a science fiction epic, but perhaps he was just having fun. We'll
give him that. PIRATE LATITUDES is a swashbuckling tale set in Port
Royal, Jamaica in 1665, and follows Capt. Charles Hunter, a
"profiteer, not a pirate," as he and his hired cutthroats attempt to
commandeer the booty aboard a Spanish galleon moored in the bay of a
small, protected island while it awaits an escort back to Spain. John
Bedford Lloyd narrates the action, giving the barbarous characters all
the melodramatic touches they need to work within their range of
stereotype. (Harper Audio)
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of "Eat, Pray, Love," has a new audiobook
out titled COMMITTED: A SKEPTIC MAKES PEACE WITH MARRIAGE. If you'll
remember, at the end of EPL Gilbert had fallen for a Brazilian Aussie
living in Indonesia (there's a combination) who was later detained at
the U.S. border, where Gilbert was told that she either had to marry
him or he could never enter the U.S. again. So the couple embark on a
tour of Southeast Asia for ten months while they contemplate the
prospect of an institution which has claimed many lives in the past (ie.
marriage), including their own (both are victims of divorce, having
sworn never to remarry.) What she does here, with unique effect, is
tally all the pros and cons of the institution by examining historical
data and personal experiences in an effort to come to terms with her
forced legal union. Gilbert was a journalist about masculinity for GQ,
and also author of the National Book Award nominee "The Last American
Man," plus "Stern Men," a novel about a woman who joins a feud among
lobstermen in Maine. She narrates "Committed" herself as a first
person memoir and travel journal with a candid masculine demeanor and
equally feminine sensibilities. (Penguin Audio)
Next, actor Stacy Keach reads Mike Hammer's "The Little Death," a full
cast audiobook which is difficult to produce but a joy to listen to.
The series, as you know, is by Mickey Spillane, one of the most
prolific of mystery writers, while Keach, a veteran film and stage
actor, once played the character on television. Spillane died in 2006,
so this story was completed from a draft by the author of "Road to
Perdition," Max Allan Collins. The plot involves a damsel in distress,
a gumshoe targeted by two-bit hit men, and an underworld kingpin who's
missing a wad of cash. At two hours, it's the length of a movie, so
you can exercise your imagination here while considering it an "audio
movie" that you don't have to sit still for while you watch with your
mind's eye. (Blackstone Audio)
Finally, Dominick Dunne's Gus Bailey returns from "People Like Us"
with his new and last novel TOO MUCH MONEY, in which Gus, like Dunne,
is dying of cancer, and also--like Dunne--is a society columnist whose
examination of the rich and famous once again gets him into trouble.
The plot revolves around a lawsuit from a slandered politician, and
the suspicious death of a billionaire. A longtime Vanity Fair writer,
Dunne was familiar with the snootiest of the jet set, and here, as
usual, he creates fiction using brush strokes taught him during his
time writing exposés on the New York elite. Actress Ann Marie Lee
gives a careful yet buoyant performance to float these eccentric
characters like Titanic survivors over a sea of red ink, oblivious to
the cries of those not lucky enough to merit a lifeboat. (Random House
Audio.)
(Jonathan's new website, about music, movies and books is
TowerReview.com) |
BOOKS TO READ WHILE WORKING
January 2010 - Audiobooks reviewed by Jonathan Lowe |
 History
was most cruel for natives of the Americas after the coming of
Christopher Columbus, as the Spanish invaders plundered gold in
exchange for devastating the populace with virulent viruses. But what
if that history could be changed? In PASTWATCH
science fiction author Orson Scott Card postulates the possibility of
time travel to correct the effects begun in 1492 by sending three
travelers back to a time in the Caribbean before Columbus arrived.
These men are well versed in history, and know what to say and do in
order to prepare the natives for Columbus, and to counteract the
Catholic church in the process. The price? The future is forever and
instantly changed to such a degree that even the scientists who
created the time machines will never have existed. This paradox leads
to a discussion of causality in which it is explained that our
experience and belief in something from the past causing what happens
in the future is an illusion, and that causation is actually a
separate thing from time itself. (Physicists know that there is no
true arrow of time, and that, at least in theory, the equations work
both forward and backward identically well). So although the men who
created the time machines will no longer be born after the machines
perform, (and indeed the other two travelers may cease to exist as
well, since the machines are not perfectly synchronized), the time
traveler will himself survive, and possess a memory of what will never
happen. This intriguing audiobook is narrated by Stefan Rudnicki,
Scott Brick and others. Scott, who is a friend of Card, told me this
book is one of his personal favorites. (Blackstone Audio)
It's difficult to imagine a better narrator for NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
by Cormac McCarthy than Sean Barrett, (after hearing this short novel
performed), although (knowing his work) I'm sure that Tom Stechschulte
is also superb in his version. What makes Barrett a great choice to
speak the killer's words here is oddly similar to what made Javier Bardem a great choice for the character of Anton Chigurh in the Coen
brothers movie version. Barrett has an understated, calm, but not
quite laid-back air about his delivery, with vocal characteristics to
match. There's an element of tension present that the mirror surface
can't quite hide. You expect the worst to happen, and it does. As for
the story, if you're unfamiliar with it, it's about a escaped killer
tracking a man who found a bag of money related to a failed drug buy.
Tommy Lee Jones plays the sheriff in the movie, and he's trying to
find both men before they find each other. Sounds simple enough. But
as this morality tale plays out against the stark backdrop of west
Texas it also expands its reach past mere entertainment into the realm
of literature by extending its scope beyond three men in the desert to
the bigger questions that have plagued man from the beginning. Hearing
this "audio movie" version will be instructive for Coen brothers fans
and screenwriters too, since you can compare, as I did, the dialogue
between the book and the movie, and so see what choices the Coen
brothers made in editing. Surprisingly, they stayed pretty much with
the story, (except for one major scene), and were true to the dialogue
too, but there are other subtle differences. (Some scenes were
tightened, others emphasized by the Coens. Little extra dialogue was
added, but some was subtracted.) By comparing, you will be able to
figure out why (and which) things work better on the screen or on the
page. As reader, Sean Barrett is an appropriate guide to this very
original story, with spot-on west Texas accents and believable female
characters, too. Speaking in the voice of the killer, though, he's
chillingly real and a minimalist just like Chigurh himself--a man of
few emotions, attuned to destiny, accepting of fate, just telling it
like it is, whether you like what truths are revealed about the world
or not. (Naxos)
In Lauren Grodstein's latest family-centered tear jerker A FRIEND OF
THE FAMILY, credibility is added by what might seem to be narrator
Rick Adamson's emotional empathy with the character of the doctor,
whose distrust of his best friend's daughter escalates when the girl
shows up in her 30s to seduce his son. The son is attempting to
establish a career as an artist, utilizing his father's garage, but
this older woman in his life wants to take him to France after showing
him the ropes of romance. Soap opera fans will especially enjoy the
depths and sensitivity of the story, which contains much less
melodrama and much more realism than anything on television, while
keeping the level of tension high. Those looking for two dimensional
characters involved in fantastical plots, on the other hand, might
want to stay away. There is plenty argument going on here, and cross
accusations. The interesting aspect of the audiobook is how much risk
Adamson takes in pushing the envelope, especially toward the end. This
is superb acting on the level of off-Broadway performance, doubly
notable due to the restrained contrast evoked in other character
voices, which turn on a dime. Once again, you have to ask yourself,
can typical screen actors do this? One may never know, since they
aren't required to do it. (Highbridge)
Finally, Alan Sklar reads MIAMI BABYLON by Gerald Posner, a book that
chronicles the history of Miami Beach from its fledgling Prohibition
days through the corrupt machinations of its sordid developer fights
and payoffs in the 90s. Since the need for tourism clashed with the
wills of permanent residents, clubs like Amnesia fought noise
ordinances with high priced lawyers while distributing Estasy and
belting out thunderous rap music through the surrounding concrete
condo towers. In the TV show CSI MIami, like in the cop show Miami
Vice, you remember those towers and art deco clubs, which whispered by
in the night, but you never saw the bigger battles which became public
as massive egos in both City Hall and developers' drawing rooms vied
for victory, using zoning laws and high rise buildings like pieces on
a chess board. That story is here, well told by Posner and Sklar,
along with the amoral jet set crowd which frequented the raucous clubs
at a time when Madonna penned her book SEX, and when you might be
pepper-sprayed for trying to get into a club she'd just entered. From
coke dealers and playboys to back room real-estate-mogul power plays,
the book is a treasure trove of information on how corruption unfolds
in a city's grab for gold. As for Miami, it's a roller coaster ride
between boom and bust, and the audiobook a cautionary but true tale
about government, race relations, and the inevitability of kickbacks.
(Tantor Media) |
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Audiobooks are a great way to pass the time during those
long (and often boring) work hours at the postal service. To find the latest audiobooks
of note check out Jonathan Lowe's Audio Books Review (left). Lowe
recently retired from the Postal Service after 22 years.
Geezer
Postal:
Postmarked for Death
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