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AUDIOBOOK
BUZZ for May
by
Jonathan Lowe
Economic commentator Kevin Phillips spills the Navy
beans on the true
cost of our reliance on oil in BAD MONEY--Reckless
Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism. If
you're looking for an explanation as to why the dollar is falling today, and how
the housing crisis escaped notice until the bubble burst in August of 2007, this
is audiobook to hear. Essentially, you can thank our deeply flawed financial
services industry, underpinned by a deluded public addicted to debt and
unlimited oil reserves, for what may be the end of America as a Superpower.
Phillips outlines how we've stumbled into this nightmare scenario, in which
foreign oil producers
have strategically substituted the Euro for the Dollar in an era of falling
supply and increasing demand. Add a war of occupation, and our resulting loss of
respect has us paying full price even to fuel the military vehicles used to
"liberate" the Iraqis. Meanwhile, says Phillips, "moving money around" became
our biggest industry at home, with real estate speculators encouraging a casino
mentality--(the delusion of getting something for nothing.) When the house of
cards finally fell, the loan sharks, wielding their exotic financial
instruments, then moved in to break some knees. As though to add insult to
injury, the Fed is now stepping in to bail out those banks whose feeding frenzy
was most horrific, while letting manufacturers continue to go belly up. The
result? China is set to take our place on the world stage, and to pollute the
air more than we did in the American Century, (which was the 20th.) Scary? As
narrated with provocative urgency by Scott Brick, it's clear that Stephen King
and James Patterson have nothing on this. (Penguin Audio; 9 1/2 hours
unabridged)
Charles Osgood, host of CBS News "Sunday Morning," has a new audiobook
highlight collection titled SEE YOU ON THE RADIO,
in which he profiles
the eccentric habits of Americans as a means to showcase societal trends. As an
example, he cites a study showing that Americans try to maintain inside
temperatures at extreme opposites from outside temps. So when it's 100
degrees outside, we tend to air condition down to 65 degrees, and when it's 20
degrees outside, we heat to more than 75. Those ten to fifteen degrees
above or below the "ideal" temperature amounts to millions and millions of
barrels of oil wasted per year. (To say nothing of the waste in heating or
cooling spaces which are unoccupied or poorly insulated.) Osgood clearly enjoys
disclosing such idiosyncrasies, evident by his occasional rhymes. It gets
particularly
unnerving when he compares psychopaths to politicians, and the listener begins
to understand why the more things change, the more they stay the same. (Highbridge
Audio; 3 3/4 hours unabridged)
Next, REBEL ISLAND is the new Tres
Navarre mystery by Rick Riordan,
about a private detective who gives up his old life to get married, but on his
honeymoon stumbles onto a murder victim, and gets swept back up into the old
game of catch-a-killer. A hurricane is bearing down on the island, cutting
everyone off from the mainland, so Tres must solve the crime while facing the
tensions of both weather and romance. Riordan has a strong narrative voice, lent
appeal by the kind of narrator who makes such characters his own, namely Tom
Stechschulte. Riordan is one of my own favorites, along with James Lee Burke,
and has won the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony awards while being compared to
Dashiell Hammett. An especially good previous outing for Tres, also narrated by
Stechschulte, was "The Devil Went Down to
Austin." Don't miss that one. (Recorded Books; 7 3/4 hours unabridged)
In the horror novel INFECTED by Scott
Sigler a bioengineered parasite from space infects Earth's population, causing
most everyone to rampage and kill each other. (Kinda like your typical
Congressional Assembly.) There's just enough science here to lend the story
borderline plausibility, but the actual writing is more pulp than fruit. At one
point a character bleeds "like a stuck pig," while the decision to let Sigler
narrate, ostensibly because he's a rabidly
successful podcaster, is unfortunate. There are dozens of professional readers
who could have improved the text by actually adding subtle nuances of
characterization. The cover is genius, however. No doubt about that. An eyeball
with a triangular iris, that in online ads is seen to move around. You can't
help but click, and to consider buying. But for my money, "Bad Money" is still
scarier, because no one can seem to hit the Stop button there. (Random House
Audio; 12 hours unabridged)
Now, the universe is a big place, and if that's isn't an understatement, I don't
know what is. In the new award-winning science fiction novel
SPIN author Robert Wilson postulates
a civilization so advanced that, not only don't they need to invade us or infect
us somehow, their purposes seem totally alien and unknown. These beings may not
even inhabit bodies as we know them, and are here called merely "the
Hypotheticals." How to explain, after all, their reasoning in encapsulating the
Earth in a singularity membrane--a barrier similar to the event horizon of a
black hole, in which time slows to a near stop, while the outside ages as usual?
We don't notice the slowing of time, since, according to Einstein, time itself
is relative to the observer. So for every 24 hour day on Earth, the rest of the
universe, including the Sun, is aging millions of years. Meaning the sun is soon
going to explode. What happens next, of course, I can't tell. Suffice it to say
that the novel is made believable by two
factors. One, by some deeply realized characters (Tyler, Jason, Diane) who are
not given second billing to the action. Two, by a narrator (Scott Brick) whose
interpretation breaths life into them, and keeps the story spinning like a top
until the end. There's nothing pulp about this story, either, so while it may
not sell as many copies as a media sensation with moving eyeballs, the higher
road, less taken, makes all the difference. (McMillan Audio; 17 hours
unabridged)
Mary Higgins Clark has been writing mysteries for decades, and like Jonathan
Kellerman, (whose son Jesse is a mystery writer), her own daughter Carol is too.
The new book from America's "Queen of Suspense" is
WHERE ARE YOU NOW? It's about a university student who, about to
graduate, simply walks away from his life and family without a word. Each year
thereafter, Mack calls his mother on Mother's Day, says he's fine, then hangs
up. Now, ten years later, Mack's sister Carolyn can't take the suspense any
longer, and devotes her life to finding him. Ignoring the mysterious
warning he'd given not to be found, she begins to wonder if Mack had something
to do with his drama teacher's brutal murder. Narrated by Jan Maxwell, a veteran
stage actress, the novel is empathetically performed with all the emotions
necessary to give the
story a level of believability most suitable for such a personal first person
tale. (Simon & Schuster Audio; 7 1/2 hours unabridged)
If finding a college student isn't enough of a challenge, Morgan Spurlock is
back from his documentary "Super Size Me" with the audiobook version of
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS OSAMA BIN LADEN?
It's an interesting and insightful examination of just who Osama is, and why his
message is so compelling to Arabs everywhere. As narrated by Erik Singer, a
former soap opera actor, the book is nonetheless more docudrama than melodrama.
As in the film, Spurlock asks the right questions, and ultimately shows that
Osama was hugely influential and smart, but is now insignificant except as an
iconic symbol. He knew, for instance, that if he could get us to invade
Afghanistan or Iraq, we would be bogged down there, and he could thereby recruit
thousands
for a Holy war against the West. His insane justifications are propelled by
radical fundamentalist beliefs, yet he is intimately acquainted with American
customs, and is just as angry with Saudi royals as with us for defending the
Jewish people. For the full story of Osama, listen to "The Bin Ladens" by the
Pulitzer Prize winning biographer Steve Coll, (also narrated by Erik Singer.)
But for a broad overview in an abridged version, you can't beat Spurlock's more
entertaining summation. (Random House Audio; 6 hours abridged)
(Jonathan Lowe's author website is JustSayNoWay.com)
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