Sound Commentary - Your Wise Guide to Audiobooks and Audio Book Reviews

John E. Boyd

John E. Boyd 3d, 76, educator, colleague and esteemed longstanding reviewer for KLIATT Magazine and SoundCommentary, died on August 15, 2009 of complications of heart disease in his Pennsylvania home.

Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun

Nami Mun was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up there and in the Bronx, New York. She has worked as a door-to-door Avon Lady, a dance hostess, a street vendor, a photojournalist, a bartender, and a criminal investigator. A graduate of University of California at Berkeley, she received her MFA from the University of Michigan, where she garnered a Hopwood Award for fiction and the Farrar Prize. She has received a Pushcart Prize, as well as scholarships and residencies from the Corporation of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. Her stories have been published in the 2007 Pushcart Prize anthology, The Iowa Review, Tin House, Evergreen Review, Witness, and other journals.

Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott

Elizabeth Scott is the author of Bloom, Perfect You, and Stealing Heaven.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Author Muriel Barbery’s second novel was an unexpected, then overwhelming, success in France, and now throughout the world. The author has drawn on her background as an instructor of philosophy in her creation, characters and themes.

Tree Girl by Ben Mikaelson

Ben Mikaelsen has won the International Reading Association Award and the Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award. His novels have earned critical acclaim, as well as several state reader#146;s choice awards. These novels include Red Midnight, Touching Spirit Bear, Rescue Josh McGuire, Sparrow Hawk Red, Stranded, Countdown, and Petey. Ben's articles and photos appear in numerous magazines around the world. He has traveled many times to Central America and has previously written about the effects of its brutal wars on young people and children. Ben lives in a log cabin near Bozeman, Montana, with a 700-pound black bear he has adopted and raised.

Sunnyside by Glen David Gold

Glen David Gold received his MFA for creative writing at the University of California at Irvine and has written for newspapers, film, and television. He currently lives in Southern California.

Even Money by Dick and Felix Francis

Dick Francis has written forty-one international bestsellers and is widely acclaimed as one of the world's finest thriller writers. His awards include the Crime Writer's Association's Cartier Diamond Dagger for his outstanding contribution to the crime genre, and an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Tufts University of Boston. In 1996 Dick Francis was made a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master for a lifetime's achievement and in 2000 he recieved a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list.

Red Glass by Laura Resau

Laura Resau lived in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, Mexico, for two years as an English teacher and anthropologist. She now lives with her husband and her dog in Colorado.

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Gayle Forman is an award-winning author and journalist whose articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, The Nation, and The New York Times Magazine. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A Study in Scarlet is the first story to feature Sherlock Holmes and his trusty friend, Dr. Watson.

Lover Avenged and Dark Lover by J.R. Ward

J. R. Ward worked in healthcare in Boston and spent many years as Chief of Staff at one of the premier academic medical centers in the nation.

The Predator State by James K. Galbraith

JAMES K. GALBRAITH holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr., Chair in Government/Business Relations at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds degrees from Harvard and Yale. He studied economics as a Marshall scholar at King's College, Cambridge, and then served on the staff of the U.S. Congress, including as executive director of the Joint Economic Committee. He directs the University of Texas Inequality Project, an informal research group at the LBJ School, is a senior scholar of the Levy Economics Institute, and is chair of Economists for Peace and Security, a global professional association.

The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

Stieg Larsson, who lived in Sweden, was the editor in chief of the magazine Expo and a leading expert on antidemocratic right-wing extremist and Nazi organizations. He died in 2004, shortly after delivering the manuscripts for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and the third novel in the series.

The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom

Christopher Ransom is a native of Boulder, Colorado, who has lived in New York and Los Angeles. He now resides with his wife and three rescued dogs in a 142-year-old former birthing house in Mineral Point, Wisconsin.

Black Money by Ross Macdonald

Through the character of Lew Archer, Ross Macdonald gave the American crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity that his predecessors had only hinted at. The series has been called "The finest series of detective novels ever written." by the New York Times.

206 Bones by Kathy Reichs

Kathy Reichs, like her character Temperance Brennan, is a forensic anthropologist, formerly for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina and currently for the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de m - decine l - gale for the province of Quebec. A professor in the department of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, she is one of only seventy-nine forensic anthropologists ever certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, is past Vice President of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and serves on the National Police Services Advisory Board in Canada. Reichs's first book, D - ja Dead, catapulted her to fame when it became a New York Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. Her novel, Devil Bones, was a #1 New York Times bestseller.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Dan Brown is the author of numerous #1 bestselling novels, including the recent record-breaking The Lost Symbol, which had the biggest one-week sale in Random House history for a single title. His previous title, The Da Vinci Code, has sold more than 80 million copies worldwide, making it one of the bestselling novels of all time. In addition to numerous appearances on The Today Show, Mr. Brown was named one of the World's 100 Most Influential People by Time Magazine. He has appeared in the pages of Newsweek, Forbes, People, GQ, The New Yorker, and others. His novels are published in over 50 languages around the world.

The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley

Get Real by Donald E. Westlake

Donald E. Westlake (1933 - 2008) has written dozens of novels under his own name and a rainbow of pseudonyms. Many of his books have been adapted for film, most notably The Hunter, which became the 1967 noir Point Blank, and the 1999 smash Payback.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson

Enter the world of author Richard Matheson, if you dare, and partake of his horror stories. Although many are at least forty years old, there's no statute of limitations on what can make your blood run cold.

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

Francisco Stork studied Latin American literature at Harvard before completing a law degree at Columbia University. Publishers Weekly praised his first novel The Way of the Jaguar, as “a splendidly intense debut.” His second book, Behind the Eyes, was selected as both a Commended title for the Americas Award and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age.

Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen

Gary Paulsen is the distinguished author of many critically acclaimed books for young people, including three Newbery Honor Books: The Winter Room, Hatchet, and Dogsong. His novel The Haymeadow received the Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award. Gary Paulsen has also published fiction and nonfiction for adults, as well as picture books illustrated by his wife, the painter Ruth Wright Paulsen. The Paulsens live in New Mexico, in Alaska, and on the Pacific Ocean.

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead was born in New York City. His first novel, The Intuitionist, won the QPB New Voices Award and was an Ernest Hemingway/PEN Award finalist. His second novel, John Henry Days, was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. He is also the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award. Whitehead lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Reality Check by Peter Abrahams

Peter Abrahams is the bestselling author of Delusion, Nerve Damage, End of Story, Oblivion, The Fan, Behind the Curtain, and Into the Dark as well as Lights Out and Down the Rabbit Hole, for both of which he received Edgar Award nominations. Peter makes his home in Falmouth, Massachusetts, with his wife and four children.

Faith, Hope and Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is the author of more than 100 books. She lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Skin Trade by Laurell K. Hamilton

Laurell K. Hamilton is the New York Times bestselling author of the Meredith Gentry novels: A Kiss of Shadows, A Caress of Twilight, Seduced by Moonlight, A Stroke of Midnight, Mistral's Kiss, A Lick of Frost, and Divine Misdemeanors, as well as seventeen acclaimed Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, novels. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Vampirates: Black Heart

International best-selling author Justin Somper's Vampirates series is renowned for its swashbuckling adventure and imaginative plotting. Black Heart is the fourth in the series.

Razor Sharp by Fern Michaels

Fern Michaels is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Fool Me Once, Sweet Revenge, The Nosy Neighbor, Pretty Woman, and dozens of other novels and novellas. There are over seventy million copies of her books in print. Fern Michaels has built and funded several large day-care centers in her hometown, and is a passionate animal lover who has outfitted police dogs across the country with special bulletproof vests. She shares her home in South Carolina with her four dogs and a resident ghost named Mary Margaret.

Daniel X by James Patterson

James Patterson is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of many books, including the blockbuster series Maximum Ride. More than 160 million of his books are in print around the world, making him one of the top-selling writers of all time. His website, www.ReadKiddoRead.com, lists the very best books for kids--titles that kids will gobble up and ask for more.

Everything Matters by Ron Currie Jr.

Ron Currie, Jr.took his place as one of America’s freshest young literary voices with his acclaimed debut collection, God Is Dead, which won the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award.

Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn.

Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn are the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism; they won for their coverage of China as New York Times correspondents. Mr. Kristof won a second Pulitzer for his op-ed columns in the Times. He has also served as bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo, and as associate managing editor. At the Times, Ms. WuDunn worked as a business editor and as a foreign correspondent in Tokyo and Beijing. They live near New York City.

Karma and Rebirth in a Nutshell by Jinananda

Jinananda is the author of several books on Buddhism.

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton is the author of three works of fiction and six works of nonfiction, including How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Consolations of Philosophy and The Art of Travel. He lives in London, where he founded The School of Life.

The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman

ALICE HOFFMAN is the bestselling author of twenty-five acclaimed novels, including The Third Angel, The Ice Queen, Practical Magic, and Here on Earth, an Oprah Book Club selection. She has also written two books of short stories, and eight books for children and young adults. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages and published in more than one hundred foreign editions. She divides her time between Boston and New York City.

Loser's Town by Daniel Depp

Daniel Depp was born in Kentucky and read Classics at university there. He has been a journalist, bookseller, and a teacher. There have been several exhibitions of his photographs, and he has also taught scriptwriting. He divides his time between California and France, where he writes and produces screenplays. Loser's Town is his first novel.

Barrymore by William Luce

William Luce has adapted his acclaimed Broadway hit especially for audio in this dramatization.

The Memory Collector by Meg Gardiner

Meg Gardiner is the author of The Memory Collector, The Dirty Secrets Club, and five novels in the Evan Delaney series, including China Lake which recently won the Edgar Award for best paperback original. She lives with her family near London.