Download the Best Full Audiobooks in Fiction, Literary

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Title: The Shadow Year

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Jeffrey Ford

Narrator: Kevin T. Collins

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-07-10

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 36 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

On New York's Long Island, in the unpredictable decade of the 1960s, a young boy spends much of his free time in the basement of his family's modest home, where he and his brother, Jim, have created Botch Town, a detailed cardboard replica of their community, complete with figurines representing friends and neighbors. Their little sister, Mary, smokes cigarettes, speaks in other voices, inhabits alternate personas... and, unbeknownst to her siblings, moves around the inanimate clay residents.

There is a strangeness in the air as disappearances, deaths, spectral sightings, and the arrival of a sinister man in a long white car mark this unforgettable shadow year. But strangest of all is the inescapable fact that all these troubling occurrences directly correspond to the changes little Mary has made to the miniature town in their basement.

Critic Reviews:

World Fantasy Award, Best Novel, 2009

"Surreal, unsettling, and more than a little weird. Ford has a rare gift for evoking mood with just a few well-chosen words and for creating living, breathing characters with only a few lines of dialogue. Give this one to readers who appreciate the blending of literary fiction, fantasy, and mystery." (Booklist)

"Kevin T. Collins... has an astonishing range of voices at his command. His excellent narration definitely added to my reading enjoyment and Ill be looking for his name in the future." (Fantasy Literature)

Members Reviews:

Little slices of life

A charming coming-of-age tale about the 6th grade year of an average American boy growing up in the 1960s. This year isn???t average, though, because there are some strange things going on in his small town. As he navigates his way around mundane matters such as an alcoholic manic depressive mother, a father who holds down three jobs, live-in grandparents, and unpleasant teachers, he???s also concerned with a prowler, a classmate who disappeared, and a strange suspicious man who drives an eerie white car. Things get really creepy when he realizes that the weird things happening around town seem to be linked to the way his possibly-autistic / possibly-savant little sister moves the cars and people around in his older brother???s replica of their town which he works on in their basement.

The novel reminds me very much of A Christmas Story ??? that classic movie about Ralphie who wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas ("You'll shoot your eye out!"). Similarly, Jeffrey Ford fills his story with over-the-top characters who are fun to read about but who you???re glad you don???t live with and who you have a hard time believing could all co-exist in the same small town.

Also similarly, most of the plot revolves around the day to day events in a 6th grade boy???s life: waiting for the ice cream man, trying to complete school assignments with a minimal amount of effort, getting picked on by older kids, skipping church, sneaking out of the house, and trying to keep up with his brave and reckless older brother. These little slices of life are funny, poignant, and so beautifully and vividly described that they often brought a smile to my face and occasionally brought tears to my eyes.

Kevin T. Collins who has an astonishing range of voices at his command. His excellent narration definitely added to my reading enjoyment and I???ll be looking for his name in the future.

Couldn't stop listening!!!

This book was such a great find.

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Title: Scandal on Rincon Hill

Subtitle: A Sarah Woolson Mystery

Author: Shirley Tallman

Narrator: Carrington MacDuffie

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-12-10

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 65 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

A body is found just blocks from attorney Sarah Woolsons peaceful Rincon Hill home. Sarah is soon on the case, but nineteenth-century San Francisco is rapidly thrown into a state of panic as a gruesome crime spree begins to take hold of the city. Engaged in a life or death struggle to find the murderer, Sarah becomes embroiled in the erotic escapades of the towns infamous high-end brothels, a proper Anglican church, Darwins shocking theory of evolution, and a vicious killer who will stop at nothing to achieve a scandalous objective.

Critic Reviews:

A solid readConvincing period detail supports an engaging lead whos a more plausible character than, say, Rhys Bowens Molly Murphy. (

Publishers Weekly)

Sarahs fourth neatly marries mystery, romance, and historic San Francisco in an enjoyable tale of the stubbornly independent career woman. (

Kirkus Reviews)

Members Reviews:

Juvenile

Was this meant to be a novel for pre-teens? This book is littered with cliches and amateur dialogue. While the premise of a nineteenth century female lawyer/investigator was intriguing the plot is thin and predictable and the characterizations shallow. All the women are beautiful and innocent - even the prostitute. All the men were handsome are adoring except the one totally vile villan. The narrator was mediocre at best with poor character differentiation and a sing-song delivery.

Good Quick Read

This book was really good for an easy read on the beach. I felt like I was in 1880s San Francisco and could not guess the murderer. I can't wait for the next in the series.

Good historical mystery

This really held my interest. The characters are a tad too one dimensional; but all the historical references are so interesting, it more than makes up for the lack of depth in the characters. The book really gives you a feel for life in 1880s San Francisco. And I didn't guess the murderer until the end.

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Title: A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement

Author: Anthony Powell

Narrator: Simon Vance

Format: Unabridged

Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-19-10

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 619 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art.

In the second volume they move to London in a whirl of marriage and adulteries, fashions and frivolities, personal triumphs and failures. These books "provide an unsurpassed picture, at once gay and melancholy, of social and artistic life in Britain between the wars" (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.).

The third volume follows Nick into army life and evokes London during the blitz. In the climactic final volume, England has won the war and must now count the losses. Four very different young men on the threshold of manhood dominate this opening volume of A Dance to the Music of Time. The narrator, Jenkinsa budding writer shares a room with Templer, already a passionate womanizer, and Stringham, aristocratic and reckless. Widermerpool, as hopelessly awkward as he is intensely ambitious, lurks on the periphery of their world. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, these four gain their initiations into sex, society, business, and art. Considered a masterpiece of modern fiction, Powell's epic creates a rich panorama of life in England between the wars. Includes these novels: A Question of Upbringing, A Buyer's Market, The Acceptance World.

As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of Anthony Powell's book, you'll also receive an exclusive Jim Atlas interview. This interview where James Atlas interviews Charles McGrath about the life and work of Anthony Powell begins as soon as the audiobook ends.

Critic Reviews:

"Anthony Powell is the best living English novelist by far. His admirers are addicts, let us face it, held in thrall by a magician." (

Chicago Tribune)

"A book which creates a world and explores it in depth, which ponders changing relationships and values, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change in their milieu. . . . Powell's world is as large and as complex as Proust's." (

New York Times)

"Vance's narration captivates listeners throughout this outstanding examination of a life in progress." (

AudioFile)

Members Reviews:

A Masterpiece on All Counts

A Dance to the Music of Time, inspired by the painting of the same name by Nicolas Poussin, was rated by Time magazine as one of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. Written by the English novelist Anthony Powell, who took almost 25 years to create the 12-volume set, provides a highly-literate and highly-amusing look into the English upper-middle class between the 1920s and the 1970s. The book covers politics, class-consciousness, society, culture, love, social graces, manners, education, power, money, snobbery, humour, and more.

Although daunting in terms of length, the absolutely brilliant narration by the talented Simon Vance rewards the reader over thousands of pages, hundreds of characters, and twelve installments of gorgeous prose.

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Title: The Recognitions

Author: William Gaddis

Narrator: Nick Sullivan

Format: Unabridged

Length: 48 hrs

Language: English

Release date: 07-13-10

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 99 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals" - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize.

Contemporary life collapses the distinction between the "real" and the "virtual" worlds, and Gaddis' novel pre-empts our common obsessions by almost half a century. This novel tackles the blurring of perceptual boundaries. The Matrix and Blade Runner pale in comparison to this epic novel.

Members Reviews:

Brilliant book, excellent rendering.

Gaddis is not easy and it is not surprising that some readers/listeners do not find his work worth the effort. For readers, like me, who do, there is simply nothing to match the richness and depth of Gaddis' novel(s). If you enjoyed David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" or, e.g., James Joyce's "Ulysses", neither of which is easy but both of which offer a great deal of pleasure to those whose tastes lean in this direction, you will like "The Recognitions."

Mr. Gaddis' Opus

My first impulse was to just copy some old, obscure review of 'the Recognitions' and claim it as my own. Alas, even the reviewers, academics, and cult worshipers of the God of PoMo all seem at once thunderstruck AND intimidated by Gaddis' opus.

What I understood was brilliant, what I didn't understand is most likely obscene. This is not a novel for the casual beach read, although as I write this, I am on a beach...washing sand out of my ebbs and salt off my flow, so never mind.

Breathtaking, Dizzying, Stimulating, Funny

This is not a perfect rendition of The Recognitions. All of the narration annoys when dialogue is absent- the actor sounds as though he is trying out for the Smart Ass's Encyclopedia. However, he plays all of the characters very distinctly and very respectably, and that is saying a lot as these are difficult, varied, and plentiful characters. The production is really 4 stars, but the book itself is a 5, and so great that I am giving the whole a 5 in the hopes you will read it. A lot of brilliant ideas float through "God cares as much for a moment as for an hour", "Do you think your Dutch masters never made bad pictures just because we have a few masterpieces passed down to us?", "How can I write a novel when I only know boys? Easy, I'll just do what Proust did and change half the boys names to girls", and so forth. Gaddiss perhaps more than any author is strengthened in the audiobook form because he writes in a stream of consciousness or a stream of reality where snippets of conversation come to you as if you were just sitting on the street, or walking through the novel. Don't dare try this book if you need very linear progression with distinct chapters and chronology like it was 7:45 am on October... and it was raining outside with a temperature of... you won't get any of that. One character asks another "Don't you ever wear a coat?" And that tells you it is winter now in this scene. No hero emerges either, though you expect it and wait for it.

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Titolo: La Mennulara

Autore: Simonetta Agnello Hornby

Narratore: Licia Miorando

Formato: Unabridged

Durata: 7 hrs and 12 mins

Lingua: Italiano

Data di pubblicazione: 06-30-10

Editore: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore

Valutazioni: 4.5 su 5 su 3 voti

Categoria: Fiction, Literary

Riepilogo Editore:

Roccacolomba. Sicilia. 23 settembre 1963. È morta la Mennulara, al secolo Maria Rosalia Inzerillo. Chi è stata davvero? Una profittatrice? Una pedina della mafia locale? Una seduttrice? Una serva-padrona? Un grande ritratto di donna. Un grande successo editoriale con più di 20 edizioni e 300.000 copie vendute. Il romanzo d'esordio di una grande scrittrice.

Please note: This audiobook is in Italian.

Recensioni dei membri:

Technical issues

Some of the chapters ended abruptly, resulting in the story being truncated. Shame, otherwise an excellent listen. I will have to get the hard copy to fill in the gaps

Poor performance

The story was at the beggining a bit dull but along the book it comes up with a cast of interesting caracters and intriguing personalities. Every chapter gets better and better. I have liked it very much.

On the other hand the performance was poor. She was reading so fast that the entonation of the sentences sometimes didn't make any sense. More than once i have double checked the title to see whther the reader was a robot or not...so fast and monotone she was reading. Some of the chapters didn't even finish naturaly but all of the sudden as if the reading was interrupted and the next chapter stared inmediatelly. I think the recording is not very good quality.

But as i said, i have enjoyed the story quite a lot.

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Title: Thalia Book Club: David Wroblewski's The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Author: David Wroblewski

Narrator: Ted Marcoux, Daniel Menaker

Format: Original Recording

Length: 1 hr and 14 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-16-10

Publisher: Symphony Space

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 8 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

The novelist talks with author and journalist Daniel Menaker about this deeply satisfying first novela multigenerational family story, great adventure, and murder mystery set in the farmlands of northern Wisconsin. This mesmerizing book centers on the coming of age of a mute teenage boy who has a rare ability to communicate with dogs.

Editorial Reviews:

Featuring David Wroblewski, with Daniel Menaker as emcee and Ted Marcoux as a performer, this episode of the Thalia Book Club is about David Wroblewski's first novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Dark and intriguing, Wroblewski's book is part detective novel, part coming-of-age story. Set in the Midwest, the book follows a young, speechless boy as he attempts to catch a murderer and discover the depths of his own secret powers. Menaker and Wroblewski are both a treat to listen to. This performance is a must for any avid book club fan.

Members Reviews:

Five Stars

Good read

Buy this book.

This book is remarkable. Books, movies, articles, all get judged by the same standard; to what extent do they stick with the reader once completed? This book... Ahhh this book. It could be said the more a person consumes the less there is that is genuinely memorable. This book is memorable. So, if that's up your alley, give it a go. But take your time. Wroblewski hasn't published another to sate your appetite. So, once you've turned the last page of Edgar Sawtelle, it is a real memory.

A tragic collision between "great literature" and popular fiction

SPOILER ALERT!

When I read the blurbs that said that this was a retelling of Hamlet, I should have taken heed. People abandon their common sense and better judgment when "Shakespeare" is invoked, as fast as they do when someone speaks with a posh British accent. We go ga-ga and anything that happens is okay.

In this book, we are made to love a bunch of dogs, whose individual characters are finely developed. We are made to love a boy who is, afterall, not old enough to have earned the character flaws that would make a tragic fate seem in any way satisfying. His death reunion with the ghost of Admondine really doesn't satisfy the sadness of their ends. Claude's end is not awful enough.

This is how it's SUPPOSED to end: Almondine is not supposed to really be dead. She is supposed to be lost, and she is supposed to show up in the barn at the last minute, and get between Edgar and the syringe in Claude's hand. Trudy is supposed to have wrestled loose of the sheriff and made it just in time to see Calude almost injecting her son, and thus know suddenly the truth. Edgar is supposed to sit by Almondine as she dies, and they are supposed to gaze deeply in each others' eyes and know that all is love and forgiveness. The sheriff is supposed to arrive in the barn hot on the heels of Trudy (who he is secretly in love with, and she with him) and suddenly realize that it was really Claude who tripped his father and knocked him down the stairs.

But it doesn't end that way. And I am really sorry for that.

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Title: The Serialist

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: David Gordon

Narrator: Bronson Pinchot

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-09-10

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 43 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

This stylish, darkly funny psychological debut thriller set in New York City is about a struggling writer forced to play detective in a real-life murder mystery plot, after a convicted serial killerwho claims to be innocenthires him to write his memoir. All Harry Bloch knows about catching a serial killer is what he has learned from his own books. An unknown writer, Harry churns out pulp novels under a variety of pseudonyms. But Harrys life takes a sudden dramatic turn and begins to resemble the plot of one of his crime novels when a convicted serial killer known as the Photo Killer asks Harry to write his memoir.

Soon, several women are murdered in the Photo Killers signature style, just hours after Harry interviews them, and he becomes a suspect. Or is he the killers next target? The novel follows his quest to find the real killer, a search that turns up much more than he could have imagined.

Critic Reviews:

This is a dark and stylish literary page-turner about a struggling New York writer whos forced to play detective in a real-life murder mystery, after a convicted serial killer hires him to write his memoirand three young women turn up dead.

David Gordon has gathered up our cultural trash and made of it something magnificent. . . .The Serialist makes high art out of serial murders, pornography, soup dumplings, and pulp fiction. I adore this book! (Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances)

The Serialist is an entertainingly wicked debut. A literary pulp fiction that flays and skewers post-Millennial New York and along the way reinvents the American detective novel. David Gordon has arrived, brash, irreverent and indecently talented." (Evan Wright, author of Generation Kill)

Members Reviews:

I laughed, I squirmed, I loved this book

For a very long time, The Serialist was the ultimate "bridesmaid" book for me -- always next in line to be read, only to be left at the altar when the time came to make a selection.

Happily, when I finally made the commitment to this novel, I found something I really loved.

This book is terrific on a host of different levels:

-- Reader. Bronson Pinchot is great, great, great. It's one of those rare books where character development is spectacularly advanced by the reader's talent. In my mind's eye, I could visualize even the facial expressions and body language of the characters.

-- Intelligence. This is a smart book. It begins in a manic manner, bouncing off the walls like Robin Williams in his "Mork and Mindy" days. I initially thought that this would be similar to Josh Bazell's "Wild Thing," and, I suppose, in some ways it is. Only better.

Actually, once "The Serialist" settles down, a better comparison is probably Steve Hamilton's "The Lock Artist," not so much for its style (although both are told in the first person) as for its originality. The Serialist works because there is really nothing else like it.

-- Complexity. The book feels like a set of Russian matryoshka dolls, with one story line nesting inside another, which surrounds another. Each is unique, but each fits perfectly around or inside the others.

-- Pushing boundaries. There are a number of uncomfortable spots in this book that will make you squirm.

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Title: One Amazing Thing

Author: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Narrator: Purva Bedi, Soneela Nankani, Neil Shah

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-02-10

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 66 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for her short stories, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores themes of women, immigration, and her vibrant Indian culture to great effect. Divakaruni expands on these ideas in One Amazing Thing, a project long in the making and full of electric prose.

Various narrators.

Members Reviews:

Creative Copiing

What do nine people do when they e trapped in a building damaged by an earthquake? When they are antagonized by each other, how do they move to a better position? They focus on each other's stories and learn to care about each other. This is one amazing book.

An ok way to kill some time

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I would hire a woman who can do a consistent and realistic Indian accent, a man with the same and an African American man to do the different parts. The "fake but clear" accents here - do nothing for me. The performance was not 5 stars for me at all.

Would you recommend One Amazing Thing to your friends? Why or why not?

Probably not. I can only think of one who might try this book.

How could the performance have been better?

Realistic, consistent accents would have helped - REALISTIC, CONSISTANT. Not just a smidge with nothing but the hope to help non native speakers.better understand.

Could you see One Amazing Thing being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Yes, I can see this being made into a made for TV movie -like Lifetime. I dont know who I would cast - perhaps a whole crew of newcomers.

Any additional comments?

Some of the sentences in this book, give me hope that I can write my own. I really love Divakaruni's other work. This one, not too much. Of all of the stories shared none were particularly fresh orginal or unpredictable. I will read divakaruni agan though.

How to deal with immediate "disaster"!

What made the experience of listening to One Amazing Thing the most enjoyable?

I enjoyed her voices and how the story came together.

What did you like best about this story?

The stories that people shared.

Which scene was your favorite?

The discovery of the smoking in the restroom.

If you could take any character from One Amazing Thing out to dinner, who would it be and why?

I liked them all.

Any additional comments?

I read it twice and may read it again. It's lovely.

Everyone should listen to this book

This is one of my all-time favorite stories. I love the narrators, the story, and the setting. I have recommended it to numerous friends and family and everyone has loved it!

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Title: The Vagrants

Author: Yiyun Li

Narrator: Jackie Chung

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-04-10

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 47 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Yiyun Li is the winner of the prestigious Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. The Vagrants, set in 1979 China, is the story of those affected by the execution of a 28-year-old counterrevolutionary. Though suffering, Li's characters nevertheless struggle to maintain hope amid cruel circumstance.

Critic Reviews:

Extraordinary . . . beautifully paced, exquisitely detailed . . . In this most amazing first novel, Yiyun Li has found a way to combine the jeweled precision of her short-story-writers gaze with a spellbinding vision of the power of the human spirit. (Chicago Tribune)

Powerful and thoughtful . . . a revelation. (The Washington Post)

The Vagrants is pure pleasure and a must-read. (San Francisco Magazine)

Members Reviews:

Lovely prose, good story, deadly narration

What made the experience of listening to The Vagrants the most enjoyable?

The writing is poetic and the images vivid. Characters are interesting and thoughtfully, carefully, gradually revealed. It is a grim story and a grim setting. Very interesting experience of "small city" 1970's China and some of its citizens.

Would you be willing to try another one of Jackie Chungs performances?

I would not listen to another audiobook narrated by Jackie Chung, however. Her reading is flat--even compared to my own mind's!

Grim but Revealing Novel of China. Very Good.

Yiyun Li is a natural story-teller. Her prose is simple and direct and therein lies its power. The Vagrants is set in the fictional small Chinese town of Muddy River in 1979, right after the end of the brutal Cultural Revolution. It follows the lives of a host of characters from the power elite, down to the poorest vagrants. Their lives are intertwined by geographical identity and the overwhelming impact that Maos Cultural Revolution had on society. The characters are unforgettable. This is a profoundly sad novel, but its illumination of the human condition is revealing. The Vagrants is a very good book, and one that painlessly teaches much about Chinas recent history.

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Title: Too Much Happiness

Subtitle: Stories

Author: Alice Munro

Narrator: Kimberly Farr, Arthur Morey

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-17-09

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 196 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

In the first story, a young wife and mother receives release from the unbearable pain of losing her three children from a most surprising source. In another, a young woman, in the aftermath of an unusual and humiliating seduction, reacts in a clever, if less than admirable, fashion.

Other stories uncover the "deep holes" in a marriage, the unsuspected cruelty of children, and how a boy's disfigured face provides both the good things in his life and the bad. And in the long title story, we accompany Sophia Kovalevsky - a late-19th-century Russian émigré and mathematician - on a winter journey that takes her from the Riviera, where she visits her lover, to Paris, Germany, and Denmark, where she has a fateful meeting with a local doctor, and finally to Sweden, where she teaches at the only university in Europe willing to employ a female mathematician.

With clarity and ease, Alice Munro once again renders complex, difficult events and emotions into stories that shed light on the unpredictable ways in which men and women accommodate and often transcend what happens in their lives.

Too Much Happiness is a compelling, provocative - even daring - collection.

Members Reviews:

Each story should start on its own track

The substance (performance, writing, etc.) of this audiobook is great, but the tracks are sloppily organized. This is a volume of short stories, so each story should begin at 0:00 on a separate track. For some reason, it's not organized like that. The third story, for example, starts roughly 55 minutes into the second track. Why do that? I remember Runaway, another Alice Munro collection, having the same problem. Please fix this.

Alice Munro is a must!!

I just loved all of the short stories featured in this book. Every single one of them was entrancing, interesting and plunged the reader in a different universe each time! I listen to audio books while I walk in the forest or in my neighborhood and Alice Munro kept me company for weeks on end!!

Not Enough Happiness

The narrator does a fine job. She goes on my list of good narrators. I' ve read everything Munro has written, and it seems her plots are in an Arbus-like downward spiral. These stories are grim and depressing. I thought of Flannery O'Connor, but those bizarre stories are cloaked in an amusing demented atmosphere and southern sensibility, and Munro's are addressed as plain reality. Murder, cancer, depravity, on and down. Not fun.

Strange collection, and one great story

I bought this one because the description (and the title story) is about a female mathematician's life - of great relevance to my own career. And, as it turns out, it is indeed a part biography of THE Sonia Kovalevskaya, who is well known in mathematics! Not a made-up story but a true story, that Alice Munro tells us, was inspired by her reading of "Little Sparrow".

I liked that part of the book and found it both engrossing, poignant, and moving. How times have changed (thank goodness!)

As for the rest of the collection in this book, I still have to think about what the author is trying to tell us. I "don't get it" yet. But it has gotten me thinking.

The performance is fine, but I don't like the distraction of switching between male and female voices.