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Title: Hot Water Music

Author: Charles Bukowski

Narrator: Christian Baskous

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-13-13

Publisher: HarperAudio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 59 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Hot Water Music is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, published in 1983. The collection deals largely with: drinking, women, gambling, and writing. It is an important collection that establishes Bukowski's minimalist style and his thematic oeuvre.

Members Reviews:

Awesome collection of short stories

I've read probably 20+ Bukowski books. I enjoy his novels and poetry, but the short story collections have always been hit or miss. I had never read Hot Water Music before, but I figured to get it on Audible and give it a shot. I am very, very impressed with it. The stories are all very short. Most of them involve the types of 'ordinary madness' that Bukowski wrote about so well. I am very pleased I bought this audio and I will listen to again in the future.

Not the best of Buk's stuff

I found a few things somewhat comical, but overall it was incoherent and dull. I struggled to keep interest and one story sounded like the next.

Not his best but definitely ALRIGHT

Maybe a 5. Certainly not less than a 4. Short stories is Chanaski's creme... Great via audio

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Title: Save Yourself

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Kelly Braffet

Narrator: Michael Goldstrom

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-06-13

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 81 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

A gripping novel full of suspense and pathos that Dennis Lehane calls an "electrifying, tomahawk missile of a thriller".

Patrick Cusimanos life cant get much worse. His father is in jail, he works the midnight shift at a grubby convenience store, and his brothers girlfriend, Caro, has pushed their friendship to an uncomfortable new level. On top of all that, he cant shake the attentions of Layla Elshere, a goth teenager who befriends Patrick for reasons he doesnt understand, and doesnt fully trust. The temptations these two women offer are pushing Patrick to his breaking point.

Meanwhile, Laylas little sister, Verna, is suffering through her first year of high school. Shes become a prime target for her cruel classmates, and not just because of her strange name and her fundamentalist parents. Laylas bad-girl rep casts a shadow too heavy for Verna to bear alone, so she falls in with her sisters tribe of outcasts. But their world is far darker than she ever imagined.

Unless Patrick, Layla, Caro, and Verna can forge their own twisted paths to peace - with themselves, with each other - then theyre stuck on a dangerous collision course where the stakes couldnt be higher.

Kelly Braffet has written a novel of unnerving power - darkly compelling, compulsively addictive, and shockingly honest.

Critic Reviews:

"This summers must-read.... Braffet expertly captures the suffocating confines of small-town life and the desperation of its outliers, with prose that simmers and thrums.... The tension Braffet generates becomes nearly unbearable, and the conclusion, when it comes, feels satisfying and thoroughly earned." (Laura Miller, Salon)

"Kelly Braffet is the real deal. Save Yourself is an electrifying, tomahawk missile of a thriller with honest-to-God people at its core. It rocks the house." (Dennis Lehane, author of Live by Night)

"Kelly Braffets Save Yourself is that rare and beautiful thing - a novel that takes us to dark places not just through vivid storytelling but also through keen emotional force. Its a tale of damaged families and the perilous weight of the past, and as the action rushes toward its chilling conclusion, youll find yourselves breathless, shaken, moved." (Megan Abbott, author of Dare Me)

Members Reviews:

Just Depressing!

What would have made Save Yourself better?

I kept waiting for something to happen. The characters just keep making poor choice after poor choice. BORING!

Have you listened to any of Michael Goldstroms other performances before? How does this one compare?

No but the narration is fine it was the content that disappointed me.

The worst book I've ever listened.

This book got some rave reviews. Someone said that "if you liked Gone Girl you will love this!" NOT!! It was sooo boring and slow but I kept listening thinking that any minute it would get better. It didn't. It was one long depressing train wreck. "Save Yourself" should've been named, "Save Your Money".

Not what I was expecting

The book was not a murder mystery or anything similar. It involved characters that were hard for me to relate to or like.

Unfortunate story subject, needed more closure

What did you like best about Save Yourself? What did you like least?

I read this book because I saw somewhere that it was comparable to Girl on a Train - it wasn't.

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Title: Return to Longbourn

Subtitle: The Next Chapter in the Continuing Story of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Author: Shannon Winslow

Narrator: Marian Hussey

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-25-13

Publisher: Heather Ridge Arts

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 191 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

What will happen to the Bennet females now that Mr. Bennet has died? With Mr. Tristan Collins on his way from America to claim his property, Mrs. Bennet hatches her plan. The new heir to Longbourn simply must marry one of her daughters. Nothing else will do. Will it be Mary or Kitty singled out for this dubious honor? When the gentleman in question turns out to be quite a catch after all, the contest between the sisters is on. Which one will be the next mistress of Longbourn? Or will a dark horse step in to muddy the picture? Darcy, Elizabeth, and the rest of the Pride and Prejudice cast are back as the socially awkward Mary emerges from the shadows to take center stage in Shannon Winslow's long-awaited sequel to her best-selling novel, The Darcys of Pemberley.

Many Austen fans have a soft spot in their hearts for Mary and wonder if she might have the hidden makings of a heroine. Now, in Return to Longbourn, we learn what really makes her tick. Is she destined to be a governess forever, or will she overcome the misfortune of being 'plain' to find love and her own happy ending?

Members Reviews:

Decent but not fabulous Jane Austen knock-off

Any additional comments?

This is an amusing and well narrated story based on Jane Austen characters. The writing is mostly fine, but there are some lamentable lapses in diction, for example, a character says: "The thing of it is..." I find these stylistic lapses inexcusable. Even a single read-through of Jane Austen's novels should be enough that the author would know to write "The plain fact is" instead of "The thing of it is..."

That said, lovers of Jane Austen will probably enjoy this lively story that features many of the familiar faces of Pride and Prejudice.

A wonderful continuation to Pride and Prejudice

What made the experience of listening to Return to Longbourn the most enjoyable?

Just a wonderful story about the characters I fell in love with in Pride and Prejudice. It was wonderful to find that all the Bennett women find love and adventure in their lives.

What did you like best about this story?

Mary falling in love with Mr. Farnsworth, especially when it look like she would never find someone.

Which scene was your favorite?

I love the scene when Mr. Farnsworth tries to fluster Mary, but instead she puts him in his place without even raising her voice.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Love for everyone.

Any additional comments?

This was a great conclusion to the many questions I had after reading Pride and Prejudice. I can't think of anything else I would want to know.

Mary takes center stage.

very nice to have a story with the main characters as a backdrop. they really don't play that large a part (Elizabeth and Darcy) but rather Mary is the lead in this story and the story line around her is very creative and plausible and satisfying. great job.

Austen fans might enjoy

When one reads alll Jane Austen and know there arent any more left, one looks for fan fiction. Enjoyable read.

Thoroughly enjoyed!

I thoroughly enjoyed this continuation of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice. It was well written and performed. If you liked Pride and Prejudice, I highly recommend it!

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Title: And Sons

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: David Gilbert

Narrator: George Newbern

Format: Unabridged

Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-23-13

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 119 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Who is A. N. Dyer? & Sons is a literary masterwork for readers of The Art of Fielding, The Emperors Children, and Wonder Boys - the panoramic, deeply affecting story of an iconic novelist, two interconnected families, and the heartbreaking truths that fiction can hide.

A Newsday summer reading pick

The funeral of Charles Henry Topping on Manhattans Upper East Side would have been a minor affair (his 200-word obit in The New York Times notwithstanding) but for the presence of one particular mourner: the notoriously reclusive author A. N. Dyer, whose novel Ampersand stands as a classic of American teenage angst. But as Andrew Newbold Dyer delivers the eulogy for his oldest friend, he suffers a breakdown over the life hes led and the people hes hurt and the novel that will forever endure as his legacy. He must gather his three sons for the first time in many years - before its too late.

So begins a wild, transformative, heartbreaking week, as witnessed by Philip Topping, who, like his late father, finds himself caught up in the swirl of the Dyer family. First theres son Richard, a struggling screenwriter and father, returning from self-imposed exile in California. In the middle lingers Jamie, settled in Brooklyn after his 20-year mission of making documentaries about human suffering. And last is Andy, the half brother whose mysterious birth tore the Dyers apart 17 years ago, now in New York on spring break, determined to lose his virginity before returning to the prestigious New England boarding school that inspired Ampersand. But only when the real purpose of this reunion comes to light do these sons realize just how much is at stake, not only for their father but for themselves and three generations of their family.

In this daring feat of fiction, David Gilbert establishes himself as one of our most original, entertaining, and insightful authors. & Sons is that rarest of treasures: a startlingly imaginative novel about families and how they define us, and the choices we make when faced with our own mortality.

Critic Reviews:

"[A] big, rich book... With wit and heart, Gilbert illuminates the complicated ways that fathers and sons misunderstand, disappoint, and love one another and how their behavior affects the women in their lives." (Real Simple)

"A marvel of uproarious and devastating missteps and reversals charged with lightning dialogue, Gilberts delectably mordant and incisive tragicomedy of fathers, sons, and brothers, privilege and betrayal, celebrity and obscurity, ingeniously and judiciously maps the interface between truth and fiction, life and art. (Booklist)

"David Gilberts & Sons is that novel youve been waiting for without knowing you were waiting. Big, brilliant, and terrifically funny, its a moving story about fathers and sons and success, a dead-on, deadpan retelling of our American literary myth." (Jess Walter)

Members Reviews:

Full of brilliant bits and pieces

I came to this novel by way of a brilliant short story by David Gilbert in the "New Yorker" in which every detail is realistic and familiar - until the main character gets drunk and vomits, and the vomit turns out to be something like a baby. The rest of the story is about how he deals with the vomit baby, and it's funny, entertaining and truly heartbreaking. I wanted more of that. The novel "& Sons" is not like that short story.

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Title: Elders

Author: Ryan McIlvain

Narrator: Brian Hutchison

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-30-13

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

A glorious debut that T.C. Boyle calls "powerful and deeply moving" that follows two young Mormon missionaries in Brazil and their tense, peculiar friendship. Elder McLeod - outspoken, surly, a brash American - is nearing the end of his mission in Brazil. For nearly two years he has spent his days studying the Bible and the Book of Mormon, knocking on doors, teaching missionary lessons - "experimenting on the word". His new partner is Elder Passos, a devout, ambitious Brazilian who found salvation and solace in the church after his mothers early death. The two men are at first suspicious of each other, and their work together is frustrating, fruitless. That changes when a beautiful woman and her husband offer the missionaries a chance to be heard, to put all of their practice to good use, to test the mettle of their faith. But before they can bring the couple to baptism, they must confront their own long-held beliefs and doubts, and the simmering tensions at the heart of their friendship.

Members Reviews:

Interesting look at Mormons from the inside!

Ryan McIlvain, the author of Elders, did a great job of writing the story of two Mormon missionaries and creating enough conflict between them to make a good book. The tension between the two characters builds and builds to a level where the reader just HAS to know how its going to turn out. The even bigger conflict is the internal one in the mind of Elder McLeod, the American missionary. It becomes apparent to the reader that Elder McCloud is not really suited to the Mormon way of life, but hes been brought up in it and has to realize this in his own way and on his own timeline. It is a real feat that the author is able to make this timeline interesting by combining these two conflicts and coming up with a very readable, enjoyable book.

Elders is also an interesting look at the Mormon religion. Most of the rules that are revealed in the book are almost unbelievable to me, but I found it fascinating to read about them and how the young people, or all the people, in the book deal with these rules. Ive been on the inside of the door which Ive locked to avoid the Mormons because I do NOT want to hear their proselytizing, but this book gave me an opportunity, without having to open the door, to read about what they are like, and what it might be like to be a Mormon. I cant help thinking of Mitt Romney and wondering if they told HIM to wear his blue jeans to bed at night to help guard against the evils of masturbation!

After reading Elders, I found an interesting interview with the author, Ryan McIlvain on Fresh Air with Terri Gross on NPR, by the way. That is worth a listen!

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Title: Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

Author: Mo Yan, Howard Goldblatt (translator)

Narrator: Feodor Chin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 24 hrs and 11 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-16-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 62 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Todays most revered, feared, and controversial Chinese novelist, Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan, offers a tour de force in which the real, the absurd, the comical, and the tragic are blended into a fascinating narrative. The heroor antiheroof Mo Yans new novel is Ximen Nao, a landowner known for his benevolence to his peasants. His story is a deliriously unique journey and absolutely riveting tale that reveals the authors love of a homeland beset by ills inevitable, political, and traditional.

Critic Reviews:

"A wildly visceral and creative novel.... A vast, cruel, and complex story." (The New York Times Book Review)

Members Reviews:

Five Flowerings in the era of Communist China

I was intrigued by the paperbank my husband had borrowed from the library and didn't know if he liked. I got the Audible version, due to limited vision, and now I can't wait to download the next of MoYan's works.

The story takes place over 50 years of pilitical and cultural change in China, from shortly before Mao Zedong came to power, to Y2K. it also encompasses 5 incarnations, each with its own elemental force from Chinese 5 Element Taoist philosophy, as an undertone. The several lives that Xi Men Nao has to serve to cleanse his heart of bad sentiments each serve to tie family politics and ancenstral duty with the political upheavals of the period.

it is a story with rich modern Chinese flavor, a but of surrealism reminiscebt of One Hundred Years of Solitude, and a structure and purpose that strobgly recalled Midnight's Children to me.

Mo Yan is a remarkable loudmoyth of an author, and I'm lookibg forward to listening to all his books.

REINCARNATION

China becomes communist in the 1940s under the leadership of Mao Zedong. Communism seeks re-distribution of private land into cooperatives to benefit the many at the expense of the few. Mo Yans story begins with Chinas communist revolution and the unjust murder and confiscation of a landowners farm.

The murdered landowner is Ximen Nao. After death, Ximen Nao falls into an imagined purgatory to be, presumably, cleansed of his sins. Despite severe torture, Ximen Nao refuses purgatorys judgment of sin. In consequence, or happenstance, he is reincarnated as a donkey. The twist in his reincarnation is that he remembers his former life. Returning to life as a donkey, he meets former employees, a wife, two mistresses, and his children.

Ximen Nao, as a donkey, returns to his homeland and finds that his former employee has married one of his mistresses and is farming 6 acres of his confiscated land. Ximen Nao, as a reincarnated donkey, gains a grudging respect for his former employee. The employee steadfastly resists public ownership (becoming part of a communist co-op) and insists on being an independent farmer. (Communist Chinas law allows a farmer to be independent if they choose to work the land themselves.)

Finding the right balance in life is an overriding theme in Mo Yans story. As the inscription on the temple of Apollo at Delphi suggests, Nothing in excess; Aristotle, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain and many others have suggested moderation in all things. Mo Yan suggests that both Chinese communism and capitalism fail to offer the right balance in life.

The Magnificent Journey

This is a great journey and well worth the time to listen. The characters are alive in the story and bring insight into your life.

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Title: The Fever Tree

Author: Jennifer McVeigh

Narrator: Jayne Paterson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-04-13

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 58 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Having drawn comparisons to Gone with the Wind and Out of Africa, The Fever Tree is a pause resistor of the very first order.

Frances Irvine, left destitute in the wake of her fathers sudden death, has been forced to abandon her life of wealth and privilege in London and emigrate to the Southern Cape of Africa. 1880 South Africa is a country torn apart by greed. In this remote and inhospitable land she becomes entangled with two very different men - one driven by ambition, the other by his ideals. Only then the rumor of a smallpox epidemic takes her into the dark heart of the diamond mines does she see her path to happiness.

But this is a ruthless world of avarice and exploitation, where the spoils of the rich come at a terrible human cost and powerful men will go to any lengths to keep the mines in operation. Removed from civilization and disillusioned by her isolation, Frances must choose between passion and integrity, a decision that has devastating consequences.

The Fever Tree is a compelling portrait of colonial South Africa, its raw beauty and deprivation alive in equal measure. But above all it is a love story about how - just when we need it most - fear can blind us to the truth.

Members Reviews:

Colorful Historical Fiction

Any additional comments?

A childhood of pampered luxury does not prepare Frances to be left penniless and friendless on the death of her father after his business fails. In desperation, she marries a young man whom she despises. This man brings her to South Africa, where he is trying to build a medical practice. We are now in the milieu of the 19th c. diamond boom, in which unscrupulous white men exploited the Africans without mercy. Just as Frances begins to make some tentative steps towards contentment in her new life, her husband is transferred from a field station where he inoculates people against small pox to the city of Kimberly, a rough town built up around a huge open pit where the workers are beaten, tortured, and routinely crushed in the unsafe mining conditions. To Frances' dismay, her husband is an outspoken critic of the mine-owners' corrupt treatment of workers. His speeches and articles put both of them at risk for their lives.At this point, Frances makes the disastrous decision to reach out to a man with whom she had an affair on the boat from England. Readers recognize this man as a stinker through and through, but Frances' characterization is done with such skill that we understand and almost sympathize with her.This is a good story, a vivid historical novel, and a fun romantic narrative. It is not among the very great historical novels like Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies, but it is thoroughly entertaining and interesting, especially in its evocation of mining in South Africa. The narration is absolutely terrific.

I should just add that some of the love scenes are fairly explicit.

Would not recommend

An interesting time and place and topic, and a good writer, but the main character is so painfully weak and dumb that I could barely finish and wouldn't recommend it.

Interesting about South Africa, but weak ending

The story about diamond mining in South Africa was nteresting, but the contrived ending was the reason for three stars.

good book great performance

loved this book so different than any others that I have read. loved hearing about South Africa and even the small pox. loved the two characters Francis and Edwin.

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Title: The Flamethrowers

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Rachel Kushner

Narrator: Christina Traister

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-02-13

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 351 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

The year is 1975 and Reno - so-called because of the place of her birth - has come to New York intent on turning her fascination with motorcycles and speed into art. Her arrival coincides with an explosion of activity in the art world - artists have colonized a deserted and industrial SoHo, are staging actions in the East Village, and are blurring the line between life and art. Reno meets a group of dreamers and raconteurs who submit her to a sentimental education of sorts. Ardent, vulnerable, and bold, she begins an affair with an artist named Sandro Valera, the semi-estranged scion of an Italian tire and motorcycle empire. When they visit Sandros family home in Italy, Reno falls in with members of the radical movement that overtook Italy in the seventies. Betrayal sends her reeling into a clandestine undertow.

The Flamethrowers is an intensely engaging exploration of the mystique of the feminine, the fake, the terrorist. At its center is Kushners brilliantly realized protagonist, a young woman on the verge. Thrilling and fearless, this is a major American novel from a writer of spectacular talent and imagination.

Members Reviews:

Stories come gushing out of this book

Cradled in a fine evocation of the world of the New York art scene circa 1976 and the tumult of labor protests in Italy are a torrent of shorter narratives, almost like a Thousand and One Nights. Most though not all of the stories she tells are enjoyable and contribute to the world she's portraying. I'm not certain it all hangs together, but I suspect I'll be chewing this one over for a while.

The narrator has a pleasant voice that is just right for the protagonist's unsure 23-year-old self. When she says "I" you really believe she's the one telling you this story. However, her intonation is sometimes way off, as if she's concentrating on keeping a smooth delivery at the expense of understanding what she's saying.

Motorcycle ride through the counterculture 70's

What did you love best about The Flamethrowers?

When I decided to listen to The Flamethrowers I was guardedly hopeful that the world Rachel Kushner was brazened enough to tackle, the world of gritty, downtown New York in the 1970s, would live up to my expectations. Expectations set high since I am long time resident of lower Manhattan with an appreciation of art and counter intuitive thinking, both central elements of that place and time. She did not disappoint. Ms. Kushners knowledge of art, the people and places that made up the scene and the meticulous research of events swirling in the 70s is spot on. This allowed her to recreate with accuracy the mood of deserted cobblestoned streets and dilapidated lofts, populated by colorfully independent, smart and destructive urban nomads.

Ms. Kushner is not only an imaginative story teller weaving truths with flights of fantasies but she has the ability to write in loving prose beautifully rendering even the grimy haunts of counterculture New York as it teeters on the edge of anarchy and bankruptcy.

The story shifts gears as smoothly as a high performance motorcycle as it speeds across the salt flats from New York to Italy and the South Pacific. To enhance the mood of the 70s, she creates a loosely structured plot like time itself, made up of rivulets of events that swirl and mingle into the larger river of time and history.

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Title: The Edge of the Earth

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Christina Schwarz

Narrator: Candace Thaxton

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-02-13

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 18 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

In 1898, a woman forsakes the comfort of home and family for a love that takes her to a remote lighthouse on the wild coast of California. What she finds at the edge of the earth, hidden between the sea and the fog, will change her life irrevocably.

Trudy, who can argue Kant over dinner and play a respectable portion of Mozart's Serenade in G major, has been raised to marry her childhood friend and assume a life of bourgeois comfort in Milwaukee. She knows she should be pleased, but she's restless instead, yearning for something she lacks even the vocabulary to articulate. When she falls in love with enigmatic and ambitious Oskar, she believes she's found her escape from the banality of her preordained life.

But escape turns out to be more fraught than Trudy had imagined. Alienated from family and friends, the couple moves across the country to take a job at a lighthouse at Point Lucia, California - an unnervingly isolated outcropping, trapped between the ocean and hundreds of miles of inaccessible wilderness. There they meet the light station's only inhabitants - the formidable and guarded Crawleys. In this unfamiliar place, Trudy will find that nothing is as she might have predicted, especially after she discovers what hides among the rocks.

Gorgeously detailed, swiftly paced, and anchored in the dramatic geography of the remote and eternally mesmerizing Big Sur, The Edge of the Earth is a magical story of secrets and self-transformation, ruses and rebirths. Christina Schwarz, celebrated for her rich evocation of place and vivid, unpredictable characters, has spun another haunting and unforgettable tale.

Members Reviews:

Not worth the time!

This story was so flat and uninteresting! I really can't believe people have rated it so high. The characters are blah and the story lacks depth and complexity. Don't waste your time and money here!

Surprise Ending

An abrupt, surprising ending to a book that started out slowly. The character development was terrific and the author was able to give sufficient descriptive information about the surroundings and the people without going overboard with the adjectives.

Irritating characters, good setting, great reading

Schwarz does an incredible job creating people and settings. The lighthouse is practically tangible, and the book is worth reading just for the setting. I tend to have a low threshold for obnoxious characters, and this book has many--so many, I was practically grinding my teeth. However, Candace Thaxton does a great job breathing life into the story, which ties together lives from the past and present.

Atmospheric, though a little slow

The performance and narrator is great, but the story ambles along very slowly and though it's steeped in fascinating facts about life at a lighthouse station at the time, I struggled to finish

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Title: The Infinite Tides

Author: Christian Kiefer

Narrator: Colin Smith

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-02-13

Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 12 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Keith Corcoran has spent his entire life preparing to be an astronaut. At the moment of his greatness, finally aboard the International Space Station, hundreds of miles above the Earths swirling blue surface, he receives word that his 16-year-old daughter has died in a car accident, and that his wife has left him. Returning to Earth, and to his now empty suburban home, he is alone with the ghosts, the memories, and feelings he can barely acknowledge, let alone process. He is a mathematical genius, a brilliant engineer, a famous astronaut, but nothing in his life has readied him for this.

With its endless interlocking culs-de-sac, big box stores, and vast parking lots, contemporary suburbia is not a promising place to recover from such trauma. But healing begins through new relationships, never Keiths strength, first as a torrid affair with one neighbor, and then as an unlikely friendship with another, a Ukrainian immigrant who every evening lugs his battered telescope to the weed-choked vacant lot at the end of the street. Gazing up at the heavens together, drinking beer and smoking pot, the two men share their vastly different experiences and slowly reveal themselves to each other, until Keith can begin to confront his loss and begin to forgive himself for decades of only half-living.

The Infinite Tides is a deeply moving, tragicomic, and ultimately redemptive story of love, loss, and resilience. It is also an indelible and nuanced portrait of modern American life that renders both our strengths and weaknesses with great and tender beauty.

Members Reviews:

Bleak & grief-filled, but also perfectly wonderful

I began reading The Infinite Tides almost immediately after I finished Kiefer's 5-star book, The Animals. I think I was expecting (and hoping for) more of the same exciting plot, a main character I loved, written almost like poetry. The author himself had warned me that My first book is a much different animal. Its meant to have almost zero velocity (like a Henry James novel) and spins in one place (purposefully, I mean), so you may have to get into it in a different way. Of course, he was completely right, and at one point I had to put the book down for a few days. I ended up re-starting The Infinite Tides from the beginning, just reading, without any expectations, and let Kiefer's writing once again work its magic on me.

This book is a much different animal, and the fact that Kiefer is capable of writing such completely different books, each excellent in their own way, is part of why this is another 5-star read. I won't recount the plot, but it is imaginative, original, and horrifying. The main character, astronaut Keith Corcoran, is not a completely likeable guy, but how he deals with (or doesn't deal with) the bleak, grief-filled circumstances of his life form the basis of his this book. Several characters question Keith's devotion and single-mindedness in becoming an astronaut, and note that that path has ill-prepared him for life after he has reached this pinnacle. He has this truly interesting, synesthesia-like relationship with numbers, and relates to them much better than to people. I appreciated the juxtaposition of how math has answers and logic but human nature is often completely without logic or answers.