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Title: The President's Murderer

Author: Jennifer Bassett

Narrator: Nicollette McKenzie

Format: Abridged

Length: 1 hr and 8 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-09-10

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

A man is running in the night. He is afraid and needs to rest. But there are people behind him - people with lights, and dogs, and guns. A man is standing in front of a desk. His boss is very angry, and the man is tired and needs to sleep. But first he must find the other man, and bring him back - dead or alive.Two men: the hunter and the hunted. Which will win and which will lose?

An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English.

Critic Reviews:

"The most consistent of all series in terms of language control, length, and quality of storytelling." (David R. Hill, ELT Journal Review)

Members Reviews:

A Wonderful Story

President's Murder book is a wonderful story about people that have the political power. The book describes the characters such as, Alex Dino is great man, he is smart and clever, so he understands the situation and he assumes with coldness. He keeps the police in suspense. He knows that he will die soon, but he didn't have alternative because the chief of police knows and it is seems the chief of the military knows. The people in the towns don't like the policeman and military, so they help Alex Dino. It seems to the people in the town that Dino wasn't the president's murder. Eva Hine is the chief policeman. She is strong, hard and evil, so she is very cool and dangerous. She received the order from New President. Felix is police officer, he is a good man and an excellent worker, but he received the order from Eva Hine his Chief policeman he didn't want do it, but he is the only police officer, he only accomplished an order. Martha is an old woman; she represents feelings of the town and she is very nice and a good woman. She helps Alex Dino.

I think that the author was inspired by the event of John F. Kennedy is murder. I think that the president's murder story was always an actual story, because no people were ever satisfied with a president, so he always has enemies, but also many people are his friends. The author had the vision of seeing the past, present and future of politics. The story of President's murder teaches me how different people act, so the political power is most powerful, the policeman and military are second most powerful and civil people the third most powerful.

The President's Murderer story is like a people of different ages that are interested in politics and mysteries.

The President's Murderer

This story talks about a convict who escaped from prison and everybody thought he killed the old president. The new president ordered the Chief of Police to kill the presidents murderer. So the Inspector was in charge of this case with his partner Adam to arrest the convict who was Presidents murderer. The convict kept running and running.

At first, I liked this story, because it made me keep reading down and I didnt feel bored. But I dont like the end of story much. Its not fair for the convict and it seems that the story is not really finished. If I were author, I would like to change the end of story. I hope the story has good ending.

From this story, I learn something. People cant just see everything on one side or only on the surface. We have to watch inside and find out the real answer. Maybe the bad man is not really bad.

Magno's review

The President's Murderer by Jennifer Basset, is a book of action from the start to the end.

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Title: The Disappeared

Author: Kim Echlin

Narrator: Tandy Cronyn

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-29-10

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Acclaimed novelist Kim Echlin pens this Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist that Publishers Weekly calls a powerful, transcendent love story. The Disappeared follows two young lovers torn apart by political turmoil. At 16, Anne meets Sereya Cambodian refugeein Montréal and falls passionately in love. But Annes father does not approve of her new boyfriend. Then Serey leaves Anne for Cambodia to find his family, and Anne hears no news of him for years. Could her father be censoring her letters, or is Serey not receiving them? In search of answers, Anne travels to Cambodia herselfand witnesses the devastating fallout of the Khmer Rouge dictatorship. Echlin has crafted a stunning portrait of love and courage played out against the horrors of genocide. A moving performance by narrator Tandy Cronyn elegantly captures the lyrical tone of Echlins story.

Critic Reviews:

The beautifully spare narrative is daringly imaginative (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Love and Loss

Kim Echlin's third novel is a powerful story of passion, longing and unresolved grief. Echlin has evolved a distinctive writing style, elegant, lyrical and highly evocative, but the story suffers from structural flaws that made it ultimately unsatisfying for me. The author researched Cambodian history thoroughly and the book derives much strength from details and anecdotes drawn from her readings. Her descriptions of Cambodia and the Khmer people are vivid and faithful, as is her portrayal of the brutality and ruthlessness of the post-Pol Pot era.

But the story really focuses on the narrator's obsessive love for her Cambodian boyfriend Serey and her ceaseless efforts to find him when he vanishes, not once but twice. And although Echlin's contemplation of her anguish is explicit and beautifully drawn, it becomes excessive towards the end and the reader's sympathy starts to wane.

The book is perhaps more interesting as an exploration of the psychology of grief than as a novel, but I do think that Echlin is on the verge of writing truly great fiction. I will look for her work in the future.

Bookclub Pick

Interesting read for my bookclub this summer.

This is my all time favorite book. I have read it multiple times and ...

This is my all time favorite book. I have read it multiple times and each time I am taken on a journey through an array of human emotions - all consuming love, heartbreak, grief, joy, confusion, clarity and so on.

Poignant love story

This is a beautiful love story with magical moments that is also an insight into the horror of the Kampuchea purge. it is very lyrical and soulful and the understated prose makes it all the more heart wrenching.

A joy to savor

Elegant language, each sentence a treat! This is what reading is about--a tour of others' journeys in time and space.

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Title: The Ancient Curse

Author: Valerio Massimo Manfredi

Narrator: Rufus Jones

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-15-10

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 33 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

In the middle of the night at the Museum of Volterra, young archeologist Fabrizio Castellani is immersed in his work - research into the famous Etruscan statue known as The Shade of Twilight. Completely engrossed, he is startled by the phone ringing. An icy female voice warns him to abandon his work at once.

A series of gruesome killings shortly follow, throwing the people of Volterra into a panic. The victims - all involved in the descration of an unexplored tomb - have been torn to pieces by a beast of unimaginable size. Fabrizio is in charge of excavating this Etruscan tomb.

What is hiding inside the enigmatic statue? What lies behind the bloodthirsty rage that has lain in wait for all these centuries? What tragedy is hidden behind the inscription? Will Fabrizio manage to unravel these secrets without being sucked into the spiral of violence himself?

Members Reviews:

All Consuming Book!

From the moment I started listening to this book I was hooked. The story as it unfolded was absorbing,& equally matched with the excellent narration.I must admit I listened to most of it in one session [not quite able to listen in full due to battery over ussage!]

It is a book I could listen to all over again within a short space of time. I guess it can be summed up as my type of book and would reccommend to like minded people who enjoy forensic/sci-fi/ horror & fantasy books.

aidan

Disappointing. Very straight plotline and one dimensional characters.

Good book let down by narration by Darth Vader

Excellent listen, just wish narrator didnt sound like the dark lord vader, with his exagerated gasp at the beginning of each sentence. Really annoying ! But you get used to it as you become immersed in the story

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Title: The Quickening Maze

Author: Adam Foulds

Narrator: Graeme Malcolm

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-04-10

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 17 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Based on real events, The Quickening Maze won over UK critics and readers alike with its rapturous prose and vivid exploration of poetry and madness. In 1837, after years of struggling with alcoholism and depression, the great nature poet John Clare finds himself in High Beacha mental institution located in Epping Forest on the outskirts of London. It is not long before another famed writer, the young Alfred Tennyson, moves nearby and grows entwined in the catastrophic schemes of the hospitals owner, the peculiar Dr. Matthew Allen, his lonely adolescent daughter, and a coterie of mysterious local characters. With lyrical grace, the cloistered world of High Beach and its residents are brought richly to life in this enchanting book.

Critic Reviews:

Exceptional earthy and true, but shifting, metamorphicthe word-perfect fruit of a poets sharp eye and novelists limber reach. (Times (London))

Members Reviews:

Beautiful prose but story fell flat

I was eager to hear this story due to my love of poetry and interest in the link between poetry and mental illness. So much of this was beautifully written and narrated, but I found it hard to follow the constantly changing point of view. I thought too many stories were told without greater effect for having included them. Overall, gorgeus but ultimately boring.

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Title: Leaving the World

Author: Douglas Kennedy

Narrator: Kate Harper

Format: Unabridged

Length: 18 hrs and 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-16-10

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 10 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

On the night of her 13th birthday, Jane Howard made a vow to her warring parents she would never get married and she would never have children. But life, as Jane comes to discover, is a profoundly random business.

Many years and many lives later, she is a professor in Boston, in love with a brilliant, erratic man named Theo. And then Jane falls pregnant. Motherhood turns out to be a great welcome surprise but when a devastating turn of events tears her existence apart she has no choice but to flee all she knows and leave the world.

Just when she has renounced life itself, the disappearance of a young girl pulls her back from the edge and into an obsessive search for some sort of personal redemption. Convinced that she knows more about the case than the police do, she is forced to make a decision stay hidden or bring to light a shattering truth.

Douglas Kennedys exceptional new novel is a portrait of the way we live now, of the many routes we follow in the course of a single life, and of the arbitrary nature of destiny. Like his previous highly acclaimed novels it is also a compulsive read and one which speaks volumes about the dilemmas we face in trying to navigate our way through all that fate throws in our path.

Members Reviews:

Seriously? This book got published?

A genuinely bad story with an equally bad narrator.

To use Douglas Kennedys repetitive reference to the word narrative, this one is exceptionally weak. Its basically just two different stories lumped together. Its as though he desperately needed to get a book out so he blabbered on and on through one meaningless story, trying to find a path for it. Then completely out of the blue, he had a bright idea for a better storyline, so to avoid having to re-write the entire thing, he just shoved the two stories together so that it might sound interesting and not be kicked clean out the door by the publishers. He didnt even have the decency to bother to try and find a link between the two stories. And then to add insult to injury, he ended the book with an unfinished plot and a lame cliché.

The first three quarters of the book are so pointless that I would suggest to any listener that they completely skip past both Parts 1 and 2, and start listening from one hour into Part 3. This is the only section of the entire book that contains any semblance of a real plot and has some guts to it. Everything else prior to this point makes the main protagonist look weak, directionless and pathetically gullible. Part 1 and Part 2 are simply there to pass the time.

Then theres the false notion that Douglas Kennedy has about his ability to convincingly pull off a lead female protagonist. How many women do you know who repeatedly use phrases like dropping money on buying a sports car or renting a flat, or chasing down pills with Vodka? Seriously? He really imagines women talk like this?

And finally we get to the narrator. Kate Harpers manly voice is so gruff, it sounds like shes smoked way too many boxes of Marlboros in her time.

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Title: Bill Warringtons Last Chance

Author: James King

Narrator: Joe Barrett

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-05-10

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

This insightful novel follows Bill Warrington, an elderly Korean War veteran and widower, on his quest to reconcile with his three grown children. When his 15-year-old granddaughter, April, runs away from home, Bill obliges her wish to drive from Ohio to San Francisco, where she hopes to become a rock singer. As the unlikely pair head west, he leaves clues intended to force Aprils mother and uncles to overcome their grievances and mutual distrust and work together to find them.

A rich multigenerational saga, Bill Warringtons Last Chance soars with humor, compassion, and unflinching insight into the pain and joy of all family life, while the promise of a new generation shines bright against the ravages of aging in a man who does not go gentlyanywhere.

Critic Reviews:

[A] nicely tuned road trip novel from 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awardwinner King.The spirited interplay between the gruff but wounded Bill and the perhaps too precocious April provides the most sensitive scenes in this enjoyable first novel. (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

This is a very good book

It is hard not to relate to the characters. Good plot; story well told. Well worth a serious look and a good read.

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Title: It All Began in Monte Carlo

Author: Elizabeth Adler

Narrator: Susan Boyce

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-06-10

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 23 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Sunny Alvarez and Mac Reilly always seem to find trouble in the south of France. This time, all the trouble began in Monte Carlo. Sunnys relationship with Mac is in jeopardy, and Monte Carlo beckons.

Soon Sunny is pulled into a web of intrigue involving a series of robberies of high-end jewelry stores. Then theres her wanna-be-new-friend, who turns out to be a sociopath, involved in the sale of sex and in blackmail. Plus theres Sunnys old friend, movie star Allie Ray, who owns a vineyard in France and who comes to help sort Sunny out, while at the same time sorting out the life and appearance of her old friend, Pru Holster, with a makeover that not only changes her dowdy overweight appearance, but changes Pru into an amateur detective.

If Sunny doesnt untangle this plot, she might end up an unwitting accomplice to theft, blackmail and even murder. When Mac shows up, hes ready to do anything to get Sunny back, not the least of which is to solve the crimes and save her life.

Members Reviews:

What a waste

I have never been motivated to write a review before, but the only thing worse than this book was the unhealthy condition of the rest areas along the toll road in Indiana. I purchased this book because I've always enjoyed Elizabeth Adler's books. I wish I knew who kidnapped the real Elizabeth Adler and wrote this gosh darn awful book and tried to pass it off as one of hers. The characters were shallow, some were actually vile and unlikeable. The writing was repetitive and uninteresting. Had I not been in the middle of a cross country drive and had already relistened to every other audio book on my I-Pod I would not have even wasted my time finishing this book. If half a star was a rating choice, I would have gone with that choice. Please consider my one star rating of this book as an extremely generous one star review.

Not my favorite Adler

I think this lacks the amusing charm of some of Adler's other books. I really enjoyed Something About St Tropez because of the mix of quirky characters along with kids and dogs. This book was nowhere near as much fun.

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Title: The Shortest Distance Between Two Women

Author: Kris Radish

Narrator: Nicole Poole

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-09-10

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 13 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

From best-selling author Kris Radish comes this moving tale of family bonds and second chances. Forty three-year-old Emma Gilford has always been an obedient daughter and sister. But when a voice from the past comes calling, Emma wonders if its time to stop thinking of othersand start chasing her own desires.

Critic Reviews:

"[A] veteran at portraying female relationships, her affection for her characters shines through." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Common Drivel - Don't bother

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A story that doesn't reek with prejudice against single women and women who choose not to be mothers. Example: A comment about one of the sisters is that she doesn't have children, not because she's a selfish career woman, but because she couldn't have children. A selfish career woman? Uh... this is 2013. Career women are selfish? Really? Is Kris Radish not a career woman? If not, she's sure looks like one to me. Is she selfish then? Women have careers to support themselves and most often their families. What's selfish about that?

And the notion that women who don't have children are selfish, is ridiculous. I'd love for anyone to tell me one unselfish reason for having children in a world that's way too people populated and is dying because there are too many children already!!! What could be more selfish than adding to these problems? But also, is it selfish to have children because you want somebody to take care of you in your old age, or to have someone for you to love of to carry on the family name or to have someone who looks like you or any of the other reasons why people have children. Or worse yet, having children because it's just the thing to do or is expected. Mother Theresa didn't have children. Was she selfish? Oprah Winfrey didn't have children, along with Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, Jane Austen, Florence Nightingale, Emily Bronte, George Elliot, Frieda Kahlo. Are they all selfish? Why aren't men considered selfish when they don't have children?

This book is just a lot of romantic crap about families and relationships - oh, yes they have problems, but everything will work out just fine. Really? Emma is the single woman, one of 4 sisters. All the sisters have awful marriages and their children don't like them. Emma is adored by her niece and is the backbone of her dysfunctional family. But get this! The sisters and her mom all tell her that she's the one that doesn't have a life - that she has put off having a life? Are you kidding me? She has created beautiful gardens and loves plants and has a peaceful life with lots of love. Her siblings are in constant chaos. Emma just wants to lay down with her plants and be quiet. But everyone convinces her that she should return the phone calls of some jerk that's recently tried to contact her who left her many years ago because she's missing having a life!!!! OMG! This book is straight out of the 50's - yes! the 1950's!! I have read all of Radish's books, hoping that any of them would come close to one of her earlier books - Sunday List of Dreams - which I really liked. But everything since has been drivel. I guess it's true that a lot of authors have one good book in them. I guess that's Radish.

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Title: Unafraid

Subtitle: A Novel of the Possible

Author: Jeff Golden

Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-24-10

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 2.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Two dates burn fiercely in the memory of millions of Americans: November 22, 1963, and September 11, 2001. These two tragedies bracket Unafraid, a story grounded in a simple question: What if the fatal bullet fired on that sunny Dallas afternoon had veered three inches off target? Unafraid lays out a compelling answer, rich with the public adventures and private dramas of 20th-century iconsfrom J. Edgar Hoover to the Beatlesplayed out on a transformed world stage.

At the center of this parallel history is a leader who blows the sides out of conventional politics with the simple belief that the primary reason idealistic goals are impossible to achieve is that we have needlessly decided that they are. With a tiny imaginary spin of historys wheel, Unafraid opens the gates to an America of realistic hope and possibility.

Critic Reviews:

What an exciting, clever, imaginative book! And more, what an insightful, important one. This is the Great Read youve been looking for. (Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God)

Members Reviews:

As someone who lived through Kennedy's presidency and assignation in ...

As someone who lived through Kennedy's presidency and assignation in 1963, I found it very difficult buying into this story line, but I kept reading it non the less.. Unfortunately I thought it greatly stretched the imagination, and then towards the later part of the book it almost became a story of liberalism gone wrong!! JFK, by today's standards could almost be considered a moderate conserative, and he never would have bought into this "world order" pedaled in this book. This book betrays JFK as a "democratic socialist",though JFK was known and revered for the steps he took

towards integration, however he did not or would not have taken steps toward socialist policies in the U.S.or a world order.

Unafraid a novel of the possible

I bought this book as a kind of "What Might have been." examination. It seems to be set on 9/11, in a world where the terrorist attacks that haunt us to this day never happened. It is also through the eyes of the only survivor of that family, JFK's daughter Caroline. This and other books go off kilter when they have JFK dealing with and effortlessly solving problems that didn't even show up until long after he had passed away. The problem being this. These books are looking through the rose colored glasses of "Camelot". Had JFK and or RFK lived they would still have been Human beings subject to the sins that we all are.

Interesting idea.

Too bad this did not really happen. What a better world we might have.

Too Soon for me.

For those of us living through the Kennedy time, this "what if" approach to fiction might be unsettling . It was for me. Didn't finish the book.Perhaps 100 years from now the Kennedy family tragedies would be make for good historical fiction. Too soon for me.

Parts of this book were very dry reading and it ...

Parts of this book were very dry reading and it was all I could do to get through them. Other parts of the book were quite interesting and loosely based on historic facts. All-in-all, for the type of book it is, it was an okay read.

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Title: Kennedy's Brain

Author: Henning Mankell

Narrator: Anna Bentnick

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-21-10

Publisher: Random House AudioBooks

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

When archaeologist Louise Cantors son, Henrik, is found dead in his flat, she refuses to believe it was suicide. Clues that only a mother could detect lead her to believe something more sinister took place.

Henrik had kept many things back from her, and she is shocked to learn he had contracted HIV. While looking through his bundles of papers, she discovers he was obsessed with the conspiracy theory that JFKs brain disappeared prior to the autopsy along with the vital evidence regarding bullet exit wounds. The only lead is a letter and photograph from Henriks girlfriend in Mozambique.

Louises quest to unravel the mystery surrounding her sons death takes her to Africa; a continent rife with disease, poverty, and corruption. Struggling to cope with sickness and the oppressive heat, Louise sees fear in every face, even unexpectedly in the patients at the clinics set up by an American businessman. In Kennedys Brain Mankell confirms his status as a master of suspense, and delivers a timely and riveting thriller which will have readers on the edge of their seats until the very end.

Members Reviews:

A swedish heart of darkness

Although the narrator Anna Bentinck is extremely good, this book does not deliver on the promises of the publishers summary confirming Mankell's 'status as a master of suspense, and delivers a timely and riveting thriller which will have readers on the edge of their seats until the very end.' I am a keen fan of Mankell's Kurt Wallender mysteries and expected this book to have the same sort of pace and suspencefulness. It is agonisingly slow and contemplative and no-one could be in any doubt about what the death of her son means to the main character Louise Cantor. Mankell's portrayal of Africa - the ravages of Aids/HIV on the population, and ruthless expolitation by the 1st world rings horrifyingly true. And the parallels to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad are many - Kurtz, death, darkness and horror. Wandering about in the middle of this is a solitary, middleaged, vulnerable, fey Swedish archeologist discovering her son's secret life and looking for his killer to take revenge. The lack of any possible satisfactory resolution made it hard to finish. Your time would be better spent listening to Heart of Darkness and Audible has seveal versions available.

Disappointing: too polemical and rambling

I am a fan of Henning Mankell's Wallander novels and have enjoyed a couple of his non-detective books and so had high hopes that I would like Kennedy's Brain. There is little in the story to connect to the eponymous President's disappearing brain, but a lot about AIDS in Africa, a topic near to the heart of the author, and the inequities of US drug companies (which I do believe). The proselytizing gets in the way of the rather rambling story of archaeologist, Louise Cantor's, quest to find out why her son had died in mysterious circumstances in his Stockholm flat. Her quest takes her to Australia, Spain and Africa.