I commute to McClintic Library from the Mace/Mingo area, which in good weather is about a 40-45 minute drive.  This means I have a good chunk of time to devote to listening to audio books.  I thought I’d share with you some of the better books I’ve run across during the past couple of months.
If you listen to books too, you know that the reader can make or break a book.  It could be a wonderful story, a nail-biting suspense novel, but if the reader is bad, there’s just no getting past it.  However, if a reader is good, any book is a delight.  Even books you may never pick up to read can be made fascinating by a talented reader.  Here are some of my recent five-star audio experiences:
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett is set in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962, and is the story of a young white girl, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, who is just home from college and longs to be a writer.  She is told by a New York agent to select a topic that is close to her, and she settles on interviewing and then writing about the experiences of the black women who serve as the “help” for the white families in Jackson.  The audio version is performed by four women, and is not to be missed!  They give life to the characters of this excellent novel. 
Another treat for me was The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag, the second book in a new mystery series by Alan Bradley.  (The first book was The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.)  Bradley has given us a delightful character, Miss Flavia de Luce, an 11-year-old, precocious poison expert who lives in England in 1950. Flavia goes about solving mysteries in her little village of Bishop’s Lacey.  While I’ve heard people say they enjoyed the books, the audio books are such a wonderful listening experience!  The reader, Jayne Entwistle, does a remarkable job of portraying Flavia and all the folks in Bishop’s Lacey.  I highly recommend these, especially if you are looking for mysteries without the gore and creepiness.  You know, nice little murders.  You would enjoy Flavia very much.
Sometimes I listen to a book and think, “I don’t think I would have finished this, if I was reading it.”  This was the case when I listened to South of Broad by Pat Conroy.  The narrator for this book was excellent.  He kept the characters fresh, and the story just flowed for me.  I found myself just sitting in my garage after arriving home, listening to “just one more track.”
Right now I’m listening to The Passage by Justin Cronin.  This book had received a lot of pre-publication hype.  It’s the story of a virus being manufactured by the military that gets out of control, leading to vampire-like creatures on the loose and the end of civilization as we know it.  Those of you who love post-apocalyptic novels, this will be right up your alley!  The reader is very good, too.
Before you set out on your next road trip, be sure and stop in for an audio book.  It’s much better than reading while you drive!