It’s time to cram way too many possessions into the car along with your immediate loved ones. Strap in and off you go to faraway places where hopefully more loved ones await your arrival or the destination is worth the trip, say that snowy mountainside beautifully dusted with fresh powder.

That is if you can make it without killing each other!

This is where Books on CD come in so handy. How about a story so compelling and told in such a wonderful way that the miles fly by?

Here are the selections our very own Audio Book Diva Pat T. has chosen as her favorites of the year. She guarantees that you will not notice the length of the trip and she also feels that some of these may lead to those "driveway moments" where you need to stay in the car at the end of your journey to find out what happens next because the story is that good.

 Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese is a department favorite for 2009. We all love it and for those lucky enough to get the audio format that love has increased. This is more than the story of Marion and Shiva, two identical twin brothers. This is the story of their adoptive parents, the long lasting effects of abandonment and what it means to have a calling. Throw in the history of Ethiopia during its most tumultuous and what you have is a big fat rich wonderful novel that we will be rereading and listening to in the years ahead.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is read by four actresses which gives this audio the feeling of listening to a  wonderful play or radio program. It’s Jackson Mississippi and it is 1962. Skeeter Phelanhas just graduated from college and is feeling adrift in the world until she decides to blow the cover off the racial injustices showed to the black maids by her friends by writing down their stories. This is a glimpse into a society that is about to change forever and rightfully so. 

Strength in What Remains is read by its author Tracy Kidder who tells the remarkable story of Deo a young medical student who fled from the horrors of the civil war in Burundi to the streets of New York with $200 in his pocket. Through the kindness of strangers and his own perseverance Deo managed to attend Columbia University, finish his medical degree and become a US citizen. And as if that were not accomplishment enough, he has given his homeland of Burundi a medical clinic, and public health system. This has all the classic elements of an immigrant’s journey it also has the clear journalistic eye of Kidder to tell it. 

 Malcolm Gladwell is back and asking his usual questions in Outliers:  The Story of Success. What is it that makes some of us so successful in life while some people never do realize their true potential? Gladwell believes in ‘right place at the right time" and the importance of upbringing and circumstances in the success or failure of endeavors. The wonky bits of trivia are enough to keep even the most fidgety riveted.

Happy Holidays and Safe Travels!