December 14, 2007

The play's the thing.

One of my favorite G. B. Shaw plays is Arms and the Man - aka The Chocolate Soldier. I missed the last revival performance and reading a play is as unsatisfying as reading poetry. These are genres that need performance and spoken words.

Enter L. A. Theatre Works.

The Library has a collection of L. A. Theatre Works performances on CD. The company brings together the world’s greatest actors to perform classic and contemporary plays, recorded in state-of-the-art sound quality. All of the performances are a joy to listen to while you're traveling, while you're exercising or just relaxing.

So if you missed seeing a performance of your favorite play this year, check out the Library's Books on CD collection. It's listening in a front row seat!

Posted by MaryF at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)

October 25, 2007

Time to Listen

Our shelves are bursting with new audio books we recently added to the collection.

Pastor Will Bowen challenged his congregation to go twenty-one consecutive days without complaining. His book, A Complaint Free World, explains what constitutes a complaint, why people complain, how complaining is destructive, and how to get others to stop.

David Halberstam explores the lesser-known elements of heroism and pathos that marked the Korean War and evaluates political decisions and miscalculations on both sides of the conflict in The Coldest Winter

Donna VanLiere brings us The Christmas Promise, a holiday story of interpersonal relationships. Taking what he hopes will be his first long-term job, lonely department store security officer Chaz McConnell reaches out to a four-year-old child, while Gloria Bailey, a charity worker who has taken in a single pregnant woman and a cantankerous senior, struggles with ensuing personality clashes

More audio book titles recently added:

Novels
Exit Ghost by Philip Roth read by George Guidall
Fire in the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky read by Mark Bramhall
Run by Ann Patchett read by Peter Francis James
The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta read by Campbell Scott
Home to Holly Springs A Father Tim Novel by Jan Karon read by Scott Sower (October 30th release date)
The Secret Life of Josephine by Carolly Erickson read by Margot Dionne
Protect and Defend by Vince Flynn read by George Guidall (October 30th release date)
Shoot Him If He Runs AStone Barrington Novel by Stuart Woods read by Tony Roberts
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold read by Joan Allen

Biographies and Memoirs
Clapton by Eric Clapton read by Simon Vance
Life’s a Campaign by Chris Matthews read by the author
Power to the People by Laura Ingraham read by the author
Escape by Carolyn Jessop read by Ann Marie Lee
Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks read by John Lee
A Time to Lead by Wesley K. Clark read by the author

Posted by MaryF at 04:44 PM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2007

New Books on CD

New this month to the Books on CD collection are Jeffrey Toobin's Nine, Alan Greenspan's Age of Turbulence, an audio book version of Ken Burns' The War, Phil Spector's Tearing Down the Wall of Sound and Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919.

Darien listeners can't seem to get enough of Nicholas Spark's novels on CD so we've updated and added new copies of his most popular books - A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Message in a Bottle and A Bend in the Road.

And if mysteries are your favorites, check out Ethel White's classic The Lady Vanishes, Martin Cruz Smith's Stalin's Ghost, Faye Kellerman's latest Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus novel The Burnt House or Harlen Coben's The Final Detail or One False Move.

Be on the look out for the following biographies that are on order: John McCain's Hard Call, Richard Frank's MacArthur and Nancy Gibbs The Preacher and the Presidents. And these classic mysteries are on order as well: Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers, Rex Stout's Too Many Women and P. D. James' An Unsuitable Job for a Woman.

Posted by MaryF at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)

September 08, 2007

For Audio Book Lovers Only

Attention audio book lovers. Here are some great new non-fiction books on CD to keep you informed, entertained and up-to-date. And don’t forget, the Library subscribes to AudioFile magazine. Each issue has reviews, hardware recommendations and articles on your favorite readers. Copies can be found in the Mazagine Reading Room.

Crashing Through by Robert Kurson
Dry; a Memoir by Augusten Burroughs
Age of Lincoln by Orville Vernon Burton
Men of Fire by Jack Hurst
Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power by Robert Dallek
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog by Ted Kerasote
Shaggy Muses: The dogs who inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickenson, Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Bronte by Maureen B. Adams
God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens

Posted by MaryF at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)

August 09, 2007

Of Gutenberg and iPhones

There’s more than one way to read a book. Bound pages are only one format available to the modern day reader. Books on CD, downloadable books, and Playaway - a new single cassette-like format now available, are all very popular with readers. According to a New York Times article, readers are using PDA’s, cell phones and Sony Readers to read books while waiting in lines at airports, banks, and restaurants. At Project Gutenberg, a resource for electronic formats of books no longer under copyright, over 17,000 books are available for downloads. iPhones can be used to read books in HTML or PDF formats.

I can’t think of anything better to take away the stress of waiting in line than being lost in a good book.

Posted by MaryF at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)

August 03, 2007

Audio Books. Cheating? IS NOT!

The New York Times recently ran an article that implied listening to an audio book was cheating. Book Group members felt guilty about listening to rather than reading the books that were going to be discussed. Avid listeners, don't waste one moment on guilt because listening to a book is not cheating!

Audio books are an extention of a fine tradition of storytelling that will probably outlast the printed word. Who cares how you absorb Jane Austen or Khaled Hosseini. Audio books have a depth and character all their own. And if the author is the one reading, you get an even greater insight into the work.

Here's a list of recently added Books on CD.
Don't hesitate to reserve your copy today.
It's the full literary experience.

New England White by Stephen Carter

The Quickie by James Patterson

The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell

Paris 1919 Six Months that Changed the World by Margaret Olwen Macmillian

Dog Days by Jon Katz

Forever on the Mountain by James Tabor

Posted by MaryF at 10:14 AM | Comments (1)