means the book is unabridged (complete)
by Isabel Allende
Read by Elizabeth Peña. A hauntingly beautiful and mystical work, confirming Allende's reputation as one of the world's leading writers. Love, violence, nostalgia, compassion, irony-no emotion is left untouched in this stirringly told story of the internal and external conflicts of her wayward characters. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FAL003 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Dorothy Allison
Read by the author. The story of a young girl caught up in family violence and incest "... manages a rare feat: a child narrator who delivers her raw truth in remarkable, beautiful, original language."-Boston Phoenix. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FAL004 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.75
by Dorothy Allison
Read by the author. Allison, author of Bastard Out Of Carolina, tells the story of the Gibson women-sisters, cousins, daughters, aunts, and herself-and the men who loved them, often abused them, and nonetheless shared their destinies. Refusing to follow anyone's party line, she tells her stories as they are, as she has since she was a child. She is provocative, confrontational, and brutally honest. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FAL005 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Anonymous
Read by Blair Underwood. Young Henry Burton, a former congressional aide of mixed race, grandson of a legendary civil rights leader, is going through a precocious midlife crisis. Tired of the back-stabbing and back-scratching of legislative politics, he's wondering what to do next when the governor of a small southern state who has set his eye on the presidency shanghais him into a campaign staff job. What follows is an education in modern US electoral politics which in drama, humor, psychological acuity and insider knowledge beggars a hundred textbooks. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FAN001 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by Tina McElroy Ansa
Read by Maxine Robinson. Three sexy, screwed-up sisters come home to Mulberry, Georgia, to put their self-centered mother in her grave. In laying to rest the demons Mudear Lovejoy has dumped on them, the women try to define what a mother, a black mother-their mother-is. Meanwhile, Mudear's (mother, dear) spirit floats about, watching them smoking, drinking their father's liquor, and talking about marijuana like "some damn black girl hippies." (9 hrs. 6 cs.)
FAN002 / Buy $48 / Rent $12.25
by Jeffrey Archer
Read by Paul Daneman. Four intelligent, upstanding and very different men have been lured into an enticing North Sea Oil deal-then swindled out of $1 million by a Mr. Harvey Metcalfe, a super-rich and not-so-upstanding businessman. This quartet of amateur swindlers set out to sting the King Bee of the Con Game. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FAR001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Jeffrey Archer
Read by David Rintoul. When Adam Scott opens the letter left to him in his father's will, he is led to a priceless russian icon left hidden in a swiss bank vault since WWII, and a revelation that could change the world balance of power. (10 hrs. 8 cs.)
FAR004 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75
by Jeffrey Archer
Read by Martin Jarvis. A phony Bill Clinton and a real Saddam Hussein, a US mafia boss and the world's greatest forger, come together in the suspense novel of the year, Archer's first set in the US. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FAR005 / Buy $22.50 / Rent $10.25
by Jeffrey Archer
Read by Alex McCowen. Twelve tales of passion and intrigue that display Archer's renowned ability for the unpredictable, but wholly satisfying twist. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FAR007 / Buy $22.50 / Rent $10.25
by Jeffrey Archer
Read by Tony Britton. In the 1960's four ambitious new MP's take their seats at Westminster. Over the next three decades they share the turbulent passions of the race for power with their families, men and women caught up in a dramatic game for the highest stakes of all. But only one of them can gain the ultimate goal-the office of Prime Minister. (14 hrs. 10 cs.)
FAR008 / Buy $84.95 / Rent $14.50
by Margaret Atwood
Read by Elizabeth McGovern. A beautifully crafted novel, beautifully read. Atwood takes listeners back in time and into the life and mind of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century. Grace Marks was convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and of his housekeeper mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. After a stint in Toronto's lunatic asylum and now serving a life term, Grace herself claims to have no memory of the murders. Dr. Simon Jordan, an up-and-coming expert in the field of mental illness, decides to attempt to unlock her memories. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FAT005 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Margaret Atwood
Read by Julie Christie. Set near the end of the 20th century at a time of plummeting birth rates caused by birth control, the effects of nuclear fallout, and the AIDS epidemic, the role of women reverts to sacred vessels (or prisoners?) for reproduction. A remarkable book. (2.5 hrs. 2 cs.)
FAT001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Margaret Atwood
Read by Kate Nelligan. Said to be Atwood's most deeply felt work of fiction, it is by turns hilarious, haunting and compassionate. Returning to Toronto, the city of her youth, celebrated painter Elaine Risley is engulfed by a flood of vivid, often painful memories of her childhood. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FAT002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Margaret Atwood
Read by Blythe Danner. Roz, Charis and Tony share the disastrous pleasure of knowing Zenia, by turns manipulative, vulnerable, needy and ruthless. Over the course of 30 years, she damaged each of them badly, betrayed their trust and treated their men as loot; then died. As the book opens, Zenia reappears in the restaurant where the three friends are eating lunch. (5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FAT004 / Buy $19.99 / Rent $10.25
by Paul Auster
Read by Vanessa Redgrave. From a background of ease and comfort, from a time and place where life still makes some kind of sense, Anna embarks on a search for her missing brother. Once in the city where he disappeared, she too is trapped in a world where the masses are homeless, theft is no crime, production has ceased, and the only growth industries are dying and disassembly. Even here, however, Anna finds love, friendship, and even shreds of hope for the future. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FAU001 / Buy $17.95 / Rent $5.75
by Desmond Bagley
Read by Nigel Davenport. David Wyatt, the scientist whose job it is to check the progress of hurricanes, becomes convinced that a particularly vicious hurricane will change course and hit his west indian island directly. However, a civil war is going on and no one will listen to him. This thriller and love story is brilliantly read and exciting to the last minute. (9.5 hrs. 8 cs.)
FBA003 / Buy $64.95 / Rent $13.75.75
by Desmond Bagley
Read by Nigel Davenport. 54 people died in the avalanche that hit a small New Zealand mining town. The inquiry that followed unleashed more destructive power than the snow. As the survivors spoke, they revealed a community so divided against itself that all warnings of danger went unheeded. (9 hrs. 8 cs.)
FBA004 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75.75
by Desmond Bagley
Read by Nigel Davenport. Tim O'Hara's plane was hijacked and forced to crash land in the middle of the Andes by a heavily armed group of soldiers intent on killing one of the passengers, an influential political figure. Isolated in the biting cold, O'Hara and his party must fight for their lives against both the elements and the soldiers, who are intent on leaving no survivors. (9 hrs. 8 cs.)
FBA005 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75.75
by Desmond Bagley
Read by Nigel Davenport. The mob murder of his brother takes Jeremy Wheale from his well-ordered life in Devon to the wild tropical rainforests of the Yucatan. There he becomes involved with archaelogists looking for a fabled hoard of gold in a lost city of the Mayas. But his brother's enemies are on his trail, massing in the jungle. (9.6 hrs. 8 cs.)
FBA008 / Buy $64.95 / Rent $13.75.75
by Desmond Bagley
Read by Nigel Davenport. The Scarperers, a brilliantly organized gang for getting long-term prisoners out of gaol, have sprung Slade, notorious russian double agent. Slade's trail leads british agent Owen Stannard to Malta, where he finds his quarry-the mastermind behind the Scarperers: suave, cultured-and a killer. (8.75 hrs. 8 cs.)
FBA010 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75
by Desmond Bagley
Read by Nigel Davenport. Boyd is a geologist working in the British Columbia timber country for the powerful Matterson company. His real name and history are mysteries, wiped out by an accident that nearly killed him. One day Boyd reads the name Trinavant and a door opens into his memory. As soon as he starts to investigate, he discovers that the Matterson family will do anything to keep the Trinavants forgotten forever. (9 hrs. 8 cs.)
FBA017 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75
by Desmond Bagley
Read by Tim Pigott-Smith. Giles knows his name and where he comes from, but that is all, when he wakes up one morning in an Oslo hotel, wearing another man's pajamas and another man's face. This is the beginning of a hair-raising adventure in which Giles finds himself trapped, with no hope of escape, and with the whole delicately balanced structure between the power-brokers of east and west resting insecurely on his shoulders. (9 hrs. 8 cs.)
FBA012 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75
by Desmond Bagley
Read by Nigel Davenport. When film tycoon Robert Hellier loses his daughter to heroin, he declares war on the men who supply the world with drugs, not the pushers, but their faceless bosses. London drug specialist Nicholas Warren is called in to organize an expedition to the Middle East, to capture the overlords at any price. But with $100 million worth of heroin at stake, Warren knows he must use methods as deadly as those of his prey. (11 hrs. 8 cs.)
FBA014 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75
by Lonnie Barbach
Read by Carol Jordan Stewart and Gino Scandur. Lonnie Barbach introduced women's erotica to the mainstream with internationally acclaimed works. This is her first work of arousing fiction for and by both men and women-a graphically intense exploration of seduction, romance, and erotic fantasy. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBA015 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by H.E. Bates
Read by Nigel Havers. At the height of WWII injured pilot John Franklin brings down his plane in occupied France, having the good fortune to land near people ready to risk their lives to help him. This is the story of the hot summer weeks following his meeting with a farmer's daughter. (9 hrs. 8 cs.)
FBA009 / Buy $64.95 / Rent $13.75
by H.E. Bates
Read by Embeth Davidtz. Betrayed by her lover, naive young Bella Ford vows revenge. The search for her betrayer brings her instead, exhausted and ill, to the home of the Wainwright family. As Bella slowly regains her health and happiness, all three Wainwright sons fall in love with her. Then, on the day of the traditional village summer feast, the past comes crashing back into Bella's life. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBA013 / Buy $17.95 / Rent $5.75
by H.E. Bates
Read by Burce Montague. A delightful, heartwarming and humorous tale of the Larkin family. They include Pop, the quick-eyed, golden-hearted junk dealer, Ma, with a mouthful of crisps and a laugh like a jelly, and their beguiling dark-eyed daughter, Mariette, oldest of a slew of kids, who solves the problem of the young inland revenue officer who arrives with the ridiculous idea that the Larkins should be paying taxes. (5.5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FBA011 / Buy $44.95 / Rent $10.25
by H.E. Bates
Read by Bruce Montague. A delightful, heartwarming and humorous tale of the Larkin family. They include Pop, the quick-eyed golden hearted junk dealer, Ma, with a mouthful of crisps and a laugh like a jelly, their beguiling dark-eyed daughter, Mariette, and a constantly enlarging brood of younger kids. This book is hilarious and the Larkin family is a delight. Beware, however: it has a couple of sexist remarks that made our hair curl. (4.3 hrs. 4 cs.)
FBA016 / Buy $39.95 / Rent $10.25
by Christine Bell
Read by Alfred Molina. In 1980 Juan Raul Perez emerged from twenty years in Castro's prisons. Dim memories of a family that emigrated to America years ago have sustained Juan during his captivity. Now he joins the teeming sea of humanity that is the Mariel Boatlift, entering a world of eccentrics, rogues, and free-spirits-like Dottie, the shrewd and lovable fellow immigrant who attaches herself to Juan. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBE003 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Maeve Binchy
Read by Fionnula Flanagan. An intimate portrait of the coming of age of two irish women growing up in a quiet village, one as an only child smothered with attention, the other an orphan raised by nuns. At university, their circle expands, the mysteries of the past testing their friendship. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBI001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Maeve Binchy
Read by Fionnula Flanagan. Lough Glass is home to Kit McMahon, in a way it will never be to her ravishing mother, Helen, the Dubliner with film-star looks who found an unlikely mate in genial chemist Martin McMahon. On the terrible night when Martin's boat is found drifting upside-down in the lake, Kit discovers a letter from her mother on Martin's pillow and burns it, unopened, convinced it is a suicide note. This is an extraordinary story of a mother's secret, a daughter's courage, and the hidden bond between them that neither deceit nor death can destroy. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FBI003 / Buy $23.95 / Rent $10.25
by Maeve Binchy
Read by Kate Binchy. Shy, delicate Elizabeth is sent from London when it is bombed during WWII, to the house of an old friend of her mother's in far-away Ireland. There, in the boisterous O'Connor household, so different from her quiet, regimented home, she makes lifelong friends with Ashleen. After the war, despite Elizabeth's return to England, the bonds between them grow stronger, as they come of age, fall in love and are forced to make agonizing choices. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBI004 / Buy $16.99 / Rent $5.75
by Maeve Binchy
Read by Kate Binchy. Eight children once carved their names on the trunk of the great copper beech shading the schoolhouse in Shancarrig. Now they are grown and when the seemingly placid layers of this small town in Ireland are peeled away, all sorts of unexpected things come to light. (11.25 hrs. 10 cs.)
FBI005 / Buy $84.95 / Rent $14.50
by Maeve Binchy
Read by Kate Binchy. Four stories set in the heart of Dublin's fashionable Southside. A society hostess entertains her husband's mistress to dinner; a country girl savors the delights of city life; a student faces the dilemma of unmarried pregnancy; and a drink-ridden photographer tries to relaunch his career. (5.25 hrs. 4 cs.)
FBI006 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Maeve Binchy
Read by Kate Binchy. Aiden Dunne has been passed over for headmaster of the Mountain View school in working class Dublin, but is excited by the founding of an evening class curriculum, beginning with an italian class taught by "signora" Nora O'Donoghue who learned the language during the 23 years she spent in Sicily across the piazza from the man she loved. Thirty students come to the classes and learn not only about italian language and culture, but find their lives changed by the experience. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FBI007 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Sarah Bird
Read by Laural Merlington. Sonja Getz is the town loner, a cowgirl/intellectual who is bursting to get out of her small Texas home town and find the trick-roping father who left her as a baby. She hooks up with a down-at-heel roper who promises to take her to her father, though he knows Sonja will not find what she expects. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBI002 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Tom Bodett
Read by the author. Stories from his rollicking and affectionate book, The End of the Road, an offbeat fictional look at Homer, Alaska, where the land ends and the sea begins. Park your car at the End of the Road and meet a crowd of dreamers, cynics, fisherfolk and individualists. (2.5 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBO002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Tom Bodett
Read by the author. The townspeople at the End of the Road are dealing with the Alaska oil spill. Folks who have lived there as long as anyone can remember are taking their leave and young drifters find themselves staying. McDoogan struggles with the burdens of unsought success as a folk artist, while Tuttle endures a fall from the grace of a summer romance and Ed and Emily Flannigan try to survive a two-job household. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBO003 / Buy $15.99 / Rent $5.75
by Tom Bodett
Read by the author. This is Volume One of a five-part Tom Bodett's American Odyssey, wherein Ed and Emily head towards an uncertain future in an Oregon college town, a research analyst is planted firmly on the road to discovery after a near-death encounter with gravity, Lloyd and Evelyn launch a final voyage across the lower 48 in their powder blue, 32 ft. motor home, Norman falls prey to hormones once again, and the Flannigans arrive in a recovering logging town and emerging mecca to an odd mix of new age enthusiasts. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBO006 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Tom Bodett
Read by the author. Volume Two of the American Odyssey contains: "Who's Your Buddy?" "Continental Divide," "Life On The Farm," "Deirdre," "Norman's Exile," "Webster's Birthday," "A Guy Like Anthony," and "Ed Meets Zowat." (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBO007 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Tom Bodett
Read by the author. Volume Four of his American Odyssey. Eight more poignant and humorous stories from the voice of Motel 6! (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBO008 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Tom Bodett
Read by the author. In volume three of the American Odyssey series, Katherine tries to manage an ad agency and an advancing pregnancy with some shred of dignity; his July 4th accident crushes more of Ed's reality than his truck; Lloyd and Evelyn, adrift in Montana, find direction from a whisky-soaked ranch hand; Webster heads cautiously to Alaska to meet the only people who ever knew his parents; Buddy is visited at the Merrimont Hotel, Norman's in Seattle, Webster and Ed are at the campfire, and Deirdre turns up the heat on Ed's peach harvest. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBO011 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Larry Bond
Read by David Purdham. A foreign nation launches a war against the United States within its own borders, using a well-trained group of terrorists, meticulously orchestrated. The first waves of the campaign achieve a stunning success. America's cities are in flames and race riots erupt in all major cities. An epic suspense thriller. (4.5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FBO009 / Buy $23 / Rent $10.25
by Susie Bright, editor
Read by assorted readers. Afterword written and read by the editor. This anthology of women's erotic fiction "reflects up our skirts (and jeans) like a patent leather shoe.... Some women want the stars, some the sleaze. Some desire the nostalgia of the ordinary, some want the punch of the kinky...and some want it all!" (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBR004 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Anita Brookner
Read by Judith Whale. The son of a timorous widow, Lewis Percy is an innocent idealist, with too gallant a view of women. After his mother dies, Lewis takes a humble library job and marries a library assistant as virginal as himself. She is agoraphobic as well, and tied to her formidable mother. "Brookner has produced an immensely enjoyable novel."—Publishers Weekly. (11 hrs. 8 cs.)
FBR006 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75
by Sandra Brown
Read by Denise Crosby. Reporter Barrie Travis is stuck at a low-budget TV station when suddenly she gets an invitation to an off-the-record conversation with the first lady. Blind to everything except her exclusive and determined to investigate the death of the president's child, Barrie realizes that her ethics and patriotism will be tested. (12 hrs. 9 cs.)
FBR005 / Buy $49.95 / Rent $14.50
by Pearl S. Buck
Read by Bonnie Hurren. When the communist revolution breaks out in China, Elizabeth MacLeod returns home to Vermont with her young son while her husband Gerald, half american and half chinese, remains in Peking. Elizabeth waits...and waits, until she gets a letter from Peking. Then the past and the future collide. (5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FBU003 / Buy $35.95 / Rent $10.25
by Olive Ann Burns
Read by Richard Thomas. Cold Sassy, Georgia, had never been a whirlpool of excitement. But on July 5, 1906, when Will Tweedy was 14 years old, things took a scandalous turn when Will's newly widowed grandpa eloped with a woman half his age, and a Yankee! (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FBU002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by A.S. Byatt
Read by Eileen Atkins. A more contemporary novel by the brilliant author of Possession.At the heart of the novel are two law cases that shape the story: a painful divorce and custody suit and the prosecution of an "obscene" book. Frederica, the independent young heroine , is involved in both. The personal and legal crises of Frederica mirror those of the age-the decade of the Beatles, the Death of God, the birth of computer languages. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FBY002 / Buy $23.50 / Rent $10.25
by Bebe Moore Campbell
Read by the author. With a view both compassionate and uncompromising, Campbell probes the hearts and minds of whites and people of color in LA in the aftermath of Rodney King's question, "Can we all get along?" Esther has made herself a promising career as a black woman executive in a downtown bank. She is thrilled when a black man is hired as senior VP, until he begins to sexually harrass her white friend Mallory. Thought-provoking and even handed. (4.5 hrs. 3 cs.)
FCA003 / Buy $19.95 / Rent $8
by Bebe Moore Campbell
Read by Alfre Woodard and Allison Smith. Chicago-born Armstrong Todd is 15, black and unused to the laws of the deep south when he goes there to spend the summer with his mother's relatives. When he says a few words in french to an ignorant and fearful young white woman peeking into the pool hall, white and black communities are drawn into the ritual and real violence of racism. New, however, are the effects of the civil rights movement, felt even in this tiny Mississippi town. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FCA004 / Buy $15 / Rent $5.75
by Forrest Carter
Read by Peter Coyote. There's been an awful ruckus about what kind of man the author of this book really is. It is without doubt a lovely book about a young cherokee boy growing up with his grandparents in the waning years of a non-exploitative culture. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FCA002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Cathy Cash-Spellman
Read by Eleanor Swindon. Mora Utu is a green jewel in the South Pacific, the most luxurious private preserve on the planet. Here Thoros Gagarian invites five male friends for a week of sex and sunshine, requiring each guest to bring a trophy woman beautiful enough to grace the island and the men's beds. This is the story of how the women, who had not been forewarned of the men's plans, manage to teach their hosts a lesson they will never forget. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FCA005 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Jung Chang
Read by Anna Massey. Wild Swans tells the story of three women-the author, her mother and grandmother-whose fortunes mirror the tumultuous history of 20th century China. As the years pass in this beautifully detailed tapestry, we see three lives unfolding through love, tragedy and renewal. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FCH002 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Kate Chopin
Read by Laurie Klein. Finally recognized as an early feminist classic, this is the story of a southern woman seeking personal fulfillment outside the close bounds of her traditional family, marriage and society. (5.5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FCH001 / Buy $36.95 / Rent $12.25
by Deepak Chopra
Read by Simon Jones, with an introduction by the author. Though a work of fiction, a 20th century rebirth of Camelot, this tale is rich in the spiritual themes identified by the author in his many other books: the possibilities of wonder in the everyday world, the peace that lies behind the infinite masks of change, and the miraculous transformations made possible by shifts of perception. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FCH003 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Sandra Cisneros
Read by the author. Selections are included from two volumes of short stories, the title one and "The House On Mango Street." There is the mexican bride brought across the border only to find abuse and frustration; a seducer who uses his mayan heritage; an impoverished latina girl whose writing helps her rise above her hopeless surroundings. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FCI001 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.75
by Tom Clancy
Read by David Ogden Stiers. Jack Ryan is laying the groundwork for a plan that could end centuries of conflict in the Middle East. With peace almost at hand, terrorists intervene and with one terrible act, almost unleash a nuclear war. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FCL002 / Buy $24 / Rent $10.25
by Tom Clancy
Read by David Dukes. John Kelly, recently widowed, befriends a young woman with a checkered past, which reaches out for her in a horrifying way. Kelly vows revenge, but is also swept up by an assignment from the Pentagon, a POW rescue that only he can lead. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FCL003 / Buy $25 / Rent $10.25
by Tom Clancy
Read by John Rubinstein. On the Pacific island of Saipan, a wealthy japanese businessman regards his newly bought land with satisfaction. In the back streets of Tokyo, a young american woman is found murdered. These two events are the first links in a chain that will stun the world. Enter Clancy's hero, Jack Ryan. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FCL004 / Buy $25 / Rent $10.25
by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik
Read by Edward Herrmann. In this collaboration between thriller-champion Clancy and world-renowned hostage negotiator and international crisis manager Pieczenik, Op-Center is the heart of a network of defense, intelligence, and crisis management technology, run by a crack team of operatives both within its walls and out in the field. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FCL005 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik
Read by Jay O. Sanders. The new president of Russia is trying to create a democratic regime, but strong elements in the country are working against him: the mafia, right wing nationalists and czarists. Op-Center, the new crisis management team, begins a race against the clock and against the hardliners. Then they discover that they have a russian counterpart, but it's in the hands of the hardliners. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FCL006 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik
Read by John Rubinstein. In the newly reunified Germany, neo-nazi groups gather to resurrect dead dreams, and plans are afoot to destabilize Europe and cause turmoil throughout the US. Paul Hood and his team, in Germany to buy technology for the new Regional Op-Center, become entangled in the crisis. (4 hrs. 4 cs.)
FCL007 / Buy $23.50 / Rent $10.25
by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik
Read by John Rubinstein. Kurdish terrorists have attacked a dam in Turkey, threatening the water supply of their very homeland: not insanity, but the first step in a deceptively simple plan to force all-out war in the Middle East, drawing in the major players in the new world order and endangering the mobile version of the US Regional Op-Center crisis management facility now on-line in Turkey. (4 hrs. 4 cs.)
FCL009 / Buy $24 / Rent $10.25
by Michael Crichton
Read by Frances Cassidy. With the issue of safety in the skies paramount in the public mind, Crichton has come along with his trademark mixture of super suspense and authentic information to tell a story of a plane with three passengers dead, 56 injured, and the interior cabin virtually destroyed, as the pilot attempts to land. (11 hrs. 8 cs.)
FCR004 / Buy $39.95 / Rent $13.75
by Evan S. Connell
Read by Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. This clean-cut Kansas City couple find their traditional roles challenged by a changing world. All three children leave home. Mrs. Bridge begins to question the life she has led and feels that the world she built with her husband is crumbling. He remains resolutely paterfamilias. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FCO007 / Buy $29.95 / Rent $10.25
by Pat Conroy
Read by Peter MacNicol. Jack McCall is living in Rome and trying to find some peace after his wife's recent suicide. His sister-in-law appears to disturb his solitude, begging him to return home. Two of his old school friends also want him home, to help them track down a classmate who went underground as a vietnam war protester and never resurfaced. Jack is launched on a journey encompassing past and present, leading to shocking but ultimately liberating truths. (9 hrs. 6 cs.)
FCO011 / Buy $27.50 / Rent $12.25
by Robin Cook
Read by Lindsay Crouse. A series of seemingly unrelated yuppie cocaine overdoses puts forensic pathologist Dr. Laurie Engler in a state of confusion. All the families deny that their dead were involved with drugs and the police refuse to pursue the matter. Jeopardizing her career and her life, Engler's search for the truth leads her to a living medical nightmare. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FCO006 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Robin Cook
Read by Boyd Gaines. Underworld boss Carlo Franconi is gunned down but his body disappears from the city morgue before it can be autopsied. When the body reappears, pathologists Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery are startled that the corpse is missing not only its hands, head and feet, but its liver. Jack and Laurie's search for an explanation leads them to the jungles of Africa, where they discover a cabal whose stock-in-trade involves surgical procedures a step beyond the latest in medical technology and a leap beyond accepted medical ethics. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FCO012 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by William J. Coughlin
Read by Len Cariou. Elizabeth Darren's billionaire husband dies, leaving her control of his bank. When her stepchildren contest the will, Elizabeth finds herself as threatened by the greed and ambition of the bank employees as by her husband's family. To Jake Martin, partner in a prestigious Detroit law firm, the case appears watertight: he has a videotape of the signing of the will. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FCO008 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Michael Crichton
Read by John Lithgow. Crichton claims a penchant for reversals as learning tools: that people who do not understand the truth of sexual harrassment on the job might get it if they look at the exception (a woman boss harrassing a man employee) rather than the rule. This novel of a young male executive being sexually harrassed by his old lover and new boss is said to be based on a true story. (4 hrs. 4 cs.)
FCR002 / Buy $22.50 / Rent $10.25
by Clive Cussler
Read by Tom Wopat. A deadly toxin in the middle of the desert is killing thousands of people and threatening to extinguish marine life around the planet as it leaks from river to sea. Dirk Pitt, explorer and adventurer, uncovers an unholy conspiracy. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FCU002 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Clive Cussler
Read by Howard McGillin. Dirk Pitt returns to rescue a group of archaeologists who are nearly drowned in a peruvian sacrificial pool at the top of a mountain. Dirk and his friends are up against art thieves, local Indians, and FBI and customs agents from the US, in their search for a legendary inca treasure. (4.5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FCU003 / Buy $23 / Rent $10.25
by Clive Cussler
Read by James Naughton. A Dirk Pitt novel. Vintage Cussler ingredients including a billionaire diamond king with three amazon daughters, a deadly plague ravaging an antarctic sea, and a heart-stopping battle to avoid wholesale destruction of the environment (4.5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FCU004 / Buy $25 / Rent $10.25
by Sandra Dallas
Read by Moira Kelly. Queenie Bean, 24-year old Kansas farmwife in the 1930's, is a loyal member of the Persian Pickle Club. At their weekly meetings, they quilt, eat, and improve their minds. Rita is from Denver, a Pickle member more interested in investigative journalism than anything else, and forces the Pickles to face a long-kept secret involving the disappearance of one member's husband. Delightful. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FDA004 / Buy $22.95 / Rent $10.25
by Lionel Davidson
Read by Theodore Bikel. Mysterious, coded messages have come from the most remote, most dreaded former gulag in Northern Siberia. They plead for a certain man to be sent into the gulag, to carry out an astounding Russian secret. The man is Johnny Porter-fierce rebel, Rhodes Scholar, loner outdoorsman, cynic, genius. "Possibly better than any thriller written over the past 25 years, KH is an outrageously good book."-Daily Mail (London). (4.5 hrs. 3 cs.)
FDA002 / Buy $19.95 / Rent $8
by Christopher Davis, based on a story by Ali Jennings
Read by Olympia Dukakis. Guitarist Freda and graphic artist Vince set out to spend a vacation at the Georgia seashore, intent on rekindling their love and their art. There they meet the eccentric 80-year-old Camilla, a violinist. Vince gives up and goes home, but Freda and Camilla set off on a road trip, each encouraging the other to be all she can be (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FDA003 / Buy $22.95 / Rent $10.25
by Christopher Davis, based on the screenplay by Ron Nyswaner
Read by Charles Napier. Beckett, star attorney in a presitigious Philadelphia law firm, has chosen not to tell his employers that he has AIDS. When they find out, they fire him for imcompetence. Beckett doesn't believe it and decides to sue. The only attorney who will take his case, reluctantly, is an ambulance chaser who gets most of his clients from his television commercials. A terrific story, brilliantly read. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FDA001 / Buy $22.95 / Rent $10.25
by Louis De Bernières
Read by Stephen Lang. On the greek island of Cephallonia, an idyllic world only slowly entering the twentieth century, the Axis invasion of WWII arrives. This is a charming chronicle of the lives of the island's inhabitants and the reluctant head of the italian garrison, Captain Corelli, spanning the next five decades. A tale of human tenderness in an age of barbarism. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FDE008 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Guy de Maupassant
Read by Adam Menken and Franette Liebow. A lovely collection of stories, evoking a wide range of human emotions. Different lengths, different moods, different characters, but all these stories are satisfyingly well-rounded. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FDE009 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Alan M. Dershowitz
Read by the author. When lawyer Abe Ringel takes on the defense of a basketball star accused of rape, he thinks he has found the easy victory he needs to get his career back on track. As it begins to look as if his client is both guilty and dangerous, Abe begins a series of confrontations between what the law says and what is right. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FDE006 / Buy $17.95 / Rent $5.75
by Jude Deveraux
Read by Stephanie Zimbalist. From one of today's most admired romantic storytellers, here is an unforgettable tale of a most miraculous love affair: a meeting of passion, wit, and true romance between a thoroughly modern woman-and a man who lived 400 years before! (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FDE001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Jude Deveraux
Read by Judith Light. She traveled in a bright red coach as The Singing Duchess, but was really on a mission to free her sister from kidnappers. The frontier soldier assigned to go with her was an irritation. Falling in love was even worse. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FDE003 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Pete Dexter
Read by Campbell Scott. Ward James is an obsessed young investigative reporter in Miami, teamed with an opportunistic partner, Yardley Acheman. Ward's younger brother drives a delivery truck for his father's paper. They are all brought together when Ward and Yardley begin to investigate the case of a death row inmate, convicted of murdering the local sheriff, urged on by an inordinately sexual and determined woman who has fallen in love through the mail with the sheriff's murderer. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FDE007 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by Annie Dillard
Read by Laurence Luckinbill. Set in the last decades of the 19th century in a town near Puget Sound, this is Pulitzer Prize-winner Dillard's first work of fiction. The story chronicles the birth, settlement, growth, financial boom and then panic of a town. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FDI003 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Isak Dinesen
Read by the author, Julie Harris and Colleen Dewhurst. Superb readings of selections from Dinesen's fiction, including works that inspired two Academy Award-winning films, plus the only known recording of Isak Dinesen herself. (6.5 hrs. 5 cs.)
FDI002 / Buy $35.95 / Rent $11
by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Read by Sarita Choudhury. A woman born long ago and far away is trained in the ancient art of the spices and ordained as a mistress charged with special powers. Over miles and centuries the immortal came to Oakland, California, where she opened a spice shop and could see the hearts and minds of the people around her. Failing to keep the distance from humans that is required of immortals, the mistress of spices comes into conflict with her teacher and mentor, the "old one." Worse, she falls in love. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FDI005 / Buy $22.95 / Rent $10.25
by Ivan Doig
Read by Paul Shay. We have spent the past year reading everything we can written by Ivan Doig, and of the beloved bunch, this is our favorite. Alex's departure from Scotland in 1889 with his best friend Rob Barclay begins the story of the McCaskill family of Montana. We follow their fortunes and that of the Two Medicine country they pioneer. It is impossible not to fall in love with Doig's language, humor and land-loving point of view. (19.5 hrs. 13 cs.)
FDO002 / Buy $104 / Rent $18
by Ivan Doig
Read by the author. Jick begins his 14th summer with a pack trip into the Two Medicine high country of Montana, helping his forest ranger father with the annual sheep count. The trip marks the beginning of his transition from childhood to adulthood, with influences felt from himself, his family, history and the land. This is the McCaskills between the Depression and WWII. And Doig reads as delightfully as he writes. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FDO003 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Michael Dorris
Read by Colleen Dewhurst. Set primarily on a Montana indian reservation, this is a saga of three unforgettable generations of native american women. The 15-year-old granddaughter is a child of mixed heritage, looking for roots and a home. Her mother, catholic and boisterous, still awaits the end of the world as predicted by one of her school nuns. The grandmother is the guardian of a terrible family secret, and casts her shadow over the lives of both of her descendants. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FDO001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Margaret Drabble
Read by Paula Wilcox. A sparkling story of human relationships and reactions, observed with uncanny accuracy. It shows the attempts at adjustment made by two sisters; one beautiful and enigmatic, the other chatty, high-spirited, introspective, crazy-mixed-up, and entirely delightful. (6.5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FDR001 / Buy $44.95 / Rent $12.25
by Margaret Drabble
Read by Mel Martin. Theatrical marriages: glamorous, scandalous, bitchy, brief? Or just like anyone else's? Emma, with a career in TV on hold while her two children are small, spends a year with her actor husband in a furnished house near the theater where he is performing. By the end of the season, their relationship has undergone drastic reappraisal. (6.75 hrs. 6 cs.)
FDR002 / Buy $49.95 / Rent $12.25
by Daphne Du Maurier
Read by Trevor Eve. Respectable folk avoided the place, but Mary Yellon went to live at Jamaica Inn after her mother died. A romantic thriller set among the smugglers and shipwreckers of the coast of Cornwall. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FDU001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Daphne Du Maurier
A BBC production. Tired of court life in 17th century London, Dona St. Columb retires to her family home in Cornwall in search of peace and solitude. Instead, she finds the ship of a daring french pirate and love and adventure beyond her dreams. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FDU002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Daphne du Maurier
Read by Jean Marsh. With a husband she barely knew, young Mrs. Maxim de Winter arrived at his isolated stone mansion on the windswept cornish coast to find her existence dominated by the life of the first Mrs. de Winter, the glorious Rebecca. One of the bestselling novels of all time. For the recent sequel, see Mrs. de Winter by Susan Hill. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FDU003 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Umberto Eco
Read by Tim Curry. An eccentric french colonel tells three Milan book editors that he has discovered a coded message about an ancient plan involving Stonehenge and a plan to tap a source of mystic power far greater than atomic energy. The editors decide to have some fun and create a plan of their own; randomly feed into a computer manuscript pages on hermetic thought. A terrific joke, until the plan assumes a life of its own and people associated with it begin to disappear. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FEC002 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Paul Erdman
Read by Michael McConnohie. William Saxon has just spent three years in jail and $335 million to pay fines and lawsuits-all he has left from his junk-bond magnate past is $75 million stashed in Europe. He may be broke, but he is determined to get back on top, so he moves to a SF brokerage house and launches a hustle of global dimensions: a tax-free zero-coupon bond scheme that will make him a killing, if his old enemies don't kill him first. (9.5 hrs. 8 cs.)
FER006 / Buy $79.95 / Rent $13.75
by Louise Erdrich
Read by the author and Michael Dorris, her collaborator/husband. Set in North Dakota in the early 1900's when the Chippewa people were battling to retain their culture, the story is narrated by an old, wise grandfather and a wild, independent woman, interweaving scenes of everyday native american life with the magical world of legends and spirits. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FER002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Louise Erdrich
Read by the author and Michael Dorris. Winner of the 1984 National Book Critics Award, her first novel draws a vibrant portrait of the people on a North Dakota reservation between 1934 and 1984. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FER004 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Laura Esquivel
Read by Yareli Arizmendi. Set in turn-of-the-century Mexico, this deliciously read novel of family life is a thorough delight. Tita is the youngest of 3 daughters and fated not to marry, instead to care for their mother until her death. She watches her sister marry the man she loves, and tries to suppress her feelings. She is a brilliant chef and shares her recipes with us; but odd things happen to the food when her feelings are too long held in. (5.25 hrs. 4 cs.)
FES001 / Buy $22 / Rent $10.25
by Nicholas Evans
Read by Peter Coyote. When a 40-ton truck hurtles out of control on a snowy road, a girl on horseback is in its path. This is the story of healing for the girl and for the horse, the former withdrawn and the latter crazed with pain. The girl's mother packs them up and drives across the continent to Tom Booker, the modern inheritor of the ancient race of Horse Whisperers, men whose voices calmed wild horses and healed broken spirits. Under the big Montana sky, all their lives are changed. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FEV001 / Buy $23.95 / Rent $10.25
by Howard Fast
Read by Walden Daniels. This brooding story of a down and out PI and his investigation of a mysterious woman was originally published in 1960 under his pseudonym E.V. Cunningham. In the introduction to this new edition, Fast discusses why he could not use his own name: he was blacklisted by the house committee on un-american activities. (8.5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FFA001 / Buy $53.95 / Rent $12.25
by Fannie Flagg
Read by the author. Hailed as the Lake Wobegon of the south, this funny and endearing tale weaves deftly between the cafe of the 1930's and a nursing home of the 1980's. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FFL003 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Fannie Flagg
Read by the author. From the author of Fried Green Tomatoes..., this is a coming-of-age-story set in rural Mississippi. She begins her diary as a sassy, truth telling but lonely 11-year-old and ends up six years later as the assured if unlikely winner of the Miss Mississippi contest. Comic and endearing. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FFL004 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.75
by Ian Fleming
Read by David Rintoul. High in the thin air of the swiss Alps a set-up is planned. A man is hunting respectability with all the cunning that made him Europe's most ruthless criminal. Nothing is to stand in his way, especially not 007! And James Bond has a lot on his mind: he has actually fallen in love. (8 hrs. 6 cs.)
FFL002 / Buy $49.95 / Rent $12.25
by Ken Follett
Read by Sean Morgan. Feliks came to London to commit a murder that would change history. His two most dangerous weapons were the love of a young woman longing for the end of innocence, and the passion of an aristocrat who will pay anything to get her way. The english police force, a brilliant and powerful lord, and the young man targeted for death-Winston Churchill-struggle to outsmart the one man who could outsmart them all: the man from St. Petersburg. (11.5 hrs. 8 cs.)
FFO005 / Buy $35.95 / Rent $13.75
by Ken Follett
Read by Gene Engene. Master of disguise and secret agent for Israel, Nat Dickstein's mission is to stop the Arabs from developing a nuclear device. Can he trust those who help him? Can he trust himself, since he is in love with an arab woman? (13 hrs. 12 cs.)
FFO007 / Buy $57.95 / Rent $16 .75
by Ken Follett
Read by Tim Curry. In 1866, a young student at the exclusive Winfield School drowns in a mysterious accident involving a group of boys. Decades later, the real story of the drowning is the key to understanding the rivalries among three families: the Pilasters and the prestigious bank that bears their name, the Greenbournes, jewish but also bankers to rival the Pilasters in power, and the Mirandas, who are engineering a gradual takeover of the south american country of Cordoba. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FFO009 / Buy $23.95 / Rent $10.25
by Ken Follett
Read by Patrick Tull. Three seemingly unconnected events take place in a single day in London. The city desk thinks none of them is worthy of the front page, but a young reporter starts making connections. In a day, fortunes change hands, careers are shattered and the reporter finds the story he is uncovering too hot to print. (6.25 hrs. 5 cs.)
FFO010 / Buy $39 / Rent $11
by Ken Follett
Read by Victor Garber. Mack McAsh is trapped in the infernal coal mines of the baronial scottish Jamison family, bound to the job for life. Burning with the desire to escape, he finds an unlikely ally in the person of Lizzie Hallim, a willful young aristocrat yearning to escape her own kind of hell. Accused of riot, a capital crime, Mack is one of thousands of convicts shipped to the american colonies to serve as slave for seven years, then to make the land his own. (4 hrs. 4 cs.)
FFO013 / Buy $23.50 / Rent $10.25
by Richard Ford
Read by John Rubinstein. Frank Bascombe has high hopes of the July 4th weekend-finding a new home for his hapless clients, seeing his semi-girlfriend, looking in on his ex- whom he still loves, and visiting as many sports halls-of-fame as they can manage in two days with his troubled teenaged son. The holiday turns out nothing as planned. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FFO002 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Helen Forrester
Read by Carolyn Pickles. Peggy was a Lancashire girl born and bred, beginning to come to life after the end of the war. Ajit was a student, shortly to return to India and an arranged marriage. When the two fell in love, each knew that the future would not be easy, wherever they were. But as they began their new life, far from homes and families, they found that love can bring two worlds together. (8.5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FFO017 / Buy $54.95 / Rent $12.25
by Frederick Forsyth
Read by David Rintoul. A crack soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet english country town, is implementing Plan Aurora, hatched in the forest outside Moscow, and initiated with relentless brilliance and ingenuity. Working blind against the most urgent of deadlines, MI5 investigator Preston leads an operation to prevent the act of murderous devastation aimed at tumbling Britain into revolution. (14 hrs. 10 cs.)
FFO004 / Buy $79.95 / Rent $15.25
by Frederick Forsyth
Read by Simon Jones. The allies may be sending their forces into a bloody desert Armageddon in Kuwait. Then word leaks out to british intelligence that Israel's Mossad had once run a mole in the highest levels of Saddam's government. Major Mike Martin of Britain's elite SAS is sent to find this mysterious "Jericho" under the very eyes of Iraq's fearsome secret police. A vintage Forsyth espionage thriller. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FFO012 / Buy $23.95 / Rent $10.25
by Frederick Forsyth
Read by David Rintoul. 'Whichever option I choose, men are going to die.' This is the Devil's Alternative faced by the president of the United States and other statesmen throughout the world. A story that goes from Moscow to London, from Rotterdam to Washington, from a country house in Ireland to the world's biggest oil tanker which threatens to pollute the whole of the North Sea. Classic Forsyth fever pitch excitement. (16.25 hrs. 12 cs.)
FFO014 / Buy $94.95 / Rent $16.75
by Barbara Francis
Read by Jean DeBarbieris. On the day before her wedding, Mary Ann Poole discovers that she is about to marry her half-brother. Shocked and broken-hearted, she leaves the privileged home of her childhood to find employment with the proprietor of a mercantile store in downtown Sacramento. She learns the business and becomes a great asset to the store as she helps it grow and prosper. While on a trip to San Francisco, the great earthquake strikes and Mary Ann's life, like so many others, is changed forever. (8 hrs. 6 cs.)
FFR002 / Buy $29.95 / Rent $12.25
by Diana Gabaldon
Read by Geraldine James. In this third volume, Claire makes a new life for herself, preparing to become a doctor, and raising her redheaded daughter. But the passage of two decades does little to dim the memory of Jamie. Now she learns that Jamie may have survived Culloden. Dare she risk another trip through the standing stones? Her travels take her and her Jamie from Jacobite Scotland to the political intrigues and voodoo magic of the West Indies. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FGA004 / Buy $22 / Rent $10.25
by Diana Gabaldon
Read by Geraldine James. For 20 years, Claire has kept her secrets. Now, successful physician, recent widow, she returns to the standing stones at Craigh na Dun with her daughter. The questions raised by her reappearance lead back to a very distant past. Jamie and Claire struggle to save a country and thwart a king, moving from the intrigue-filled Paris court of Charles Stuart to the war-torn Scotland of the Jacobite rebellion. Claire alone sees time marching horrifyingly, inexorably, towards Culloden. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FGA003 / Buy $22 / Rent $10.25
by Diana Gabaldon
Read by Geraldine James. Claire, from the 20th century, and her 18th century scottish lover Jamie, are cast ashore in the american colonies and seize the chance to start a new life there, despite Claire's knowledge of the coming revolution. They find peace in the mountains, safe from the war, only to be followed into the past by their daughter Brianna, eager to find her parents and to save them both from a future only she can see. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FGA001 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Diana Gabaldon
Read by Geraldine James. This is the first of Gabaldon's immensely popular time travel novels. In 1945, former combat nurse Claire is reunited with her husband on a second honeymooon. She touches a boulder in an ancient stone circle and is catapulted into wartorn Scotland, 1743. She is drawn into the dangerous intrigues of the MacKenzies, where she meets gallant James Fraser. His love for her is so fierce and absolute that Claire is torn between two irreconcilable lives. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FGA002 / Buy $22 / Rent $10.25
by G.D. Gearino
Read by Barrett Whitener. Sammy Ayers has been passing himself off as a deaf-mute ever since he was abandoned by his mother at the Barrington bus station when he was ten. With the help of the old stationmaster who takes on the role of surrogate father, Sammy develops an uncanny ability to be a key player in every important event in this small Georgia town. That is why Sammy is the only one who truly knows what happened in August 1966 when a young preacher-in-training, hoping to save souls, caused world attention and uproar to focus on the town. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
by Shari P. Geller
Read by Laura Esterman. A long string of gruesome murders remains unsolved, the body count rising fast. The killer's hit list reads like a Who's Who of the area's child molesters: someone has taken the law into lethal hands, and a lot of people are not interested in finding and stopping the killer. Soon everyone is suspect, especially the woman involved in counseling the children as their cases come to court. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGE002 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by Kaye Gibbons
Read by the author. This NY Times bestseller is the audio debut of the award-winning author of Ellen Foster. Meet three extraordinary women: Charlie Kate, a renowned folk healer; Sophia, her spirited daughter; and Margaret, her inquisitive granddaughter. For them, home is the best house in the worst part of town-a sanctuary where life is both celebrated and mourned, and a place where uncompromising love can hold off the misery that lines up outside the door. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGI001 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Kaye Gibbons
Read by the author. Maggie Barnes is "the woman with all the problems" to her neighbors, unpredictable wife, elusive mother, adored daughter-in-law to her family, and to her maid, Pearl, she is the mistress who must be cared for like a child. Harriet Barnes struggles to find a place in her mother's heart, observing her vain attempts at normalcy and her eventual departure to the hospital psychiatric ward. Only later will Hattie discover the deep-seated hopes and fears of her adored mother, and the connections to her family's past. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGI002 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Kaye Gibbons
Read by the author. "When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy." So begins the tale of Ellen Foster, a redoubtable girl who overcomes adversity with humor, spunk and determination. A lovely, sometimes heartwrenching novel. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGI004 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Read by Claudette Sutherland. Charlotte Perkins Gilman began her adult life in a conventional marriage. This story-at the time attacked in print as a "story that ought not to have been written"-is a tale of psychological horror and it is Gilman's autobiographical account of her marriage. Writing it kept her sane and launched her career as writer, social activist, reformer, feminist and philosopher. (1 hr. 1 cs.)
FGI003 / Buy $12.95 / Rent $4.75
by Rumer Godden
Read by Nicola Pagett. Cecil, the middle sister of a family of english children on a holiday in the champagne country of the Marne, remembers the green and gold of a hot August. The sudden illness of their mother means that the children are left to deal as best they can with the hostile, mysterious but entrancing world of the Hotel des Oeillets. (6 hrs. 6 cs.)
FGO005 / Buy $53.95 / Rent $12.25
by Rumer Godden
Read by Sam Dastor. Patna Hall, on the Coromandel coast of India, seemed an idyllic spot for Mary and Blaise's honeymoon. But almost from the moment of their arrival, the atmosphere soured: Mary felt a growing isolation from her husband, there were malicious undercurrents in the staff gossip, and then Mary met the local candidate of the Root and Flower Party. The more she knew him, the more committed she became, until tragedy interrupted. (7.5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FGO006 / Buy $54.95 / Rent $12.25
by Rumer Godden
Read by Patricia Jones. Pippa, 17, the youngest and most recent recruit to the Midland City Ballet, is amazed and delighted to be picked to go on the tour to Venice. Radiant with the color and beauty of the city, Pippa catches the attention of a young gondolier and of the company ballet mistress. Remarkable professional success is marked by emotional confusion, even pain, as Pippa awakens to a more grown-up, complex world. (5.5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FGO007 / Buy $44.95 / Rent $10.25
by Michael Golding
Read by Frank Muller. A delightful story of magical realism set in a village near Venice in 14th century Italy: love, lust, tragedy and enchantment, a vendor of fruits and vegetables, the spoiled daughter of the village's wealthiest citizen, a charming stranger, the two men who fall in love with her, and a young girl gifted with the power to heal. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGO003 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Olivia Goldsmith
Read by Christine Baranski. Three wives from the upper crust of NY society were abandoned in their 40's by their successful husbands, traded in for younger, more decorative "trophy wives." The mission of their club is to get even. They discover sweet revenge and reclaim their own identities, learning how to love again. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGO002 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.75
by Olivia Goldsmith
Read by the author. NY publishing house Davis & Dash feels that this year it will have a winner. Will it be another in the aging star's string of bestsellers? One by a husband and wife team, which ceases to be a team when their book is chosen by D&D? The opus of a woman who commits suicide after her book is rejected by 27 publishers? A well-mannered englishwoman's manuscript? Or the scandalous output of Davis of D&, who has already helped himself to a million dollar advance? (4.5 hrs. 3 cs.)
FGO008 / Buy $21 / Rent $8
by Olivia Goldsmith
Read by the author. Phyllis Geronomous is witty, blunt, razor sharp, and the despair of her three children. The senior citizen living in Florida is still trying to run her children's lives, and now threatens to move to NY and supervise them up close. Their response: Operation Geezer Quest, to find a husband, preferably a very rich one, to distract their mother's attention. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGO009 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by James Grady
Read by Blair Underwood. Brillaint, rich, messianic, black ex-con Faron Sears enters the 1996 political game playing with his own rules. Someone he trusts is a traitor, someone else longs to be his assassin, and the FBI agent ordered to save Sears's life must also protect the secret of a cover-up that threatens the Washington establishment. A searing, fast-paced novel that illuminates new forces at work in our politics, government, media and daily lives. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FGR013 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Harriet Greenberg
Read by Bonnie Bedelia. They met in the early morning hours in a hotel shop, both grabbing for the last bottle of sleeping pills. They lied to each other, stole each other's ideas, fell in love and eventually discovered that they worked as speech-writers for opponents in a political campaign. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGR010 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Graham Greene
Read by Derek Jacobi. The beleaguered descendant of the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance embarks on a remarkable journey. Elevated to monsignor after a hilarious series of misunderstandings, Quixote joins with a modern Sancho to form as unlikely a pair as their illustrious namesakes. Quixote, deeply religious, naive, and beset by doubts, and Sancho, worldly communist, fill this tale with sublime argument. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGR001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Graham Greene
A BBC production featuring Eleanor Bron and a superb cast. Wormold ekes out his living as a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana. His daughter has very expensive tastes, so he becomes a secret agent in order to improve his financial situation. He recruits imaginary sub-agents and files false reports-reports that disturbingly begin to come true! (2.5 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGR002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by John Grisham
Read by Anthony Heald. Late one night, the Supreme Court's oldest and most liberal member is shot to death. Two hours later, the youngest and most conservative justice is strangled. The FBI has no clues, but a brilliant law student at Tulane thinks she has the answers. When she becomes a target, too, she flees to the anonymous shadows of New Orleans' French Quarter and enlists the help of an investigative reporter. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FGR004 / Buy $22.50 / Rent $10.25
by John Grisham
Read by Blair Brown. 11-year-old Mark witnesses the suicide of a lawyer. He has confided a secret to the child concerning the recent murder of a senator whose accused killer, a mafia thug, is about to go to trial. Everyone from the FBI to the mafia is after Mark to divulge the secret; finally he and his 52-year-old divorcée lawyer come up with a crazy plan. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FGR005 / Buy $23.50 / Rent $10.25
by John Grisham
Read by Michael Beck. A courtroom drama in the small town of Clanton, Miss. A black man has taken revenge by shooting the two drunken and remorseless young men who raped his 10-year old daughter and beat her almost to death. Amidst demonstrations by the NAACP and menacing actions by the KKK, DA Brigance tries to save his client's life...and his own. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGR007 / Buy $15.99 / Rent $5.75
by John Grisham
Read by Michael Beck. In 1967 a Mississippi klan member was accused of bombing the law offices of a jewish civil rights activist. The all-white juries in two trials are unable to reach a verdict. 12 years later, the case was reopened; this time the klansman was convicted. Why, 10 years later, does a young lawyer in Chicago want to get involved with the virtually hopeless case of trying to save the klansman from the gas chamber? (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FGR008 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by John Grisham
Read by Frank Muller. Now living in Brazil, Danilo Silver has a past with many chapters. He was once Patrick Lanigan, a young partner in a prominent Biloxi law firm, who faked his death and left the country. For a while, quiet—now, suddenly, there are questions about his being dead and buried after all. (12 hrs. 12 cs.)
FGR014 / Buy $49.95 / Rent $16.75
by John Grisham
Read by Michael Beck. In his last semester of law school, Rudy Baylor provides free legal advice to a group of seniors, and there meets his first clients, the Blacks. Their son is dying of leukemia and their insurance company flatly refuses to pay for his medical treatments. Soon Rudy finds himself, broke, jobless, without even a law degree, pitted against one of the most powerful industries in the U.S. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FGR011 / Buy $25.95 / Rent $10.25
by John Grisham
Read by Michael Beck. In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobacco trial with millions of dollars at stake begins routinely, then swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juror is convinced he is being watched. Soon they have to be sequestered. Then a tip from a young woman suggests that she is able to predict the jurors' increasingly erratic behavior. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FGR012 / Buy $26.95 / Rent $10.25
by Winston Groom
Read by the author. "Bein' a idiot is no box of chocolates," says the lovable, surprisingly savvy hero, but "at least I ain't led no hum-drum life." Indeed, when Gump flunked out of college, his failing streak was over, and he went on to heroism in Vietnam, world class as a ping-pong player, wrestler and business tycoon, and buddy of LBJ and Nixon! (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGR009 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Allan Gurganus
Read by the author. Here, from the author of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, is a clear-eyed look at the comedy of white people outflanked, outnumbered and somewhat out of love with themselves. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGU001 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.75
by David Guterson
Read by B.D. Wong. Among the islands of the Pacific northwest are settlers from all backgrounds, including a small community of Japanese. One of them arranges the purchase of seven acres of strawberry farm-not for himself, since he was born in Japan and is not allowed to own land in the US, but for his son when he comes of age. One payment short of the final purchase and months from the son's 20th birthday, WWII breaks out and the family is moved to Manzanar prison camp. The seven acres are sold, and it is not until after the war that the family returns to the site of their dream farm. Then the son is accused of murdering the man who owns the land. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGU003 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by David Guterson
Read by Campbell Scott. In this selection of unabridged stories, set mostly in the Pacific northwest, hunting, fishing and sports are the givens of men's lives. But although Guterson's characters go into the wilderness in search of mallards or trout, they discover other things instead: the decay of youthful ardor, the motiveless cruelty of strangers, their own capacity for deception and grief. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FGU004 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by David Guterson
Read by Peter Marinker. Among the islands of the Pacific northwest are settlers from all backgrounds, including a small community of Japanese. One of them arranges the purchase of seven acres of strawberry farm—not for himself, since he was born in Japan and is not allowed to own land in the US, but for his son when he comes of age. One payment short of the final purchase and months from the son's 20th birthday, WWII breaks out and the family is moved to Manzanar prison camp. The seven acres are sold, and it is not until after the war that the family returns to the site of their dream farm. Then the son is accused of murdering the man who owns the land. (15 hrs. 10 cs.)
FGU005 / Buy $84.95 / Rent $15.25
by Mark Handley
Read by Mare Winningham. Nell was brought up away from all other people by her mother, whose speech was damaged by a series of strokes. So the first task of the doctor and psychologist who are competing to "discover" Nell, is to understand her unique speech. Later, they struggle to comprehend her magic while media helicopters and psychiatric hospitals loom on the horizon. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FHA004 / Buy $17.95 / Rent $5.75
by E. Lynn Harris
Read by Courtney B. Vance. Harris takes us into the locker rooms and newsrooms of Chicago, where four lives are about to intersect in romance and scandal: Zurich, a rookie quarterback for the Chicago Cougars; Mia, an ambitious sportscaster who accuses him of sexual assault; Tamela, a high-powered attorney who defends Zurich; and Sean, a gay sportswriter, covering the explosive story. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FHA005 / Buy $16.99 / Rent $5.75
by Gerald Hausman
Read by the author. This is an enchanting collection: a short chant or two, several fables (one explaining why chipmunks have such tiny feet), and several creation stories, including the beautiful "Changing Woman." (1 hr. 1 cs.)
FHA002 / Buy $9.95 / Rent $4.75
by Joseph Heller
Read by Alan Arkin. This is a brilliant comedy about Yossarian, the WWII bombardier, who wants desperately to stay alive. The rule is that anyone who is crazy must be grounded. But there is a catch. Anyone sane enough to know he'd be crazy to keep flying is not crazy enough to be grounded. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FHE001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Ernest Hemingway
Read by Charlton Heston. This is the story of an old cuban fisherman, whose idol was Joe DiMaggio, in an epic battle with an immense fish. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FHE002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Hermann Hesse
Read by Michael Thompson. Nobel Prize-winner Hesse's most famous novel reawakens questions most of us have long ceased asking, and opens paths to spirituality many of us have never travelled. This is one man's quest for truth that allows us to see into the very heart of life. (4.25 hrs. 3 cs.)
FHE003 / Buy $23 / Rent $8
by Jack Higgins
Read by Nicol Williamson. IRA gunman Fallon escapes a bloody past in Northern Ireland and is promised a new life-money and passport-if he murders one last time. Fallon expertly executes underworld mobster Meehan's chief rival, but the killing is witnessed by a priest. The priest and Fallon come to an unlikely understanding that leads to a spinetingling climax. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FHI004 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Jack Higgins
Read by Tony Amendola and Judith Marx. The success of the allied invasion of german-occupied Sicily depends on the luck of the american underworld boss, "Lucky Luciano," in convincing the sicilian mafia to back the invasion plans. When the two bosses clash in a face-to-face showdown, the outcome of the invasion and the lives of american troops rest in their hands. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FHI006 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Jack Higgins
Read by Patrick Macnee. "January 30" is the most mysterious and deadly terrorist group in Europe, targeting Israelis and Arabs, diplomats from Russia and the US, and protestant and catholic Irish. In London, Sean Dillon, former IRA enforcer, is part of a special group set up to find January 30 members. Sweeping across Europe and the Atlantic, a remarkable set of heroes and villains is brought together. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FHI013 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Jack Higgins
Read by Patrick Macnee. In 1985, an audacious hijacking by irish protestant paramilitaries culminates in the disappearance of 100 million pounds in gold bullion. En route to Ireland, the ship goes down with everyone except the mastermind, his niece and a mysterious friend. Ten years later, the US president hears about the ship and with the prime minister of England sets a thief to catch a thief: they hire Sean Dillon, once the most feared IRA enforcer, to avert the current irish crisis. (9 hrs. 6 cs.)
FHI015 / Buy $29.95 / Rent $12.25
by Susan Hill
Read by Jean Marsh. Since 1938, readers have longed to know what happened after Manderley burned in the famous Rebecca. The du Maurier estate commissioned novelist Susan Hill to pick up the story-here it is! (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FHI012 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Tony Hillerman
Read by Jay O. Sanders. When an american pilot dies in the last days of the Vietnam War, he leaves behind somewhere in SE Asia an infant daughter. Her uncle, "Moon," must set aside his job as a newspaper editor and his myriad nagging self doubts, to go find the girl, ranging from his mother's LA hospital room to the back streets of Manila and finally across the South China Sea to Cambodia . (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FHI014 / Buy $25 / Rent $10.25
by James Hilton
Read by Christopher Kay. Four passengers leave revolution-torn Baskul for the safety of Pakistan. But the mysterious pilot instead flies them ever deeper into the Himalayas. When the plane crashes in an unexplored tibetan wilderness, the world is turned upside down. A modern classic. (7 hrs. 5 cs.)
FHI010 / Buy $46.95 / Rent $11
by Peter Hoeg
Read by Maxwell Caulfield. The author of Smilla's Sense Of Snow "...writes prose that is as bitter, changeable, and deep-fathomed as powetry-prose that demands to be read aloud and savored."-The New Yorker. This is an often hilarious family novel, illustrating Denmark's leap from medieval society to welfare state during the course of this century. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FHO005 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Peter Hoeg
Read by George Guidall. With the farcical humor of the Marx brothers, the magic of a fable, and the pace of a thriller, Hoeg introduces an unforgettable couple: Madelene, alcoholic wife of a distinguished behavioral scientist, and Erasmus, a handsome young gorilla. Madelene's husband wants to make Erasmus the star of the new London zoo; Madelene elopes with the star, and eventually Erasmus takes charge. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FHO007 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Alice Hoffman
Read by Cherry Jones. Sally and Gillian came very young to the dark, eerie house of their eccentric aunts in a small Massachusetts town. As they become more aware of their aunts' mysterious and sometimes scary powers, the precocious sisters also saw their own powers surfacing. Determined to escape their strange upbringing, they try to blend into "normal" society. They fail, in this delicious, funny, haunting, romantic story. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FHO008 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Alice Hoffman
Read by Kate Nelligan. When Robin, divorced mother of a teenaged son, kidnaps a strange man newly returned to "civilization" and brings him home, her tight-knit island community is abuzz. The beautiful young stranger's presence transforms any islander who meets him. Then a girl is killed... (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FHO004 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Winifred Holtby
Read by Elizabeth Proud. Joanna inherited from her mother a passionate interest in foreign countries, an interest fed over the years by reading and her own imagination. Her reality was a ramshackle Yorkshire farm, two delicate children, and a war-wounded and -shocked husband. Finally, an opportunity arises to go to South Africa! (11 hrs. 8 cs.)
FHO006 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75
by Zora Neale Hurston
Read by Ruby Dee. Alice Walker says of this gem of a book, "There is no more important book to me than this one." Walker's, as usual, is the best advice in town (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FHU001 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Zora Neale Hurston
Read by Ruby Dee. Hurston's first great collection of stories, "big old lies," songs, voodoo customs and supersitions brings to life the humor and wisdom that are the unique heritage of american blacks. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FHU002 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Zora Neale Hurston
Read by Renee Joshua-Porter. Born in Eatonville, Florida around 1901, Hurston was a pillar of the Harlem Renaissance and an authority on african-american folklore. Here are six complete short stories: "Drenched In Light," "The Conscience Of The Court," "Muttsy," "The Gilded Six-Bits," "John Redding Goes To Sea," "Sweat." (3.25 hrs. 2 cs.)
FHU003 / Buy $22.95 / Rent $5.75
by Susan Isaacs
Read by Stockard Channing. This is an offbeat story of a secretary-turned-spy. Linda is a spunky young jewish woman from Queens who winds up working undercover for the OSS in Berlin during WWII. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FIS002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Susan Isaacs
Read by Christine Estabrook. Lee White, a NY criminal defense lawyer, takes on the case of a career con man, manly and magnetic, who crisscrosses the US to find women to love, liquidate their assets, and leave. Only Lee wonders if his confession to the murder of his most recent patsy is not his first ever selfless act. Meanwhile, the story of Lee's life unfolds, giving an account of crimes committed in the name of the good life. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FIS003 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Read by Michael York. An unusual novel, beautifully crafted. It is the summer of 1956. Stevens, for three decades the impeccable head butler to the late Lord Darlington, is off on a rare holiday-reluctantly taken at the suggestion of his new employer. Here he is forced to face buried truths about himself and his former boss. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FIS001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Susan Jedren
Read by Pamela Hensley Vincent. Speaking the most delectable Brooklyn english, single mother of two sons Anna finds a job driving a bakery truck around the five boroughs of her native New York. Her perspective on the city bristles with vitality, wit and an ebullient appreciation of reality. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FJE001 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Read by Julie Christie. In 1923 the beautiful, spoiled and bored Olivia, married to Douglas and his career in the Indian Civil Service, outrages the english and indian communities in the tiny, suffocating town of Satipur by eloping with an indian prince. Fifty years later, Douglas' granddaughter, armed with Olivia's letters, goes back to the heat and dust and squalor of the bazaars to find out for herself why Olivia turned her back on her husband and country. (6 hrs. 6 cs.)
FJH001 / Buy $54.95 / Rent $12.25
by Terry Kay
Read by the author. An old man has retired on the farm he has worked his whole life and he misses his dead wife acutely. His deteriorating physical and mental state worries the family, especially when a ghost dog appears in the old man's life. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FKA001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Terry Kay
Read by the author. In the summer of 1955, young Bobo Murphy was a waiter at an inn in the Catskills and became friends with the old and eccentric Avram Feldman, who explains that each life is marked by one grand, undeniable moment of change that never stops mattering. Avram's has to do with an opera singer; Bobo's comes that summer in the shape of Amy Lourie, whose parents won't consider the Georgia farm boy's love. Almost 40 years later, Bobo returns to the Catskills and so does Amy. In our Encyclopedia of the Opera, Duncan located a bio of Avram's nightingale, whose name, from listening to this tape, you'd never know was Amelita Galli-Curci. She was a coloratura soprano, born in Milan in 1882. She made her US debut in 1916. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FKA003 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Garrison Keillor
Read by the author. Learn about the statue of the Unknown Norwegian and why Lake Wobegon never made it onto the map, and many other small-town stories. (5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FKE004 / Buy $29.95 / Rent $10.25
by Garrison Keillor
Read by the author. Four tapes featuring stories of everyday life in Lake Wobegon, excerpted from live broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion: "Love," "Humor," "Hope," and "Faith." (5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FKE006 / Buy $29.95 / Rent $10.25
by Garrison Keillor
Read by the author. 14 of his own favorites. "Keillor appears never to invent or imagine a story, but rather to dredge it up from the depths of a collective memory."-Esquire. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FKE010 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Garrison Keillor
Read by the author. Vintage Twain and vintage Keillor, in the complete broadcast of Keillor's visit to Samuel Clemens' house in Connecticut. It includes monologues, sketches from Twain's books, music from Pamela Warrick-Smith and the Gregg Smith Quartet, and even a performance from the Clemens family music box. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FKE011 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Garrison Keillor
Read by the author. Eight new tales about various guys such as an aging god (Dionysus's mid-life crisis), a fallen hero, a confused cowboy, a jealous husband, an old lecher, and a teen-age leper. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FKE012 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Elmer Kelton
Read by Stephan Holland. An unusual, refreshing perspective on the westward expansion of the U.S. is provided by the two men who are our heroes: a young comanche warrior and a former slave employed to act as a police buffer between the white settler/invaders and the native americans whose land it was. They had much in common, but lacked even a common language. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FKE013 / Buy $25 / Rent $10.25
by Jack Kerouac
Read by David Carradine. The anthem of the beat generation, this book set the tone for decades of social change in the US. The two heroes cross the country on a bizarre journey of discovery...and the pulse that punctuates their story is the compulsive beat of jazz. (2.5 hrs. 2 cs.)
FKE001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Tracy Kidder
Read by Lowell George Seibel. This story takes place entirely in a fairly pleasant nursing home and focuses on two old men struggling with their circumstances, their memories and their mortality-and becoming friends. Kidder is the "crackerjack reporter with a common touch" who brings his usual care and exactitude to the project of looking closely at old age. (10 hrs. 8 cs.)
FKI003 / Buy $73.25 / Rent $13.75
by Jamaica Kincaid
Read by the author. Born and educated in Antigua, Jamaica Kincaid is the author of the international classic Annie John and a long time contributor to the New Yorker, currently teaching at Harvard. This is the story of 70-year-old Xuela Claudette Richardson. Earthy, intractable, antisocial, acridly introspective...interrogating the mysteries of her hybrid cultural origins and her parents, who failed to be parents. An extraordinary story, told in Kincaid's characteristically lucid, lilting, poetic, gorgeous prose. (5 hrs. 3 cs.)
FKI006 / Buy $21.95 / Rent $8
by Barbara Kingsolver
Read by the author. 6-year-old Turtle is the sole witness to an accident at Hoover Dam, bringing her and her mother Taylor into the national limelight. Annawake Fourkiller, an idealistic young lawyer for Oklahoma's Cherokee Nation, challenges Taylor's right to adopt Turtle, a native american baby who came to her in odd circumstances. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FKI002 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Barbara Kingsolver
Read by the author. Beautifully read and exquisitely written short stories from one of our favorite authors, exploring the twin themes of family ties and the life choices one must ultimately make alone. This selection of five complete stories from Homeland... includes: "Homeland," "Blueprints," "Quality Time," "Extinctions," and "Rose-Johnny." (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FKI005 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by Maxine Hong Kingston
Read by the author. This classic memoir is a beautiful revelation of a life lived in the present-day US, but haunted by China and its past. Her California childhood was lived among the ghosts of her parents' China: the myths, memories and folk beliefs that they clung to in the face of a new american life. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FKI001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by John Knowles
Read by Matthew Modine. A gem of a novel about two boys, best friends, during WWII. The chaotic world outside their boarding school's artificial oasis disrupts the boys' uneasy peace, forcing them to face their manhood. (2.5 hrs. 2 cs.)
FKN001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Dean Koontz
Read by John Glover. Formerly titled Prison Of Ice, this thriller pits a team of scientists who have planted 60 powerful explosive charges on an Arctic icefield, against a tidal wave which breaks their piece of ice loose and leaves them trapped with their bombs in a violent storm. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FKO001 / Buy $22.50 / Rent $10.25
by Louis L'Amour
Read by Willie Nelson. The great country singer has picked four of his favorite stories by the great western writer: "Desert Death Song," "Big Medicine," "Law of the Desert Born," and "Mistakes Can Kill You." Featuring original music, this foray into spoken-word audio is vintage Nelson-unpredictable, charming, passionate and unique. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FLA002 / Buy $19.95 / Rent $5.75
by John le Carré
Read by the author. At 48, Tim Cranmer is a Cold War spy retired to rural England with his young mistress, master of his manor house and vineyard. Twenty miles away lives Tim's past, personified by the bored radical don and philanderer, Larry Pettifer, for 20 years Tim's mercurial double agent against the now-vanished communist threat. Between them stands an unresolved rivalry. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FLE013 / Buy $25 / Rent $10.25
by Harper Lee
Read by Roses Prichard. Pulitzer Prize winner. Scout is 6 and Jem 10 when their father, a lawyer in a small southern town, takes on a case that rocks their community: he will defend a black man accused of raping a white woman. Violence flares between neighbors, so strong that in its wake lives and feelings change forever. (12 hrs. 8 cs.)
FLE012 / Buy $64 / Rent $13.75
by Billie Letts
Read by Susie Breck. Novalee Nation is 17, 7 months pregnant, and on her way to California with her boyfriend when he abandons her in Oklahoma. She lives in a Wal-Mart at night and on the streets by day, patching together a family from the people who help her as she helps them. Award-winning first novel. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FLE014 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Richard Llewellyn
Read by Philip Madoc. First there were the green mountains and fertile valleys that had defined Wales for millennia; then below the meadows coal was found. The men of the fields turned into people of darkness, who fought and loved, drank and sang in the shadows of the great collieries, forgetting how green their valley had been. This gorgeous book appeared in 1939 and immediately became the first and most famous bestseller of the war years. (16.25 hrs. 12 cs.)
FLL001 / Buy $94.95 / Rent $16.75
by Jack London
Read by Samuel Griffin. The barren forbidding climate of the Klondike is the stage on which the savage struggles and timeless bonds between human, dog and wilderness are played to their heart-rending extremes. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FLO001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Jack London
Read by Gene Engene. Another London classic about a wolf born and raised in the wild, who becomes acquainted with the world of humans and discovers there a whole new world of experiences. (8 hrs. 6 cs.)
FLO003 / Buy $29.95 / Rent $12.25
by Jack London
Read by Tim Behrens. What is at first a tale of humans battling nature in the harsh environment of the Yukon, delightfully emerges as London's finest love story, set in the San Francisco Bay area. (13 hrs. 12 cs.)
FLO004 / Buy $57.95 / Rent $16.75
by Gabrielle Lord
Read by Rebecca Gilling. This breathtaking thriller, brilliantly read, takes place in the australian outback, where a gang of ruthless thugs kidnaps a schoolteacher and her entire class. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FLO002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Bette Bao Lord
Read by the author. Lord is the author of the wonderful memoir of China, Legacies, one of our favorite audio books. This story begins in 1932, the year of the japanese conquest of Manchuria. Three young people form an unlikely, passionate alliance: the head of a once-great clan, his servant and teacher, and a prank-playing urchin, a grave-keeper's daughter disguised as a boy. The three become "blood brothers," pledging to die in defense of their country. Throughout the years of revolution that follow, the three face the challenges of conflicting loyalties as they rise to prominence in their separate careers. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FLO005 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Robert Ludlum
Read by Anthony Heald. A clandestine order of monks guards a vault containing writings which could shake the foundations of christianity. In the face of the advancing Germans in 1939, the vault is entrusted to the head of a prestigious italian family and hidden high in the Alps. The suspense continues from then until 1973, as the British, the church, the monks and the sons of the Italian vie to recover the treasure. (4 hrs. 4 cs.)
FLU005 / Buy $19.99 / Rent $10.25
by Robert Ludlum
Read by Robert Lansing. Amaya Bajaratt was made to watch as soldiers brutally killed her parents; the child vowed to take revenge on all authority. She grew up to be a world-class assassin, then lost her lover to a terrorist raid. Her bold act of revenge involves the heads of Israel, England, France and the US, and sets intelligence agencies desperately on her trail. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FLU006 / Buy $24 / Rent $10.25
by Robert Ludlum
Read by Edward Herrmann. US agent Harry Latham has penetrated a neo-nazi organization in the mountains of Austria. After years in deep cover, Harry vanishes. His brother Drew, a consular officer in Paris, is overjoyed to hear that Harry has reappeared, then terrified that the nazis have released him. Drew takes on his brother's identity and steps directly into the crossfire between those gunning for Harry and others out to destroy Drew. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FLU007 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Patrick Lynch
Read by John Glover. In this bio-thriller, a paleovirus has escaped the heart of the rainforest and run amok in Indonesia, where US biological warfare experts are sent to learn its source and its cure. Not until Holly Becker arrives, looking for her two daughters in the jungle, is there a hint of the secret to the terror that threatens to engulf them all. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FLY001 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by Compton Mackenzie
Read by Ken Stott. Wonderful reading, a funny story, a flagrant love of gaelic language, people and places, and a funny story make this a delight. Hitler is at the gate, but what the folks in the Outer Hebrides are worried about is a whisky drought that has taken one life and sorely stressed many others. Enter the SS Cabinet Minister, carrying 50,000 cases of the golden liquor to New York to earn war money, and wrecked on the suffering islanders' own reef. (9 hrs. 8 cs.)
FMA025 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75
by Patricia MacLachlan
Read by Blythe Danner. By the author of Sarah, Plain And Tall. Twelve-year-old Larkin and her friend, Lalo, find a baby in a basket with this note: "This is Sophie. She is almost a year old and she is good. I love her. I will come back for her one day." Larkin's family welcomes Sophie into their home, always wondering, however, if one day her mother will return to take her away. (2.25 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMA012 / Buy $15.99 / Rent $5.75
by Bernard Malamud
Read by Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson. Contains: "Introduction," "Take Pity," "The Model," "The Mourners," "The Cost of Living," "The Last Mohican," "Life is Better Than Death," "The German Refugee," "The Letter," "Idiots First," "My Son the Murderer," "The Magic Barrel," "The First Seven Years," "God's Wrath," "The Maid's Shoes," "Angel Levine," "Black is My Favorite Color," "The Jewbird," "Talking Horse." (7.5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FMA011 / Buy $44.95 / Rent $12.25
by Philip Margolin
Read by Margaret Whitton. Abigail Griffen, star prosecutor and estranged wife of Justice Griffen, is charged with the murder of her ex-husband. Abbie hires Matthew Reynolds, a legendary attorney specializing in death penalty defenses, to represent her. As the case develops, evidence of serious corruption in the court starts to appear and a plot so bizarre that the investigators are no longer sure who to trust, or where to turn. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FMA018 / Buy $23.95 / Rent $10.25
by Philip Margolin
Read by Jay O. Sanders. Defense attorney Nash is known as the Ice Man in the courtroom, defending guilty clients. Suddenly he is assailed by doubts about the cost of his legal victories, to society and to himself. Along comes a case that may be his redemption-a rising lawyer and family man is accused of the brutal murder of an undercover vice cop. Finally, a client Nash can believe in. But as they move towards the trial, unsettling questions arise about his client and who is being manipulated. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMA020 / Buy $16.99 / Rent $5.75
by Phillip Margolin
Read by Margaret Whitton. Richie, all-american boy, and Elaine, cheerleader, made the perfect couple. One evening at Lookout Point, fumbling with each other's buttons, thrilled and terrified, they were about to take the final step when violence stormed in to take Richie's life. Elaine was not so lucky. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMA022 / Buy $16.99 / Rent $5.75
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Read by Natasha Richardson. Translated by Edith Grossman. From the Nobel-winning author of Love In The Time Of Cholera, here is a story of a doomed love affair set in a south american seaport during the colonial era. Sierva Maria, only child of a decaying noble family, has been raised in the slaves' courtyard of her father's cobwebbed mansion while her mother consumes honey and cacao on a faraway plantation. On her 12th birthday, the copper-haired girl is bitten by a rabid dog. So begins a series of healing treatments hard to distinguish from tortures, until it is decided the girl is possessed by demons. The bishop's protege is sent to exorcise the girl and is possessed by love, "the most terrible demon of all." (5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FMA016 / Buy $25 / Rent $10.25
by Catherine Marshall
Read by Kellie Martin. At the age of 19, Christy Huddleston left home to teach school in the Smokies-coming to know and care for the wild mountain people, with their fierce pride, terrible poverty, dark superstitions and their yearning for beauty and truth. In these tough surroundings Christy would be severely tested by two remarkable young men. (4.5 hrs. 3 cs.)
FMA014 / Buy $19.95 / Rent $8
by Demetria Martinez
Read by Anna Fields. A young mexican-american woman falls in love with a political refugee she is hiding, but their growing passion is complicated by his horrific experiences in El Salvador. His violent secrets jar her own troubled memories. When he returns to his homeland, their affair ends, but their love lingers. (4 hrs. 4 cs.)
FMA026 / Buy $24 / Rent $10.25
by Sandra Martz, editor
Read by Ellen Burstyn and CCH Pounder. Each selection is unabridged. This anthology is an international bestseller, where younger writers looking forward in time and older ones who have experienced the joys and hardships of growing older, present a fresh view of the issues of aging in a society that glorifies youth. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMA019 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Sandra Martz, editor
Read by CCH Pounder and Ellen Burstyn. Edited and read by the same people who brought us When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple these selected, complete writings by and about women "...touch on every aspect of women moving on in life, looking at old age, looking at death..., celebratory of a life force that shines through their words." (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMA021 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Peter Mayle
Read by Tim Pigott-Smith. Set in Provence, in the landscape he has made familiar to readers, this novel is about a 42-year-old advertising tycoon who flees his whole life to start over in the south of France with his lover and the little jewel of a hotel they create together there. A crook is planning a bank robbery, paths cross, schemes go awry and the bad guys threaten the hotelier's little paradise. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMA013 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Peter Mayle
Read by Simon Jones. Toujours Provence's canine takes center stage, and expounds on his life in the french countryside, from his humble beginnings fighting for food with 12 siblings, to the day he established utter control over "The Management" (the Mayles) and settled into a country gentleman's life, developing a profound understanding of human foibles. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMA015 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.75
by Robert McCammon
Read by Richard Thomas. One cold morning, 11-year-old Cory's life is changed forever, when he and his father see a car plunge into a bottomless lake. His father tries to save the driver, and from then on is haunted by what he saw: the man handcuffed to the wheel, naked, beaten and strangled with piano wire. Cory's quiet home town explodes in the aftermath and the boy struggles to understand the forces of good and evil at work around him, as his life and his father's sanity hang in the balance. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMC009 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.75
by Carson McCullers
Read by Rita Moreno. Outstanding reading of this insightful, strange, touching novel about the rural south. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMC004 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Colleen McCullough
Read by Mary Woods. Missalonghi, a town in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, had been dominated by members of the Hurlingford clan for generations. Now, there are worries about an anonymous purchaser of significant numbers of family business shares, and about John Smith, who has just bought their valley. The real surprise is the sudden backbone that sprouts in the gentle, innocent, spinster Missy Wright, who consults romance novels for advice in her campaign to expand her horizons. (5 hrs. 5 cs.)
FMC019 / Buy $30 / Rent $11
by Colleen McCullough
Read by Nigel Graham. Mary Horton is a successful australian career woman in her forties, presenting an unadorned and self-contained image to the outside world and believing that she can live without love and friendship. Tim Melville is a young man with the beauty, power and grace of an Adonis and the mind of a child. They are drawn to each other from their first chance meeting, enjoying a growing friendship. Tim's caretakers are suspicious of Mary's motives and threaten to put the relationship to a stop. (7.5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FMC021 / Buy $54.95 / Rent $12.25
by Dennis McFarland
Read by William Schallert. Francis Brimm, celebrated news photographer, retires to his childhood home and reacquaints himself with his older sister Muriel, whose circumscribed life has been the opposite of his own. When Francis stumbles upon the evidence of a local murder, the Brimms are profoundly shaken, and gripped by a "creeping vine of memory" that forces them gradually to confront their various blindnesses to the hidden truths of their lives. Delightful turns of phrase, perfectly read. (8 hrs. 5 cs.)
FMC003 / Buy $29.95 / Rent $11
by Patrick McManus
Read by George Irving. This is a book of outdoor humor for all who love camping, fishing and boating. One hilarious adventure follows another and you learn how to avoid distasteful chores-and go fishing instead. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMC007 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Terry McMillan
Read by the author. Four Arizona women in their 30's struggle alone and together with questions of being black and female, wondering where black and male might fit in. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMC010 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.75
by Terry McMillan
Read by the author and Avery Brooks. Franklin Swift is a construction worker who says he's tired of women and their demands. Zora Banks is a teacher who feels the same way about men. Told from both characters' points of view, this is a different kind of love story: unsentimental, funny and graced by moments of streetwise brilliance and hard-earned wisdom. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMC013 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.75
by Terry McMillan
Read by Hattie Winston. Mildred Peacock is a survivor. Everything in her life is inconstant-work, paychecks, men, home-except her five children, who are her dream. Facing racism, poverty and loneliness with dignity and strength, Mama keeps her family together through the years. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMC014 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.75
by Terry McMillan
Read by the author. Stella, at 42, is divorced, a high-powered investment analyst, mother to an 11-year-old son, a woman who does it all, and does it well. So what if there is no one to share her bed, nothing to rock her world? On a whim, she decides to take a vacation to Jamaica all by herself. There she meets Winston, beautiful, soft-spoken, and 21 years old. Stella's world is rocked, all right. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMC020 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Larry McMurtry
Read by Daniel von Bargen. The story brings back Capt. Woodrow Call, the legendary Texas Ranger in Lonesome Dove, now a bounty hunter hired to track down and kill a bright and elusive young mexican bandit. The chase draws in two brave, remarkable women. It is their qualities which give hope for the West that is to be: an alternative to the West ruled by violence. (21 hrs. 14 cs.)
FMC012 / Buy $50 / Rent $18
by Larry McMurtry
Read by Boyd Gaines. It is 1925, and Charley Floyd, of St. Louis, a good-looking, sweet-smiling boy from Oklahoma working at the bakery, has just taken the big step that will make him a legend in his own lifetime: he robbed his first armored car. Everybody loves him-the women in his life are as charmed as the Ozark hill people who hide him out when he's on the run. Charley's only enemies are the federal agents tracking him, especially the terrible J. Edgar Hoover. (13.5 hrs. 8 cs.)
FMC017 / Buy $30 / Rent $13.75
by Larry McMurtry
Read by Will Patton. Lonesome Dove's Gus and Call are not yet 20, boys coming of age in the days when Texas was still an independent republic. Enlisting as Texas Rangers, the pair are with a land pirate who wants to seize Santa Fe from the Mexicans. Violence is the rule, whether from nature on the barren plains landscape, or the Native Americans defending their territories, or the Mexicans threatened by both. (14 hrs. 10 cs.)
FMC018 / Buy $45 / Rent $15.25
by Larry McMurty
Read by Betty Buckley. Calamity Jane and the colorful people who were her friends inhabit the wild west in its last days, as civilization encroaches and the buffalo, beaver and native american people disappear. Calamity Jane joins Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Exposition for a grand tour of Europe and her last adventure. (12 hrs. 8 cs.)
FMC006 / Buy $29.95 / Rent $13.75
by Jane Mendelsohn
Read by Blair Brown. In this novel, Amelia Earhart tells us what happened after she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared off the coast of New Guinea one glorious, windy day in 1937. She describes her love affair with flying; childhood ambitions to heroism; her marriage to Putnam, who promoted her to fame and was willing to gamble her life so the book she was writing about her round-the-world flight would sell out before christmas; the flight itself; and a miraculous island she and Noonan called Heaven. (313 hrs. 2 cs.)
FME002 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.50
by James Michener
Read by Peter Graves. The story of America's last great frontier land is now told in the tradition that Michener has made his own in such bestsellers as Hawaii, Centennial, and The Source. Past and present, history and fiction, come together in this epic story. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMI002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.50
by James Michener
Read by Norman Lloyd. Michener uses an archaeological dig at Tel Makor as his focal point to take us on an expedition through the history of this piece of Israel from the first evidence of human occupancy 12,000 years ago to the establishment of the modern state. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMI006 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.50
by James Michener
Read by Philip Bosco. Set in the lush paradise which is Hawaii, this is the story of the long centuries of polynesian dominion, followed by the decades of conquest via white christianity, ethnocentrism and greed. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMI010 / Buy $15.99 / Rent $5.50
by James Michener
Read by Simon Jones. The land-and-its-people novelist takes on South Africa. Missionaries, tribal peoples, adventurers and scoundrels, take part in the boisterous, competitive, and passionate history of a nation in conflict about how to live together in justice and harmony. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMI013 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.50
by James Michener
Read by Robert Vaughn. A journalist is in Seville to report on efforts the rancher Mota is making to revive his once-proud line of bulls. The story he uncovers shakes his skepticism, as he watches Mota's heroic prayers and devotions during easter week. On the other side is the matador, whose gypsy sister is determined that he will prevail against Mota's bulls. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMI014 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.50
by Anchee Min
Read by Nancy Kwan. A young woman comes from the US to teach English in China, encountering a generation steeped in the brutalities of the Cultural Revolution. Katherine is an auburn haired free spirit with the Beatles' music in her luggage, and this music wakens a latent erotocism in the women and men Katherine meets. A doomed love triangle emerges, whose consequences are insidious and tragic. Author of Red Azalea. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMI009 / Buy $17.95 / Rent $5.50
by Brian Moore
Read by Derek Jacobi. A complex mystery with reflections on the relations of church and state in Poland during the 1980's. The narrator is a cardinal who comes to believe that someone is trying to kill him. Is it the government, or a person in his own church? (5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FMO009 / Buy $35.95 / Rent $10.25
by Marlo Morgan
Read by the author. This is the runaway bestselling account of an average U.S. woman's four months spent with one of Australia's remote nomadic aboriginal tribes. She embarks on a 900 mile "walkabout" with her adopted tribe, traveling the forbidding terrain of the outback and learning how the Real People thrive in harmony with their environment and one another. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMO015 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.50
by David Morrell
Read by Bruce Boxleitner. A once-famous journalist's life is in shambles. While preparing his suicide, he gets a call from his editor, asking him to write an obituary for a man who is still alive. Plucked from his personal tragedies, he enters on a roller-coaster ride of danger, love, mysteries and a devastating secret conspiracy dating from the birth of the cold war. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMO014 / Buy $17.95 / Rent $5.50
by Toni Morrison
Read by the author. Gorgeously read, this novel takes listeners into a magical and richly peopled world encompassing four generations of black life in the US. "It places her on the front rank of contemporary American writers."-The Washington Post. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMO007 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.50
by Toni Morrison
Read by the author. Set in 1926 Harlem "when all the wars are over and there will never be another one... Here comes the new. Look out. There goes the sad stuff. The bad stuff." But there is a tragedy: a middle-aged black salesman kills his teenaged lover; his wife attacks the corpse at the funeral. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMO010 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.50
by Toni Morrison
Read by the author. This is the nightmare of a dream come true. Black, 11-year-old Pecola-in an America whose love for blonde, blue-eyed children can devastate all others-prays for her eyes to turn blue, so that the harsh realities of her world will change. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMO013 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.50
by John Mortimer
Read by Leo McKern. Rumpole, the eccentric barrister, returns from retirement to solve an "open-and-shut" murder case. McKern is as perfect as he was in the british TV series. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMO001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.50
by Alice Munro
Read by Judy Mahbey. "Marvelous...[with] a combination of detachment born of having grown up, escaped and found different values...[and a] ribald, humorous appreciation of girlhood...."-Ms. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FMU001 / Buy $15.98 / Rent $5.50
by John J. Nance
Read by the author. When a passenger aboard flight 66 falls ill and dies, rumor has it that a deadly virus is responsible, and no airport in Europe will accept the 747 for landing. The US president sends them to land in a remote region of the Sahara and die, but a CIA analyst argues that there is no virus. Meanwhile, the rest of the CIA thinks terrorists are after the airliner, and a stolen plane with air-to-air missiles takes off from the Ukraine to intersect flight 66 over the Atlantic. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FNA002 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Gloria Naylor
Bailey's Cafe is a diner frequented by a wide variety of the "colored" people of 1948. One by one we hear the stories of the cafe's regulars, like Sadie, whose addiction to alcohol is second only to her mania for cleanliness, or Eve, whose bordello accepts only fresh flowers as legal tender. (8 hrs. 6 cs.)
FNA001 / Buy $57.25 / Rent $12.25
by Edna O'Brien
Read by the author. Caithleen and Baba live in Dublin and discuss men, drink gin and try to look "fast." Cait, in the pursuit of true love, becomes involved with the fanatically domineering Eugene. Painful disillusion and occasional bliss make this a bittersweet tale, told with perception and wit. (9 hrs. 6 cs.)
FOB001 / Buy $53.95 / Rent $12.25
by George Orwell
Read by Alan Bennett. The animals of the farmyard rebel against farmer Jones in the name of equality. But the tyrannical pig, Napoleon, soon establishes a totalitarian state. A cult has grown up around this simple animal fable that cloaks a profound and urgent political satire. Sadly, it seems never to go out of date. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FOR001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.50
by Michael Palmer
Read by Megan Gallagher. An exciting medical/environmental thriller. Dr. Abby Dolan was on the fast track at a major San Francisco hospital when she made a critical choice: to follow her fiance to the town of Patience, California, a company town depending upon the manufacturing giant Colstar. When many unexplainable illnesses begin to appear at the hospital and her fiance starts to behave in a bizarre manner accompanied by blinding headaches, Abby begins a dangerous cat and mouse game with Colstar's steely head of security. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FPA006 / Buy $22.95 / Rent $10.25
by Edith Pargeter (aka Ellis Peters)
Read by Richard Mitchley. Second in the Heaven Tree trilogy. Young Harry Talvace is the son of Ralf Isambard's master builder, the man who raised the great church at Parfois and was put to death by his jealous patron. Harry grew up in the court of Llewelyn, Prince of North Wales, nursing a desire for vengeance. When he makes his way to Parfois to challenge Isambard, he instead falls under the old warrior's spell, discovering that enmity can prove as complex as love. (10 hrs. 8 cs.)
FPA007 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75
by Edith Pargeter (aka Ellis Peters)
Read by Richard Mitchley. Harry Talvace, master mason in the time of King John, fled to Paris as a young man, where his genius for carving drew him into friendship with the enigmatic Ralf Isambard and the venetian courtesan Madonna Benedetta. In their company Harry returns to his native Shropshire to build a church for Isambard. Soaring heavenward, the tree of stone flowers, but casts darkening shadows of jealousy, pitiless revenge, and death. (14 hrs. 12 cs.)
FPA005 / Buy $94.95 / Rent $16.75
by Dorothy Parker
Read by Lauren Bacall. Famous for her wit and cynicism, Parker was a New York City editor, drama critic, book reviewer and central figure in the celebrated Algonquin Hotel Round Table. Here are five of her bestselling stories, brilliantly reflecting the foibles of the society she lived in. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FPA003 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.50
by Marge Piercey
Read by Lee Meriweather, Leigh Taylor Young & Elisa Pensler. The strands of three women's lives are braided here. Leila, long resigned to her husband's infidelities, discovers that his new lover may finally destroy her marriage. While coping with her own revelations, she is researching the life of Becky, accused of murdering her husband. Then her housecleaner Mary, secretly homeless and deathly ill, appears in Leila's guest bed. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FPI008 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.50
by Rosamunde Pilcher
Read by Lynn Redgrave. A story spanning three generations is set in Cornwall and London over the years since WWII. "The Shell Seekers" is Penelope's prized possession, her father's last painting, and it forms a link with him and with her children, an assortment of very different people. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FPI001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.50
by Rosamunde Pilcher
Read by Kate Burton. The poignant story of a woman who is visited by her long-lost love, now a widower with a two-year-old son. Together they journey to Scotland in what is to become an odyssey of emotional discovery. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FPI002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.50
by Rosamunde Pilcher
Read by Lynn Redgrave. Needing time to contemplate her upcoming wedding, Caroline and her brother take a long drive to Scotland. While trying to find their missing brother, they are caught in a sudden spring blizzard. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FPI005 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.50
by Rosamunde Pilcher
Read by Carole Shelley. Impulsively, Selina Bruce left behind her fiancé in London and flew to a tiny island off the spanish coast. Looking for the father she had never known, she found an unexpected truth about herself and the man she planned to marry. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FPI006 / Buy $15.99 / Rent $5.50
by Rosamunde Pilcher
Read by Lynn Redgrave. Virginia foolishly lost the young farmer who loved her the summer she was a debutante. 27 years later, she returns to Cornwall with her two children, looking for a second chance. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FPI007 / Buy $15.99 / Rent $5.50
by Rosamunde Pilcher
Read by Lynn Redgrave. Five years in the writing, this old-fashioned tale is one the author believes to be the capstone of her lifetime of writing. It is the story of Judith Dunbar and her loved ones, in a vividly drawn era close in time but now forever vanished. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FPI009 / Buy $23.95 / Rent $10.25
by Rosamunde Pilcher
Read by Lynn Redgrave. Includes five complete stories from The White Birds And Other Stories From The Blue Bedroom: the title story, "The House on the Hill," "Amita," "Tea with the Professor," and "Miss Cameron at Christmas." (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FPI010 / Buy $16.99 / Rent $5.50
by Rosamund Pilcher
Read by Lynn Redgrave. As her mother lay dying, she first told Rebecca about a family she knew nothing about. Determined to locate them, Rebecca goes to a mansion in Cornwall and finds herself enmeshed in relationships torn by passion and greed, from her grandfather, hiding an explosive secret, to the craftsman Joss and his past hinting of intrigue, to a handsome cousin with dangerously seductive kisses. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FPI011 / Buy $16.99 / Rent $5.50
by Rosamunde Pilcher
Read by Frances Barber. Prue is 23 years old, engaged to a successful, safe, secure young banker her mother adores, but she is unaccountably restless. When an invitation comes from her beloved, eccentric Aunt Phoebe, Prue jumps at the chance for a trip to Cornwall. On the train she meets a little girl, and later meets her father, and the three spend idyllic days exploring the beaches and meadows. But something is troubling the man, and Prue, deeply involved, is compelled to find out what it is. (5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FPI012 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $10.25
by Sylvia Plath
Read by Frances McDormand. This classic of US literature chronicles the breakdown of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, successful—but slowly going under, maybe for the last time. Plath takes us step by step through a painful month in NY that Esther spent as a winning junior editor on a magazine, as her relatiohships with her mother and college sweetheart grew increasingly strained, and as she went, eventually, into the reality and rationality of madness itself. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FPL001 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by Douglas Preston
Hilarious, poignant, and, in time, desperately sad, Jennie is the story of an orphaned chimpanzee, brought to Boston from Africa to live with an american family. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FPR001 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.50
by E. Annie Proulx
Read by Robert Joy. Pulitzer Prize winner. At 36, Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman, is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife meets her just deserts. He retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. (4.5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FPR002 / Buy $22 / Rent $10.25
by E. Annie Proulx
Read by Edward Herrmann. The accordion was made in Sicily in 1890, and brought to New Orleans by the maker and his son, who dreamed of opening a music store in the new world. Within a year, the accordion maker is killed by an anti-Italian lynch mob, but the instrument survives. It carries the story along as it falls into the hands of various immigrants who travel with it from Iowa to Texas, from Maine to Louisiana, looking for a decent life, the music their last link to the past. (5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FPR003 / Buy $25 / Rent $10.25
by Barbara Pym
Read by Jan Francis. An anthropologist in her thirties returns to her home village in England and looks at her own culture and its changing roles (the squire, the rector and the doctor) and customs in the 1970's. Unexpectedly, her old flame moves into a cottage in the woods outside the village. (6.75 hrs. 8 cs.)
FPY001 / Buy $64.95 / Rent $13.75
by Barbara Pym
Read by Sheila Hancock. A chance encounter over a victorian flower book brings together beautiful, 50ish Leonora, antique dealer Humphrey, and James, his young nephew. Leonora is determined to keep James under her spell, but has both bookish Phoebe and the attractive american Ned to contend with. Pym's sharp eye for the comedy and pathos of relationships is here at its best. (6 hrs. 6 cs.)
FPY002 / Buy $54.95 / Rent $12.25
by Anna Quindlen
Read by Laura Linney. When Ellen learns of her mother's cancer, it is already far advanced. At her father's insistence, she quits her job and moves home. As the two women begin to spend their days together, Ellen learns surprising things about them both and the life choices each made. As the illness progresses, so do the doses of morphine, and so grows Ellen's belief that her mother's suffering has gone too far. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FQU002 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.50
by Daniel Quinn
Read by Anthony Heald. Ishmael is The Teacher, a gorilla with a story to tell, one that never appears in schoolbooks or popular culture, of humanity's place in the grand scheme of the universe. "Does the earth belong to man [sic]? Or does man belong to the earth?" Sly, witty, profound, this is an unforgettable intellectual adventure. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FQU001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.50
by Daniel Quinn
Read by Anthony Heald. As in Ishmael Quinn uses the medium of a great teacher to delve quietly into the hidden history of our planet, redefining the fall of humankind, and retracing a path of human spirituality that extends millions of years into the past. Father Jared Osborne is on a mission to Europe to find "B," a peripatetic teacher whom Jared's order believes may be the antichrist. But what he finds is nothing like what he had expected. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FQU003 / Buy $22.95 / Rent $10.25
by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Read by Melissa Hughes. Eight tales set in Florida in the 1930's and '40's and richly of their time and place, look at the realities of class, race and community with humor and insight: "The Pelican's Shadow," "Black Secret," "The Pardon," "In The Heart," "Jessamine Springs," "Benny And The Bird Dogs," "Cracker Chidlings" and "Gal Young Un." (4 hrs. 4 cs.)
FRA001 / Buy $26.95 / Rent $10.25
by Miss Read
Read by Gwen Watford. When Miss Read receives a diary for christmas instead of the usual bath salts, she decides to make good use of it. In each chapter, she recounts a month in her life as headmistress of Fairacres School in a tiny english village. (7.5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FRE004 / Buy $49.95 / Rent $12.25
by James Redfield
Read by Jesse Corti. Redfield, writer, lecturer and therapist, created an adventure that has become a phenomenon since it first appeared in small bookshops. An ancient peruvian manuscript reveals nine key insights that are critical to the evolution of humanity. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FRE006 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by James Redfield
Read by Chris Sarandon. A light abridgement. Follows the bestseller The Celestine Prophecy in which we were introduced to Nine Insights that lead to a new spiritual awakening. This new adventure story explains the profound changes slowly sweeping the planet today. The author maintains that each of us is born with a guiding purpose, which we must seek to discover, and, by following this life path, move the world closer to its spiritual destiny. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FRE008 / Buy $24 / Rent $10.25
by Barry Reed
Read by Nicholas Anthony Ballas. Prominent Dr. Dillard is the last person known to have seen a young woman found dead on the outskirts of Boston, and he has no alibi. The DA sees the case as an opportunity for free press for his senatorial campaign. Dillard's defense attorney starts skeptical, ends up caught in the web of the DA's political ambitions. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FRE007 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Elvi Rhodes
Read by Anne Dover. Rose is the only woman doctor working in the Welfare Center of an industrial Yorkshire town in the 1920's. She fights poverty and illiteracy in her patients and sexism in the other doctors, determined to prove that she is talented, serious and the best person for the job. Low-key, charming, and beautifully read. (10.5 hrs. 7 cs.)
FRH001 / Buy $61.95 / Rent $13.75
by Elvi Rhodes
Read by Carole Boyd. "The Meeting" describes the ten-yearly reunion of a group of friends which dwindles each time. The two members most closely involved come to a decision that was inevitableÑperhaps. " Model of Beauty" is set in a painting class, where the temporary illness of the model brings about surprising consequences. Lots of very short stories which by turn entertain, soothe, and intrigue. (4 hrs. 3 cs.)
FRH002 / Buy $31.95 / Rent $8
by Anne Rice
Read by Tim Curry. Set in the decadent, opulent, brutal and extraordinary world of the 18th century italian elite, this history focusses on the life of the castrati. Castrated men, sterile yet sexually functional, were adored for their glorious soprano voices, while being despised as biological freaks. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FRI002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Liz Rigbey
Read by Michael O'Keefe. The graceful and enigmatic Julia Fox is charged with murdering her stepdaughter and husband, an eminent attorney whose private life stands in shocking contrast to his public facade. Lomax, Fox's lover, is determined to clear her. When she finally stands trial, the result is a highly surprising verdict, with the most stunning discovery still to come. (4.5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FRI004 / Buy $22 / Rent $10.25
by Tom Robbins
Read by Michael Nouri. Follow Sissy Hankshaw, a small-town gal with big dreams, on her amazing odyssey from Virginia to chic Manhattan to the Dakota Badlands, where FBI agents, cowgirls and ecstatic whooping cranes explode in a drawn-out climax. (13.5 hrs. 9 cs.)
FRO001 / Buy $29.95 / Rent $15.25
by Damon Runyon
Read by Jerry Orbach. In four Broadway stories, Runyon recreates the colorful atmosphere and language of New York City street life-the show girls, gamblers and hustlers. Included are "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" (the story on which the musical Guys and Dolls was based), "Princess O'Hara," "Social Error" and "The Three Wise Guys." (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FRU001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Salman Rushdie
Read by the author. Haroun's father, the successful storyteller known sometimes as the Shah of Blah, suddenly loses his ability to tell stories. His son Haroun takes us along on an adventure full of fantasy and delightful wordplay, looking for a power to restore his father's talents. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FRU003 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Salman Rushdie
Read by the author. In nine narratives, Rushdie highlights both the affinities and the wide distances between the cultures of people from the East and from the West, bound and separated by misunderstandings both comic and tragic. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FRU005 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Salman Rushdie
Read by Art Malik. Nobody can cook up a stew like Rushdie. Insane puns, radical commentary, magic, familes, the history of India, fanciful digressions, a riveting story, hilarity, love, lust, death, envy, greed. "One of my favorite writers in the world."-Debby (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FRU006 / Buy $25 / Rent $10.25
by Vita Sackville-West
Read by Dame Wendy Hiller. In 1860, as a girl, Lady Slane nurtures a dream of becoming an artist. Instead she becomes the wife of a great statesman and the mother of six children. When her husband dies 70 years later, Lady Slane abandons the family home and the responsibilities of a public figure, to the dismay of her pompous family. She retires to a small house, enjoying her memories and the mellow present in the company she chooses. Virginia Woolf's friend has given us a perfect gem of a story. (6 hrs. 6 cs.)
FSA002 / Buy $49.95 / Rent $12.25
by Sapphire
Read by the author. A black street girl, 16 and pregnant, again, by her father, Precious discovers a world of hope when she meets a teacher hell-bent to teach. The black woman bullies, cajoles and every day goes over the pages of Precious's diary with her, translating the illiterate but developing language of the journal as the brutal aspects of Precious's daily existence are spelled out. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FSA003 / Buy $18 / Rent $5.75
by Sidney Sheldon
Read by Rogelio Guerra. The world-wide bestseller with the story of what Kate McGregor did with her father's diamond fortune. Known in English as Master of the Game, this recording is entirely in Spanish. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FSH009 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Sidney Sheldon
Read by Kirk Douglas. Harry Stanford, one of the richest men in the world, drowns under mysterious circumstances near Corsica. In Boston, a young beauty turns up after the funeral, claiming to be Harry's daughter and heir. In a chain of events that reverberates around the globe, a hidden web of blackmail, drugs and murder emerges from behind the facade of wealth and glamour. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FSH012 / Buy $25.95 / Rent $10.25
by Carol Shields
Read by the author. In this Pulitzer, Book Critics, and Canadian Governor General award winner, Daisy Goodwill, now in old age, tries to tell her life story, from her dramatic birth in Manitoba in 1905, through her years as wife, mother and widow, seeking with irony and humor to find and define herself in the unsettled matrix of the 20th century. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FSH011 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Nevil Shute
Read by Leo McKern. "The Imperial Japanese Army do not make war on womans and childs." Instead they take Jean Paget and 32 other english women and children prisoner and force march them across the malayan jungle. This is the story of a young woman who stands up to her cruel captors. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FSH001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Nevil Shute
Read by Robin Bailey. A small airplane on an errand of mercy has crashed in one of the most inaccessible parts of the world. The pilot has a fractured skull and urgently needs medical attention. A former flying pupil and an inexperienced doctor attempt the dangerous mission. Then, past events begin to become mysteriously interwoven with those of the present. (8.5 hrs. 8 cs.)
FSH004 / Buy $64.95 / Rent $13.75.75
by Nevil Shute
Read by Robin Bailey. For the czech doctor Carl Zlinter, Australia is the land of opportunity, the place to build a new life in a new world. But Carl is not all he seems; his dark secret, if exposed, threatens to shatter all his dreams and expectations. (10.5 hrs. 8 cs.)
FSH005 / Buy $64.95 / Rent $13.75.75
by Nevil Shute
Read by James Faulkner. A group of men, united in their hatred of the evil and brutality of the WWII german forces, find themselves left with only one course of action if each of the men is to satisfy his need for revenge and justice. But the action they plan is a risky choice, fraught with danger, hardly conceivable, and vitally important. (13 hrs. 10 cs.)
FSH014 / Buy $84.95 / Rent $15.25
by Nevil Shute
Read by Nicholas Farrell. Flyer Peter Marshall and his bomber crew were united by a common passion for fishing, representing sanity in a war-mad world. While others disappeared over Germany, Marshall's crew always came back to base. Their little world of peace was shattered by the arrival of a WAAF. (9.5 hrs. 8 cs.)
FSH007 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75.75
by Nevil Shute
Read by Stephen Thorne. In the weeks that led up to D-Day, when the invasion fleet was massing, everyone in Britain seemed gripped by a chill yet silent tension. Nevil Shute's brilliant novel of love and friendship begins when two Australians meet a young WREN in the crowded hours on the eve of battle. (9 hrs. 8 cs.)
FSH008 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75.75
by Nevil Shute
Read by Robin Bailey. Henry Warren was a wealthy man, owner of a merchant bank in the City. With his marriage at an end, his only interest was making money. But what was the point? Then he finds a woman with a faith in the future, and a town that needs to win back its self-respect, and both give him a new reason for living. He would risk his fortune, his reputation, even his freedom, to make his dream come true. (7 hrs. 6 cs.)
FSH010 / Buy $54.95 / Rent $12.25
by Anne Rivers Siddons
Read by Kate Burton. Merritt is a natural caretaker. For most of her life she has taken care of her erratic, brilliant younger sister, her doctor husband and her fragile daughter. Now she also has her destructive mother-in-law, in the advanced stages of alzheimer's, to care for. She is about to crack. Following her daughter to her sister's home in California after a big family quarrel, Merrit decides to stay for a while. There earthquakes physical and emotional test the bonds among the three women. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FSI006 / Buy $22.50 / Rent $10.25
by Jane Smiley
Read by Kathy Bates. One thousand acres of rich Iowa farmland is the setting and the central character in this Pulitzer-winning family drama, which is brought to a crisis when Larry Cook unexpectedly retires and leaves the farm to his three daughters. In time it becomes clear that the transfer of the land was just the first in an unfolding series of events that threaten to tear apart both family and farm. (4.5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FSM005 / Buy $22 / Rent $10.25
by Jane Smiley
Read by B.D. Wong. Midwestern agricultural university Moo U is desperate for money and rife with intrigues and machinations-private, public, sexual, intellectual, financial, technological, domestic, global, social and political. There is the poet laureate of consumerism, whose students are his "customers," the dean's secretary, whose information network puts J. Edgar Hoover to shame, a small Texas billionnaire, and at the secret heart of the campus, an unauthorized experimental project. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
by Martin Cruz Smith
Read by Michael York. The american adventurer Jonathan Blair has been chased by scandal out of West Africa to the stranger land of victorian England. He is hired by the local bishop, owner of the Wigan coal mine, to find John Maypole, a cleric who is engaged to Charlotte, the bishop's daughter. In searching for Maypole, Blair finds himself involved not only with the lives of the miners who make the bishop rich and the pit girls who are the scandal of the country, but also with his own shadowy origins. (4 hrs. 4 cs.)
FSM007 / Buy $23.5 / Rent $10.25
by Wallace Stegner
Read by John Randolph Jones. The story of a lifelong friendship between two couples. With grace and power, Stegner evokes the dense web of feeling and experience that binds the four people-joy and sorrow, fulfillment and frustration, anger and forgiveness. One of our favorite books. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FST010 / Buy $24 / Rent $10.25
by Wallace Stegner
Read by Page Stegner. This story follows the fortunes of an english lad who comes to the Saskatchewan prairie in search of a clearer identity. Rusty finds work as a cowhand on the vast plains and in the course of a winter of raging blizzards, finds heroism, human kindness and camaraderie. (4 hrs. 3 cs.)
FST014 / Buy $24.95 / Rent $8
by John Steinbeck
Read by Gary Sinise. George is wiry, smart and lonely; Lennie is huge, simple-minded and gentle, but unaware of his own physical strength. Their dream is to earn enough to get a place of their own, but the dream ends in tragedy on a ranch in the Salinas Valley. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FST009 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by John Steinbeck
Read by Jerry Farden. The setting is Monterey, California. Dora has a taste for Nile green evening dresses and keeps an honest one-price house. Hazel's mother was too tired to notice his sex when she named him. Doc has helped many a girl out of one trouble and into another. You'll meet them all on Cannery Row. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FST012 / Buy $32 / Rent $10.25
by John Steinbeck
Read by Hector Elizondo. Kino, a mexican pearl-fisher in the Gulf of California, finds a pearl of great value-worth far more than is required to pay the doctor needed to save his child's life. But the pearl brings only evil and tragedy to his family. A literary jewel-classic Steinbeck. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FST013 / Buy $16 / Rent $5.75
by Mary Stewart
Read by Nicol Williamson. The four titles make up a quartet set in 5th century Britain. The focus is on Merlin, the magician who rescued the infant Arthur from the warring kings following his father's death. Merlin took him to safety to nurture, train and advise, until he grew up and reclained his throne. (9 hrs. 8 cs.)
FST004 / Buy $63.8 / Rent $13.75.75
by Gene Stratton-Porter
Read by Laurie Klein. This is a detailed, captivating, good-humored and tolerant look at family life in a small farming community in Indiana in the early 1900's. (14.5 hrs. 12 cs.)
FST007 / Buy $57.95 / Rent $16.75
by Gene Stratton-Porter
Read by Mary Starkey. When recently we said how much we both loved Laddie, we discovered that Debby's parents were brought up on Stratton-Porter's books. This is one of the most popular american novels ever written. It is the moving story of a young girl whose kindness and wholesome philosophy brighten the lives of her many friends, bringing happiness to a spoiled heiress and finding romance. (11 hrs. 8 cs.)
FST011 / Buy $41.95 / Rent $13.75.75
by Amy Tan
Read by the author. Drawn together by their arrival in San Francisco from China at the same time, four women meet once a week for the next forty years to share stories and to create joy and luck out of life's catastrophes. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FTA001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Amy Tan
Read by the author. For forty years in China and in San Francisco, Winnie Louie and Helen Kwong have kept certain confidences. However, Helen, convinced that she has a terminal illness, decides to celebrate chinese New Year by unburdening herself of everybody's hidden truths. So begins a series of comic misunderstandings and heartbreaking realizations-and the resiliency of love. (18 hrs. 12 cs.)
FTA002 / Buy $34.95 / Rent $16.75
by Amy Tan
Read by the author. 5-year old Olivia shares a room with her teenaged half sister Kwan, and hears about ghosts from China. Trying to ban the ghosts from her imagination, Olivia commits an act of betrayal with lifelong consequences. The sisters are together 35 years later visiting the mountain village where Kwan grew up, and Olivia is still enduring the advice of Kwan and her ghosts, now acting as unlicensed marriage counselors and amateur restaurant reviewers. There, Olivia tries to reconcile the ghosts of her past with shared hopes for the future. (12 hrs. 8 cs.)
FTA003 / Buy $39.95 / Rent $13.75
by Josephine Tey
Read by Derek Jacobi. This is the fascinating search for the truth about Richard III. Was he the monster that Shakespeare portrayed or was he the victim of a smear job by the House of Lancaster? Tey's investigator is none other than her famous detective inspector Alan Grant, who takes on the project to lighten his boredom as he convalesces in hospital. A delight for history and mystery buffs alike. (5.5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FTE001 / Buy $49.95 / Rent $12.25
by Josephine Tey
Read by Stephen Thorne. Police inspector Alan Grant has gone to Scotland to recover from stress-induced claustrophobia. En route, a young man is found dead, next to him lying a newspaper that Alan picks up. On it are pencilled lines of poetry which haunt him until he is on the trail again, rather than on vacation. (7 hrs. 6 cs.)
FTE002 / Buy $53.95 / Rent $12.25
by James Thurber
Read by George Rose. A mock fairy tale for listeners of all ages, this is one of Thurber's liveliest inventions. Filled with wizardry and wisdom, the story revolves around a princess (who may or may not be a white deer under enchantment) who sends suitors on impossible quests in competition for her hand. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FTH001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by J.R.R. Tolkien
A BBC Production. From the wonderful landscapes of the Shire and Lothlorien to the stark and sunless land of Mordor, the brave Hobbits and their fellowship of the ring pursue their quest, bearing the awesome ring of Sauron. This is the ultimate english fantasy, beloved by people young and old, generation after generation. (12 hrs. 12 cs.)
FTO001 / Buy $79.95 / Rent $16.75
by Rose Tremaine
Read by Paul Daneman. Robert Merivel abandons his medical study to plunge into serious gluttony, indolence and buffoonery at the court of king Charles II. Finding favor with the king, Merivel served as "paper groom" to the youngest royal mistress, in exchange for an estate and knighthood. By falling in love with her himself, he breaks the rules and is banished from court. His enforced purgatory leads to work in a Quaker bedlam and a further fall from grace before he can find spiritual and social restoration. (13 hrs. 10 cs.)
FTR001 / Buy $84.95 / Rent $15.25
by Scott Turow
Read by Len Cariou. Alejandro "Sandy" Stern-the briliant defense lawyer from Presumed Innocent-comes home to discover that his wife of 30 years has committed suicide, leaving behind a web of mystery, money and guilt. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FTU001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Scott Turow
Read by Stacy Keach. A fancy corporate law firm drafts fiftyish ex-cop Mack Malloy to locate their star litigator, who suddenly disappeared at the same time as millions of a client's dollars. Mack's search takes him into the treacherous inner sanctum of the law firm and thence into the city's shadiest side. (4.5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FTU002 / Buy $24 / Rent $10.25
by Scott Turow
Read by Blair Brown, Joe Grifasi and Joe Morton. The story opens with a spectacular drive-by shooting in a notoriously drug-plagued housing project. Within days, the son of the victim, Nile Eddgar, a probation officer, is charged with the crime. The trial, presided over by Judge Sonia Klonsky, brings together a vivid cast of characters from Sonia's student years during the turbulent sixties, among them Nile's father, and her old boyfriend Seth Weissman, now a renowned journalist. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FTU003 / Buy $26 / Rent $10.25
by Anne Tyler
Read by Pamela Reed. Tyler's acclaimed, bestselling novel of family life. "Beautiful...funny, heart hammering, wise..."-NY Times Book Review. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FTY001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Anne Tyler
Read by John Malkovich. Winner of the 1985 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and loved by readers, this is a story of an adventure-avoiding man's choice between his wife and his true love. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FTY002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Anne Tyler
Read by Jill Eikenberry. On a hot summer day, dreamy, scattered Maggie and her husband of 28 years, competent, taciturn Ira, find themselves driving to an old friend's funeral. The journey becomes a metaphor for their own lives, with its tensions and frustrations and its possibilities for falling in love all over again. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FTY003 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Anne Tyler
Read by Barbara Barrie. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead, daughter and wife of Baltimore doctors and mother of three almost-grown children, walks out of her life one day in the middle of a family holiday at the beach, hitches a ride with the plumber and settles down in a quiet little town. She likes her new impersonal life, but inevitably new friends, new responsibilities and new children need her to fill a hole in their lives. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FTY007 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by John Updike
Read by the author. Tristão is 19, a black street boy who meets pale, upper-class Isabel, fresh from convent school. From that moment, they are forever in love and in flight from her rich family, from one side to the other of a stylized Brazil. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FUP003 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by John Updike
Read by the author. Five stories from Updike's first collection in seven years: "The Man Who Became a Soprano," "The Afterlife," "The Other Side of the Street," "Farrell's Caddie" and "Grandparenting." Rich in Updike staples: spouses quarrel, lovers part, children are brave, houses have presence, innocence stubbornly persists, and fresh beginnings almost outnumber losses. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FUP004 / Buy $17 / Rent $5.75
by Alice Walker
Read by the author. This is the Pulitzer Prize winner's first audio book. She weaves a forceful narrative of three pairs of lovers who transcend time to discover disquieting truths, all set in a rich background of african and latin american history and myth. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FWA001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Alice Walker
Read by the author with Joe Morton. Tashi grew up in tribal Africa and spent most of her adult life in North America. Genitally mutilated before she left Africa, Tashi spends the rest of her life battling madness. When finally she begins to understand what happened to her, her rage explodes. (5.5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FWA002 / Buy $25 / Rent $10.25
by Robert James Waller
Read by the author. Robert, world-class photographer and displaced nomad, stops on a farm in Iowa one summer to ask directions. Francesca came from Italy as a young war bride and was content with her life as farm wife. The instant they met, all was changed, leaving them with an experience that haunted them the rest of their lives. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FWA003 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Robert Waller
Read by the author. The attraction between a middle-aged economics professor, Michael Tillman, and the introspective wife of a new colleague calls forth magical feelings that only lovers can know. However, Jellie Braden is a married woman with a carefully hidden past. And Michael is no young man with foolish dreams. When Jellie disappears, Michael finds himself heading into the strange, exotic world of south India to look for her. (5 hrs. 4 cs.)
FWA004 / Buy $22.95 / Rent $10.25
by Robert James Waller
Read by the author. This is the story of Jack and Linda, of long, hot days on a high desert ranch, nights wild with loving beneath west Texas skies, and times when their relationship tears them both apart. Waller writes about men and women who have seen life, made hard choices, and are still looking for something more. A light abridgement. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FWA005 / Buy $24 / Rent $10.25
by Robert James Waller
Read by the author. While looking for inspiration in Puerto Vallarta, US journalist Danny Pastor accidentally witnesses the assassination of a US naval officer. When he and his lover Luz Maria agree to drive the killer to the border, a psychological thriller mixed with an emotionally stirring story evolves. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FWA006 / Buy $24 / Rent $10.25
by Jill Paton Walsh
Read by Christopher Scott. On a remote medieval island a wolf-child is found, and a man from a logical, worldly, technologically advanced european city is shipwrecked. Held in tension between the agnostic man and the god-ignorant wolf-girl, the island's varied but very traditional populace struggles to rebalance their lives in the face of the two outlandish newcomers. Set elsewhere and else-when, this fable explores the conflicts between tolerance and moral certainty, issues pretty relevant to the here and now. (9 hrs. 8 cs.)
FWA009 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75
by Joseph Wambaugh
Read by Ron McLarty. A tale of murder and skullduggery in San Diego during the preliminary races for the America's Cup. Blaze, a lively redhead of dubious morality, is at the center of a plot to stack the outcome of the Cup by sabotaging the brilliant New Zealand boat. The rest of the cast includes cops, prostitutes, racing syndicate people from all over the world, spies trying to ferret out design secrets, rich yachting-crazy locals and cuppies, women who'll fling themselves at any member of any racing team. (6 hrs. 4 cs.)
FWA007 / Buy $22.95 / Rent $10.25
by Orson Welles and Victor Hugo
The 1937 radio adapatation of Hugo's classic story. This is exactly as it was heard on the radio, between July 23 and Sept. 3, 1937. The performers were mostly taken from Welles's fledgling Mercury Theater, players who would later follow him to Hollywood and to fame. (3.5 hrs. 3 cs.)
FWE003 / Buy $19.95 / Rent $8
by Mary Wesley
Read by Anna Massey. Rose kept faith with both lover Mylo and husband Ned the whole of her respectable married life. Perfect wife, mother and hostess for Ned, she was an impetuous and unconventional mistress to Mylo, answering his erratic, impassioned calls throughout fifty years. Now Ned has died, and Rose can choose again. A delectable book. (10 hrs. 8 cs.)
FWE005 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75.75
by Mary Wesley
Read by Anna Massey. Laura Thornby, independent, individual, and slightly exotic, manages her life with exquisite control: career, affairs, and two rather odd elderly relatives. When she meets young Claude Bannister, struggling to be a writer, she is swept by an irresistible desire to interfere, manipulate, experiment with him-for his own good, of course. What she does not foresee are the possibilities that, one day, he may write well and she may fall in love. (7.5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FWE007 / Buy $54.95 / Rent $12.25
by Mary Wesley
Read by Carole Boyd. Behind the large house, fragrant camomile stretches down to the cornish cliffs. Here, in the summer of 1939, five cousins have gathered at their aunt's house for their annual ritual of a holiday together. For many of them, it will be the last summer of their youth. From Cornwall to London and back again, the daily pressure of war time is met with the desperate humor of survival, with the cousins holding on to the part of themselves that laughed and played dangerously on the camomile lawn. (10 hrs. 8 cs.)
FWE008 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75
by Mary Wesley
Read by Carole Boyd. Poppy stages a funeral for her dad: and oh! what a funeral. Her heart is broken by her deserting lover, but she finds so many consolations along the way. She is almost killed in a road accident, but rescued by just the right free-range pig farmer. And still there is her father, who left Poppy surprising amounts of money and a legacy of ladies and racecourses. (12.5 hrs. 10 cs.)
FWE013 / Buy $84.95 / Rent $15.25
by Morris West
Read by Tom Casaletto. Max worked for Pia Palombini, as archivist of the family art treasures, and as her lover. When Pia died, she willed him one thing of his choice from her collection. Max found a pair of authenticated, unknown Raphaels. Wrestling with his conscience, walking a tightrope on the legal front, and gambling with fortunes, Max finagles the introduction and sale of the Raphaels. (12 hrs. 8 cs.)
FWE004 / Buy $23.95 / Rent $13.75
by Morris West
Read by Patrick Malahide. While riding to an isolated water-hole in the rugged heartland of Australia's Northern Territory, rancher Lance Dillon comes upon a group of aborigines in a ritual which included the slaughter of his very expensive stud bull. In a desperate effort to save the bull, and his own economic prospects, Dillon attacks. Badly wounded, he escapes to the bush. Back at the ranch, his wife and the local policeman set out together to find Dillon, but before long each is secretly hoping they'll fail. (5.5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FWE006 / Buy $54.95 / Rent $12.25
by Jessamyn West
Read by Roses Prichard. Zen is a gambler, drinker and womanizer. He appears to be-depending on one's point of view-dashing and attractive, or a soul headed for perdition. Ginerva is a lovely girl, still in her teens; romance and propriety frequently clash in the theater of her imagination. The problem is Zen, with whom she is secretly and most improperly in love. Because Zen is not only old enough to be her father...he is in fact her uncle. Jessamyn West has written many delightful books about the Quakers in the pioneering era of the western migrations. Jessamyn West isn't a new author, but a new favorite of ours. (7.5 hrs. 5 cs.)
FWE009 / Buy $30 / Rent $11
by Jessamyn West
Read by Roses Prichard. A series of delightful, flavorful, stories set on a ranch in southern California follow the fortunes of gawky, noisy, cruel, and loving Cress Delahanty, between the ages of 12 and 16. (9 hrs. 6 cs.)
FWE010 / Buy $48 / Rent $12.25
by Bailey White
Read by the author. White's colorful slices of eccentric southern life range from tours of mansions with leaky roofs and drinks with the Rose Queen of 1931, to deciding to teach first grade and coping with her cousin, whose grand plan is reunite the family's far-flung Chippendale chair collection! (4 hrs. 4 cs.)
FWH001 / Buy $20 / Rent $10.25
by Tennessee Williams
Read by Shirley Knight. Three events, each in its own way catastrophic, send Mrs. Stone to Rome where she discovers a new life in this city of the past. This is an unforgettable reading by Shirley Knight, famed for her performances of Williams roles. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FWI002 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
by Henry Williamson
Read by Donada Peters. "The author has the power given to few of seeing life from the point of view of the animals he describes."-Guardian. A great nature story, following Salar, a five-year-old salmon, swimming upstream to the spawning sands of his birth, and the many dangers he encounters between the sea and his ineradicable goal. (8 hrs. 8 cs.)
FWI004. / Buy $48 / Rent $13.75
by P.G. Wodehouse
Read by Jonathan Cecil. Jeeves is the perfect butler. When Bingo Little falls in love with a tea-and-bun shop waitress, and Bertie falls into the mulligatawny, there's work for a wet-nurse. Who better than Jeeves? (6.25 hrs. 6 cs.)
FWO003 / Buy $49.95 / Rent $12.25
by P.G. Wodehouse
Read by Simon Vance. This is Wodehouse without Jeeves, but don't miss it. Quietly hysterical, set in the '20's, this is the story of Bill, an impoverished english lordling who crosses the Atlantic to find his fortune. Meanwhile an eccentric millionaire leaves Bill all his money. Bill thinks he doesn't deserve it. His on and off fiancee thinks she does. (7.5 hrs. 5 cs.)
FWO009 / Buy $33.95 / Rent $11
by P.G. Wodehouse
Read by Jeremy Sinden. Vintage, hilarious, non-Jeeves Wodehouse. The cast includes the lord of a castle, whose only interest in life is his prize pig, his sister who is set on stopping her niece from marrying an artist, and a visiting american millionnaire, suffering from the effects of alcohol poisoning, who has fallen in love with the gorgeous but dim daughter of the house. (8 hrs. 6 cs.)
FWO012 / Buy $54.95 / Rent $12.25
by P.G. Wodehouse
Read by Jonathan Cecil. When the news breaks that Madeline Bassett is engaged to Gussie Fink-Nottle, Bertie Wooster's relief is immense. But when Madeline attempts to turn Gussie into a vegetarian, Bertie's instinct for self-preservation sends him with the steadfast Jeeves on another uproariously funny mission to Sir Watkyn Basset's residence at Totleigh Towers.... (5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FWO013 / Buy $54.95 / Rent $12.25
by P.G. Wodehouse
Read by Robin Browne. This is a collection of nineteen of Wodehouse's short stories, all written before the first world war. His particular brand of humor shines out through them all as we are presented with a vast array of comic characters. (11.75 hrs. 8 cs.)
FWO016 / Buy $69.95 / Rent $13.75
by Virginia Woolf
Read by Irene Worth. One of the great innovative writers of the 20th century is represented by carefully chosen examples of her novels, essays, short stories, letters and diaries. (8 hrs. 6 cs.)
FWO004 / Buy $44.95 / Rent $12.25
by Virginia Woolf
Read by Irene Worth. The heroine resembles the author. The central metaphor is a pageant about the history of a rural english town. How the pageant-or art itself-symbolizes the imposition of order on the chaos of human life is told deftly, with wisdom and humor. (5.5 hrs. 6 cs.)
FWO006 / Buy $44.95 / Rent $12.25
by Virginia Woolf
Read by Laura Patton. Orlando is a young man at the court of Elizabeth I, at least initially. He then progresses with breathtaking ease through three centuries of incarnations, ending up a feted woman writer of the 1920's. A fantastic flight of the imagination, this was Virginia's love letter to the charismatic, eccentric Vita Sackville-West. (2.5 hrs. 2 cs.)
FWO011 / Buy $9.98 / Rent $5.75
by Virginia Woolf
Read by Eileen Atkins. On a fine summer's day in London, Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious wife of an MP, is preparing for her party. Her former lover has just returned to India. In another part of the city, Septimus Smith is going mad with shellshock. In her lyrical style, Woolf adds impression to impression, capturing the feel of life itself. (3 hrs. 2 cs.)
FWO014 / Buy $16.95 / Rent $5.75
by Herman Wouk
Read by Theodore Bikel. The setting is the establishment of the state of Israel from 1948 to1967. Historical characters are mixed into the lives and loves of several well characterized fictional families. A great story with never a dull moment, brilliantly read. (31 hrs. 21 cs.)
FWO008 / Buy $79.95 / Rent $20
by Herman Wouk
Read by Theodore Bikel. A novel standing by itself, The Glory brings on as combatants the second generation of the military families introduced in The Hope. Along the way, we get to know Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Henry Kissinger, Manachem Begin and Anwar Sadat-and we witness the tense escalation between the superpowers, including the american nuclear alert that alarmed the world. (24 hrs. 16 cs.)
FWO010 / Buy $59.95 / Rent $20
by Richard Wright
Read by James Earl Jones. The life of Bigger Thomas is in large part that of the author, growing up in the atmosphere of poverty and helplessness of the ghetto of the 1930's. Wright testifies to northern racism and how people are boxed into violence in response to society's lack of humanity. (2 hrs. 2 cs.)
FWR001 / Buy $15.95 / Rent $5.75
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