Wee Free Men

Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
Unabridged audio, 7 cassettes

Oh my gosh! I loved this one. I am going to go look for every Terry Pratchett novel I can find and put the audios on my wishlist. I hope they all have the same reader, Stephen Briggs was great! Story of a 9 year old girl who discovers she is a witch after her brother disappears. He has been stolen away by the Queen of the Elves. Tiffany must rescue him with the help of the Wee Free Men.

Auralia's Colors

Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet

I liked this one. I liked the idea of the story before I even read it because of the back cover notes. An abandoned child found by two thieves grows to be the downfall or is it the salvation of the kingdom of Abascar, a country where only the royal family is allowed the joy of color.

Duma Key

Duma Key by Stephen King
Unabridged Audio - 18CDs

Stephen King as always been one of my favorite listens. I never really got into his Gunslinger series, but his free standing books I love. The last few however, have been a disappointment. Not so with Duma Key. A very, very good story about a man who looses his arm in a crane accident. His wife divorces him and he moves to a remote island to recooperate and piece back together his life. He buys some paint and canvas and begins a new life as an artist. But shortly after, strange things begin to happen and the ghost that haunts Duma Key threatens Edgar and his two daughters. Classic King -- I loved it!

Swine Not

Swine Not by Jimmy Buffett
Unabridged 5CDs

Ok, I have to admit it, I love Jimmy Buffett, his music, his books, just everything. This is a really cute litte book. It is a story for children, but written in a way that adults will enjoy it too. It is the story of a small boy, his sister and their mom that moved into an upscale New York City hotel where mom is a pastry chef. They smuggle in the family pet, a pig named Rumpy and the fun begins.

Velocity

Velocity by Dean Koontz
Unabridged Audio - 6 cassettes

Koontz writes the scariest stories sometimes. My favorites are the ones like this one, a perfectly plausable, it could really happen tale of murder and mystery.

Billy Wilds gets off work one night to find a note on his windshield. If he does nothing, a young school teacher will be murdered. If he goes to the police, an elderly lady that likes to do charity work for the church will be murdered. His choice, what should he choose, this is no joke.

Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem by Autumn Cornwell
Unabridged audio - 7CDs

Vassar Spore's life is all planned out. Everything from what college she will attend (Vassar of course) to winning the Pulitzer Prize. What she didn't plan on was spending the summer with her out of control grandmother on an expedition to Cambodia for the summer. The story was cute and had some unexpected twists to it. Overall, I enjoyed this one. It was a short, quick, listen to.

Uglies #4 - Extras

Uglies series #4 - Extras by Scott Westerfeld

I like this one better than "Specials", but still not as much as the first two books in this series. Mind rain has reminded people that they were brainwashed during the time of the "uglies" and "pretties" . Now people are only concerned about how famous they are and rate themselves according to how many times their name is spoken on a live feed. Aya looks for a story that she can "kick" to her feed to make herself famous. She uncovers what she believes is a plot to destroy the world and Tally and Shea show up to help her uncover the truth. Overall a good story, but let's hope Westerfeld quits while he is still ahead.

Runemarks

Runemarks by Joanne Harris
Unabridged audio - 14CDS

Ok, best book of the year so far. Maddie is born with a rune mark on her hand. She is feared by most of the small village she lived in. Her only friend is "one-eye" a wanderer who comes to the village on his travels. When he discovers her powers, inborn in her, he helps her uncover an opening to the underhill where she meets, Loki, the trickster, Hella, the lady of the dead, Skadi and a host of other lost Norse gods and legends. The story was awesome and since I am very interested in runes, it made it even more so.

CONFUSION (warning - I'm ranting)

I usually listen to one audiobook in the car and one at the house. The *#@*#& CD player in the car doesn't work very well anymore, but I do have a cassette player as well so I can still listen to audios in the car. "Runemarks" is from the library and only on CD and "Duma Key" is my personal copy, but is also on CD. I had already gotten 6 or 7 CDs into Duma when Runes finally became available at the library. I had gotten "Runemarks" to work fairly well in the car up until yesterday and the CD player just refused to play it, SO now I have 3 audiobooks going - "Velocity" on cassette in the car - Duma & Rune at home. I guess poor Duma will get shelved until I can get "Runemarks" finished since it is a library book.

Whats a girl to do???

I really dread buying a new car (my husband and I take turns - buy one get it paid off, next person gets a new car, etc). My turn is coming up in March and I dread getting a new car because I don't know of any that have both a CD player and a cassette, which is EXACTLY what I want again. ALSO - if I listen to music, it is on my iPOD and rather than mess with trying to find a station that it comes in staticy on (at best), I use a blank cassette tape hooked up to the iPOD that allows it to use my car speakers and it sounds just like the radio or CD.