May, 2008

9 AM (Mon-Fri)

YOU: STAYING YOUNG – THE OWNER’S MANUAL FOR EXTENDING YOUR WARRANTY
by Michael F. Roizen, M.D. & Mehmet C. Oz, M.D.

Read by Sally Miller. (17 episodes, 4/21-5/13/08)

The body is the most fascinating machine ever created, and nobody talks about it in ways that are as illuminating and compelling as Dr. Michael Roizen and Dr. Mehmet Oz do. In YOU: The Owner's Manual they showed us how bodies work in general, and in In YOU: On a Diet, they explained how bodies lose weight and stay fit; both books have sold in the millions. Now, in In YOU: Staying Young, the doctors are going to talk to you about what happens as your body ages. As with their previous books, they've conducted tireless research and will introduce fascinating and crucial information in an unforgettable way.

Most people think of the aging of our bodies the same way we think of the aging of our cars: The older we get, it's inevitable that we're going to break down-it could be in just a few ways or it could be in dozens of ways. Most of us hold this notion that once we reach 40 or so, we begin the slow and steady decline of our minds, our eyes, our ears, our joints, our arteries, our libido, and every other system that affects the quality of life (and how long we live it) .

But according to Dr. Roizen and Dr. Oz, that's a mistake.

Aging isn't a decline of our systems. It's actually very purposeful. The very systems and biological processes that age us are actually designed to help us when we're a little bit younger. So what's our role as part of the aging population? To learn how those systems work, so we can reprogram them to work the way they did when we were younger. Your goal should be: Die young at any age. That means you live a high quality of life (with everything from working joints to working genitals) until the day you die. Because the doctors' real goal isn't just to make you live longer; it's to allow you to maintain vibrancy throughout your entire life.

The authors will tantalize readers with completely novel concepts---they're not just going to tell you that all you have to do is eat well and sleep lots. They'll explain how our bodies have evolved to ensure 50 years of high quality life, but those same mechanisms can be counterproductive as you age (it's the concept of biologic necessity, rather than just an accident; a biological process that helps you cope better when young unfortunately does opposite as you age). They'll do this by using the metaphor of a city to explain how the body works. Just like your body ages, a city does, too-especially if decisions are made that negatively impact the health of the city, or if too many resources and investments are used in the wrong areas and too few resources are used in the right areas. A once vibrant body can deteriorate if you don't take care of it. But if you revitalize, maintain, and implement new ideas, you'll keep your body at its finest. This allows you to live gracefully and passionately with a fundamentally older infrastructure.

Some examples you'll see throughout the book: Your arteries are like roadways that can be clogged, blocked, or worn down after years of abuse. Your brain is like the energy grid that supplies power to the entire city-and can be knocked out here and there if you let neurological branches fall on your power lines (keys, anyone?). Your skin, in many ways, is like a city's parks and green space-contributing to the overall sense of beauty and vibrancy. Your fat? Yep, landfill.

But really, the ultimate goal isn't just to keep your biological city from turning into a ghost town-to keep you from dying. The goal is to make your body top the "best city to live in" list. It's to make it vibrant, hip, to give it lots of resources and manage them well, and, perhaps most of all, to give it the ability to reinvent itself in the face of changing times.

The book will be full of signature YOU methods to convey the story, including YOU Tests, YOU Tips, and visual and verbal metaphors to bring the science alive; it will be heavily illustrated in the same playful, irreverent style as the previous books. Each section of the book will introduce a theory for why we age, with a quick intro into the science that will be followed by chapters of the health issues that primarily fall under each specific theory of aging.

As always, the doctors' passion for spreading awareness and promoting good health will shine through and make this a funny, educational, essential book.

NOW & THEN
by Robert B. Parker

Read by Jim Beattie. (6 episodes, 5/12-5/19/08)

Spenser knows something’s amiss the moment Dennis Doherty walks into his office. The guy’s aggressive yet wary, in the way men frightened for their marriages always are. So when Doherty asks Spenser to investigate his wife Jordan’s abnormal behavior, Spenser agrees. A job’s a job, after all.

Not surprisingly, Spenser catches Jordan with another man, tells Dennis what he’s found out, and considers the case closed. But a couple of days later, all hell breaks loose, and three people are dead. This isn’t just a marital affair gone bad. Spenser is in the middle of hornet’s nest of trouble, and he has to get out of it without getting stung.

With Hawk watching his back and gun-for-hire Vinnie Morris providing extra cover, Spenser delves into a complicated and far-reaching operation: Jordan’s former lover Perry Alderson is the leader of a group that helps sponsor terrorists. The Boston P.I. will use all his connections–both above and below the law–to uncover the truth behind Alderson’s antigovernment organization. Alderson doesn’t like Spenser poking around his business, so he decides to get to him through Susan. But what Alderson doesn’t realize is that Spenser will do anything to keep Susan out of harm’s way; nothing will keep him from the woman he loves.

LIVING WELL: 21 DAYS TO TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE, SUPERCHARGE YOUR HEALTH, AND FEEL SPECTACULAR
by Montel Williams w/William Doyle

Read by Monique Nero. (11 episodes, 5/20-6/03/08)

In the fight for health and happiness, New York Times bestselling author Montel Williams shares his battle plan for better living.

In his inspiring autobiography Climbing Higher, Montel Williams told the story of his lifelong struggle for respect and success-and his ongoing struggle with multiple sclerosis. In Body Change: The 21-Day Fitness Program for Changing Your Body...and Changing Your Life!; he shared his successful workout strategies; And now, in Living Well with Montel, Montel imparts his personal recipe for healthy and happy living. He also shares his 21-Day Living Well Food and Workout Program-a hard-hitting, three-phased health plan for fast, fit results.

For anyone who wants to fight chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease, and neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis-or just wants to feel spectacular in their daily life, it's time for a push to the next level-by Living Well with Montel.

10 AM (Mon-Fri)

THE PREACHER AND THE PRESIDENTS: BILLY GRAHAM IN THE WHITE HOUSE
by Nancy Gibbs & Michael Duffy

Read by Ray White (17 episodes, 4/14-5/06/08)

No one man or woman has ever been in a position to see the presidents, and the presidency, so intimately, over so many years. They called him in for photo opportunities. They called for comfort. They asked about death and salvation; about sin and forgiveness.

At a time when the nation is increasingly split over the place of religion in public life, THE PREACHER AND THE PRESIDENTS reveals how the world's most powerful men and world's most famous evangelist, Billy Graham, knit faith and politics together.

IN DEFENSE OF FOOD: AN EATER’S MANIFESTO
by Michael Pollan

Read by Wanda McMullen. (8 episodes, 5/07-5/16/08)

What to eat, what not to eat, and how to think about health: a manifesto for our times

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, the well-considered answers he provides to the questions posed in the bestselling The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Humans used to know how to eat well, Pollan argues. But the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused, complicated, and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists-all of whom have much to gain from our dietary confusion. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not "real." These "edible foodlike substances" are often packaged with labels bearing health claims that are typically false or misleading. Indeed, real food is fast disappearing from the marketplace, to be replaced by "nutrients," and plain old eating by an obsession with nutrition that is, paradoxically, ruining our health, not to mention our meals. Michael Pollan's sensible and decidedly counterintuitive advice is: "Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food."

Writing In Defense of Food, and affirming the joy of eating, Pollan suggests that if we would pay more for better, well-grown food, but buy less of it, we'll benefit ourselves, our communities, and the environment at large. Taking a clear-eyed look at what science does and does not know about the links between diet and health, he proposes a new way to think about the question of what to eat that is informed by ecology and tradition rather than by theprevailing nutrient-by-nutrient approach.

In Defense of Food reminds us that, despite the daunting dietary landscape Americans confront in the modern supermarket, the solutions to the current omnivore's dilemma can be found all around us.

In looking toward traditional diets the world over, as well as the foods our families-and regions-historically enjoyed, we can recover a more balanced, reasonable, and pleasurable approach to food. Michael Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we might start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives and enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy.

SHATTERED DREAMS: MY LIFE AS A POLYGAMIST’S WIFE
by Irene Spencer

Read by Dianna DePriest. (15 episodes)

Irene Spencer did as she felt God commanded in marrying her brother-in-law Verlan LeBaron, becoming his second wife. Her dramatic story reveals how far religion can be stretched and abused and how one woman and her children found their way out, into truth and redemption.

1 PM (Mon-Fri)

OUTWITTING HISTORY: THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF A MAN WHO RESCUED A MILLION YIDDISH BOOKS
by Aaron Lansky

Read by Marty Kwatinetz. (11 episodes, 4/18-5/05/08)

In 1980, a twenty-three-year-old student named Aaron Lansky set out to rescue the world’s abandoned Yiddish books before it was too late. Twenty-five years and one and a half million books later, he’s still in the midst of a great adventure. Filled with poignant and often laugh-out-loud tales from Lansky’s travels across the country as he collected books from older Jewish immigrants—books their own children had no use for—Outwitting History also explores brilliant Yiddish writers and enables us to see how an almost-lost culture is the bridge between the Old World and the future.

A REMARKABLE MOTHER
by Jimmy Carter

Read by Kevin Burnup. (5 episodes, 5/06-5/12/08)

A Remarkable Mother is President Carter's loving, admiring, wry homage to Miss Lillian Carter, who championed the underdog always, even when her son was president.

A registered nurse, pecan grower, university housemother, Peace Corps volunteer, public speaker, and renowned raconteur, Miss Lillian ignored the mores and prejudices of the racially segregated South of the Great Depression years. She was an avid supporter of the Brooklyn Dodgers (because she happened to attend the first major league baseball game in which Jackie Robinson, from Cairo, Georgia, played), was a favored guest on television talk shows (usually able to "steal the microphone" from hosts such as Johnny Carson and Walter Cronkite), and an important role model for the nation. Jimmy Carter's mother emerges from this portrait as redoubtable, generous, and forward-looking. He ascribes to her the inspiration for his own life's work of commitment and faith.

HOME TO HOLLY SPRINGS
by Jan Karon

Read by Jonie LaBouff. (14 episodes, 5/13-5/30/08)

With Home to Holly Springs, New York Times-bestselling author Jan Karon launches a new series, The Father Tim Novels, featuring the retired Episcopal priest that her readers have come to love. With all the deep feeling, insight, and humor that fans of the Mitford series cherish, Karon in this novel takes Father Tim on a journey to his hometown of Holly Springs, Mississippi. A host of fascinating encounters with people along the way ensure that the trip is colorful, though as Father Tim arrives in response to a mysterious summons, he may discover that home is where the heart is but also where secrets are hidden.

SHAKESPEARE: THE WORLD AS STAGE
by Bill Bryson

Read by Tom Jowers. (6 episodes, 5/31-6/07/08)

What a match: Bill Bryson, expat American with a well-known love of the English language (see The Mother Tongue, 1990), takes on the life of Will Shakespeare (1564-1616), with his exceedingly well known ability to shape that language into works of genius. The result is a triumph of patience and insight over the obstacle of few facts. We know so little about the great poet and playwright that Bryson manages to indulge some of the wackier speculations, if only for sport. But his touch is, as usual, light and genial. Sifting through the slim evidence of Shakespeare's life, Bryson avoids "the urge to switch from conjunctive to indicative" that characterizes so many of the previous biographers. Using the best scholars and critics to amplify his own amateur research, he takes us to both the National Archives in London -- where he describes the mess that is 16th-century orthography -- and the basement of the Folger Library's collection of First Folios. This visit occasions Bryson's smart excursus on early bookmaking and allows him to celebrate the real heroes of Shakespeare's afterlife: the friends who preserved most of his plays in that first collected edition, itself the Holy Grail of Shakespeare scholarship. The final chapter, a survey of the silly debunkers of Shakespeare's authorship, is a real hoot, with Bryson at his wittiest. Not since Marchette Chute's somewhat prudish Shakespeare of London (1949) have we had such a succinct, reliable, and enjoyable Shakespeare bio for general readers. Bryson penetrates the mystery that was the life -- for the majesty that is the work. --Thomas De Pietro

10 PM (Mon-Sat)

PEOPLE OF THE BOOK
by Geraldine Brooks

Read by Rosemary Scalessa. (13 episodes, 4/23-5/07/08)

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, the journey of a rare illuminated manuscript through centuries of exile and war

In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—she begins to unlock the book's mysteries. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the book's journey from its salvation back to its creation.

In Bosnia during World War II, a Muslim risks his life to protect it from the Nazis. In the hedonistic salons of fin-de-siècle Vienna, the book becomes a pawn in the struggle against the city's rising anti-Semitism. In inquisition-era Venice, a Catholic priest saves it from burning. In Barcelona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text sees his family destroyed by the agonies of enforced exile. And in Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadah's extraordinary illuminations is finally disclosed. Hanna's investigation unexpectedly plunges her into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics. Her experiences will test her belief in herself and the man she has come to love.

Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is at once a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity, an ambitious, electrifying work by an acclaimed and beloved author.

L.A. OUTLAWS
by T. Jefferson Parker

Read by Tom Jowers. (11 episodes, 5/08-5/20/08)

Los Angeles is gripped by the exploding celebrity of Allison Murietta, her real identity unknown, a modern-day Jesse James with the compulsion to steal beautiful things, the vanity to invite the media along, and the conscience to donate much of her bounty to charity. Nobody ever gets hurt - until a job ends with ten gangsters lying dead and a half-million dollars worth of glittering diamonds missing.

Rookie Deputy Charlie Hood discovers the bodies, and he prevents an eyewitness - a schoolteacher named Suzanne Jones - from leaving the scene in her Corvette. Drawn to a mysterious charisma that has him off-balance from the beginning, Hood begins an intense affair with Suzanne. As the media frenzy surrounding Allison's exploits swells to a fever pitch and the Southland's most notorious killer sets out after her, a glimmer of recognition blooms in Hood, forcing him to choose between a deeply held sense of honor and a passion that threatens to consume him completely. With a stone-cold killer locked in relentless pursuit, Suzanne and Hood continue their desperate dance around the secrets that brought them together, unsure whether each new dawn may signal the day their lies catch up with them.

AMAZING GRACE
by Danielle Steele

Read by Lyn Cioci. (11 episodes, 5/21-6/02/08)

On a warm May night in San Francisco, the Ritz-Carlton ballroom shimmers with crystal and silver as a glittering, celebrity-studded crowd gathers for a charity dinner dance. The evening is perfect–until, just minutes before midnight, the room begins to sway. Glass shatters. And as the lights go out, people begin to scream….

In the earthquake’s aftermath, the lives of four strangers will converge.… Sarah Sloane, the beautiful wife of a financial whiz, watches her perfect world fall to pieces…. Grammy-winning singer Melanie Free, the event’s headliner, comes to a turning point in her life and career…. Photographer Everett Carson, a former war correspondent whose personal demons have demoted him to covering society parties, finds new purpose amid the carnage…and Sister Maggie Kent, a nun who normally works in jeans and high-tops with the homeless, searches through the rubble–and knows instantly that there is much work to be done….

As the city staggers back to life, a chain reaction of extraordinary events will touch each of the survivors.… For Sarah, it begins with the discovery of a crime and a betrayal, then a strength she never knew she had. For Melanie, volunteering at a refugee camp will open new worlds of possibility. And Everett will be shaken by the unlikely relationship he forges with Maggie, who helps him rebuild his shattered life–and upends her own in the process. But as a year passes, and the anniversary of the earthquake approaches, more surprises are in store–as each discovers the unexpected gifts in a tragedy’s wake…and the amazing grace of newbeginnings.

Throughout these enthralling pages, Danielle Steel creates a stunning array of contrasts–from the dazzle of a society benefit to the chaos of a makeshift hospital, from the pampered lives of rock stars to the quiet heroism of emergency volunteers. It is her most powerful and life-affirming novel to date.

11 PM (Mon-Sat)

RUN
by Ann Patchett

Read by Ann Woodall (11 episodes, 4/24-5/06/08)

It's a winter evening in Boston and the temperature has drastically dropped as a blizzard approaches the city. On this fateful night, Bernard Doyle plans to meet his two adopted sons, Tip the older, and more serious and Teddy, the affectionate dreamer, at a Harvard auditorium to hear a speech given by Jesse Jackson. Doyle, an Irish Catholic and former Boston mayor, has done his best to keep his two sons interested in politics, from the day he and his now deceased wife became their parents, through their childhoods, and now in their lives as college students. Though the two boys are African-American, the bonds of the family's love have never been tested. But as the snow begins to falls, an accident triggers into motion a series of events that will forever change their lives.

This is at its very center, a novel about what truly defines family and the lengths we will go to protect our children. As she did in her bestselling novel Bel Canto, Patchett beautifully weaves together seemingly disparate lives to show how intimately humans can connect. Stunning and powerful, Run is sure to engage any Patchett fan and bring her even more admirers.

THE JUDAS STRAIN
by James Rollins

Read by Bob Brier. (18 episodes, 5/07-5/27/08)

New York Times bestselling author James Rollins returns with a terrifying story of an ancient menace reborn to plague the modern world . . . and of an impossible hope that lies hidden in the most shocking place imaginable: within the language of angels.

From the depths of the Indian Ocean, a horrific plague has arisen to devastate humankind—a disease that's unknown, unstoppable . . . and deadly. But it is merely a harbinger of the doom that is to follow. Aboard a cruise liner transformed into a makeshift hospital, Dr. Lisa Cummings and Monk Kokkalis—operatives of SIGMA Force—search for answers to the bizarre affliction. But there are others with far less altruistic intentions. In a savage and sudden coup, terrorists hijack the vessel, turning a mercy ship into a floating bio-weapons lab.

A world away, SIGMA's Commander Gray Pierce thwarts the murderous schemes of a beautiful would-be killer who holds the first clue to the discovery of a possible cure. Pierce joins forces with the woman who wanted him dead, and together they embark upon an astonishing quest following the trail of the most fabled explorer in history: Marco Polo. But time is an enemy as a worldwide pandemic grows rapidly out of control. As a relentless madman dogs their every step, Gray and his unlikely ally are being pulled into an astonishing mystery buried deep in antiquity and in humanity's genetic code. And as the seconds tick closer to doomsday, Gray Pierce will realize he can truly trust no one, for any one ofthem could be . . . a Judas.

STONE COLD
by David Baldacci

Read by Dana Letson. (11 episodes, 5/28-6/09/08)

Oliver Stone and the Camel Club are back in their most dangerous adventure yet, a war on two fronts. Casino king Jerry Bagger from THE COLLECTORS is hunting Annabelle Conroy who conned him out of millions. Stone and his colleagues Reuben, Milton, and Caleb marshal all their resources to protect Annabelle. Yet all their skills may not be enough when a deadly new opponent rips off the veneer of Stone's own mysterious past. Bagger's menace pales next to newcomer Harry Finn's lethality. Seeming a normal family-man, Finn has already killed three men with more targets to come. When Finn also sets his bulls-eye on Stone, his reason why will be the greatest shock of all, making readers reconsider their beliefs in good and evil. As bodies and institutions topple, the story rockets toward a shattering finale that will leave the survivors of this explosive tale changed forever.

MIDNIGHT (Tues-Sun)

NEW ENGLAND WHITE
by Stephen L. Carter

Read by Roy Harris. (24 episodes, 4/16-5/13/08)

The author of The Emperor of Ocean Park, with the powers of observation and richness of plot and character, returns to the New England university town of Elm Harbor, where a murder begins to crack the veneer that has hidden the racial complications of the town’s past, the secrets of a prominent family, and the most hidden bastions of African-American political influence. And at the center: Lemaster Carlyle, the university president, and his wife, Julia Carlyle, a deputy dean at the divinity school–African Americans living in “the heart of whiteness.”

Lemaster is an old friend of the president of the United States. Julia was the murdered man’s lover years ago. The meeting point of these connections forms the core of a mystery that deepens even as Julia closes in on the politically earth-shattering motive behind the murder.

Relentlessly suspenseful, galvanizing in its exploration of the profound difference between allegiance to ideas and to people, New England White is a resounding confirmation of Stephen Carter’s gifts as a writer of fiction.

THE SECRET BETWEEN US
by Barbara Delinsky

Read by Allison Smith. (9 episodes, 5/14-5/23/08)

Nothing will break this mother-daughter bond. Not even the truth.

Deborah Monroe and her daughter, Grace, are driving home from a party when their car hits a man running in the dark. Grace was at the wheel, but Deborah sends her home before the police arrive, determined to shoulder the blame for the accident. Her decision then turns into a deception that takes on a life of its own and threatens the special bond between mother and daughter.

The Secret Between Us is an unforgettable story about making bad choices for the right reasons and the terrible consequences of a lie gone wrong. Once again, Barbara Delinksy has delivered a riveting study of family and a superbly crafted novel, perfectly targeted to reading groups and fans of provocative fiction.

THE ALEXANDRIA LINK
by Steve Berry

Read by Jeffry Finkel. (13 episodes, 5/24-6/07/08)

Cotton Malone retired from the high-risk world of elite operatives for the U.S. Justice Department to lead the low-key life of a rare-book dealer. But his quiet existence is shattered when he receives an anonymous e-mail: “You have something I want. You’re the only person on earth who knows where to find it. Go get it. You have 72 hours. If I don’t hear from you, you will be childless.” His horrified ex-wife confirms that the threat is real: Their teenage son has been kidnapped. When Malone’s Copenhagen bookshop is burned to the ground, it becomes brutally clear that those responsible will stop at nothing to get what they want. And what they want is nothing less than the lost Library of Alexandria.

A cradle of ideas–historical, philosophical, literary, scientific, and religious–the Library of Alexandria was unparalleled in the world. But fifteen hundred years ago, it vanished into the mists of myth and legend–its vast bounty of wisdom coveted ever since by scholars, fortune hunters, and those who believe its untold secrets hold the key to ultimate power.

Now a cartel of wealthy international moguls, bent on altering the course of history, is desperate to breach the library’s hallowed halls–and only Malone possesses the information they need to succeed. At stake is an explosive ancient document with the potential not only to change the destiny of the Middle East but to shake the world’s three major religions to their very foundations.

Pursued by a lethal mercenary, Malone crosses the globe in search of answers. His quest will lead him to England and Portugal, even to the highest levels of Americangovernment–and the shattering outcome, deep in the Sinai desert, will have worldwide repercussions.

2 AM (Tues-Sun)

EAT, PRAY, LOVE: ONE WOMAN’S SEARCH FOR EVERYTHING ACROSS ITALY, INDIA AND INDONESIA
by Elizabeth Gilbert

Read by Beth Sanders. (15 episodes, 4/18-5/04/08)

Oddly but aptly titled, Eat, Pray, Love is an experience to be savored: This spiritual memoir brims with humor, grace, and scorching honesty. After a messy divorce and other personal missteps, Elizabeth Gilbert confronts the "twin goons" of depression and loneliness by traveling to three countries that she intuited had something she was seeking. First, in Italy, she seeks to master the art of pleasure by indulging her senses. Then, in an Indian ashram, she learns the rigors and liberation of mind-exalting hours of meditation. Her final destination is Bali, where she achieves a precarious, yet precious equilibrium. Gilbert's original voice and unforced wit lend an unpretentious air to her expansive spiritual journey.

The celebrated author of The Last American Man creates an irresistible, candid, and eloquent account of her pursuit of worldly pleasure and spiritual devotion.

INVISIBLE PREY
by John Sandford

Read by Dick Edwards. (10 episodes, 5/06-5/16/08)

Lucas Davenport had reason to be relieved when he was called off a morals case -- involving a Minnesota state senator accused of having sex with a minor -- and assigned to a double murder. For one thing, the killing of affluent widow Constance Bucher and her maid isn't politically sensitive; for another, it seems like a prosecutorial slam-dunk. The messy crime scene looks like the calling card of drug-addled thieves who, like many others before them, blundered into a situation they couldn't control. Looking closer, though, Davenport detects the scent of more sophisticated plunderers. And then the other murders begin….

HIGH NOON
by Nora Roberts

Read by Laura Keyes. (17 episodes, 5/17-6/05/08)

Phoebe MacNamara found her calling when she was a hostage at the age of 12: she now is Savannah, GA, PD's top negotiator. She crosses paths with Duncan Swift while talking down a jumper who was one of his former employees. Duncan is intrigued by Phoebe's drive and commitment, and she feels the same way about him, but she comes with a lot of baggage, including an agoraphobic mother and a seven-year-old daughter. Worse, lurking around the corner is someone who wants Phoebe to pay for past sins, and he doesn't care who dies in the process. Narrator Susan Ericksen wrings tears and laughter and incites anger and fear all with impressive ease. She becomes Phoebe, while her Duncan is suave, fun, ambitious, and smart, rolled into an attractive package. His drawl is a constant comfort. Roberts created a blockbuster, and Ericksen amplifies it with spot-on narration. Essential for public libraries.

5 AM (Tues-Sun)

WAY OFF THE ROAD: DISCOVERING THE PECULIAR CHARMS OF SMALL-TOWN AMERICA
by Bill Geist

Read by Terence Jenkins. (9 episodes, 4/24-5/03/08)

Throughout his career, Bill Geist’s most popular stories have been about slightly odd but loveable individuals. Coming on the heels of his 5,600-mile RV trip across our fair land is Way Off the Road, a hilarious and compelling mix of stories about the folks featured in Geist’s segments, along with observations on his twenty years of life on the road. Written in the deadpan style that has endeared him to millions, Geist shares tales of eccentric individuals, such as the ninety-three-year-old pilot-paperboy who delivers to his far-flung subscribers by plane; the Arizona mailman who delivers mail via horseback down the walls of the Grand Canyon; the Muleshoe, Texas, anchorwoman who delivers the news from her bedroom (occasionally wearing her bathrobe); and the struggling Colorado entrepreneur who finds success employing a sewer vacuum to rid Western ranchers of problematic prairie dogs. Geist also takes us to events such as the Mike the Headless Chicken Festival (celebrating an inspiring bird that survived decapitation, hired an agent, and went on the road for eighteen months) and Sundown Days in Hanlontown, Iowa, where the town marks the one day a year when the sun sets directly between the railroad tracks

Along the wacky and wonderful way, Geist shows us firsthand how life in fly-over America can be odd, strangely fascinating, hysterical, and anything but boring.

SECRET SERVANT
by Daniel Silva

Read by Don Kennedy. (13 episodes, 5/04-5/18/08)

He has been called his generation's finest writer of international intrigue, one of America's most gifted spy novelists ever, and the successor to Graham Greene and John le Carre. But with his follow-up to the 2006 electrifying number one bestseller The Messenger, Daniel Silva has written his most compelling and entertaining novel to date.

When last we encountered Gabriel Allon, the master art restorer and sometime officer of Israeli intelligence, he had just prevailed in his blood-soaked duel with Saudi terrorist financier Zizi al-Bakari. Now Gabriel is summoned once more by his masters to undertake what appears to be a routine assignment: travel to Amsterdam to purge the archives of a murdered Dutch terrorism analyst who also happened to be an asset of Israeli intelligence. But once in Amsterdam, Gabriel soon discovers a conspiracy of terror festering in the city's Islamic underground, a plot that is about to explode on the other side of the English Channel, in the middle of London.

The target of this plot is Elizabeth Halton, the daughter of the American ambassador to the Court of St. James's, who is to be brutally kidnapped. Gabriel arrives seconds too late to save her. And by revealing his face to the plot's masterminds, his fate is sealed as well. Drawn once more into the service of American intelligence, Gabriel hurls himself into a desperate search for the missing woman as the clock ticks steadily toward the hour of her execution. It will take him from Amsterdam to Germany to the very end of Denmark. It will thrust him into an unlikely alliance with a man who has lost everything because of his devotion to Islam. It will cause him to question the morality of the tactics of his trade. And it might very well cost him his life.

Filled with breathtaking double and triple turns of plot, and a final mind-bending sequence that will leave readers breathless, The Secret Servant is not only a work of supreme entertainment, but also an exploration of some of the most daunting issues of our times: the war on terrorism, the weapons the West uses to wage it, and the time bomb now ticking in the heart of Western Europe.

HANK AARON AND THE HOME RUN THAT CHANGED AMERICA
by Tom Stanton

Read by Eric Roberts. (7 episodes, 5/20-5/27/08)

Baseball has witnessed more than 125,000 home runs. Many have altered the outcome of games, and some have decided pennants and become legend. But no dinger has had greater impact than Hank Aaron's 715th home run. His historic blast on April 8, 1974, lifted him above Babe Ruth on the all-time list, an achievement that shook not only baseball but our nation itself. Aaron's magnificent feat provoked bigotry and shattered prejudice, inspired a generation, emboldened a flagging civil rights movement, and called forth the demons that haunted Aaron's every step and turned what should have been a joyous pursuit into a hellish nightmare.

In this powerful recollection, Tom Stanton penetrates the myth of Aaron's chase and uncovers the compelling story behind the most consequential athletic achievement of the past fifty years. Three decades after Hank Aaron reached the pinnacle of the national pastime, and now as Barry Bonds makes history of his own, Stanton unfolds a tale rich with drama, poignancy, and suspense to bring to life the elusive spirit of an American hero.

MY FIRST FIVE HUSBANDS…AND THE ONES WHO GOT AWAY
by Rue McClanahan

Read by Audray McCroskey. (12 episodes, 5/28- 6/10/08)

“This book is about men I have known, in both the Platonic and Biblical senses. Some I knew only slightly, some quite well. Some I’ll love always, some I no longer like very much, and there are a few I’d like to strip naked, tie to a Maypole, smear with sweet syrup near a beehive, then stand back and watch. I’ll describe a goodly number of these hot dudes—and duds—keeping the nicest man for last because—if for nothing else—I’d like to leave you, dear reader, with a good taste in your mouth, and Hubbies #3 and #4 might make you want to rush to gargle. There were times I truly wondered, Lord, will I EVER get it right? Thank God I thrive on variety.”
—From My First Five Husbands . . . And the Ones Who Got Away

People always ask me if I'm like Blanche. And I say, 'Well, Blanche was an oversexed, self-involved, man-crazy, vain Southern Belle from Atlanta — and I'm not from Atlanta!’” — Rue McClanahan

Who can forget Rue McClanahan as the sexy Southern vixen, Blanche Devereaux, on the Emmy-award winning series The Golden Girls? With her breezy sex appeal and sharp comedic timing, Rue infused her character with a sassy joie de vivre that captured the hearts of women everywhere. Now, the actress behind the magic reveals her life in and out of the spotlight in a laugh-out-loud funny memoir about love, marriage, men, and getting older that is every bit as colorful as the characters she plays.

Raised in small-town Oklahoma in a house “thirteen telephone poles past the standpipe north of town,” Rue developed her two great passions—theater and men—at an early age. She arrived in New York City in 1957 with two-weeks worth of money in her pocket, hustled her way into a class with the legendary Uta Hagen, and began working her way up in the acting world against the vibrant, free-spirited backdrop of the sixties. That’s when she met and married Husband #1—a handsome rogue of an aspiring actor who quickly left her with a young son. Still, she was determined to make it on the stage and screen—and in the years that followed, rose to the top of the entertainment world with a host of adventures (and husbands) along the way.

From her roles on Broadway opposite Dustin Hoffman and Brad Davis, to her first television appearances on Maude and All in the Family, to the Golden Girls era and beyond, My First Five Husbands is the irresistible story of one woman’s quest to find herself. Now happily married to her soul mate, Husband #6, Rue is proof that many things can and do get better with age—and that, if she keeps her wits about her, even a small-town girl can make it big.

Told with Rue’s saucy wit and Southern charm, My First Five Husbands is a deliciously entertaining take on life and love from an irrepressible star.