Sound Recommendations: An Eclectic Trio

In The Lost Landscape, a series of interlinked essays, Joyce Carol Oates recalls her family, childhood, and youth and the pivotal events that influenced her worldview and development as an author. Many pieces are set in rural upstate New York, where Oates grew up, revealing not only the charm of such a life (Oates attended a one-room elementary school) but the ugly side as well (such as a neighbor's abusive father). The essays embrace a broad emotional range, including the wonderment at obtaining her first library card, the almost unbearable stress of graduate school, and the devastation of losing a parent. Narrator Cassandra Campbell puts in a near-flawless performance, creating an intimacy between the listener and Oates's carefully crafted prose. Although I'm sure The Lost Landscape is wonderful in print, I highly recommend reading it with your ears. (Ecco, 2015, ISBN: 9780062408679)

The Girl from the Garden by Parnaz Foroutan is a multilayered novel about three generations of women in a well-to-do Jewish Iranian family living in Karmanshah in the early twentieth century. The story focuses on the interplay of family dynamics, cultural and religious expectations, and the women's personalities and dreams. The primary drama involves power struggles within the household and the women's conflicted feelings about fulfilling (or not) their duties to their husbands and to God. With its beautiful descriptions of a bygone era and its additional themes of jealousy, motherhood, fertility, self-identity, and independence (or lack thereof), Foroutan's thought-provoking novel would be a terrific book club selection. Narrator Lameece Issaq's animated performance and native-sounding accents enrich the novel; however, periodic unexpected pauses pull the listener out of the story. (Ecco, 2015, ISBN: 9780062388384)

The stories collected in Tatiana de Rosnay's A Paris Affair are linked only by theme: Each is set in Paris and explores marriage, cheating, and getting caught. The affairs and their ramifications run the gamut of emotions, such as revenge, anger, humor, pragmatism, remorse, and surprise. The bulk of the stories are told from a woman's perspective, and the collection explores both sides; sometimes the protagonist is the cheater and sometimes he or she is the victim. Despite the focus on adultery, the collection is entertaining, although some of the pieces seemed slightly underdeveloped and even predictable. Polly Stone is the primary narrator for the audiobook. Her French accents are spot-on, and she nicely captures the characters' personalities. Simon Vance reads the few stories told from a male viewpoint, and his performance projects the mood and pace of de Rosnay's prose. (St. Martin's, 2015, ISBN: 9781250068804)

Note: The original versions of these reviews--which specifically address the narrators' performances--can be found on the AudioFile magazine website. Reworked and posted with permission.