It takes a special narrator to make the powerful but gentle hero Odd Thomas work as the protagonist of an audiobook. David Aaron Baker has what it takes. Dean Koontz's unlikely hero says he's just a fry cook at a diner, but the young man with the strange name can also commune with spirits and battle evil for the lives and souls of the people of the Southwestern town of Pico Mundo. Baker quietly brings out Odd's passive personality as thoroughly as he projects the boisterous yet vulnerable Ozzie, the 400-pound mystery writer who serves as Odd's surrogate father. There’s a lot of nail-biting action in the story, which Baker handles as easily as the many quiet moments. The latest Odd Thomas audiobook is a treasure from start to finish. M.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Schedule plenty of reading time this month, because January is jam-packed with exciting new releases. Debut authors like Michael Christie join award-winning favorites like Miranda July and Peter Carey to deliver everything from adventure to comedy to Hollywood bio-dramas. Whatever your reading fancy, we’ve got you covered!
This week, we’re excited about a beautifully literary page-turner set during World War II, a thriller ripped from the headlines (and sure to keep you up all night), a bestselling memoir-slash-advice-manual by a beloved comedian, and a guide to tidying that truly will change your life—and more fantastic books.
As fiction heroes go, Odd Thomas is unique. He has no father; born with one foot in the land of the living and one foot in the land of shades, he can speak to the dead, who often come to him for help. Unlike the many horror-novel characters motivated by hatred or revenge, Odd seeks to […]