Audiobook Review: See Delphi and Die by Lindsey Davis

Ancient Rome’s answer to Columbo takes a road trip to Greece in See Delphi and Die by Lindsey Davis, read by Christian Rodska, and reviewed by Star Lawrence

Sure, you would like to swan over to Greece and ruminate among the ruins, but did you know Romans a la 76 AD also joined organized tours and traipsed about ogling the sights that had already been created up to that date?

In this tongue-in-cheek detective yarn, one of a popular franchise, the snark-in-charge is Marcus Didius Falco, an emissary of the Emperor Vespasian. Falco gets involved in solving the murders of two young women who had taken Seven Sights Tour Company trips to Greece. He speaks a wry Cockney-tinged English, not Latin. He wears a cloak not a raincoat and is no loner, dragging along an entourage consisting of his diplomatic wife Helene and some nephews, a freed slave woman, and even his dog, who though of the nondiscriminating tastes typical of canines, does disdain some of the disgusting pits the tour company books them into. At the better places, Falco quips, the bedbugs went to charm school.

Falco is, by turns, very droll and then agog at the fabulous sights our ancients, his contemporaries, had already created. Man, the temples and oracles were lousy on the ground in those days! Playing good Roman/bad Roman with his wife, Falco tries to get the impressions of others on the tour with one of the young women. Instead, the tour participants give him an earful about the tour company’s arrangements, at one point the women outraged that they had to go to some poetry event. The poets “were thick as midges” and spouted bad odes, they grumped.

See Delphi & Die is funny. Humans are humans, I guess, no matter which millennium. There is one “tourist trap” where sick people can sleep in a town near some sacred site , while dogs and snakes circulate among the cots. If you dream of a dog or snake licking you, you get better. The man relating this tale said he went it one better and got bitten by one of the dogs--but a snake must have licked it, he notes, because it cleared up. They all laugh sheepishly. Won’t be seeing those drachmas again.

In this course of these travels and travails, of course, more people die, one falling off a cliff. The malefactor kicked Falco’s dog first, which caused me great consternation. Any book with a dog—I am in!

The narrator Christian Rodska does not pretend to be Italian or speak Latin, but his little mumbled asides are choice, along the lines of early versions of “Yeah, sure, I bet” or one I particularly liked: “Irony is so useful.”

Anyhow—listen to See Delphi and Die and if a snake licks you, you are going to “have a nice day.” Assuming you live to see it.

Star Lawrence owns the health humor site Health’s Ass at http://healthsass.blogspot.com. She can be reached at jkellaw@aol.com. Her reviews also appear on Book Grrl.

Science Fair Tutors at the Downtown Library

Science fair project got you baffled? The Downtown Library has science fair tutors available to help with planning, carrying out experiments, drawing conclusions, creating Excel graphs and more.

Come for help on the first floor at the back of the library during these times:

Sundays 1-4 p.m.
Tuesdays, 5-7 p.m.

Available through December 16.

Audiobook review: Polar Shift, by Clive Cussler

No laughing allowed during Polar Shift, by Clive Cussler (with Paul Kemprecos), read by Scott Brick and reviewed by Star Lawrence.

Maybe you didn’t get up this morning and say, “You know, these elites are starting to bug me, and I think I will reverse the earth’s magnetic field and destroy the planet,” but apparently Clive Cussler and Co do think like that and thus this novel.

It is childishly simple to mock a Cussler novel with its square-jawed, blonde heroes (two this time, including a franchise Cussler character Kurt Austin) and “attractive” heroines (attractive, attractive why always that description?). So why should I resist? I am pretty childish. Let the mocking begin.

Polar Shift is like two or three book concepts smashed together. It leaps the shark more than a football player doing broken field drills. There are huge rogue waves, tiny woolly mammoths, an underground city complete with alleys, the obligatory Nazis, and enough pseudo-scientific jargon to choke everyone in Los Alamos (also in there).

So…be prepared. But on the positive side, this is a darn intense “listen,” with some memorable scenes that make the movie Titanic look as boring as Last Year at Marienbad (don’t remember that one? There’s a reason.)

Scott Brick, one of my favorite readers, has a sort of chewy, earnest voice and doesn’t overdo the accents or shoot the women into falsetto.

Should you check out Polar Shift? Ask yourself—How much do I hate electromagnetic fields?

Star Lawrence owns the health humor site Health’s Ass (http://healthsass.blogspot.com/). She can be reached at jkellaw@aol.com.

Downloadable audiobooks - now for Mac!

With OverDrive Media Console for Mac, OverDrive MP3 Audiobooks can now be downloaded and enjoyed on Macs! More info
Additionally, in the interest of faster turnarounds and shorter waits, the checkout period for all formats of downloadable audiobooks is now 14 days. All other items in the Greater Phoenix Digital Library will continue to have a 21 day checkout.
Note: Digital media is not available for download from Library computers. Downloads are only available to your personal PC, laptop, or PDA.

TV Converter Box Reviews

Consumer Reports reviewed TV converter boxes in their November issue! If you're in the market for a new digital tuner (what is this?) for your analog TV in time for the Feb 17 digital transition deadline, check it out (you'll need your library card number and PIN to access the article)! Don't forget to go to the DTV Converter Box Coupon Program website to apply for a $40 coupon (while supplies last).

Review: Oh, Boy, Here Comes 'Trouble'

Review by guest blogger Star Lawrence. TROUBLE (audiobook), author Jesse Kellerman and read by Scott Brick.

You’re a medical student who sets out in the middle of the night to replace your gore-slathered shoes and you stab a guy in order to save a screaming woman crawling away from her assailant. What do you have to lose by starting a twisted affair with her?
The author Jesse Kellerman is the son of Jonathan and Faye, the beloved crime novelists. Yes, the spawn is rising. At least Jesse kept the family last name. Stephen King’s son is named Joe Hill. (John Doe was in use, I guess.)

Anyhow, this whiny, smarty-pants med student, Jonah Stem, soon runs into the woman he saved. Her name is Eve Gones, although she informs him this is pronounced “Jones.” OK, now, guy? Now, are you seeing any flags on the play?

Nope.

OK, things progress and our Eve turns out to…well, wouldn’t want to introduce any spoilers. Let’s just say, she has unusual tastes between the sheets, if she even is between actual sheets at any point, I can’t remember. Jonah is quite overwhelmed between these disturbing romps, cracking Gray’s Anatomy, dueling with crabby residents, coping with being a famous superhero who saves winsome masochists from harm, and hanging out with his former girl friend who is almost catatonic from some past trauma or other.

Books on CD are such a different art form from books on dead trees. The reader, in this case, Scott Brick, one of my favorites, has to fit the story—and he does. Brick has a slow paced, patient-sounding, slightly nasal voice that drops at the end of every sentence. It’s kind of an East Coast accent, deliberate, letting the words line up neatly. He does the various voices in an understated way, no falsettos for the women or comical rasps for the men. Yet, you can always tell who’s who and who’s back.

While I notice some grumpy reviews on Amazon, and of course, I am as ever, your Snark Woman, I listened to the bloody end. I rather liked this book and recommended it to my sister.
I doubt I will be doing any midnight shoe shopping soon, though.

Star Lawrence is a writer and loyal library patron who changed from books on paper to books on CD after some failed eye surgeries two years ago. Her reviews also appear on The Book Grrl, which contains other tidbits of interest to readers. Star's health humor blog can be found at http://healthsass.blogspot.com and her occasional gripes and plaudits about Chandler appear in http://chandlerazoo.blogspot.com.

ONEBOOKAZ Titles Chosen for 2009

ONEBOOKAZ will feature two books by Arizona authors, both from Nogales, in 2009. Alberto Rios’s Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir is the adult selection, while Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford’s Hip, Hip, Hooray, It’s Monsoon Day! is the children’s selection. The libraries will be getting more copies in time for ONEBOOKAZ in April. More info about ONEBOOKAZ