My latest listen was "School Days" by Robert B. Parker, read by Joe Montegna...

As usual, I thoroughly enjoyed both the book and the performance.

While I was a slight bit disappointed that Hawk was not in the book at all, and Susan had only a small, long distance part, I found the story itself to be one of the better Spenser stories.

My latest listen was "Caves of Steel" by Isaac Asimov, performed by Bert Coules, Ed Bishop, Sam Dastor and Beth Porter.

Unlike most of the books I listen to, this one was truly performed - with multiple performers and sound effects.  It was in fact a BBC radio play rather than a strict reading, but it was quite enjoyable.

It was a short listen - only an hour and a half, but that was good for two walks.

I have tried to listen to a few other science fiction audio books, and have found it to be less enjoyable than reading, but the nature of this book - more mystery and morality play than hard core sci-fi lent itself well to listening.

PS. This post http://datajunkie.blogspot.com/2007/03/steel-caverns_26.html has links to .mp3 files of the radio play (look about 1/2 way down the post).

My latest listen was the unabridged version of "London Bridges" by James Patterson performed by Peter J. Fernandez and Denis O'Hare.

I found the use of two narrators to be effective - one for the first person of Alex Cross (Fernandez), the other for the third person narration and first person of other characters (O'Hare).  The performers use of accents was very good.  The only detraction to the audio was the use of sound effects and some music, which I find more distracting than enhancing.

My sentiments about the book itself seem to parallel those of many of the reviewers on Amazon.  It was overly complex, the body count was excessive, and the ending was a let down.  In fact, it almost seemed like the author had committed to writing a certain number of words, and came up short with the original ending, so he had to tack on a supplemental ending to meet his quota.

My latest listen was the abridged version of "The Charm School" by Nelson Demille, read by Jim Naughton.

Overall, I enjoyed the book.  Naughton's performance was very good.  He has a deep resonant voice which is pleasant to listen to, and he is another reader who provides the right balance of voice/accent/performance.

The premise of the book was believable, and it was nice to listen to a book that wasn't as gory (for the most part) as some of  the murder mysteries have been of late.  I hadn't listened to a spy novel for a while, so that was a nice change of pace.  The setting of cold war Russia was interesting, but did feel a bit dated.

The only thing I didn't like was that the book was abridged.  In general, I don't really like abridgements, and this one felt even choppier than usual.

My latest listen was "Bad Business" by Robert B. Parker, read by Joe Montegna...

Good story.  Enjoyed the relationship between Spencer and Susan.  Would have liked to have had Hawk join the plot sooner.  As usual, thoroughly enjoyed Spenser's smart-ass dialog and loved Joe Montegna's performance.  Of all the series and all the performers I've listened to, I believe that Joe Montegna performing Spencer novels is my favorite.

I had the vague feeling throughout that I had listened to this book before.  I kept getting inklings that I had, but couldn't say for sure, until Spencer uttered one of my favorite sayings:

"Breakfast doesn't cause lunch...  The fact that one thing precedes another, doesn't mean one thing causes another."

 I had no idea where I had heard it originally, but I guess now I know...