Invented Country

By Isabel Allende, read by Blair Brown (Harper Audio, six compact discs, six hours, $29.95, unabridged). Fans of Isabel Allende's novels and memoirs will devour this personal recollection. So will those drawn to Chile and the events surrounding the 1973 U.S.-backed coup that led to the death of her uncle, Salvador Allende, the country's democratically elected Socialist president. It helps that Allende has led a life nearly as exciting as her works. Blessed with a globetrotting childhood as a diplomat's child, she had plenty to work with. But then came the turmoil and exile that followed the coup. While the author claims her nostalgic reminisces are "invented," she helps readers understand the country that shaped her and her books.

Dallas Morning News

Blood Canticle

By Anne Rice, read by Stephen Spinella (Random House Audio, five CDs, six hours, abridged, $29.95). Has the vampire Lestat been staying up all night, watching reruns of Angel? That's the way he acts in this tome - moping around, wanting to be good, maybe even canonized. Living at Blackwood Farm with the boring Mayfair witches and Quinn Blackwood, Lestat yearns to be a saint. But that doesn't stop him from turning the ailing Mona Mayfair into a vampire to save her from dying. The book isn't helped by the usually reliable actor Stephen Spinella, who should know better than to give an awkward Southern accent to Lestat. At times, Lestat sounds like Dracula in a Buffy episode.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

What Becomes of the Brokenhearted

By E. Lynn Harris, read by the author (Random House Audio, three cassettes, five hours, 15 minutes, $25, abridged). Best-selling author E. Lynn Harris' eight novels always feature an insightful, touching look at gay life, the black community and relationships. Harris delivers a no-holds-barred look, encompassing his birth in 1955, life with an abusive stepfather, the realization of his sexuality, his popularity at college and his success as an IBM executive. He also candidly details his alcoholism, joblessness, depression and how the death of good friends from AIDS pushed him to write. Harris narrates this with passion, his voice occasionally faltering in emotional passages. Harris is a storyteller who knows how to keep readers interested.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Cosmopolitan

A Bartender's Life, By Toby Cecchini, read by the author (Random House Audio, three CDs, three hours, abridged, $22.95). This is a memoir about life behind and in front of the bar in a New York nightspot. Longtime bartender and part owner of Passerby Bar, Cecchini must have the most boring customers - or else he was in the back room when the good barstool stories were being slurred.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel