Homes, A.M. This book will save your life.

HOMES, A.M. This book will save your life. Read by Scott Brick. 10 cds. 12.5 hrs. Penguin Audio. 2006.0-14-305850-9. $39.95. Cardboard; plot, author, reader notes. A

Middle-aged day-trader Richard Novak is detached and alone and having an existential crisis. Intense yet vaguely located pain causes him to call an ambulance and it's with this that his journey into life-changing events begins. Even while his expensive Los Angeles house is threatened by a nearby sinkhole, Richard is making fast friends with a garrulous Middle Eastern donut shop owner, a famous writer and a popular actor. He becomes a questionable hero when he befriends a sobbing woman in his local grocery story, saves a drowning man, pays for his housekeeper's surgery, and rescues a hostage. All these activities mix with Novak's uneasy relationship with his son, whom he left years before.

Actor Brick does a great job intoning Novak with a slight East Coast accent. Most other characters are denoted by slight shifts in tone with the exception of a slam-dunk portrayal of Anhil, the donut shop owner. The story is allegorical and absorbing, enhanced by a very good reader. Bette Ammon, Director, Coeur d'Alene Public Library, ID

A--Recommended for advanced students and adults. This code will help librarians and teachers working in high schools where there are honors and advanced placement students. This also will extend KLIATT's usefulness in public libraries.