Loud and Clear

By: Anna Quindlen

Narrated by: Kathe Mazur

Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

In this remarkable audiobook, Anna Quindlen, one of America's favorite novelists and a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, once again gives us wisdom, opinions, insights, and reflections about current events and modern life. "Always insightful, rooted in everyday experience and common sense...Quindlen is so good that even when you disagree with what she says, you still love the way she says it," said People magazine about her number-one New York Times best-seller Thinking Out Loud, and the same can be said about Loud and Clear.

With her trademark insight and her special ability to convey the impact public events have on ordinary lives, Quindlen here combines commentary on American society and the world at large with reflections on being a woman, a writer, and a mother. In these pieces, first written for Newsweek and The New York Times, Loud and Clear takes on topics ranging from social change to raising children, from the political and emotional aftermath of September 11 to personal values, from the impact on individuals of global events to the growth that can be gained by spending summer days staring into the middle distance. Grounding the public in the private, connecting people to each other and to the greater world, Quindlen encourages us to develop authentic lives, even as she serves as a catalyst for political and social change.

"Anna Quindlen's beat is life, and she's one hell of a terrific reporter," said Susan Isaacs, and Quindlen's unique qualities of understanding and discernment, everywhere evident in her previous best-sellers, including A Short Guide to a Happy Life and Living Out Loud, can be found in every part of this provocative and inspiring audiobook.

©2004 Anna Quindlen (P)2004 Books on Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Anna Quindlen...has the ability to speak to many people about what's on their minds before they have the vaguest idea of what's on their minds." (The New York Times)
"Quindlen continues to unscramble gnarly social issues with splendid clarity and pithiness, wit and compassion, and uncommon common sense." (Booklist)

Book Came Through Loud & Clear

Loud and Clear was, at its base, a good book. Quindlen writes about being a mother, a working mother, living in New York, being a writer, and a host of other modern conditions.

The reader was well suited for this book (I actually had to re-check the narrator name because I thought Quindlen may have read it herself!). She presented the material as if it were her own and gave it a cool personality.

Meh. Just her opinions

I usually like essays by Anna Quindlen but these are very simplistic, similar to a conversation I might have with friends. The essays are not personal to her life story but rather, are her opinions on politics, current events, etc. Even though I share her political leanings, there was nothing interesting here.