Vanishing Acts

I have been meaning to write about this audiobook since June. Sheesh, time can get away from a person.

Anyway, Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult is the best audio book I have ever heard. There are five different narrarators for this audio. like many of Picoult novels there are many themes going on: alcoholism, relationships, trust, what-do-you-do-when-the-world-falls-apart. I am late to the Jodi Picoult bandwagon. I just knew that her books would get thru all my defenses and leave me stunned and moved in places I rather not think about. If I had read this book I may not have noticed how she puts her words together in the most interesting ways. This is an amazing rich audiobook. I plan to read the book and see how it compares. I highly recommend this audio translation.

Synopsis
Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her widowed father, Andrew, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiancé, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as she plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can’t recall. And when a policemen arrives to disclose a truth that will upend the world as she knows it, Delia must search through these memories – even when they have the potential to devastate her life, and the lives of those she loves most. Vanishing Acts is a book about the nature and power of memory; about what happens when the past we have been running from catches up to us… and what happens when the memory we thought had vanished returns as a threat.

And an example of her wordsmithing:

Excerpt 1 from Vanishing Acts
Delia
You can’t exist in this world without leaving a piece
of yourself behind. There are concrete paths, like credit
card receipts and appointment calendars and promises
you’ve made to others. There are microscopic clues,
like fingerprints, that stay invisible unless you know how
to look for them. But even in the absence of any of this,
there’s scent. We live in a cloud that moves with us
as we check e-mail and jog and make love and carpool. The
whole time, we shed skin – 40,000 cells per minute, on
rafts that rise on a current up our legs and under our
chins. In the air or on the ground, bacteria attack,
creating vapor trails.

Right now I am listening to The Pact and reading Keeping Faith. Also, Jodi has a few podcasts that are so interesting. Really, you should check them out.