My husband doesn’t read. The last book he vaguely remembers opening was The Jim Thorpe Story borrowed from the high school library in 1984. He still has it. Given my career as a librarian, this initially appalled me on many levels. Could he ever appreciate my interest in a well-executed plot twist? Would our children be predisposed to theft? Then he discovered audio books.

These days I can always find him by following the sound of a stranger’s voice. Usually it’s George Guidall or Scott Brick, his favorite narrators, booming from the garage.  He now listens to many more books than I read, gravitating to stories featuring a somewhat psychopathic private investigator roaming the South. His current favorites:

Gator A-Go-Go by Tim Dorsey
featuring Serge Storms eliminating the bad guys in ever inventive ways

Deep Shadow by Randy Wayne White
with Doc Ford forced to help some ex-cons dive for lost treasure

Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke
centered on Det. Robicheaux avenging a murder in the bayou

Spider Mountain by Peter Deutermann
with Cam Richter hunting down a meth lab in the Smokies

Silencer by James Hall
proving that saving Florida’s wilderness is risky business for newly wealthy P.I. Thorn

Purists would say he still isn’t “reading”.  I say the process may not be the same, but the beauty of plot, language and knowledge are still finding their way to his brain, just by way of the ears instead of the eyes.  I plan on surprising him with an MP3 player soon. Downloading from the library would save me searching for all those misplaced CDs, but then he doesn’t even know how to turn on our computer…

“Reading” any favs using audio or is that not really “reading”?

Anyone who’s read my previous posts can guess how old I am.  Born at the tail end of the 60s, I was blessed to spend all my formative years of high school and college in a single decade.   A quarter of my life has been dominated by the Smurfs, Dippity-Doo hair gel, and U2, not to mention Ronald Reagan. And all my cultural references show it.  I like nothing better than laughing through an entire episode of Everybody Hates Chris and then not explaining any of the 80s references to my ten year old son.  He’d never get the Billy Ocean vs Michael Jackson debate anyway.

It isn’t my 25th high school reunion that has me revisiting the 80s, but the release of the book You Couldn’t Ignore Me if You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation by Susannah Gora.  Sixteen Candles can still bring tears to my eyes, but a whole book on how we all wanted to be Ferris Buehler? Yes, we’ve lived long enough to see an 80s rebound.  Although nothing can explain a remake of the A-Team, this might account for the number of 80s based coming of age stories popping up on the shelves.  A sampling includes:

Model Home by Eric Puchner
In 1985, a family of five uprooted from Wisconsin must move into one of their father’s dismal Southern California model homes when his real estate scheme goes bust.

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
A love of roller disco and Dungeons and Dragons makes the only African-American at a New York prep school a social pariah.  Escaping to the African-American beach community at Sag Harbor offers a chance of finding a way to “fit in”.

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
The backwater of Worcestershire, England in 1982 finds teenage Jason enjoying his first Duran Duran album and the joys of a first kiss amidst the darkness of the Falklands war and his parent’s slow motion divorce.

Rockin’ the Bronx by Larry Kirwan
Looking to find his girlfriend and return to Ireland, Sean struggles to maintain his musical dreams in the drug addled world of the 1980s Bronx.

How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater by Marc Acito
Left with no way to pay for Julliard when his father finds a trophy wife, Edward must resort to scamming him out of the money all while practicing for a high school production of Grease.

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
Having emigrated with her mother from Hong Kong, Kimberly Chang claws her way from the squalid sweatshops of 1980s Brooklyn to an elite private school.

True, the angst of the teenage years is universal and cuts across decades, but it still means more when you have something to latch on to, even if it is the theme song from Breakfast Club.

What book or movie truly takes you back to your teen years?