USA Today Book Review Insights

Overview

The USA Today Developer Portal provides developers with APIs to access a variety of information services.

This sample notebook demonstrates the simplicity and power of performing data analytics using Python and a media provider's information retrieval platform.

The goal on this notebook is to perform some text analytics on individual book reviews that have been submitted to USA TODAY. This notebook perfoms the following tasks:

  1. Collect recent book reviews in a DataFrame.
  2. Aggregate all reviews into an annual corpus of text.
  3. Analyze and plot the most common words.

Prepare Environment

Prereq Packages

The following Python packages need to be installed:

!pip install BeautifulSoup4

In [129]:
!pip install BeautifulSoup4


Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): BeautifulSoup4 in /home/notebook/ka_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages
Cleaning up...

Install NLTK Stopwords Corpus

%%bash export NLTK_DATA=/home/notebook/nltk_data env python -m nltk.downloader stopwords

Enable inline plotting


In [130]:
%matplotlib inline

Assign API Key

The Best Buy Developer Portal requires an API Key per developer.

Get an API Key here and then set the variable below:


In [131]:
USATODAY_DEV_KEY = "<YOUR KEY HERE>"

Python Packages


In [132]:
import codecs
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import urllib2
import pandas as pd
import json

Load Review Data

USA Today offers several APIs on their Developer Portal. This notebook will leverage the Book Reviews API.

Identify Review Articles

Request the most recent (latest) book reviews from USA Today and the collect those reviews into a list of URLs associated with the cooresponding review articles.


In [133]:
request_url="http://api.usatoday.com/open/reviews/books/recent?audiobooks=y&encoding=json&api_key="+USATODAY_DEV_KEY
req = urllib2.Request(request_url)
opener = urllib2.build_opener()
f = opener.open(req)
json = json.loads(f.read())
reviews = json['BookReviews']
for r in reviews:
    print r['ReviewUrl']


http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2004-03-17-audiobook-princes-of-ireland_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2004-09-16-audio-books_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2004-09-16-audio-books_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2004-09-16-audio-books_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2004-09-29-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2004-09-29-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-06-02-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-06-02-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-06-02-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-06-02-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-06-02-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-06-02-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-06-02-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-06-02-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-06-02-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-06-02-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-07-27-classical-music_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-08-15-seize-review_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-08-15-seize-review_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2006-03-22-audio-ethical-assassin_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2006-05-03-old-man-audiobook_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2006-08-09-roundup-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2006-08-09-roundup-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2006-08-09-roundup-audiobooks_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2006-08-09-roundup-audiobooks_x.htm

In [143]:
print("There are {0} recent book reviews.").format(len(reviews))


There are 25 recent book reviews.

Build Corpus of Review Content

Each review in the response data contains a URL for the actual review article. We need to scrap the article content for each URL and aggregate all the review content into a single corpus of text. This scrapping effort is non-trivial as it is highly dependent on the consistent structure of USA Today Review articles.


In [134]:
def get_article_content_item(html_text,tagtype="p"):
    '''Extract the text for a specific HTML tag/attribute combo.'''
     # Remove HTML Tags
    expected_tags = ["p","div"]
    item_str = str(html_text)
    cleaned_item = unicode(item_str.strip(codecs.BOM_UTF8), 'utf-8')
    # print cleaned_item
    s = BeautifulSoup(cleaned_item)
    if tagtype not in expected_tags:
        item_text = ""
    elif tagtype == "p":
        item_text = s.p.get_text()
    else:
        item_text = s.div.get_text()
    return item_text
            
def process_article(html_doc):
    '''Gather relevant text for a specific review URL.'''
    response = urllib2.urlopen(html_doc)
    html = response.read()
    soup = BeautifulSoup(html)
    # Remove all inline JavaScript
    [s.extract() for s in soup.body('script')]
    # Leverage USA Today CSS classes for extraction of relavent article content
    content_classes = ["by-line","intro-copy","inside-copy"]
    article_para = []
    content_items = []
    for css_class in content_classes:
        div_content_items = soup.find_all('div',class_=css_class)
        # print("size = {0} and class ={1}").format(len(div_content_items),css_class)
        if len(div_content_items) > 0:
            for item in div_content_items:
                aci = get_article_content_item(item,"div")
                content_items.append(aci)
    for css_class in content_classes:
        p_content_items = soup.find_all('p',class_=css_class)
        # print("size = {0} and class ={1}").format(len(p_content_items),css_class)
        if len(p_content_items) > 0:
            for item in p_content_items:
                aci = get_article_content_item(item,"p")
                content_items.append(aci)
    import unicodedata
    for item in content_items:              
        # Aggregate article content
        article_para.append(item.encode('utf-8', 'replace'))
        article_para.append(" ")
    return ''.join(article_para)

review_corpus = ""
review_text_items = []
for review in reviews:
    review_url = r['ReviewUrl']
    review_text_items.append(process_article(review_url))
    review_text_items.append(" ")
review_corpus = ''.join(review_text_items)
print review_corpus


Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqWritten by Thomas E. Ricks, read by James LuriePenguin Audio, abridged, 10 hours, $39.95  No one could call the audio edition of Fiasco an enjoyable vacation listening experience. Frightening. Powerful. Convincing. Those are the adjectives to employ. Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, this abridged audio presents an accessible narrative about how and why the U.S. decided to go war in Iraq, the planning behind it, the major administration figures and their philosophies. James Lurie does an excellent job in reading this audio because he lets Thomas E. Ricks' words and research speak for themselves. The Inimitable JeevesWritten by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Jonathan Cecil,Audio Partners, unabridged, 6 hours, $29.95 Jonathan Cecil's reading of British humor writer P.G Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves  belongs in the audio hall of fame. Having reviewed the audio cassette edition in 2001, this listener tuned in immediately when The Inimitable Jeeves  read by Cecil was released this summer in CD format. Sheer bliss. The hilarious stories revolve around Wodehouse's famous fop, rich English aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who is always being rescued by his unflappable "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves. This faithful retainer is also called upon to extract Bertie's friends like Bingo Little from a variety of romantic quagmires. Wodehouse's brilliant mix of sweetness, wit and innocence make this one of the best audios ever for a family vacation. The Last Assassin: A John Rain NovelWritten by Barry Eisler, read by Michael McConnohie Listen & Live Audio, unabridged, 10 hours, $34.95 Barry Eisler's new thriller, The Last Assassin, features another print appearance by Japanese-American contract killer John Rain. This is the fifth title in the series. Read with an appropriately world-weary sophistication by Michael McConnohie, the audio edition explores Rain's unusual career choice and cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this outing, Eisler dispatches Rain to Manhattan and Barcelona. Because he's a professional assassin, Rain's colleagues and adversaries are not the usual crew gathered around the office water cooler. They include a Mossad agent named Delilah, a sniper and a host of bad guys. Room OneWritten by Andrew Clements, read by Keith Nobbs Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged, 3 hours, $19.95 This children's audio offers listeners 8 and up an opportunity to travel out West. At least via their imaginations. Room One by Andrew Clements explores the quiet life of a fifth-grade paperboy in Nebraska. Clements does a nice job conveying the details of Ted's rural existence, including the fact that he attends a one-room school with fewer than a dozen students. Ted, however, is like all boys his age, awakening to the bigger world outside his family. An avid reader of mysteries, Ted tries to figure out exactly what's happening at an abandoned farmhouse along his paper route. Narrator Keith Nobbs reads with an appropriately light, fresh tone.  

Observations


In [135]:
print("The character length of the text corpus is: {0}.").format(len(review_corpus))


The character length of the text corpus is: 76350.

In [136]:
from collections import Counter
words = review_corpus.split()
print("The text corpus contains {0} words.").format(len(words))


The text corpus contains 11750 words.

Data Analytics

Now that we have captured our data into a single text string, we can perform some basic text analytics.

Tokenize our corpus of reviews

Let's perfom a simple word count on our corpus of comments.


In [137]:
import nltk
import string

from collections import Counter
from unidecode import unidecode

def get_tokens(textCorpus):
    lowers = textCorpus.lower()
    decoded_str = unidecode(lowers)
    no_punctuation = decoded_str.translate(string.maketrans("",""), string.punctuation)
    tokens = nltk.word_tokenize(no_punctuation)
    return tokens

tokens = get_tokens(review_corpus)
count = Counter(tokens)
print("The corpus contains the following number of occurrences per word:")
print count.most_common(20)


The corpus contains the following number of occurrences per word:
[('the', 625), ('by', 350), ('a', 300), ('of', 250), ('in', 250), ('audio', 250), ('this', 225), ('and', 225), ('an', 200), ('to', 175), ('read', 150), ('his', 100), ('hours', 100), ('is', 100), ('unabridged', 75), ('edition', 75), ('for', 75), ('inimitable', 75), ('one', 75), ('with', 75)]

Observation

Due to the existance of stop words, this result is uninformative, so let's remove the stop words.

Most Common Words

Load Stopwords


In [138]:
LOCAL_NLTK_PATH = "/home/notebook/nltk_data/corpora/stopwords/"
from nltk.corpus import PlaintextCorpusReader
corpus_root = LOCAL_NLTK_PATH
wordlists = PlaintextCorpusReader(corpus_root, '.*')
wordlists.fileids()


Out[138]:
['README',
 'danish',
 'dutch',
 'english',
 'finnish',
 'french',
 'german',
 'hungarian',
 'italian',
 'norwegian',
 'portuguese',
 'russian',
 'spanish',
 'swedish',
 'turkish']

Remove Stop Words

Eliminate stop words and count most common tokens.


In [139]:
tokens = get_tokens(review_corpus)
filtered = [w for w in tokens if not w in wordlists.words('english')]
count = Counter(filtered)
print count.most_common(100)


[('audio', 250), ('read', 150), ('hours', 100), ('unabridged', 75), ('edition', 75), ('inimitable', 75), ('one', 75), ('wodehouses', 75), ('rain', 75), ('jeeves', 75), ('assassin', 75), ('clements', 75), ('thomas', 50), ('keith', 50), ('around', 50), ('room', 50), ('like', 50), ('james', 50), ('nobbs', 50), ('michael', 50), ('ted', 50), ('ricks', 50), ('reading', 50), ('job', 50), ('last', 50), ('eisler', 50), ('appropriately', 50), ('family', 50), ('barry', 50), ('vacation', 50), ('pg', 50), ('jonathan', 50), ('abridged', 50), ('andrew', 50), ('10', 50), ('john', 50), ('mcconnohie', 50), ('rains', 50), ('explores', 50), ('fiasco', 50), ('e', 50), ('summer', 25), ('listening', 25), ('office', 25), ('3495', 25), ('named', 25), ('reviewed', 25), ('enjoyable', 25), ('planning', 25), ('including', 25), ('world', 25), ('go', 25), ('existence', 25), ('guys', 25), ('fifth', 25), ('childrens', 25), ('partners', 25), ('avid', 25), ('simon', 25), ('mix', 25), ('series', 25), ('fifthgrade', 25), ('writer', 25), ('behind', 25), ('crew', 25), ('presents', 25), ('contract', 25), ('jeeveswritten', 25), ('belongs', 25), ('wodehouse', 25), ('rich', 25), ('8', 25), ('3995', 25), ('include', 25), ('wooster', 25), ('bliss', 25), ('worldweary', 25), ('adversaries', 25), ('format', 25), ('washington', 25), ('killer', 25), ('choice', 25), ('listener', 25), ('famous', 25), ('words', 25), ('immediately', 25), ('cd', 25), ('frightening', 25), ('hall', 25), ('bigger', 25), ('school', 25), ('cooler', 25), ('unusual', 25), ('cecilaudio', 25), ('2995', 25), ('fewer', 25), ('tuned', 25), ('audios', 25), ('bad', 25), ('paper', 25)]

Display Results

Build a DataFrame of most common words.


In [140]:
mcwcols = ['word','frequency']
most_common_words = pd.DataFrame(count.most_common(100),columns=mcwcols)
df_mcw = most_common_words.head(20)
df_mcw


Out[140]:
word frequency
0 audio 250
1 read 150
2 hours 100
3 unabridged 75
4 edition 75
5 inimitable 75
6 one 75
7 wodehouses 75
8 rain 75
9 jeeves 75
10 assassin 75
11 clements 75
12 thomas 50
13 keith 50
14 around 50
15 room 50
16 like 50
17 james 50
18 nobbs 50
19 michael 50

20 rows × 2 columns

Plot Most Common Words - Bar Chart


In [141]:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.figure(figsize = (8,6), dpi = 72)
plt.xlabel('Words')
plt.ylabel('Count')
plt.title('Most Common Words')
ax = plt.gca()
colors= ['r', 'b']
df_mcw.plot(kind='bar',color=colors, alpha=0.75, ax=ax)
ax.xaxis.set_ticklabels( ['%s'  % i for i in df_mcw.word.values] )
plt.grid(b=True, which='major', linewidth=1.0)
plt.grid(b=True, which='minor')


Plot Most Common Words - Pie Chart


In [142]:
import numpy as np

def percentage(part, whole):
  return 100 * float(part)/float(whole)

# Convert word frequency to a percentage for plotting
totalFreq = df_mcw.frequency.values.sum()
pctFreq = []
for f in df_mcw.frequency.values:
    pctFreq.append(round(percentage(f, totalFreq),2))

# Prime the pie chart attributes
slices = pctFreq
labels = df_mcw.word.values

# Create a color palette
cmap = plt.cm.prism
colors = cmap(np.linspace(0., 1.5, len(slices)*2))

# Plot Pie Chart
fig = plt.figure(figsize=[10, 10])
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)

pie_wedge_collection = ax.pie(slices, colors=colors, 
                              labels=labels, labeldistance=1.05,
                              autopct='%1.1f%%', shadow=True, 
                              startangle=90)

for pie_wedge in pie_wedge_collection[0]:
    pie_wedge.set_edgecolor('white')

ax.set_title("Most Common Words");