With his idiosyncratic blend of patrician airs and boyish charm, narrator William Hurt provides a wonderful complement to this wildly imaginative collection of short stories by author Stephen King. Hurt carefully weaves the disparate elements into a cohesive whole, embracing the subtle complexities of each character; one moment a wizened sadness leaks into his voice as a haunted old man, pursued by demons, asks his 11-year-old lookout, "You know everyone on this street, on this block of this street anyway? And you'd know strangers? Sojourners? Faces of those unknown?" Then, in a profound yet almost imperceptible switch, he exposes the boy's naive enthusiasm, "I think so." Right about here your neck hairs will stand at attention. Hurt's peculiar vocal style is in perfect pitch to King's dark, surreal vision of growing up amid the monsters of post-Vietnam America. (Running time: 21 hours, 20 CDs) --George Laney --This text refers to the Audio CD edition. This collection of five thematically linked short stories dwells on the legacy of the 1960s. They share a collective moodiness, a feeling of depressed hangover coming after youth has been lost and the nation has suffered troubled times. Read aloud, this pungent atmosphere is especially strong. A-list actor Hurt stylishly performs the lengthy opener, "Low Men in Yellow Coats," in which 11-year-old Bobby Garfield falls under the spell of an older man his mother has taken in as a boarder (a father figure who introduces him first to literatureALord of the FliesAthen to supernatural phenomena). Hurt skillfully evokes pathos from the story's fine detailing: its sense of small-town place and Bobby's child's-eye-view of the evil characters around him. King reads the title story, "Hearts in Atlantis," about Maine college students who mindlessly play cards instead of studying while the Vietnam War rages in the background. The author's modest, reedy voice rings with autobiographical truthAas the protagonist is a young would-be writer, na?ve to the ways of the world. Taken together, at 21 hours' listening, however, King's shining moments too often give way to fatigue: the stories are repetitious, full of plot rehashings and meaningless asides. Also available on CD. Simultaneous release with the Scribner hardcover. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition. YA-An intricate and compelling tapestry of the '60s and those who came of age during that turbulent decade. Readers first meet 11-year-old Bobby Garfield in suburban Connecticut in 1960. He and his friends, Sully John and Carol, come to the end of their collective childhood during that summer when violence, rage, guilt, shame, and heroism break up their close-knit relationship. The second story begins six years later on the University of Maine campus. A card game, Hearts, threatens the college future of a group of freshmen. Outside, the Vietnam War and its concurrent rebellion are raging. Pete, the protagonist, offers a firsthand view of the craziness of the time. The link to the first story is Carol, Bobby's childhood friend, with whom Pete falls in love. The next two stories each follow another figure from the summer of 1960: Bobby's friend Sully John and a member of a trio that assaulted Carol. Both young men are Vietnam vets, each one crippled in his own way from his war experience. The final story finds middle-aged Bobby returning to Connecticut, coming full circle with the events of his life. This is a very long book; however, after reading a few pages, most teens will be hard-pressed to put it down. The characters are compelling and well drawn, the action is ingeniously interwoven from story to story, and the feel of the 60s, and the baggage carried into later decades, is vivid, harsh, and absolutely true. Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Whether you got the book for the holidays and you are finally catching up on your reading, or you meant to read it but didn't buy it yet--go for the unabridged audio version of King's 1999 blockbuster. King shares reading the five loosely interwoven stories with William Hurt. These vignettes are not typical King horror per se but the prose of a creative mind. Hurt's voice grasps the sf aspects of "Low Men in Yellow Coats" with distinction. In the first story, we meet 11-year-old Bobby Garfield during the summer of 1960, when he is befriended by an odd, strange, and single elderly man who employs Bobby to be his eyes and ears and ever watchful of peculiarly specific signs in the neighborhood. King relates the title story about some boys in a college dorm who are addicted to a card game, and the life lessons that they learn on campus over the year. The audio production includes musical interludes, which detract when intrusive but enhance when on the mark. Highly recommended, especially where King is in demand. -Kristin M. Jacobi, Eastern Connecticut State Univ., Willimantic Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition. King's fat new work impressively follows his general literary upgrading begun with Bag of Bones (1998) and settles readers onto the seabottom of one of his most satisfying ideas ever. Set in fictional Harwich and semifictional Bridgeport, the story weaves five Vietnam-haunted small-town New England stories into a deeply moving overall vision. The five are: ``Low Men in Yellow Coats,'' set in 1960 and at about 250 pages the longest; ``Hearts in Atlantis,'' set in 1966; ``Blind Willie,'' set in 1983; ``Why We're in Vietnam'' and ``Heavenly Shades of Night Are Failing,'' both set in 1999. The umbrella title fits well, with King showing us the lost, time-sunken continent of the late Eisenhower era, as hearts from the deep sea of that Hopperesque time slowly rise to the tormented surface of the present-day. Whether his characters are stock or not, its impossible not to enjoy Kings gentle ways of fleshing them out, all the old bad habits and mannerisms gone as he draws you into the most richly serious work of his career. Elderly Ted Brautigan, who may seem a bit like Max von Sydow, moves into a house occupied by Bobby Garfield, age 11, and his hard-bitten mother, Liz, a secretary for real-estate agent Don Biderman, with whom shes having an unhappy affair. Brautigan hires Bobby to read the paper aloud, gives him Lord of the Fliesand also strange warnings about low men in yellow coats and posters about lost dogs. Report any sighting of these! Ted also has attacks of parrot pupilitis, the pupils opening and closing as he stares at other worlds. Although some characters wander in from King's inferior occult Western Dark Tower series, their cartoony, computer-graphic effects making them seem in the wrong novel, this minor lapse fades before King's memory-symphony of America during Vietnam. Page after page, a truly mature King does everything right and deserves some kind of literary rosette. His masterpiece.(Book- of-the-Month Club main selection; Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. 'Astonishingly good...honourable, deeply felt and almost wonderful' Independent 'One of the most impressive books of fiction published this year' Locus 'Page after page, a truly mature King does everything right and deserves some kind of literary rosette. His masterpiece.' -- KIRKUS REVIEWS 'Seductive...artful tales...the title story rivals his best work' Publishers Weekly 'A writer of excellence...King is one of the most fertile story-tellers of the modern novel...brilliantly done' Marcel Berlins, The Sunday Times 'Astonishingly good...honourable, deeply felt and almost wonderful' -- Independent 'A writer of excellence...King is one of the most fertile story-tellers of the modern novel...brilliantly done' -- Marcel Berlins, The Sunday Times 'Accomplished...unputdownable...his mesmerising best' -- Robert McCrum, Observer on BAG OF BONES