I must confess that I was bought the Paperback version of this book first . . . my husband bought a "Best Seller" at the library that was being sold off for 50p and I read it the same night. It was one 'off the wall' book which really struck a chord with me, as my husband often 'tears the house apart" looking for something he mislays; and sometimes it doesn't turn up at all . . . . Or I am looking for a particular CD or Cassette, and I can find the case ~ but it is empty ~ Where HAVE all the lost things gone? Well, it's A Place Called Here according to this book by Dublin-born Cecelia Ahern. She's got some wacky theories, but this one is pretty amazing!
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Like "Thanks for the Memories" (also by Cecelia Ahern) it was abridged by Kati Nichol for this HarperCollinsAudioBooks version. It is read by (Clare-born) Aoife McMahon and (Dublin-born) Aiden McArdle and Production and Music were done by Peter Rinne.

Amazon's Super Saver Delivery was Remarkably Quick for Once

The Audio Version was released in 2006 at the same time as the Hardback copy and so has the Black design; the Paperback Best Seller was issued in 2007 and is Pink ~ with the same fanciful design of lost items as the discs . . . Each Compact disc has the title, author, publisher and © details as well as the identifying number HCCD1364 and the disc number (1 - 5).
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There is also an insert page which tells you how many tracks are on each disc and how long each track is. Each Disc contains between 19-22 tracks of varying length; the average track is about 3 minutes long. It is gratifying to know that the longest track is under 6 minutes long, because although you can Pause play at any point and Resume at the same place, if for any reason you have to Stop and Restart (or you get distracted and realise you have missed something), that is the longest you will have to retrace to get back to the place where you were interrupted. That is, as long as you have noted WHICH track you were on when you had to stop!

Of Course it WASN'T Quite as Simple as That (for me), Was it?

The first eight tracks are read by Aoife McMahon quite convincingly as Sandy, and all the sections she reads, both as Sandy "Here" and the flashbacks to her growing-up years and life before she carelessly jogged off the beaten track to find herself "Here" are all in the first person. Although it took me a little time to get used to her accent and the delivery of the book was a little slow getting into the action, once it was swinging back between the two readers, I became hooked once more.
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Sandy Shortt has been obsessed with finding lost things since her schoolmate Jenny-May Butler disappeared without trace when they were both ten. All of her possesions are marked with both her name and address, but they still go missing . . . . Her obsession stretches to asking questions about missing people . . . and wanting to know more about any unexplained disappearances, eventually starting her own Missing Persons Agency.
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This in itself makes the book more direct and compact, and although I personally felt it would have been interesting to have heard the "two sides" of the story more, it would have made the AudioBook version unbearably long, I expect.
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I liked the way the tracks were edited ~ the end of each track was at a logical place, and the beginning of the track a good place to pick up the story. Similarly, the discs themselves were well divided, so that if you had to listen to just one disc at a time, you could easily get back into the story when you began the next disc, and you were at a cliff-hanger when the previous disc finished, so you could hardly wait to hear the next disc. The music wasn't intrusive, and let you know when you were moving between that which was happening HERE and where Jack Ruttle was, back in Ireland; or, alternatively, when you were moving into a new phase of the story.
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The characters were sensitively drawn by the author, and sensitively portrayed by the readers, so that you had a better understanding of the story by hearing it read.

[* by 'Oirr-ish' I of course mean Cecelia Ahern's English the way she would speak it]
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