TURN-ONS AND TURN-OFFS IN CURRENT HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES : ****Excellent ***Good **Fair *Poor : AUDIOCASSETTES

“Stones for Ibarra” by Harriet Doerr. Books on Tape (six cassettes; nine hours). Doerr’s modest but deeply affecting first novel, which won the American Book Award, tells of a young American couple settling in a tiny, remote Mexican village to revive a copper mine started by the man’s grandfather a half-century before. The vignettes--sad and funny, about village life and the struggle to make the mine work--take on added urgency because the man has leukemia. Recorded through the wife’s consciousness, the events carry the ring of autobiographical truth, an homage to a time, a place, a dream and a love. Jeanne Hobson’s reading is intense and careful, and where snatches of song are indicated, she sings them nicely. Information: (714) 548-5525. *** 1/2