I'm happy to report that
The Sixteen Pleasures, which was rejected 39 times before being published by a small press in New York (Soho)
has now come out in audio book form. It's available at
Amazon and at
Barnes and Nobel and, at a better price, at
Downpour and
Ambling Books and other sites. It's read by Hillary Huber, who has won several Audie Award nominations. Here are the reviews posted on the Ambling Books site:
Audiobook Reviews
“Fascinating entertainment... with a sympathetic heroine, a
suspenseful plot, a cast of colorful characters and illuminating
meditations on life, art, and love.” —Chicago Tribune
“Part mystery, part romance, part guidebook... A lively first
novel that communicates the heady peril, as well as the adventure,
of Florence after the flood.” —New York Times Book
Review
“Although the pleasure of reading this book can hardly compare
with any of the sixteen, still, I’d put it high on the list of
pleasures one can have alone.” —USA Today
“Elegantly moving…Everything about the narrator and heroine of
this novel is appealing right from the first paragraph.” —New
Yorker
“Hellenga’s depth (and lightness) of characterization and
description lift it high above its genre. And what better book than
one about loving and loving books?” —Amazon.com, editorial
review
“Graceful, assured prose, a wry but empathetic view of the human
character, and an authoritative command of fascinating background
detail are among the distinguishing features of this deeply
satisfying first novel...It is remarkable that Hellenga, a
recipient of a PEN fiction award for his short stories, can at this
point in his career produce such a witty, sophisticated and wise
novel, its erotic passages underscored by a poignant, even
melancholic undercurrent of change and loss and flashes of
existential meaning about the conflicting demands of spirit and
flesh.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A rewarding read, with a witty heroine, a marvelous setting,
and lots of fascinating detail about book conservation and the
restoration of art.” —Booklist
“A wonderfully rich and absorbing story that seems far too
assured to be a first novel. Hellenga forms Florentine art, nuns,
erotica, and American know-how into a kind of della Robbia
arrangement of juicy forbidden fruit…Hellenga knows just how to
build a story. The suspense he manages to create in a book auction
scene rivals that of any thriller. In the course of mending books
in Florence, Margot Harrington is releasing herself from the rigid
bindings of her old life, and both processes prove to be absolutely
compelling.” —Kirkus Reviews
He
[Henry James] began dictating directly to the typewriter. It’s a case of the
medium being the message and with dictation he ran into longer sentences, and
parenthetical remarks, and when he revised what he had dictated he tended to
add further flourishes. In the old days when he wrote in longhand he [Henry
James] was much briefer and crisper, but now he luxuriated in fine phrases and
he was exquisitely baroque. It’s a grand style but not to everyone’s taste. —Leon
Edel, “The Art of Biography No. 1” Paris Review interview. 
