Why can't we be friends? Well, we can.
The Art of Friendship: 70 Simple Rules for Making Meaningful Connections
By Roger Horchow and Sally Horchow
Audio Renaissance, unabridged nonfiction, 3 CDs, 3 hours and 30 minutes, $19.95, read by Holter Graham and the authors; also available as a download from audible.com, $13.97.
Goodbye to Shy: For the Bashful in All of Us
By Leil Lowndes
Listen & Live Audio, abridged nonfiction, 3 CDs, four hours, $23.95, read by the author; also available as a download from audible.com, $16.77.
Mozart and Friends: Keyboard Conversations With Jeffrey Siegel, Pianist -- A Concert With Commentary
Random House Audio, unabridged nonfiction, one CD, one hour, $14.94; also available as a download from audible.com, $10.46.
I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence
By Amy Sedaris
Hachette Audio, unabridged nonfiction, four CDs, five hours, $29.98, read by the author; also available as a download from audible.com, $20.99.
Frankly, I'm a little late getting to my New Year's resolutions. I might have tackled my list earlier had I remembered to use Joel Levy's "Boost Your Memory Power" kit sitting on the desk, next to Brian Tracy's unopened audiobook "Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time."
Scarlett O'Hara was fond of saying "Tomorrow is another day." With that in mind, let the improvements begin, starting with the expansion of one's circle of friends.
Everyone needs friends, of course. And while many of us have cyber pals, a relatively new phenomenon, we have fewer close friends than before, according to a 2006 study in the American Sociological Review. "The Art of Friendship" may help expand that number.
This is a personable and well-thought-out guide to making and maintaining friendships by a father and daughter who have lots of them. He's a Broadway producer and the founder of the Horchow Collection, a luxury mail-order business; she's an established journalist.
One of the best self-help audiobooks this reviewer has ever heard, it offers solid, basic advice to help resuscitate a stagnant friendship, meet new people and maintain contact, respond when a friend is grieving, and know when to let go of a friendship that isn't working. The Horchows' best advice, however, is to give more than you receive. Pretty basic, but it has kept a lot of relationships afloat.
The narration, sadly, is only so-so. Holter Graham is fine, but nothing special, and Roger Horchow's voice is crackly and unappealing. Still, e ven audiophiles with many friends could benefit from this, if only for the etiquette reminders.
If you want to make new friends, you can't be excessively timid. "Goodbye to Shy" shows you how to avoid this pitfall.
The downside of this useful audiobook is that it is read by the author, an endlessly cheerful woman who is just too, too peppy. You do get used to her, but Leil Lowndes sounds like she's leading a seminar at Camp Happy, when a more natural, less exuberant reader would have been easier on the ear .
Still, she has a lot to say that is helpful. She backs up her statements with scientific findings and offers useful advice, such as writing down your impressions of an event just after it happens -- that way, when you start to doubt yourself, you can check your notes before the event becomes distorted in your mind and you scare yourself out of attending another one. She even tells you how to handle those extroverted types whose good advice for shy people usually only makes the situation worse.
If you want to improve yourself culturally this year, look to pianist Jeffrey Siegel's delightful series, "Keyboard Conversations," and in particular to the installment "Mozart and Friends."
This is not Music Composition 101. It is instead an hour of lovely classical music with instruction on how the pieces could be interpreted, along with tidbits of biographical information . Siegel discusses the composers who influenced Mozart (Johann Christian Bach, Franz Joseph Haydn) as well as his rivals (Antonio Salieri, Muzio Clementi ). He then passionately performs Mozart's "Fantasy in D Minor." Siegel, who has been a soloist with some of the world's top orchestras, has a pleasing voice and a calm manner that instructs without condescending. The audiobook gives you just enough information to start you on your way to a better appreciation of fine music.
Now that you have more friends, are less shy, and have a wider cultural understanding, you are ready to entertain with the daffy help of Amy Sedaris.
Sedaris, best known for her Comedy Central cult hit "Strangers With Candy, " is one funny lady. "I Like You" is part comedy, part how-to. There's lots of acerbic humor, so don't be surprised by sections dealing with entertaining for hobos or lumberjacks. She teaches you not only how to make money at your parties, but also how to deal with inebriated guests and to avoid gaffes while making introductions, such as "This is Barbara, she can't have children."
Mixed in with all Sedaris's clever tomfoolery are several decent and easy recipes and much solid advice. After listening to this audiobook, you can't help but think that she is a kind and polite person, the type who would help you pick up all those marbles that rolled out of her medicine cabinet while you were snooping.
Because Sedaris is a performer, she knows how to sell herself. She adopts accents, pauses dramatically, and punches up the jokes. Just don't play this while the kids are still awake.
Rochelle O'Gorman is publisher and editor in chief of audiobookcafe.com, an online magazine about the audiobook industry. 
