Learning to Sing

If you managed to avoid the "American Idol" TV show and subsequent recordings, there's one more bullet you'll have to dodge--Clay Aiken's memoir. Memoir? Sometimes it seems as if Aiken is perusing the greeting card rack at Walgreen's: "When it comes to getting through life, laughing at it sure beats crying" and "What you wear doesn't matter; who you are does." Aiken's fans may appreciate learning about his mother fixation and self-confessed nerdiness, but others will find it tiresome. Narrator Kirby Heyborne gives it his best and does a pleasant, though plodding, job. R.W.S. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine