I'm an up and down kind of person, but last spring I went through a longer than usual depression. To weather this period, I relied on audio books. Since 9/11, I've again found comfort in audio books.

My depression found relief in redirection provided by Maria Nemeth's The Energy of Money: A Spiritual Guide to Financial and Personal Fulfillment which is presented by the author (Sounds True Audio, 6 cassettes, $39.95). Right away her words brought me the perspective I needed. Difficulties in starting a new business had made me question whether I should give up. I took heart when Nemeth described "trouble at the boarder" as a typical predicament that occurs when ideas meet implementation. Nemeth's atypical expressions are one way she shifts thinking. Her exercises are another. This do-it tape changed my perspective as I "cleaned my financial artery", composed my "financial biography" and discovered the ways I was "leaking money". Nemeth also offers common sense advice on how to handle financial issues with spouses, children, and aging and dying parents.

Two engrossing audio novels let me escape my small world and enter new and interesting realities with heroines whose strength and wisdom was a comfort to me. Pearl Cleage's I Wish I Had a Red Dress is read by the author. (HarperCollins, $25.95, abridged, 4 cassettes) Cleage brings alive the small predominantly black town of Idelwild, Michigan and the life of Joyce Mitchell. Joyce has been widowed too early, but this strong woman does not grieve overly long. She turns her energies to counseling young unmarried African-American women who are trying to find their way in the world. Joyce's life is secure and happy until she begins to look more closely at the difficulties these young women face as they try to understand the power of choice, improve communication with the opposite sex, and take in complicated truths about life, love and joy. With a honeyed reading and strong written words, Cleage (and her protagonist) examine and honestly comment on race, gender, and humanity in a way that invites wonder and questioning.

There's a very different world in Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders, read by Stina Nielsen (HighBridge Company, $29.95; 5 cassettes, slightly abridged). Housemaid Anna Frith is an intelligent young woman who becomes a healer and heroine in her isolated mountain village where the plague rages in 1666. Young Anna, grown up with a father who's an insufferable drunk, has married young and lost her husband before her two sons die of plague. Anna detests the classism in her small town and finds friendship in a relationship with a courageous young minister and his wife who urge parishioners to quarantine themselves and stop the disease's spread. At story's end Anna flees to the Middle East to rescue a child from social prejudice more hateful to her than the plague. This amazing first novel is based on the true story of Eyam, England which the correspondent-author discovered after experiencing the horrors of modern-day plagues. Brooks captures the place, time and the historical period when superstition and religion clash. Nielsen has a crisp British accent that keeps the pace fast and drama high.

A third kind of comfort came from listening to two memoirs that made my problems seem small. Malika Oufkir writes with Michele Fitourssi, Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in A Desert Jail, and the tape is read by Edita Brychta. (Hyperion Audiobooks, 4 cassettes, abridged, $24.98) Malika Oufkir was the eldest daughter of the powerful General Oufkir, a trusted aide to the king before his involvement in an assassination attempt. Oufkir's actions resulted in his death and the banishment of his wife and five children to a forsaken penal colony in the middle of the desert. There they remained for twenty years, suffering physical and emotional deprivation made worse by the contrast with the luxurious life they'd once known. In fact, most of Malika's life was one of detention. She was adopted by the king at five and taken from her beloved mother. From that time on, she was the hostage of whimsical monarchs and a turbulent male-dominated society. Her resilience and penchant for storytelling helped her family survive and add to this audio's success. Brychta's reading is flavored with a lovely French accent that conveys a sense of setting and emotional tone to an already poignant story.

I was haunted by Julie Salamon's Facing the Wind , read by Sandra Burr (Brilliance, 7 cassettes, unabridged, $32.95). Salamon weaves several story strands, the central of which is the life of Robert Rowe. Rowe, an attorney with social and financial aspirations, is, at first, devastated with the birth of his son Christopher, who is severely neurologically and visually impaired. Salamon describes how Christopher's needs unite the Rowe's neighborhood, a group of women facing similar challenges, and the Rowe family itself. Robert's love deepens through care taking and then everything falls apart when his professional and personal reversals result in temporary insanity and he murders his wife and three children. It's Salamon's exhaustive research and interviewing that make this much more than a true crime novel. Insanity, guilt, resilience and compassion are all brought into question in situations too complex for quick judgments and too thought-provoking to be easily dismissed. Burr's gentle reading, stresses emotions and softens the horror, interjecting the level of compassion and questioning the author intended.

Pure escapism came with Good in Bed, written by Jennifer Weiner and read by Paula Cale (Simon and Schuster, $25.00. 4 cassettes, abridged) No, it's not just a grabber title, it's a grabber listen. Heroine Cannie Shapiro is a large woman who's only just survived being dumped by her boyfriend and publicly humiliated when she discovers she's pregnant. Learning to be alone and survive whatever life metes out seems to be her lesson. Listeners' mission will be to laugh at the gvetching and courageous Canny and the wild cast of characters. Moods, miseries, and the many personalities are made real by Paula Cale.