Audio Archives - Page 10 of 56

Listen-Alikes: Tell Me a (Short) Story [in Booklist]

22 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Indian American, Japanese, Jewish, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American, Translation

Short stories can be the perfect antidote to these days of winter blues, pandemic panic, and cabin fever. Deesha Philyaw’s debut short-story collection – The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, a much-lauded, National-Book-Award-finalist – illuminates the lives of nine Black woman with a performance from Janina...

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw [in Booklist]

17 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Debut author Deesha Philyaw’s 2020 National Book Award finalist in fiction gets an almost (we can just ignore those minor, clumsy production glitches) flawless performance from prolific, expert Janina Edwards. Throughout the nine consistently superb stories, Edwards adapts effortlessly between mothers and daughters, friends...

To Be a Man by Nicole Krauss [in Booklist]

04 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Jewish, Repost, Short Stories

Nicole Krauss hasn’t audiobooked since joining an all-star cast for the aural adaptation of Etgar Keret’s collection, Suddenly, a Knock on the Door (2012). She is clearly an ideal choice for narrating her own writing in this, her full aural debut, with her collection examining and...

A Sweet Mess by Jayci Lee [in Booklist]

01 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

Before Jayci Lee’s latest even hit shelves, Lost/Hawaii Five-0 heartthrob Daniel Dae Kim optioned the rom-com as producer and star. Before Kim goes celluloid, narrator Natalie Naudus whets your appetite with this delectably sweet happily-ever-after affair. With his borrowed car broken down in tiny Weldon, California, celebrity food critic...

Fathoms: The World in the Whale By Rebecca Giggs [in Booklist]

27 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

For much of the 12 hours here, prolific Shiromi Arserio’s crisp-yet-soft, melodic-but-never-sing-songy voice seems just right for narrating Australian journalist Rebecca Giggs’ stupendous cetacean debut. The London native’s aural transfer to Down Under is mostly convincing, but when she moves beyond English, her fluency stumbles...

Three Keys [Front Desk 2] by Kelly Yang [in Booklist]

14 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

The lively cast of Front Desk returns with narrator Sunny Lu, adding much-appreciated continuity. A relative audiobook newbie, Lu proves her expertise in ciphering middle graders to middle-aged adults. That she’s also an attorney makes the lawyers here – both the pompous and the heroic –...

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman [in Booklist]

13 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

SIXTY-EIGHT narrators get credited with creating the aural spectacle of Neil Gaiman’s legendary graphic epic. Debuting officially in 1989, the original comic series concluded in 1996, although reprints, compilations, adaptations, and spin-offs have as never ceased. Among the vast cast – quite possibly the largest...

Barn 8 by Deb Olin Unferth [in Library Journal]

12 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

On her 15th birthday, Janey's mother confesses that her thought-to-be-sperm-banked father is actually a real person still living in the southern Iowa town from which her mother escaped by going to New York City to "give her coming daughter a better life." Janey ignores her...

Best Audiobooks of 2020 [in Library Journal]

08 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, British, European, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Vietnamese American

Best Audiobooks of 2020 by Stephanie Klose and Terry Hong This year’s top audiobooks, selected by LJ’s audio editor and reviewers, represent the best recorded literature published between November 2019 and December 2020. In a year that’s been like no other, these picks moved us, provided escape, and...

Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie [in Library Journal]

05 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Japanese, Repost

While Asha Lemmie's debut – about the tribulations of an illegitimate, mixed-race granddaughter of a cousin to the royal Japanese family – might not be perfect, she certainly deserves better than this lazy aural travesty. Floundering, misrepresentative audiobook adaptations have been rerecorded and rereleased –...

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle [in Library Journal]

04 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Tony-nominated Broadway star Megan Hilty proves to be an ideal narrator, effortlessly assuming (almost-)always-in-control Dannie and her free-spirited best friend, Bella. In the evening after a near-perfect day – accepting the perfectly orchestrated marriage proposal after wowing her interviewers for her ideal job – Dannie...

Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America by Laila Lalami [in Booklist]

31 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab American, Audio, Memoir, Moroccan American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Laila Lalami dovetails her own journey as a Morocco-born, UK-and US-educated, naturalized Muslim American, expanding into a socio-historical examination of what it means to be a “conditional citizen” in the United States. Conditional citizens, she explains, “are Americans who cannot enjoy the full rights,...

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy [in Booklist]

30 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, Fiction, Irish, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Seasoned narrator Barrie Kreinik showcases her prowess as a dialect coach as she embodies Charlotte McConaghy’s vast cast around the world from Australia to Ireland to Greenland, traversing quickly emptying terrains and oceans. Making her adult fiction debut, McConaghy introduces Franny Stone, an untethered...

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar [in Booklist]

28 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Repost, Syrian American

*STARRED REVIEW “Exceptional” is the only word for such a confluence of multiple #OwnVoices as the trifecta of trans Arab artists (author, character, and narrator) gathered to create this audible literary feast. In alternating epistolary chapters set decades apart, trans activist Samy Figaredo (making their audio...

Monogamy by Sue Miller [in Booklist]

18 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Narrating the fourth of her own books, Sue Miller doesn’t so much perform as empathically embody her 13th title – the result is an aural gift to her avid readers. Three decades into Graham and Annie’s marriage, Graham unexpectedly dies in his sleep. He...

Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West [in Booklist]

16 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW A dead woman opens Catherine Adel West’s startling, haunting debut. Two fathers, two daughters, and the building that is Chicago’s Calvary Hope Christian Church will unravel her unfortunate murder, revealing generations of secrets and violence that culminate in young Ruby King cradling her mother...

The Boys in the Back Row by Mike Jung [in Booklist]

15 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Korean American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Newbie narrator Keong Sim – who, although born in Vietnam, shares Korean American heritage with Mike Jung – has less than a handful of audio credits, but his effervescent energy is a perfect match for Jung’s rollicking, heartwarming MG buddy epic. Matt and Eric are...

Sisters by Daisy Johnson [in Booklist]

10 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Born 10 months apart, September and July are the kind of sisters who don’t require words to communicate. Older September is clearly in charge, having trained July over years of playing “September says.” Something terrible has happened at their Oxford school, causing their mother,...

I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: Stories by Laura Van den Berg [in Booklist]

08 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

Measured and controlled, Amy Landon expertly ciphers this 11-story collection with a sense of purposeful detachment, as if these women’s stories are too difficult, too harrowing to risk becoming too involved. Three stories, each highlighting erasure, emerge as standouts: in “Lizards,” an angry Floridian transplant...

What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez [in Booklist]

07 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Always approachable, immediately engaged, Hillary Huber returns as Sigrid Nunez’s cipher after voicing her 2018 National Book Awarded, The Friend. Once more, suicide looms, this time as a future intention rather than in response to a foregone event. In this is spare, sharp, simultaneously both daunting...

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