*STARRED REVIEW On the eve of her 19th birthday – which is also New Year's Eve – Oona is having the celebration of her life, madly in love, about to embark on a dream-come-true band tour. But when she awakes, she's jumped forward in time to...
*STARRED REVIEW When Colum McCann first considered narrating his books, he offered to audition for his own National Book Awarded Let the Great World Spin: “...
Indonesian-born, Singaporean-domiciled Clarissa Goenawan (Rainbirds) takes her sophomore title back to a death in remote Japan. This time, death arrives via suicide, claiming the titular Miwako, an enigmatic university sophomore who disappears without notice, and is found only after death. Desperate to comprehend her fatal...
The eponymous conjure women here are two midwife/healers: enslaved mother May Belle and her eventually free daughter Rue. Their story gets revealed in three time-jumping segments – slaverytime, wartime, freedomtime – that readers will need to realign for full disclosure of brutal secrets, hidden pasts,...
*STARRED REVIEW Armed with significant acting credits and plentiful lauds, Aunjanue Ellis makes her audiobook debut as the voice of one of the 20th-century’s most celebrated, iconic writers. In a word, her performance is stupendous. Texas Woman’s University professor Genevieve West’s definitive new collection features, for...
*STARRED REVIEW Making both her print and audio debut, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is a double powerhouse. As a writer, she gifts readers her “creative nonfiction, rooted in careful reporting, translated as poetry, shared by chosen family, and sometimes hard to read.” She’s anything but hard to...
*STARRED REVIEW Lauded (worshipped?) food journalist/activist Michael Pollan has seven simple words for us here: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” In the third iteration of his 2009 bestseller (#2 was a charming 2011 illustrated collaboration with artist Maira Kalman), Pollan takes the mic 11...
*STARRED REVIEW What began as a New York Times series becomes a captivating book – and with Chris McDougall narrating, quite the aural gift. Sherman arrived on McDougall’s Pennsylvania farm close to death, rescued from an (unintentionally) abusive hoarder. A supportive herd – McDougall’s family (human...
The publishing industry has been hard hit by COVID-19: festival and conference cancelations, library and bookstore shutterings, disappearing book tours, publishers’ office closings, production delays – especially with international printers – and, alas, probably more obstacles to come. But digital audiobooks can be the ideal,...
STARRED REVIEW Sixteen hours. Multiple layers of convoluted narrative. A vast cast in need of distinct distinguishing by age, gender, social standing, ethnicity, region, accent. Who you gonna call? Already a proven collaborator after The Golden-House (2017) and Shame (audio 2017), Adam returns as Rushdie’s voice-of-choice for his latest meandering...
“Just because you have a testosterone prescription and a new sense of exhilaration doesn’t mean you have to go around setting down your life story,” Daniel Mallory Ortberg writes (and thankfully narrates), disguised as “Paul and Second Timothy: The Transmasculine Epistles.” His response to his...
Regardless of skin color, net worth, socioeconomic background, you will cringe here – as well as laugh (possibly guffaw), roll your eyes, shake your head, perhaps even cry. Narrator Nicole Lewis has quite the diverse cast to perform – which she does with energetic aplomb and...
*STARRED REVIEW How fitting that what might be Isabel Allende’s best work gets aurally elevated by one of audio’s most gifted narrators. For nearly 10 hours, Edoardo Ballerini embodies the extended Dalmau family, flowing through six decades, multiple countries, two continents, recounting the Spanish Civil War...
First-time-author Rita Woods shares the debut spotlight with her multi-faceted narrator Ella Turenne, who agilely ciphers the unique voices of four women who share one remarkable legacy. Turenne's present-day Gaelle is a Cleveland nursing home aide who survived the 2010 Haitian earthquake, and has recently...
*STARRED REVIEW The rest of that subtitle goes “A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning,” with the keyword being Remix, thanks to Jason Reynolds’ (Long Way Down) remarkable synthesizing of Ibram X. Kendi’s 600-page, 19-plus-hour original. Kendi reads his introduction, lauding Reynolds’ superb...
Despite living in glorious Paris, Juliette's daily life is mundane. Her real estate job isn't fulfilling, her closest friend is flighty coworker Chloe, and her love life currently nonexistent. The day's highlight is her Métro commute, when she can commune with books – both the...
*STARRED REVIEW Earth’s destruction, space inhabitation, time travel – none of that is unfamiliar. Rampant capitalism, workaholic isolation, and family bonds too can be pedestrian themes. Yet Simon Jimenez’s debut, which includes all of the above, is a remarkably fresh, electrifying story that, at its core,...
“The invisibility of the women, in particular of my community, fueled this desire to write the Dominican experience, the Latinx experience, the immigrant experience, the New York experience,” reveals Angie Cruz in an interview accessible only if you choose audio. Making her narrator debut, fellow...
Finishing what she so affectingly began, Kyla García returns to conclude Tehlor Kay Mejia’s high-octane duology in which the privileged world of Medio and the rebellious encampments of La Voz implode, with the inevitable showdown of Medio’s heir-apparent Mateo Garcia and his two wives –...
Lake Geneva in 1816 is home (in two rented properties) to five English travelers, three made eternal through their writing, one among that trio renowned for creating (inhuman) life, literally. Mary Shelley conceived Frankenstein there, accompanied by her poet husband Percy Shelley, fellow poet Lord Byron,...
