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Bittersweet

Review by Autumn Allen

Inviting author Susan Cain to read her own audiobook for Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole (7.5 hours) was an excellent choice. As a meditation on the importance of melancholy, the book requires just the right amount of energy—enthusiasm, even—to keep listeners forging ahead. With her easygoing, conversational pace and a voice full of curiosity and optimism, Cain convinces us that pushing past any ambivalence about sorrow will be rewarding.

The author narrates her personal anecdotes with fondness, bemusement and fascination. Her interviews feel like exciting scenes in a story, and she brings listeners right along on these encounters. It sounds as if she wrote the book to be read aloud.

Fans of lectures by thought leaders such as Brené Brown will enjoy Bittersweet immensely, finding much to ponder about the role of intense emotion in our search for human connection.

Read more: 4 gentle guides for healing, including ‘Bittersweet.’

It seems like Bittersweet was made to be an audiobook. Author Susan Cain narrates with fondness, bemusement and fascination, convincing listeners to forge ahead in this meditation on the importance of melancholy.
RomanceAudio

A Lady for a Duke

Review by Anna Zeitlin

Alexis Hall leaps from the world of contemporary romantic comedies to the realm of Regency romance with A Lady for a Duke (15.5 hours).

Justin de Vere, the Duke of Gracewood, has been moping around his family’s country estate ever since his closest friend died at the Battle of Waterloo. What Gracewood doesn’t realize is that his friend is not dead but finally living as her true self, Viola Carroll, a transgender woman. When Viola reluctantly accompanies her employer to Gracewood’s home, she is thrown into a complicated plot filled with secrets and yearning.

Hall puts his characters through the wringer, making their hard-won happily ever after all the more satisfying. British transgender voice actor Kay Eluvian delivers on the moodiness and longing of Hall’s novel, portraying Viola with feminine strength and Gracewood as a dashing, brooding hero. As they come together, their joy feels radical in the best way.

Read about how Alexis Hall is seizing his moment.

Transgender voice actor Kay Eluvian delivers on the moodiness and longing of Alexis Hall's novel, portraying Viola with feminine strength and Gracewood as a dashing, brooding hero.
AudioMemoir

We Were Dreamers

Review by G. Robert Frazier

No one would expect Chinese Canadian actor Simu Liu’s origin story to be as electrifying and action-packed as that of the iconic superhero he portrays on the big screen, but We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story (8 hours) is still compelling, uplifting and, at times, totally unexpected.

In 2021, Liu became a household name after starring in Marvel’s first superhero movie with an Asian lead character, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. In the audiobook of his memoir, Liu confidently narrates the story of his rise to stardom, from his childhood living with his grandparents in rural China to his reunion with his parents in Canada, from his failed attempts to fit into the corporate business world to his journey to success as a TV actor. As Liu regales listeners with stories about his early fascination with astronauts and science fiction, his calm, laid-back demeanor and passionate voice are a winning combination.

Discover the three best celebrity memoirs of summer 2022, including ‘We Were Dreamers.’

Marvel actor Simu Liu narrates the audiobook for his memoir, and his calm, laid-back demeanor and passionate voice are a winning combination.
Audio

Fall 2022 preview: Most anticipated audiobooks

Feature by Cat, Deputy Editor

Audiobook listeners never have to live a single moment without the joy of stories. No errand, no chore, no leisurely stroll is complete without a book. These are the 14 audiobooks that we’re most excited to check out this fall.

Starry Messenger cover

Starry Messenger by Neil deGrasse Tyson, read by the author
Macmillan Audio | September 20

Neil deGrasse Tyson, everyone’s favorite astrophysicist, reads his own “Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization.” Imagine star-gazing while listening to this one—yes, please.

The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander, read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
Hachette Audio | September 27

Stories told in verse can be especially powerful as an audiobook, and no one writes verse novels quite like Newbery Medalist Kwame Alexander. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, who delivered an outstanding performance for the audiobook of Alex Michaelides’ The Maidens, will bring to life this story of a young boy’s epic journey.

The Sporty One by Melanie Chisholm, read by the author
Hachette Audio | September 27

Yooooo I’ll tell you what I want: a memoir by Sporty Spice, read by Sporty Spice. This will be so much fun for fans of the 1990s icon—queen of the high pony and badass in track pants.

Making a Scene cover

Making a Scene by Constance Wu, read by the author
Simon & Schuster Audio | October 4

The Golden Globe-nominated star of Crazy Rich Asians and Hustlers narrates her own collection of essays, about her life both in and out of Hollywood, which she wrote in the aftermath of severe backlash to her tweets about the “Fresh Off the Boat” reboot. “While my book is not always the most flattering portrayal, it’s as honest as I know how to be,” she tweeted in July. We’re looking forward to hearing about the experience in her own words. 

A Rover’s Story by Jasmine Warga, read by Ariana Delawari and Jacob McNatt
HarperAudio | October 4 

The next middle grade novel from Jasmine Warga (The Shape of Thunder) is primarily narrated by a fictional Mars Rover, whose little robot voice will be uniquely fun on audio. The other narrative voice is Sophia, the daughter of the lead engineer on the robot and who writes letters to the determined little rover. For most of the novel, Sophia is a child, but while Rover goes on its mission, Sophia begins to grow up, which will be an interesting narrator challenge.

Dying of Politeness by Geena Davis, read by the author
HarperAudio | October 10

Here’s another big Hollywood memoir, read by the author—this one from two-time Academy Award winner Geena Davis, best known for her iconic roles in Thelma & Louise and A League of Their Own.

The Botany of Desire cover

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, read by the author
Random House Audio | October 18

One of the best things about the burgeoning audiobook industry is that publishers are going back and rerecording old audiobooks, or even producing audiobooks for the very first time. Michael Pollan does an outstanding job narrating his own books, so this new production of his 2001 book, about the relationship between humans and our domesticated plants, is sure to be a winner.

Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater, read by Will Patton
Scholastic | October 18

Will Patton is one of the best audiobook narrators out there, so it’s no wonder that he’s the go-to voice for Maggie Stiefvater’s books. (He’s also read a ton of Stephen King and James Lee Burke audiobooks, as well as Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann.) This fall, he brings his talents to the highly anticipated third book in Stiefvater’s Dreamer Trilogy.

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Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro, read by the author
Random House Audio | October 18

Dani Shapiro is best known as a memoirist, and thanks to the success of her book Inheritance and subsequent podcast, “Family Secrets,” she has been universally embraced as something of an expert on the process of discovering and coming to terms with skeletons in the family closet. She brings all that background to the narration of her upcoming novel, about a terrible car crash and its long-term impact on several families.

Inciting Joy by Ross Gay
Hachette Audio | October 25

It hasn’t been announced yet, but what if Ross Gay narrates his upcoming essay collection? He read The Book of Delights, after all. And while we don’t want to make assumptions, our fingers are crossed.

Surrender cover

Surrender by Bono, read by the author
Random House Audio | November 1

Bono, activist and lead singer of the Irish rock band U2, created 40 original drawings for his first memoir, which will make for an appealing package for fans—but we feel like listening to him read his own audiobook will be even better.

Have I Told You This Already? by Lauren Graham, read by the author
Random House Audio | November 15

We’re expecting lots of reasons to laugh when listening to this new essay collection from “Gilmore Girls” actor Lauren Graham, who has proven herself to be a strong writer of both fiction and nonfiction. We especially when she reads her own audiobooks because she’s totally unafraid to be a little silly.

The Light We Carry cover

The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama, read by the author
Random House Audio | November 15

First Lady Michelle Obama’s narration of her previous memoir, the bestselling Becoming, was a real standout, and fans have continued to enjoy her insight and benefit from her expertise by listening to her winning podcast. To our delight, Obama will narrate her next book—a mixture of memoir and self-help—as well.

Butts by Heather Radke, read by the author
Simon & Schuster Audio | November 22

Heather Radke is a contributing editor and reporter at the Peabody Award-winning program “RadioLab,” so her narration of this scientific and cultural history of the female butt should be fascinating and wildly entertaining.

Discover all our most anticipated books of fall 2022.

We’re looking ahead to audiobooks from Michelle Obama, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bono and more.
FictionAudio

Tracy Flick Can’t Win

Review by Maya Fleischmann

Tracy Flick, Tom Perrotta’s protagonist from his darkly humorous novel Election, returns in Tracy Flick Can’t Win (6 hours), an engrossing story of retrospection, regret and self-fulfillment. Now the vice principal at a suburban New Jersey high school, Tracy is vying for the principal gig, which means navigating school politics and the sophomoric behavior of the adults around her.

Award-winning actor Lucy Liu’s sensitive performance of Tracy captures every moment of confidence and frustration. Her controlled tones highlight the loneliness, self-doubt and disappointment that Tracy feels after sidelining her political aspirations to take care of her mother and raise her daughter. “Better Call Saul” actor Dennis Boutsikaris’ entertaining performance of retiring principal Jack Weede’s misguided masculine mindset is sprinkled with guilt and shame. Other superb cast members (Jeremy Bobb, Ramona Young, Ali Andre Ali and Pete Simonelli) are equally impressive, conveying the nuances of strained personal and professional relationships while delivering quietly compelling reactions to the story’s climatic ending.

Read our review of the print edition of Tracy Flick Can’t Win.

Actor Lucy Liu’s sensitive performance of Tracy Flick captures every moment of confidence and frustration in Tom Perrotta's engrossing novel of retrospection, regret and self-fulfillment.
NonfictionAudioMemoir

Gathering Blossoms Under Fire

Review by Tami Orendain

Alice Walker’s wit and wisdom are on full display in Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker, 1965–2000 (23.5 hours). This compilation takes a deep dive into Walker’s private writings, including selected journal entries, poetry and recollections of historical events. Notes from the book’s editor, Valerie Boyd, anchor listeners to Walker’s historical and personal context. These journals bridge the gap between public and private, allowing listeners a close perspective on Walker’s most intimate thoughts on activism, religion, women’s rights, sexuality, writing and myriad other topics.

Walker is candid in her reflections and criticisms, a storyteller through and through, and the audiobook paints a vivid image of her life within the broader turns of history. Read by Aunjanue Ellis, with Janina Edwards voicing the introduction and footnotes, it’s a uniquely mesmerizing listen. Walker concludes the audiobook with her own narration of the postscript, which she wrote in 2021, emphasizing the personal nature of publicizing her journals.

Woven together with her creative expertise, Walker’s stories make for an insightful and intriguing listening experience.

Read our starred review of the print edition of Gathering Blossoms Under Fire.

Narrated by Aunjanue Ellis and Janina Edwards, Gathering Blossoms Under Fire makes for an insightful and intriguing audiobook. The best part: Alice Walker reads the postscript, emphasizing the personal nature of publicizing her journals.
NonfictionAudioBiography

The Palace Papers

Review by Maya Fleischmann

In the audiobook recording of The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor—the Truth and the Turmoil (18 hours), English author and journalist Tina Brown gives an energetic and engrossing performance as she shares juicy details about the strife and scandal that have surrounded the British monarchy for decades. Even before Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles’ sordid phone conversation, before Princess Diana won the hearts of people around the world, the royal family had long been the subject of rumors and shocking news, such as the abdication of King Edward VIII following his love affair with American divorc’e Wallis Simpson. As Brown explains, after the public’s obsession with Diana, the royal family sought to ensure that no family member would ever garner such superstar status again. And then came Meghan Markle.

In this scintillating listening experience, Brown tempers her ironic, scathing observations with straightforward, reverent tones. Anglophiles will easily succumb to this fascinating book, which is ideal for readers who enjoyed Diana: Her True Story—in Her Own Words by Andrew Morton and Meghan and Harry: The Real Story by Lady Colin Campbell.

English author and journalist Tina Brown gives an energetic and engrossing performance as she shares juicy details about the strife and scandal that has surrounded the British monarchy for decades.
FictionAudioHistorical Fiction

Lessons in Chemistry

Review by Norah Piehl

Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry (12 hours) is a funny, fearlessly feminist historical novel about chemist Elizabeth Zott, a woman who is thoroughly unmoved by the repressive standards of her time.

It’s the early 1960s, and Elizabeth becomes an accidental television sensation as the host of her own cooking show, despite being an unapologetic unwed mother, atheist and (gasp!) scientist. The extraordinary journey of this unconventional and utterly inspiring protagonist is narrated in suitably no-nonsense fashion by Miranda Raison, whose crisp delivery mirrors Elizabeth’s prioritization of rationality over emotion.

Fans who fall for Garmus’ delightful novel will want to stick around for the lively interview with the author, conducted by writer and podcaster Pandora Sykes.

Read our starred review of the print edition of Lessons in Chemistry.

Voice actor Miranda Raison’s crisp delivery mirrors Elizabeth Zott’s prioritization of rationality over emotion in the delightful Lessons in Chemistry audiobook.
AudioYA FictionYA

All My Rage

Review by Autumn Allen

Bestselling YA fantasy author Sabaa Tahir’s first contemporary novel, All My Rage (10.5 hours), is told from three points of view, and each character gets their own voice actor in the audiobook production. Narrators Kamran R. Khan, Kausar Mohammed and Deepti Gupta bring personality and insight to their performances, contributing to the believability of this heavy, beautiful novel. At the same time, each actor maintains a similar tone of dramatic suspense to build a cohesive listening experience. 

Read our starred review of the print edition of ‘All My Rage.’

Khan narrates as Sal—a high school student challenged by his academic situation, his father’s alcoholism and his mother’s illness—in a voice deep with suppressed feeling, conveying an almost hypnotic sense of impending doom. Noor, Sal’s former friend and would-be love interest, is energetically brought to life through Mohammed’s gravelly voice. Misbah, Sal’s mother, performed by Gupta, has the wistful, accented voice of a wiser, middle-aged immigrant who’s weak with illness. 

Each actor reads in a measured pace that allows listeners to envision the scenes and feel the weight of the characters’ emotions and relationships. This is a riveting production that most readers won’t want to end.

Narrators Kamran R. Khan, Kausar Mohammed and Deepti Gupta bring personality and insight to their performances, contributing greatly to the believability of Sabaa Tahir's heavy, beautiful novel.
Mystery & SuspenseAudioSuspense

Run, Rose, Run

Review by G. Robert Frazier

To enjoy James Patterson and Dolly Parton’s Run, Rose, Run (10.5 hours) to the fullest, you must listen to the audiobook. Not only is it a necessary companion to Parton’s album of the same title (featuring songs inspired by the novel), but the cultural icon also voices one of the main characters, veteran country music star and bar owner Ruthanna Ryder.

With her unmistakably sweet Southern drawl (which she once cheekily described in Rolling Stone magazine as “a cross between Tiny Tim and a nanny goat”), Parton imparts wisdom and warnings alike through Ruthanna’s character. Up-and-coming singer-songwriter AnnieLee Keyes, expertly voiced by country pop singer Kelsea Ballerini, brings youthful exuberance and hopeful naivete to the story, providing a counterpoint to Ruthanna’s sage advice about navigating the music industry.

AnnieLee’s pursuit of country stardom in Nashville, from the dive bars on lower Broadway to the business-minded studio executives on Music Row, is a familiar story, but Parton’s involvement as author and performer elevates Run, Rose, Run a thousand times over. Additional characters come to life through the voices of Soneela Nankani, James Fouhey, Kevin T. Collins, Peter Ganim, Luis Moreno, Ronald Peet, Robert Petkoff, Ella Turenne and Emily Woo Zeller, creating an ensemble experience for book listeners to enjoy.

With narration from country stars Dolly Parton and Kelsea Ballerini, Run, Rose, Run is a must-listen ensemble audiobook.
NonfictionAudioEssays

Burning Questions

Review by G. Robert Frazier

Margaret Atwood, the prolific Booker Prize-winning author best known for her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, was selected in 2014 as the first author to include a piece of fiction in the Future Library Project. This undertaking collects previously unreleased works from 100 authors, one each year until 2114, at which point the pieces will be published.

In one of the 50-plus essays included in Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004 to 2021 (19 hours), Atwood writes, “How strange it is to think of my own voice . . . suddenly being awakened after a hundred years.” But Atwood shouldn’t worry about how her voice will be received a century from now. As evidenced by the huge cast for the audiobook of Burning Questions, appreciation for Atwood’s literary contributions is far-reaching. With such support, it’s unlikely her words will ever be silenced.

Atwood narrates the introduction of her audiobook, and 36 other people read her essays, including actor Ann Dowd (who plays Aunt Lydia in the Hulu adaption of “The Handmaid’s Tale”), editor Lee Boudreaux, journalists Robyn Doolittle and Yasmine Hassan, and authors Naomi Alderman, Esi Edugyan and Omar El Akkad. While it is a bit odd to hear the occasional male reader giving voice to one of Atwood’s essays, her thought-provoking observations and sense of humor are unmistakable. Whether she is ruminating on climate change, women’s issues, the zombie apocalypse or Ebenezer Scrooge, or paying tribute to authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Alice Munro, her insights will encourage readers to return to these essays again and again. As Atwood writes, “Have a listen. Confront the urgent questions. Feel the chill.”

Read our starred review of the print edition of Burning Questions.

As evidenced by the huge cast for the audiobook of Burning Questions, appreciation for Margaret Atwood’s literary contributions is far-reaching, and with such support, it’s unlikely her words will ever be silenced.
NonfictionAudioEssays

Bomb Shelter

Review by Mari Carlson

In her new book of autobiographical essays, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives (7 hours), Mary Laura Philpott writes with gusto and pathos about navigating two extremes: practicing for what will never happen and postponing the inevitable. From removing turtles from her doorstep to dealing with middle-of-the-night emergencies, from controlling cholesterol to shopping for cashmere, Philpott assembles a trustworthy menagerie of lessons for daily life.

Philpott reads her own audiobook with a Southern lilt, at times laughing or on the verge of tears, and she builds an easy connection with her reader as she details a variety of struggles and triumphs. When she describes coming to terms with being identified as “mom” in public, she is as real and reassuring as the best kind of parent.

Written as the author’s oldest child was getting ready to venture off to college, Bomb Shelter offers hope for a better future.

Read more: Mary Laura Philpott discusses her favorite bookstores, real or imagined.

Author Mary Laura Philpott reads her own audiobook with a Southern lilt, at times laughing or on the verge of tears.
FictionAudio

Sea of Tranquility

Review by Mari Carlson

Spanning centuries past and present, on Earth as well as the moon, Sea of Tranquility (6 hours) by Emily St. John Mandel is as vast as an ocean and as ambitious as the determination to cross it. One awe-inspiring moment in a forest setting links its characters, which include a 19th-century British gentleman who is banished by his family to British Columbia, a 20th-century victim of a Ponzi scheme, a 22nd-century writer whose books about pandemics make her all too aware of another on the horizon and a 23rd-century investigator from the Time Institute who risks changing history with his findings. 

Narrators John Lee, Dylan Moore, Arthur Moorey and Kirsten Potter bring out the eeriness of the novel’s central coincidence. Their well-paced voices—sometimes aloof, sometimes deadpan—foreshadow crises like the calm before the storm. As the narrators’ voices bleed into different sections, rather than remaining relegated to an individual character, the audiobook becomes something like a stage play in an interdimensional theater. 

With dignified eloquence, Mandel’s literary sci-fi novel raises questions and offers hope about the future consequences of pandemics, colonization and technological advances.

Read our starred review of the print edition of Sea of Tranquility.

Through multiple audiobook narrators, Emily St. John Mandel’s novel transforms into a stage play in an interdimensional theater.

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