Instagram Facebook X-twitter Linkedin

Sign Up

Get the latest ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

All , , , Coverage

All Audio Coverage

NonfictionFictionAudioMemoir

Audio: October 2020

Feature by Anna Zeitlin

A hilarious memoir of single motherhood, a workplace romance and a spooky small-town thriller—what more could you want for this month’s best audiobooks?

★ The Hungover Games

Listening to The Hungover Games: A True Story, written and read by Sophie Heawood, is like having a gossipy brunch with your wittiest friend. British entertainment journalist Heawood takes us on a journey of unexpected single motherhood while living in Los Angeles, from her affair with an immature rocker to her attempts at dating with a baby at home. She takes life advice from the celebrities she profiles and sometimes gets a little too personal with them. Heawood’s narration makes the book even funnier and her experiences even more charming. In particular, her stories from the OB-GYN’s office and some remarkably bad dates left me cackling.

Attachments

Great news for Rainbow Rowell fans: Her charming 2011 novel, Attachments, has finally been released on audio, narrated by Rebecca Lowman. Just before the beginning of the new millennium, Lincoln is hired as an IT guy for a small city paper, where part of his job is to read any internal emails that get flagged by the new security system. He spends most days reading exchanges between Beth and Jennifer, two co-workers he’s never met but feels like he knows. Can there be love before first sight? For a book that mainly follows a man’s perspective, it’s surprising that a woman narrates the audiobook, but it somehow totally works. Lowman makes the email exchanges come alive with humor, and her performance has a down-to-earth quality that’s perfect for the more somber parts of the book.

The Bright Lands

John Fram’s suspenseful debut, The Bright Lands, narrated by Luis Selgas, is a spooky, queer thriller set in a small Texas town ruled by high school football. After a decade in New York, Joel returns to his conservative hometown to help his younger brother, Dylan, a football star who seems to be in trouble. Shortly after Joel arrives, Dylan turns up dead, and Joel’s visit becomes a murder investigation. Selgas is the perfect narrator for a mystery, as it feels like he’s always holding a little something back. He also performs a solid mix of Western accents for the side characters, adding to the book’s overall sense of place.

A hilarious memoir of single motherhood, a workplace romance and a spooky small-town thriller—what more could you want for this month’s best audiobooks?
NonfictionAudioSocial ScienceNatureMemoirBiography

Audiobooks: Don’t know what to listen to next? We’ve got some ideas

Feature by bookpagedev

Calling all runners, crafters, road warriors and vigorous house-cleaners: If you’re in need of a new audiobook, read on for some of the best new nonfiction productions. All true stories, all extraordinary listens.

All Creatures Great and Small (15.5 hours)

It’s been more than 50 years since James Herriot’s beloved stories were published, stealing hearts with his humorous tales about the 1930s Yorkshire Dales, where he served the memorable townsfolk as a young country veterinarian. This January, fans will settle in for PBS Masterpiece’s adaptation of the series, but this tie-in, read by star Nicholas Ralph, will transport you while you wait. Is there anything better than cozy stories told in a Scottish accent? Don’t be surprised if, while walking your dog, for example, you’re stopped by a stranger across the street who asks what you’re listening to because you just look so dang happy.

Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee (7.5 hours)

Shannon Lee, daughter of kung fu master Bruce Lee, shares the stories behind her father’s guiding philosophy to “be water,” to accept oneself rather than try to go against one’s nature. As Lee explains, water is “soft yet strong, natural yet able to be directed, detached yet powerful, and above all, essential to life.” Lee’s book entertains as it inspires, and she sounds like an old pro as its narrator, confidently inviting us to join in this philosophy of self-acceptance.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (14.5 hours)

Robin Miles narrated Isabel Wilkerson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Warmth of Other Suns, and she delivers another smooth, energetic performance for Caste, Wilkerson’s latest masterpiece. In Caste, Wilkerson spins years of research into an accessible yet profound case for an unacknowledged caste system within the United States. More than race, more than class, Wilkerson believes that the language of caste best describes the hierarchy of power in our country, and she thoroughly demonstrates this claim through insights about the similar caste systems in India and Nazi Germany and through personable anecdotes from her own personal experience. These stories, brought to life by Miles’ trademark clarity, warmth and gravitas, provide readers with a new lens on the world that, once peered through, will change the way they see things forever.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Discover more of our most highly recommended audiobooks.

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X (18 hours)

For a listener seeking a full immersion in history, we recommend you download this monumental, National Book Award-winning biography from Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Les Payne, a 30-year project completed after Payne’s death by his daughter, Tamara Payne. This book embroiders the full canvas surrounding the story of Malcolm X, providing a total sense of context, complete with corrected historical records and rewind-that-back-and-listen-again revelations. Award-winning narrator Dion Graham is one of the finest in the business, and he commands your attention, warmly but firmly demanding, Listen up—this is the story of Macolm X like you’ve never heard before.

I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are (5 hours)

Funny woman and TV genius Rachel Bloom (you know her from “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”) narrates her own memoir about awkwardness and fame, and it’s everything you could hope for. Her writing runneth over with personality, and her audiobook nearly explodes with it. She does hilarious voices, she makes audio-related asides to translate a text-only quip, and she cannonballs through her most irreverent jokes with such glee such that you have no choice but to laugh till it hurts.

Memorial Drive (5 hours)

Former U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey narrates her debut memoir, Memorial Drive, with both steady skill and heart-wrenching tenderness. As a poet, she understands the subtle power of phrasing, emphasis and a well-timed pause. Yet as she tells the story of her mother’s murder by Trethewey’s ex-stepfather when Trethewey was 19, there is an understandable rawness just below the surface. Her voice catches with deep emotion as she recounts the story of why it took her 35 years to turn this harrowing story of fear, loneliness and loss into a memoir. The content is tragic, but Trethewey’s lingering Mississippi inflection is soothing as she lays out her tale, and listeners will feel totally at ease as they tune in to hear a master at work.

Notes on a Silencing (11 hours)

How do you talk about something that you’ve been forced to stay silent about? Lacy Crawford does the seemingly impossible in her memoir: She tells the full story of her rape by two boys while at a New England boarding school, and then narrates it for the audiobook. Her clear voice provides her younger self with a level of truth that has too long been withheld and offers moments of levity amid the darkness. The younger Lacy is likable and bold as she navigates her trauma and the cruelty of her school. This memoir is a masterful depiction of how to tell a story, especially the hardest one you could ever think to write.

★ Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America (12 hours)

The history of immigration in America gets a personal and, through author Maria Hinojosa’s narration, supremely entertaining and moving treatment in this part memoir, part work of social science. Hinojosa’s family immigrated to the United States from Mexico when she was an infant, and she tangles her history with the nation’s to offer one of the finest audiobooks of the year.

Hinojosa is the anchor and executive producer of "Latino USA" on NPR, and she knows how to spin a story, boldly capturing moments of triumph and pain, and performing voices that conjure the unexpected strength of her mother, that mock the unjust or the racist and that transport the listener to each and every event she recounts here. She understands exactly what America offers and how it has failed immigrants, and she packages the story in journalistic objectivity and an arresting, honest performance.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Maria Hinojosa reveals what it was like to narrate her memoir: “I am the character, she is me!”

Vesper Flights (10.5 hours)

Helen Macdonald’s collection of nature essays offers a balance of comfort and clear-eyed concern, Some of the essays are short and sweet (a vignette on her father and a goat is laughably brief), but her pieces that connect her love of nature to the wider world are when this book really shines. She draws threads between migraines and climate change, between nostalgia for the natural world and Brexit, and between flocks of birds and our own relationship to the changing environment. With deep affection and a frank yet gentle tone, she shares her wide knowledge and unique perspective like the gifts that they are.

Where I Come From: Stories From the Deep South (7.5 hours)

For Southern listeners, to hear Rick Bragg narrate his own missives from the Deep South is to be transported to a porch on a summer evening. This collection combines some of his finest columns from Southern Living and Garden & Gun, in which he explores down-home topics such as Tupperware, trucks and the importance of a good knife. There’s nothing quite so calming as a rhythmic Southern drawl, capturing the most romantic bits of a rural life.

Calling all runners, crafters, road warriors and vigorous house-cleaners: If you’re in need of a new audiobook, read on for some of the best new nonfiction productions. All true stories, all extraordinary listens.
NonfictionAudioMusic

Audio: February 2021

Feature by Anna Zeitlin

This month’s column highlights three monumental audiobooks from Dolly Parton, Michael Eric Dyson and Rachel Bloom.

★ I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are

Co-creator and star of the musical comedy TV show “Crazy Ex-­Girlfriend” Rachel Bloom presents a kooky collection of essays that are every bit as hilarious, brash and humiliating as you’d expect from a woman known for singing big Broadway-style numbers dedicated to stalking and antidepressants. I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are (5 hours) is a book made to be listened to, from Bloom’s original songs that detail her experiences growing up as a musical theater kid to her sample audition monologue in which she jumps from accent to accent in an absurd demonstration guaranteed to snag the attention of any casting directors out there. With a background in comedy, Bloom knows how to deliver a joke, and her narration is funny, touching and real.

Dolly Parton, Songteller

Any fans of Dolly Parton’s music will be delighted by Dolly Parton, Songteller (5.5 hours). The country music superstar goes deep, revealing the stories behind many of her greatest songs and digging in to family history, musical feuds and the interactions with fans that have inspired her songwriting. Parton’s narration feels natural and off the cuff, like listening to stories from an old friend—and isn’t she the most beloved old friend? It’s no surprise that an artist known for writing songs that tell rich stories would make for a captivating storyteller. Only on the audiobook can you hear clips of the songs she discusses, which makes the yarns around them all the more special.

Long Time Coming

The bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop taps into current events and calls for a reckoning with race in Long Time Coming (5 hours). Delivering a harsh but hopeful message, Michael Eric Dyson bears witness to the recent killings of Black men and women by the police and puts their violent deaths in context, tying them to history and our present moment. He zooms in on five hugely pivotal tragedies of racism, breaking down each element to its core as a way to understand it, preserve it for the ages and move forward. In particular, his recounting of George Floyd’s killing is haunting and vital. A professor at Georgetown University and an ordained minister, Dyson delivers hard-to-swallow truths with powerful and knowledgeable authority.

This month’s column highlights three monumental audiobooks from Dolly Parton, Michael Eric Dyson and Rachel Bloom.
AudioSports

In the grip of baseball

Review by Ron Kaplan

Baseball is an emotional game. For every thrill of victory there is an agony of defeat. Yet the fans still have faith, still think their team, though mired in the basement for a decade, has a good a chance to win the championship. Come September, if not earlier, they're right back where they started, still spouting the optimistic rallying cry, Wait 'til next year! Then there's the male-bonding factor, as fathers pass their love of the game to the next generation. And for many, the memories of playing the sport as a child linger for a lifetime. Jim Bouton, author of the watershed (and recently re-released) Ball Four: The Final Pitch, condensed these sentiments into one sentence: You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time. There are several new books which embrace the emotional grip of the national pastime.

If you're old enough to have been a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, no game was more emblematic of that queasy feeling of having the floor pulled out from under you than the 1951 playoff game with the hated cross-town rival New York Giants. It was the contest in which Bobby Thomson hit his shot heard 'round the world. One only has to look at the photo of Ralph Branca, the poster boy for bad sports karma, crying on the clubhouse steps, to understand the tremendous ups and downs athletes and fans face on a regular basis. John Kuenster deftly captures this attitude in Heartbreakers: Baseball's Most Agonizing Defeats. He cites many examples of victory cruelly denied by a poorly timed home run, an error or some other mishap. A more recent example was Red Sox Bill Buckner's fielding gaffe against the New York Mets in the 1986 World Series. Boston was two strikes away from its first world championship since the days of Babe Ruth, only to see victory slip away.

The home run is the most dramatic way to send fans into fits of agony or ecstasy. One swing of the bat can spell doom for the opposition. Rich Westcott chronicles the most famous of these shots in Great Home Runs of the 20th Century. The aforementioned Thomson blast is included, of course, as well as Mark McGwire's and Sammy Sosa's record breakers, Carlton Fisk's extra-inning thriller against the Reds in 1972, Bill Mazeroski's 1960 World Series walk-off home run against the mighty Yankees, and a hobbling Kirk Gibson's last-gasp blast in the '88 Fall Classic, all fodder for the highlight reels.

One of the more heartwarming stories in recent years is told in The Oldest Rookie: Big-League Dreams From a Small-Town Guy, by Jim Morris with Joel Engel. Morris was one of thousands of prospects who, despite their talent, fail to make it to the major leagues. After puttering around in the minors for several years, fighting injury and the pressure to get on with his life, Morris retired, struggling to make a living and provide for his family. Almost 15 years after he threw his last professional pitch, Morris, by now a high school baseball coach who still had a 95 mph fastball, accepted a challenge from his team: if they made the playoffs, he would try out for a major league team. When the high school team scored a come-from-behind victory in the playoffs, Morris was forced to keep his promise. At the tryouts, he threw faster than he ever had, earning a place with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. No, this book is not a retelling of The Natural; Morris did not become a latter-day Roy Hobbs. He just lived his dream, and he relates his amazing story with humility and charm.

Although the headlines usually focus on the stratospheric salaries of today's top stars, George Gmelch's Inside Pitch: Life in Professional Baseballshows another side of the sport. Gmelch gives readers an overview of the whole process of becoming a professional ballplayer, from the time a player emerges from the womb of his amateur days and signs his first professional contract until he leaves the game, either on his own or on orders from a higher authority. This fascinating book calls on the insights of scouts, managers, coaches, front office personnel and the players themselves. Gmelch shows fans the day-to-day, humdrum, insecure toil of the minor leaguer who is often ill-prepared for life away from home, unfamiliar with the most rudimentary tasks such as doing laundry and handling finances and such. The author calls upon his own background as a minor leaguer, giving Inside Pitch a unique air of authenticity.

Baseball Extra, edited by Eric C. Caren, is one of the more unusual compilations available to baseball fans. Reprints from more than a century of newspapers not only highlight the national pastime, but help put it in historical perspective. Baseball reports share the pages with non-sports news, both regional and national. The huge format of the book gives the reader that being there feeling and makes for hours of fascinating reading.

Ron Kaplan is a freelance writer specializing in baseball. In a role-reversal, he took his father to his first baseball game when he was 65.

Extra innings for baseball fans !

More promising baseball books are scheduled to hit the bookstore shelves as the season progresses:
A Pitcher's Story: Innings with David Cone by Roger Angell. One of our best baseball writers takes a candid look at the craft of pitching.
Home Runedited by George Plimpton. A collection of first-rate fiction and nonfiction writing about a winning topic: home runs. Contributors include John Updike, Garrison Keillor and Don DeLillo.
The Final Season: Fathers, Sons and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark by Tom Stanton. A moving memoir about the loss of a beloved ballpark Tiger Stadium in Detroit and the way in which one parent comes to terms with his mortality.
 

Baseball is an emotional game. For every thrill of victory there is an agony of defeat. Yet the fans still have faith, still think their team, though mired in the basement for a decade, has a good a chance to win the championship. Come September,…

FictionAudio

Blood Work review

Review by Nan Goldberg

Retired FBI investigator Terry McCaleb is a man with a heart. A brand-new heart, actually.

His job chasing down serial killers for the Bureau had quickly worn out his old heart, and now Terry, recovering from transplant surgery, is determined to take it easy. But the first twist in Michael Connelly's latest thriller, Blood Work, is the discovery that Terry's life-saving new organ originally belonged to a healthy young woman named Gloria Torres who was senselessly gunned down during a grocery store robbery.

There are no leads, no clues, and despite the existence of a videotape that recorded the whole horrifying sequence of events, there are no suspects either.

It's Gloria's sister, Graciela, who approaches Terry with this information, and requests that he look into Gloria's murder. This type of crime isn't really his area of expertise, Terry explains to Graciela. Before his damaged heart forced him to quit the Bureau, Terry specialized in serial murders, which was a whole different ball game from the random killings associated with small-time robberies. Furthermore, Terry knows perfectly well that crime-solving, particularly in this case, will involve both physical and mental stress that could cause his new heart to malfunction. And Terry's surgeon, when she hears of his plan, warns him she will immediately drop his case if he goes ahead with it. Nevertheless, Terry decides to find Gloria's killer, or (literally) die in the attempt.

This is the framework around which Connelly (Trunk Music, The Poet) builds his lively and engrossing plot. Of course, nothing turns out as expected: The random killing begins to look less random; the police block Terry's efforts at every turn and eventually close in on the wrong suspect; and Terry begins to fall in love with Graciela. The only predictable development is that, despite a post-op regimen that involves piles of pills and frequent temperature-taking, Terry begins to experience serious setbacks in his recovery.

Although Terry is a new protagonist for Connelly, there are important references in Blood Work to the villains of Connelly's previous novels. This doesn't mean you need to read the other books first: Connelly does a good job of filling in the necessary background information.

If Blood Work has a flaw, it's that some of its mysteries are less than mystifying; this reader had one of the key clues nailed down a couple hundred pages before Terry figured it out. Still, the end is a shocker, and the story hangs together flawlessly.

Terry is an appealing character clever, gutsy, and very human. And despite his medical condition, I suspect he could be persuaded to take on more cases in the future. At least I hope so.

Retired FBI investigator Terry McCaleb is a man with a heart. A brand-new heart, actually.

His job chasing down serial killers for the Bureau had quickly worn out his old heart, and now Terry, recovering from transplant surgery, is determined to take it easy.…

AudioMemoir

Review

Review by bookpagedev

One of the great enigmas of the music world is at last telling her story at least those parts she wants us to know. Widely publicized at the time it was announced, Aretha: From These Roots is actually more tantalizing than tell-all. Yet if it doesn't deliver a full portrait of one of this era's divas, it offers enough intriguing glimpses of Aretha Franklin to make the read worthwhile and eye-opening.

She is certainly a dichotomy. There is the Aretha who loves staying home where she cooks, crochets, and delights in gardening. The devoted soap opera fan also remains faithful to her favorite teenage movie, the tear-jerking A Summer Place, which starred Sandra Dee. Why, after she found her own fame, Franklin even had a gown designed by the great Jean Louis who'd created wardrobes for Miss Dee.

Which leads us to the other Aretha. Superstars are a special breed, emboldened by ego as well as talent. They also like to control their press. Franklin is determined to put an end to the oft-reported story that her mother abandoned the family. And she rebuffs unflattering tales told elsewhere by Cissy Houston and Gladys Knight. She also emphasizes the significance of her father, Reverend C.L. Franklin. He certainly was understanding. In defiance of the day's conventions, Franklin became an unwed mother at 14 and again at 17. Her father, she stresses, remained supportive.

Though she doesn't always name names, Franklin details a hearty appetite for men. There are flirtations with Sam Cooke, a relationship with Temptations member Dennis Edwards, a romance (and yet another child) with a black entrepreneur, and several failed marriages. She likewise recounts her romance with food including where and when she was introduced to the BLT and Russian dressing.

And yes, she charts her extraordinary career and the soul sound that became a career signature. This book may not give us all the answers, but there is no question that it puts us in the company of a regal presence. Aretha is, after all, the undisputed Queen of Soul.

One of the great enigmas of the music world is at last telling her story at least those parts she wants us to know. Widely publicized at the time it was announced, Aretha: From These Roots is actually more tantalizing than tell-all. Yet if it…

AudioTravel

Under the Tuscan sun again

Review by Carolyn Porter

Frances Mayes, the Peter Mayle of Italy, has done a difficult thing. Bella Tuscany, her second book is even better than her best-selling first. After seven summers of restoration, Mayes's beloved villa, Bramasole, needs only a few finishing touches and she can spend more time pondering The Sweet Life in Italy. Mayes looks at the world with an artist's eye and writes with a poet's lyricism; you see the verdant spring green that so enchants her, smell the lush roses, taste the fava beans fresh from the garden. As before, Mayes reads, and her Georgia-accented voice, now familiar, is a pleasure to hear again. If this doesn't make you yearn for an Italian idyll, nothing will.

Frances Mayes is, first and foremost, a poet. She once said, "When I wrote the last line of Under the Tuscan Sun, I wrote the first line of Bella Tuscany. I knew I was not through writing about Italy." She writes about the Tuscan countryside with such powerful description and sensuality, the reader is transported to the slow pace of Cortona, Italy, where one simply breathes, notices, and appreciates life's small pleasures.

Bella Tuscany continues the story of Frances and Ed's restoration of Bramasole, a 200-year-old Italian farmhouse, and their subsequent awakening to Italian culture. Every day holds a new adventure whether it be pruning olive trees, cooking mushroom ravioli, hosting house guests, traveling to Venice or Sicily, or browsing an antique market. Though Mayes is in Italy, the lesson to be learned here is that anyone, anywhere, can find amazement in the smallest object or in the most mundane place.

Mayes covers almost every aspect of Italian culture art, landscape, food, language, and history. She visits museums and reflects on the meaning and beauty of art. She buys old monogrammed linens and imagines who made them. She uncovers frescoes on the walls, wondering whose rough hands painted them. When she visits ancient monasteries she finds a spiritual kinship with those people who came before her. The sights and sounds of Tuscany often trigger Mayes's remembrance of her Southern roots, where she first realized this sense of place. The smell of lilacs or lavender in Italy take her back to her childhood in Fitzgerald, Georgia.

Bella Tuscany urges the reader to form an appreciation for the sometimes overlooked enjoyments of life from dipping weary feet in a cool Etruscan fountain on an August day, to sipping an afternoon cappuccino in a sidewalk cafe. The book evokes a series of images, paintings that capture the essence of the green, sweet, slow life in Italy. It is for anyone who has ever desired the romance of a faraway place or longed for a season of renewed possibility.

Frances Mayes, the Peter Mayle of Italy, has done a difficult thing. Bella Tuscany, her second book is even better than her best-selling first. After seven summers of restoration, Mayes's beloved villa, Bramasole, needs only a few finishing touches and she can spend more time…

FictionAudio

Belong to Me

Review by Sukey Howard

Belong to Me, Marisa de los Santos’ latest, is unabashedly and wholeheartedly a woman’s book, and in this audio incarnation, read with warmth and understanding by Julia Gibson, it’s the perfect summer listen. It’s the kind of guilty pleasure that ranks with a pint of Haagen Dazs chocolate chocolate chip, a not-too-dainty spoon and no one to share it with. The characters, save the few irredeemably unlikable, are all people that grow on you in the best way. Front and center is Cornelia, a petite, plucky, thirtysomething with enormous generosity of heart, and a husband to die for, who leaves the urban hubbub of Manhattan for the kinder, gentler suburbs. Sidelined by her perfectly coiffed, perfectly dressed, scathingly judgmental new neighbor, Cornelia befriends an elusive single mom with a brilliant, lovable teenage son I’d be more than happy to adopt. There seem to be subplots galore, but as loves and losses, yearnings and secrets surface, the threads of the subplots begin to mesh, weaving into a wonderfully patterned tale, one I wished would go on for many more hours.

Belong to Me, Marisa de los Santos’ latest, is unabashedly and wholeheartedly a woman’s book, and in this audio incarnation, read with warmth and understanding by Julia Gibson, it’s the perfect summer listen. It’s the kind of guilty pleasure that ranks with a pint of…
Audio

In the Woods

Review by Sukey Howard

Don’t confuse Tana French’s skillful debut In the Woods with Harlan Coben’s latest, The Woods, though there are a few grisly similarities. French serves up an intriguing, genre-bending psychological thriller in the form of a solid police procedural. Dublin murder squad detective Rob Ryan narrates as he and his bright, buoyant partner, and closest friend, Cassie Maddox, investigate the murder and rape of a 12-year-old girl, whose body was left on a Bronze Age altar at an archeological site in the woods near Knocknaree. Twenty years before, detective Ryan had played in these very woods until the ghastly day when his two best mates disappeared and he was found in blood-soaked sneakers, mute, never able to remember what happened. Keeping his childhood trauma a secret from everyone but Cassie, he works this increasingly complex case, looking for links to the past, hoping that lost memories might surface.

Reader Steven Crossley gets the voices right, gives the characters depth and keeps you involved.

Don’t confuse Tana French’s skillful debut In the Woods with Harlan Coben’s latest, The Woods, though there are a few grisly similarities. French serves up an intriguing, genre-bending psychological thriller in the form of a solid police procedural. Dublin murder squad detective Rob Ryan narrates as he…

FictionAudio

Everything Is Illuminated

Review by Julie Hale

This dazzling debut from the 24-year-old Foer explores the dark legacy of World War II in Eastern Europe while recounting the quest of a smart young Jewish American (named Jonathan Safran Foer). Accompanied by Alex, his Ukrainian translator, a scrappy dog named Sammy Davis Jr. and Alex’s grandfather, Foer travels to Eastern Europe in search of the woman who rescued his own grandfather from the Nazis. Alex narrates the bulk of the book through a series of letters written in fragmented English and filled with his unworldly, often hilarious observations. Foer fills in the rest with a detailed historical portrait of Jewish life in the Ukraine before the Germans invaded. A smart, humorous tribute to Jewish history and culture, this best-selling novel is the work of a whiz-kid.

This dazzling debut from the 24-year-old Foer explores the dark legacy of World War II in Eastern Europe while recounting the quest of a smart young Jewish American (named Jonathan Safran Foer). Accompanied by Alex, his Ukrainian translator, a scrappy dog named Sammy Davis Jr.…
FictionAudioHistorical Fiction

The Sweetness of Water

Review by G. Robert Frazier

Actor William DeMeritt’s deep, measured narration enhances the elegant, evocative prose of Nathan Harris’ debut novel, The Sweetness of Water (12 hours). 

In the waning blood-filled days of the Civil War, Georgia farmer George Walker hires formerly enslaved brothers Landry and Prentiss to work his peanut farm—and perhaps to ease his restless soul. When George’s Confederate soldier son, Caleb, unexpectedly returns home, and Caleb’s romantic relationship with another soldier comes to light, tensions between George’s family and the town’s disapproving residents boil over. Only the cool, determined leadership of George’s wife, Isabelle, offers a path to healing.

DeMeritt’s performance of this Southern cast of characters reveals an actor in full control of his range. Particularly for the male roles, DeMeritt narrates with such skill that the listener can envision some of the characters’ faces just by the way their voices sound. Amid this world of unbridled change, DeMeritt illuminates subtle yearnings, quiet dangers and a persistent sense of hope.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our starred review of the print edition of The Sweetness of Water.

William DeMeritt performs with such skill that the listener will be able to envision Nathan Harris’ character’s faces just by the way their voices sound.
FictionAudioLiterary Fiction

Light Perpetual

Review by Deborah Mason

One fine day in 1944, a German V-2 rocket hits a South London Woolworths. Among the civilians incinerated by the bomb are five children. But in Light Perpetual (12.5 hours), Francis Spufford explores the tantalizing question: What if? What if these children had been war survivors instead of victims?

With such vibrant characters, all of whom have rich interior lives, Spufford’s novel is perfect for audio. Light Perpetual is an anthem to ordinary life—the joy and sorrow, the triumph and loneliness. Scottish-born actor Imogen Church, known for her performances of Ruth Ware’s audiobooks, gives a wonderful voice to each of the five as they progress from childhood to old age. 

The ending, when the now elderly characters confront their own what-ifs, faces the sorrow of death with true honesty while celebrating love-filled lives. Told with humor, affection and compassion, this audiobook is a powerful reminder that no life is futile.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our starred review of the print edition of Light Perpetual.

Featuring vibrant characters, all of whom have rich interior lives, Francis Spufford’s novel is perfect for audio.
Mystery & SuspenseAudioMystery

The Madness of Crowds

Review by Tami Orendain

Louise Penny tackles social unrest in a post-pandemic world in The Madness of Crowds (15 hours), the 17th novel in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. Part whodunit, part cultural commentary, this latest installment finds Gamache at a crossroads between his personal ethics and the requirements of his position.

The audiobook is performed by Robert Bathurst, who has lent his voice to several of the most recent books in the series. Bathurst’s narration is calm and collected yet also earnest, reflecting the blend of emotion and professionalism that Gamache embodies as an investigator. While Bathurst’s voice is subdued, it is also engaging, bringing the story’s mystery, relationships and ethical introspections to life in a straightforward but heartfelt way. He also provides a variety of voices for the wider cast of characters, keeping the plot moving through the flowing cadence of conversations.

Positioned at the intersection of science and humanity, The Madness of Crowds draws in its readers with murder but keeps them listening through its challenging moral conundrums. It’s perfect for listeners seeking both captivating intrigue and insightful reflection.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our starred review of the print edition of The Madness of Crowds.

Robert Bathurst’s narration is calm yet earnest, reflecting the blend of emotion and professionalism that Armand Gamache embodies as an investigator.

Sign Up

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Recent Reviews

All Reviews

Author Interviews

More Interviews

Recent Features

All Features