Audiobooks so good you'll want just 5 more minutes

Outlander

by Diana Gabaldon

Talk about big fat books: This time-travel romance series has 9 books to date, totaling 9,381 pages, 300+ hours on Audible, and incorporating time travel, the Scottish highlands, romance, drama, and history. As she tells it, Gabaldon intended to write a realistic historical novel, but a modern woman kept inserting herself into the story! She decided to leave her on the page for the time being—it's hard enough to write a novel, she'd edit her out later—but would YOU edit out Claire? I didn't think so. You could happily lose yourself in this series (but heads up for racy content and graphic torture scenes).

Lonesome Dove

by Larry McMurtry

This big, fat, Pulitzer-winning novel has been on my radar for years, so I chose it as one of my 2016 Reading Challenge picks to inspire myself to finally cross it off the list. It's not the kind of book I expected to love: the story revolves around a 3000 mile cattle drive from a dusty Texas border town to the unsettled lands of Montana in the 1880s. Yet I enjoyed it so much. I listened to the audio version of this one (all 36 hours of it—although thankfully at 1.5x speed it didn't take *quite* that long).

Brown Girl Dreaming

by Jacqueline Woodson

Forget everything you've heard about this being an "important" book, and if you're not the poetry type, pretend you don't know this is a memoir-in-verse. All you need to know is this story is fantastic. Woodson tells the story of her childhood, moving with her family (or part of it) from South Carolina to New York City and back again, sharing her observations through a young girl's eyes with a writer's sensibility. If you don't think it's for you, read the first two pages—and then decide. National Book Award winner.

The Good House

by Ann Leary

A friend with great taste specifically recommended the audio version of this to me and I could not listen to it fast enough—I folded so much laundry and got the kitchen sparkling clean so I could listen to just one more chapter, over and over again. Hildy Good has lived all her life in the small town of Wendover, Massachusetts. She's 60 years old, divorced, a successful realtor. And she drinks—a lot, and the situation is getting out of control. Only Hildy doesn't see it that way. A quiet drama with terrific, fleshed-out characters and an entertaining, thoroughly untrustworthy narrator.

When We Were Worthy

by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

Joshilyn Jackson (who narrates the audiobook!) says “Don't miss this one. Fans of Liane Moriarty and Jodi Picoult—this is an author for your favorites shelf. Marybeth Mayhew Whalen's taut, smart novel is a natural-born page-turner that doesn’t sacrifice depth of feeling or character. Whalen knows this town, these people, and she lays them open for us with razor-sharp insight, wit, and empathy."

Heartburn

by Nora Ephron

Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. The creator of Sleepless in Seattle reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter. Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband, Mark, is in love with another woman. Audie Award Finalist.

A Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L’Engle

L’Engle begins her groundbreaking science fiction/fantasy work with the famous opening line “It was a dark and stormy night,” and plunges you headlong into the world of the Murray family, who must travel through time to save the universe. I wanted to be Meg, of course. Wrinkle is the first—and most famous—of the Time Quintet, but I read them all, again and again.

These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901

by Nancy Turner

I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn so much I decided to move on to another of my mom’s favorites. Again, what was I waiting for? It was a little slow in the beginning, and the purposely bad grammar and diction got on my nerves, but don’t give up—the author knows what she’s doing, and it gets better. The story about a woman in the Old West really works in diary format. Brutally honest, heart-wrenching, engrossing.

Americanah

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is Nigerian novelist Adichie’s third novel, but the first I've read. The story centers around a smart, strong-willed Nigerian woman named Ifemelu. After university, she travels to America for postgraduate work, where she endures several years of near-destitution, and a horrific event that upends her world. She finds her way, winning a fellowship at Princeton, and gaining acclaim for her blog, called “Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black." A highlight: Adichie seamlessly weaves blog posts—about race, national identity, class, poverty, and hair—into the narrative. The novel grapples with difficult issues without becoming overwrought. I would not have read this based on the flap copy, but I was hooked from page one. Haunting, moving, incredibly well done. Terrific on audio.

The Almost Sisters

by Joshilyn Jackson

I can't do better than my bookstore-owning friend Holland to sum this one up: Imagine The Help meets Comic Con, and you've got this story about right. Talented graphic novelist Leia finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after a drunken one-night-stand at a comic book convention. She doesn't know the father's name, but he looked awfully cute in his Batman suit. As Leia absorbs the knowledge that she'll soon be a mother to a biracial baby, she is summoned home to Alabama to do what she can for her struggling family—her stepsister's unraveling marriage, her grandmother's worsening dementia, and a shocking secret hidden in the family attic. This is a fast-reading, big-hearted novel that tackles Serious Issues really, really well—while spinning a terrific story.

Audiobooks so good you'll want just 5 more minutes

Outlander

Lonesome Dove

Brown Girl Dreaming

The Good House

When We Were Worthy

Heartburn

A Wrinkle in Time

These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901

Americanah

The Almost Sisters

Find your next read with:

100 Book recommendations
for every mood

Audiobooks so good you'll want just 5 more minutes

Find your next read with:

100 Book recommendations for every mood

100 Book recommendations
for every mood