Full cast recording audiobooks

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

by Dawnie Walton

Black female power and creative freedom take center stage in this vividly imagined oral history. Fierce and fashionable Afro-punk singer Opal Jewel and ambitious British musician Nev Charles made a stunning addition to the 1970s music scene. Looking to make it big, the hit interracial duo reluctantly opened for a popular Southern band, and before the infamous concert was over, relationships were irredeemably broken, a man was dead, and a photographer captured an unforgettable flashpoint moment. But what really happened? Decades later, a journalist with a personal stake in the outcome sets out to uncover the answer. The resulting journalistic interviews are so convincing I had to make sure Opal & Nev exist only on the page. This rock-umentary style story is superb on audio, especially when narrated by a full cast including favorites like Janina Edwards, Bahni Turpin, and Gabra Zackman. It took me an hour to adjust to the format, but when I did: WOW. Heads up for violence, racial slurs, and substance abuse.

Lincoln in the Bardo

by George Saunders

This is a story about Lincoln, America's 16th president—kind of. The "bardo" of the title is a Tibetan concept: it's a spiritual landscape—a kind of in-between place—where we are sent between physical lives. When Lincoln's son Willie was 11, he died of typhoid, plunging Lincoln into deep grief. Saunders uses this real event as a jumping-off point to explore the near-unbearable grief of an individual, linking it to the disarray of the country he leads, at the height of its Civil War, and imagines how Lincoln's despair changed the outcome of the war. I just finished this book, and whoa, was it strange. Interesting and experimental, but definitely strange. Pro tip: if you want to read it, do so on paper, not on Kindle.

Hour of the Witch

by Chris Bohjalian

Chilling and propulsive, this Puritan-era historical thriller transports you to 1662 Boston, where accusations fly and “it was always possible that the Devil was present.” Desperate to escape her abusive husband, Mary Deerfield seeks a rare divorce from the town council—but it’s a precarious time to pursue independence as a woman. Mary is soon accused of far worse than being a rebellious wife, and realizes a separation from her husband won’t be enough to save her from his escalating cruelty. Relying on a large cast of well-developed characters and an intricate plot, Bohjalian skillfully ratchets up the tension all the way through the exceptional ending. The Puritan era feels immediate and its struggles all too timely in this urgent historical novel set in 1660s Boston, especially when voiced by a full cast of fan favorites including Saskia Maarleveld, Cassandra Campbell, Julia Whelan, and Kirby Heyborne.

There There: A Novel

by Tommy Orange

Orange’s multigenerational, multivoiced novel offers a nuanced glimpse into contemporary Native American life in Oakland, Calfiornia through the experiences and perspectives of twelve wide-ranging characters. As they prepare for the city’s first Big Oakland Powwow at the Oakland Coliseum, the lives of Orange’s diverse characters become intertwined: an aspiring filmmaker, a man who’s taught himself traditional Native dance with YouTube videos, a woman traveling to meet her grandchildren for the first time—on the condition that she remains sober. Orange says he wrote this novel to “try to honor and express fully all that it entails to be Native and be from Oakland,” and the early reviews say he nailed it.

No Two Persons

by Erica Bauermeister

“No two persons ever read the same book, or saw the same picture.” These words frame the story for Bauermeister’s new novel in linked short stories about how a debut novel changes the lives of eleven people. First we meet Alice, an aspiring writer who struggles for years before finally completing her novel Theo. Then we meet the publisher’s assistant who plucks it from the slush pile, the out-of-work actor chosen to narrate the audiobook (perhaps my favorite story), the teenager who finds the book while she hides her homelessness, and more readers who subsequently stumble upon it at just the right time. A testament to the invisible threads that tie us together, and the power of books and reading.

To Night Owl From Dogfish

by Holly Goldberg Sloan, Meg Wolitzer

This modern-day version of The Parent Trap is fun for the whole family. This collaboration between two highly successful authors—one who primarily writes for kids, the other for grown-ups—features two twelve-year old girls living on opposite coasts who strike up an unwanted correspondence after they discover their single fathers fell in love at a building conference and are now dating. This relationship is not good news to either of them, as they make clear in the ensuing emails that comprise the book. Their situation goes from bad to worse when their fathers force them to attend the same summer camp, hoping they’ll become friends. Things go horribly wrong in more ways than one, but there's not a single page here that doesn’t feel fresh, funny, charming, and real. A big-hearted story for readers of all ages. For fans of C.C. Payne’s The Thing About Leftovers and Rebecca Stead’s The List of Things That Will Not Change.

The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece

by Tom Hanks

From the publisher: "Part One of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for twenty-three years. Cut to 1970: The nephew, now drawing underground comic books in Oakland, California, reconnects with his uncle and, remembering the comic book he saw when he was five, draws a new version with his uncle as a World War II fighting hero. Cut to the present day: A commercially successful director discovers the 1970 comic book and decides to turn it into a contemporary superhero movie. Cue the cast: We meet the film’s extremely difficult male star, his wonderful leading lady, the eccentric writer/director, the producer, the gofer production assistant, and everyone else on both sides of the camera."

Daisy Jones & The Six

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I was a little skeptical when I first picked this up: I mean, a tell-all “documentary” about a fictional 1970s band? It took Taylor Jenkins Reid about three pages to win me over, with her fast-moving storyline and characters so convincing I had to google again to make sure the band wasn’t really real. The plot revolves around Billy Dunne, the tortured, talented lead singer for the Six, and Daisy Jones, the beautiful, soulful girl with a troubled past who catapults the Six to fame when she begins singing—and writing—their songs. Daisy and Billy’s chemistry is electric, and fans can’t get enough of it. We know from the beginning that the story is about why the band broke up, and the reasons are both expected and hold a big surprise, unfurled in an engrossing story of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.

How High We Go in the Dark

by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Set in 2030, this debut climate fiction follows scientists in Siberia who discover the preserved remains of a girl. She appears to have died of an ancient virus. A virus that is highly contagious once thawed, unleashing a global Arctic Plague. From there, the story explores the way we respond and adapt to tragedy, as well as the impact on our planet. As some cities and states fall underwater, other areas build funerary skyscrapers and euthanasia amusement parks. Scientists try to create artificial organs for transplant, while others look for a new planet. It is as much about these changes as it is about what ties and connects our humanity to each other.

Lovely War

by Julie Berry

This fun novel—and book club favorite—combines three unexpected elements to great effect: World War I, a love story, and Greek mythology. It begins with Aphrodite and Ares walking into a swanky Manhattan hotel during WWII, and soon enough Aphrodite's husband Hephaestus challenges her to show him what love really looks like. She obliges, and takes the reader back in time to meet four young lovers in 1917 Britain, showing her fellow gods how each couple fell in love, and what they mean to each other. It sounds unlikely but the interesting narrative structure totally works.

Florence Adler Swims Forever

by Rachel Beanland

I've had Beanland's historical debut novel waiting for me in Libro.fm since its 2020 release; I bumped it to the top of my queue after enjoying her April 2023 release The House Is on Fire. This book is NOT what I expected: it's no spoiler to say that on page 14 the vivacious 20-year-old swimmer Florence drowns on a training swim in the Atlantic Ocean, and the book is truly about her Jewish family's elaborate attempt to conceal the truth from Florence's hospitalized sister, who they fear will go into premature labor if she learns of the tragedy. Beanland explains in her author's note that much of the story is based on her own Jewish family's history in 1930s Atlantic City, and teases out what is fact and what is fiction for her readers. I loved this on audio, narrated by a full cast including Jesse Vilinsky and Gabra Zackman.

Red at the Bone

by Jacqueline Woodson

From the publisher: "As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own ceremony-- a celebration that ultimately never took place. Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives--even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be." Add the audio Whispersync narration, read by Jacqueline Woodson, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Peter Francis James, Shayna Small, and Bahni Turpin.

Trust

by Hernan Diaz

Literary historical fiction that is a book within a book within a book, weaving a tangled web of power, wealth, and deceit. While many Americans struggled after the Wall Street crash of 1929, Benjamin and Helen Rask flourished. The popular novel Bonds, published in 1937, details their privileged upbringing, excessive lifestyle, and the cost of acquiring their fortune. But Bonds might not be the whole story or the right one. Fans of epistolary literature will appreciate the four-part structure of a novel, autobiography draft, memoir by the biographer, and diary excerpts. Every time you think you know the story, it transforms into something else.

Slay

by Brittney Morris

At school, Kiera Johnson is an honor roll student, math tutor, and one of the only Black kids in her classes. But in the world she's created for herself, she is one of hundreds of thousands of Black gamers dueling in the online role-playing card game, Slay. Kiera is the game developer, but no one in her "real life" knows about the project, and her identity is a secret online. When Slay is mentioned in relation to the murder of a Kansas City teen, Kiera is distraught. News of the game and its Black-players-only rule reach media outlets, and Kiera's safe haven becomes a point of national discussion. When an anonymous troll enters the game and threatens to sue over discrimination, Kiera is determined to protect herself, her game, and her Blackness in a world that doesn't understand.

The Guest List

by Lucy Foley

This 2020 mystery puts a modern spin on Agatha Christie's classic And Then There Were None, setting a destination wedding on a remote Irish island, accessible only by boat, with guests whose lives are connected in ways they never could have guessed. When a magazine publisher weds a handsome reality tv star, she wants her wedding to be magazine-worthy: the designer gown, the atmospheric location, everything perfect to the last detail. But when the guests arrive, including old colleagues, boarding school friends, unreliable family, and untrustworthy friends—things begin going wrong, as long-buried secrets threaten to burst forth at exactly the wrong time. And then they find the dead body. Told in rotating points of view, this was cleverer than I'd expected. An enjoyable mystery that's excellent on audio. (I would have appreciated a content warning for self-harm; a murder mystery is certain to have triggers but that one took me by surprise.)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

by Annie Barrows, Mary Ann Shaffer

This novel told in letters is sweet and sunny, even though it's set during a dark period of history. The action unfolds on the British island of Guernsey (and you'll want to book your trip immediately). A testament to the power of literature, but a love story at heart. (Hot tip: the audiobook is fantastic.)

Songs for the End of the World

by Saleema Nawaz

This book moves back and forth in time and between perspectives as it follows a first responder in New York, a pregnant singer, and an author, all living through a global pandemic (yes, you read that right.) I avoided all pandemic-related books for a while, but this story of resilience and hope struck just the right notes for me. Narrated by a full cast including Alex Payton-Beesley, Amelia Sargisson, and more.

Indigo Canada

Six of Crows

by Leigh Bardugo

I enjoyed this novel from bestselling author Leigh Bardugo. A criminal mastermind teams up with an unconventional crew to pull off the heist of the century. They have to break into an extremely secure location and retrieve a scientist and his formula or the world as they know it will be destroyed. With twists and turns aplenty, I enjoyed experiencing another side of Bardugo’s Grishaverse. I enjoyed this on audio.

The Cold Millions

by Jess Walter

This is a story of two brothers who get mixed up in the labor movement in 1909 in Spokane, Washington. They're from Montana and when their mother died, their last surviving parent, they go to the big city to find work and make a future for themselves. But the brothers end up at a labor protest and they end up in jail. As a result of their circumstances, they get all mixed up with the based-on real life activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Hers was not a name I knew, but I love reading about under explored, unexamined periods of history. Something else I loved about this book is the wonderful cast of characters. It's at its heart a story of two brothers, but the whole roster of supporting characters is deep and fabulous. There's a vaudeville actress whose character might be my favorite; her stage name is Ursula the Great and her backstory is fantastic. I would highly recommend this for fans of This Tender Land.

Sleeping Giants

by Sylvain Neuvel

Recommended as Unputdownable. I never, and I mean never, would have picked this up on my own. I read this because it was a Book of the Month selection, and was surprised to love it. It's a sci fi novel whose premise is pretty out there and wow, was it fun. Wild premise, interesting structure, great narrative drive.

Full cast recording audiobooks

a gateway

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Buckle Up!

summer reading starts May 16th