This list is updated monthly with new audiobooks.
2023 was a breakout year for audiobooks — at least in terms of the social-media impact of two massive titles. Early in the year, Prince Harry narrated his own memoir, Spare, which included an oversharing scene in which Harry spoke calmly about his frostbitten penis. Then the audiobook of Britney Spears’s The Woman in Me, read by the actress Michelle Williams, became a sensation. Of particular note: This clip, the War and Peace of audiobooks, which stars Williams as Justin Timberlake saying, “Ohh yeaa fo shizz fo shizz.” Try not to listen at least twice.
The celebrity memoir is the audiobook in its greatest form. Some of last year’s best — in terms of entertainment value, intimacy, and genuine weirdness — came from unexpected sources like: Minka Kelly, Henry Winkler, Leslie Jones, John Stamos, Laura Dern and Diane Ladd, and, of course, Barbra Streisand, whose own narration clocked in at two days’ worth of material.
For 2024, the celebrity avalanche seems to be slowing. But to be sure, I’ll keep you updated in this column, along with all the other titles — thrillers, romances, self-help guides, TikTok sensations — you should consider listening to over the months ahead. Hopefully, you’ll start loving audiobooks almost as much as I do.
July
Pink Glass Houses, by Asha Elias
Read by: a full cast
Length: 8 hrs, 18 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.3x
This is basically a Miami version of Big Little Lies, but so what? I like Miami and I like Big Little Lies. Sign me up! After moving from Wichita to South Florida, Melody Howard doesn’t know what to do about the Chloe-wearing, Bal Harbour-shopping, cutthroat moms she suddenly has to befriend in her daughter’s new iguana-eat-iguana school district. The mysteries may be a bit on the thin side here, but it’s a fun, brisk, energetic listen. And yes, someone in the book is unveiling a new house with rosé-tinted windows.
We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay, by Gary Janetti
Read by: the author
Length: 4 hrs, 33 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.5x
In a lot of ways I feel snobby toward TV writer and producer Gary Janetti. His food and coffee suggestions, be they in New York (Polo Bar — talk to Nelly!), L.A. (Craig’s), or London (the Chiltern Firehouse, where he name-checks the entire staff), feel rich-bitch basic. He likes cruise ships. He ends all his essays abruptly, in the middle of a faux-introspective moment, a problem I similarly had with his previous collection. Sometimes his voice sounds like he’s a character on Family Guy, a show he’s written on for years. But then he’ll talk about how he got over his shame of buying himself the occasional stuffed teddy bear, and I just feel so seen. I melted over his wackadoo dinner with Dame Maggie Smith. I think I most appreciate his piece here about the challenges of being a houseguest for rich people. “No rich person is a generous host,” Janetti says. As a newbie in their home, “You are the latest streaming series, no more no less, and if you’re not amusing enough, they will not watch all the episodes.” Swoon.
Viewfinder, by Jon Chu
Read by: the author
Length: 7 hrs., 44 mins.
Speed I listened: 2x
Even I’m surprised that my enjoyment of Hollywood anecdotal minutiae has driven me to listen to a whole book by the director of the upcoming movie version of Wicked. Chu doesn’t share that much gossip here on bringing that mega-musical to the big screen, but there are enough fascinating anecdotes about his strange journey in the film business to make up for it. He goes from being literally the Second Coming wunderkind as a young graduate at USC to pitching on movies without success over and over. That is, until, finally, the sequel to Step Up comes along and he turns it into a surprise hit. Chu’s wide-eyed narration can be a tad too earnest, but his humility and warmth, especially about his extended family, make him a great companion here.
Look in the Mirror, by Catherine Steadman
Read by: the author
Length: 8 hrs, 13 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.9x
Credit where credit is due. Not only is Steadman a superfun thriller writer but, as an actor turned writer, she’s a terrific narrator too. See also: The Family Game and, even better, The Disappearing Act. Here, Nina inherits an island home from her somewhat estranged father, only to discover that it’s some sort of murderous Escape Room. Even with echoes of The Westing Game, Knives Out, some later Lee Child mysteries, and the movie Ex Machina, this one feels surprising and fresh.
Guilty Creatures, by Mikita Brottman
Read by: Leon Nixon
Length: 6 hrs, 49 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.7x
A downside to listening to so many audiobooks is that I don’t listen to true-crime podcasts. That’s potentially why I got so much enjoyment out of this nonfiction account of two couples in Tallahassee who became friends in high school, and when one of the husbands ends up disappearing on a duck-hunting trip in Lake Seminole. Read with gusto by Nixon, it’s a totally gripping story about religion, sex, and life insurance, and I listened in one whole shot.
June
Margo’s Got Money Troubles, by Rufi Thorpe
Read by: Elle Fanning
Length: 10 hrs, 21 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.2x
This semi-comic novel about a new teen mom (Margo) who starts an Only Fans account is made much more amusing because it’s read by Elle Fanning of The Great. Her quirky dryness infinitely elevates Thorpe’s narrative, which seems to imagine that it’s more offbeat and Miranda July than it actually is. (Note the title.) The best parts here focus on Margo’s relationship with her estranged dad, Jinx, a one-time professional wrestler who offers to babysit the infant while Margo’s career takes off. Fanning is so fun to listen to, however, that it’s easy to ignore the novel’s pedestrian plot twists.
The Friday Afternoon Club, by Griffin Dunne
Read by: the author
Length: 12 hrs, 19 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
In this new memoir, actor, screenwriter, producer, and director Griffin Dunne talks a lot about his penis and his sexual adventures. I was hoping for a bit less penis talk and more about his relationship with his father, Dominick Dunne, and his aunt, Joan Didion. But this book — and Dunne’s simultaneously wise and naïve narration — is provocative and compelling. His family chest is filled with secrets and lies, ironies and tragedies, ones that made me increasingly empathic about the perils of a Hollywood upbringing.
There is No Ethan, by Anna Akbari
Read by: the author and Justin Price
Length: 9 hrs, 57 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.1x
Do you need another reminder that online dating sucks? I doubt it. But, stories about catfishing are endlessly fascinating. And for those of us who dip our toes into the Tinder pond, it’s all too easy to get deeply engaged with a potential significant other you’ve never met. Just earlier this year, I wasted plenty of time chatting with a guy in Copenhagen — even after he told me he had never heard of Anna Karenina. Akbari’s internet odyssey involves Ethan, a Jewish guy from New Jersey who seems perfect, even if he flies off the handle for no reason every so often. You can feel how much Akbari, reading her own exchanges with “Ethan,” still wishes he existed even now.
Consent, by Jill Ciment
Read by: Eileen Stevens
Length: 4 hrs
Speed I listened: 1.7x
One thing I’ll say about this brief but fascinating memoir is I wish Ciment, the author, had read it herself. The material, about Ciment rethinking her dalliance, at 16, with the 46-year-old painter who would eventually become her husband, is put at a bit of a distance by the narration from audiobook veteran Stevens. But I couldn’t help thinking that maybe that disconnect actually enhanced the experience. Ciment uncomfortably reassesses her previous writings about the relationship, and though you’d like to come out the other side understanding life and love, maybe you just can’t.
Entrances and Exits, by Michael Richards
Read by: the author
Length: 15 hrs, 14 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.4x
It’s hard to put my finger on what makes this memoir by the actor who famously played Kramer on Seinfeld so compelling. I think it’s that Richards comes off as quite thoughtful and raw. Here, he seems unabashedly honest and circumspect, for better or for worse. (His familial relationships, for instance, sit on the same shelf as Griffin Dunne’s, above.) Richards is often searching for a way to understand the world, which, of course, he knows he’ll never find. His intellectual passions here run from Joseph Campbell to Rumi to Carl Jung. Some of the book’s most interesting elements arrive as Richards builds Kramer into a full-fledged character, down to the two pairs of vintage Doc Martens he wore filming the entire run of the show. And through the narration, Richards seems to learn how to find himself, too.
The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley
Read by: a full cast
Length: 10 hrs, 20 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.8x
Middle of the Night, by Riley Sager
Read by: Santino Fontana
Length: 11 hrs, 22 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.9x
A Talent for Murder, by Peter Swanson
Read by: a full cast
Length: 8 hrs, 24 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.8x
When it comes to page-turning summer thrillers, it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Though none of these three novels reach the morbid heights of, say, Gillian Flynn at her best, they’re all great listens on the way to the beach house. Foley’s latest, about the opening of a Soho Farmhouse property that pits the townies against the intruding capitalists, is a huge step up from her last, The Paris Apartment. The Midnight Feast and A Talent for Murder have several nifty turns of the screw, all bettered by a series of distinct character voices that turn up the tension. In particular, the larger cast of voices gives Swanson’s book, about a serial killer murdering for sport, the impression that you never quite know who is watching whom. In lieu of various actors, Middle of the Night has just one narrator, and he’s a good one. In audiobook circles, Santino Fontana is best known for reading the hell out of Caroline Kepnes You series. He’s equally creepy here as a bachelor who returns home to sell his parents’ house and solve the mysteries therein, including why his friend was kidnapped out of their tent during a childhood sleepover.
The Midnight Feast, by Lucy Foley
Middle of the Night, by Riley Sager
A Talent for Murder, by Peter Swanson
May
You Should Be So Lucky, by Cat Sebastian
Read by: Joel Leslie
Length: 11 hrs, 59 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.7x
Since I started writing this column over three years ago, I’ve discovered, much to my surprise, that I quite enjoy a clever romance novel. But even I get overwhelmed by the sameness of the genre, especially the punny titles with the ever-so-slightly sophisticated New Yorker–inspired illustrated covers. The truth is that I need some guidance, too. So after reading a few early positive reviews, I tried this one, a novel that could actually benefit from better cover art and a wittier title because it’s just that good. It’s an unlikely romance, set in 1960, between Mark Bailey, a dapper newspaper writer with an affinity for Shirley Jackson, and Eddie O’Leary, a baseball player whose best friend is his mom and who’s having a particularly rough season. Read nimbly by Joel Leslie, by the end, I wasn’t sure which of the fictional fellers I wanted to marry more. I just know I didn’t want it to end. Swoon.
Bits and Pieces, by Whoopi Goldberg
Read by: the author
Length: 6 hrs, 43 mins.
“This book is read by Whoopi. C’est moi,” says the author, giving Bits and Pieces a goose from the start. Goldberg’s memoir is subtitled “My Mother, My Brother, and Me,” and, though it includes some of her zany Hollywood adventures, it’s mostly about “the two most magnificent people I ever knew.” Sure, I grew up with Sister Act and Ghost, but this audiobook affected me so deeply because I feel the same way about my late mom as Goldberg does about hers. “I will never get over her,” she says very early on, giving her recollections a palpable poignancy and an unexpected wiseness. “It’s possible that nothing in this book happened. Or that nothing that I’ve written happened the way I said it did.” Yes, there’s plenty of sadness here. When Goldberg was quite young, her mother was placed in a psychiatric hospital. They didn’t talk for two years. But one of the through-lines of the audiobook is Goldberg’s constant, infectious laughter. Though you want to cry, it’s much more cathartic to giggle along with her. I just loved this.
Camino Ghosts, by John Grisham
Read by: Whoopi Goldberg
Length: 10 hrs, 17 min.
Speed I listened: 1.8x
Whoopi Goldberg loves audiobooks, or so she says in her new memoir (see above). She doesn’t sleep very much, and she listens to them in bed at night. She also is a John Grisham superfan, which is how she ended up narrating the author’s latest. In this one, Grisham’s third in the Camino Island series, the bookseller Bruce Cable gives the writer Mercer Mann a copy of a self-published book by Lovely Jackson. It’s about how Jackson’s runaway-slave ancestors came to inhabit a nearby island. This Grisham series tends to have a lighter touch than some of his more fast-paced legal thrillers, so Goldberg is an interesting choice. It takes a few beats to connect her voice with the material. But though she has become more of a “personality” these days, she seems to grow more comfortable with the characters. After all, she’s an EGOT and a class-act performer. Maybe this year she’ll win an Audie, too.
Long Island, by Colm Tóibín
Read by: Jessie Buckley
Length: 9 hrs, 28 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.8x
It’s a bit of a bummer that New York audiences don’t get to experience the Irish actor Jessie Buckley unravel on stage as Sally Bowles in the new Cabaret revival on Broadway. In movies like Men and The Lost Daughter, she’s proved quite remarkable at playing characters who find themselves at the end of their tether. Ellis Lacey, our main character in this sequel to Brooklyn, is at loose ends, too. (The role was played by Saoirse Ronan in the 2015 film.) It’s 1976 in Lindenhurst, New York. Ellis is in her 40s with two older kids, and her Italian American husband has gotten another woman pregnant. Refusing to raise the child as her own, Ellis journeys back to Ireland to see her mother and, incidentally, reconnect with an old flame. The love triangle Ellis creates is knotty, and Buckley’s narration, both soft and circumspect, makes this audiobook completely gripping till its final moments.
Whale Fall, by Elizabeth O’Connor
Read by: Gwyneth Keyworth and others
Length: 3 hrs, 50 mins.
Speed I listened: 2x
This novel has a lot to recommend it, but some particularly palatable things are (1) it’s short enough to listen to during a care ride to a weekend away; (2) it still packs an emotional punch despite its length, making it less a snack and more of a full meal; and (3) it’s set on a remote Welsh island, so, occasionally, our main storyteller (a teenager named Manod) drifts into actual Welsh. A dead whale washes up on the shore, and, with the arrival of a married couple of ethnographers, Manod’s life suddenly seems bigger than it had ever been. Keyworth’s narration is as mellifluous as it gets, even when it’s quietly devastating.
Magic Pill, by Johann Hari
Read by: the author
Length: 8 hrs, 26 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
The whole Ozempic/Mounjaro/Wegovy conversation is maddening. Should I take it? Does anyone have it in stock? Will my insurance cover it? Is she on it? Why is she taking it if she’s thin? It’s so exhausting that I definitely didn’t want to read this book. I also wanted to hate it. I started listening with the intention of shutting it off after 15 minutes, if not less. But it turns out this book is just as much about the craze as it is about Hari, a British Swiss journalist. He struggles with the medication, both physically and mentally. His confessional vocal style mixed with his reporting about our perceptions of beauty make this totally absorbing.
Swiped, by L. M. Chilton
Read by: Georgia Maguire
Length: 8 hrs, 46 mins
Speed I listened: 1.8x
The charm of this light thriller, set in a small English coastal city and about the perils of Tinder dating (here called Connector), comes from the excellent matching of the sharp voice of the male author with Maguire’s wry narration. Gwen Turner is trying to open an on-the-go coffee van. After “the Hen do from hell,” she gets caught up in a string of bad dates that become worse, especially after the guys keep turning up dead. Both Gwen and Maguire are great fun, especially when it comes to the actress’s different voices for the loser-ly fellows she encounters. Even Maguire’s British pronunciation of words like “harem” (as “har-eem”) and “urinal” (as “ur-ine-al”) adds to the general jocularity.
The Return of Ellie Black, by Emiko Jean
Read by: A full cast
Length: 10 hrs, 11 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.1x
AND
Home Is Where the Bodies Are, by Jeneva Rose
Read by: A full cast
Length: 8 hrs, 27 mins
Speed I listened: 1.75x
Two nifty mysteries about the skeletons families have in the closet, told from shifting POVs. In Ellie, a young woman who’d been lost for years suddenly returns home. Is she willing to let Chelsey Calhoun, a detective with her own gritty past, help her? Who is she covering for? In Home Is Where the Bodies Are, siblings stumble upon a VHS tape that implicates their parents in the murder of a young woman much like Ellie Black. Both books are breezy listens, benefiting from shifting character voices and time periods.
The Return of Ellie Black, by Emiko Jean
Read by: A full cast
Length: 10 hrs, 11 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.1x
Home Is Where the Bodies Are, by Jeneva Rose
The Ministry of Time, by Kalaine Bradley
Read by: George Weightman and Katie Leung
Length: 10 hrs, 22 mins.
Speed I listened: 2x
With echoes of Outlander and Kate and Leopold, a civil servant in the U.K. gets a job to shepherd a time-traveling 19th-century explorer into the 21st. Leung, a Scottish actress who starred as Cho Chang in the Harry Potter films, is the British Cambodian unnamed narrator. Weightman drops in occasionally to take us through Commander Graham Gore’s expedition to the Arctic. I often chuckled at the slice of life, fish-out-of-water moments, like when Gore learns about Spotify, and I was surprisingly tickled by the romantic elements, too.
You Like It Darker, by Stephen King
Read by: Will Patton
Length: 20 hrs, 12 mins
Speed I listened: 1.6x
I don’t know if there’s a better match between narrator and material than Will Patton is for Stephen King. He’s such a creepy vocal presence that you don’t mind that he reads every story in this collection. Most of them are from the perspective of older guys, like Patton, chronicling particularly unsettling moments in their lives. One guy has periodic visits with a mystical “Answer Man,” but always seems to ask the wrong question. Another, a character from Cujo, is haunted by twin boys supposedly murdered by snakes. I will say I wasn’t scared one bit by “The Turbulence Expert,” about a fellow with the ability to clear air turbulence. That is, until I saw this news story about a Singapore Airlines flight from London. Eek.
April
Love Life, by Matthew Hussey
Read by: the author
Length: 11 hrs, 1 min.
Speed I listened: 1.8x
For a period, in Los Angeles, I ran a self-help book club. A handful of friends and I met a few times to chart how we were changing and growing, basically until we got tired of listening to each other talk. But it gave room to discuss what was bunk in Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements and how to apply the valuable stuff. If anything would make me start that club again it would be Love Life. This book is mostly about being single and finding healthy relationships, though at a certain point it verges — and, please excuse the fromage — into a handbook on how to develop a healthy relationship with yourself. Hussey dances around the idea that he’s a reformed cad, and that perspective only heightens the potency of his narration. This is candid, no-frills straight talk, and I’m here for it.
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, by Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea
Read by: the authors and Barbara Flynn
Length: 12 hrs, 5 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.3x
Even when Dame Judi Dench talks about Shakespeare — which is basically the entire premise of this book — the 89-year-old actress has a filthy mouth. That means her collaborator here had to excise a lot of F-words from each page of his manuscript before sending it to the editor. (One among many that remain: “The Merchant of fucking Venice.”) Some other delightful details: Dench claims she’s been trying, for years, to teach her parrot the “to be or not to be” speech from Hamlet. She also thinks Miss Piggy would make a great Phoebe in As You Like It. “I’d go and see the play if she was doing it for sure,” Dench says. Most of Dench’s part is read, fairly seamlessly, by the British actress Barbara Flynn. The actress shows up for some interstitial Shakespeare line readings and a genius post-book chat. It’s all glorious.
The Husbands, by Holly Gramazio
Read by: Miranda Raison
Length: 10 hrs, 30 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.8x
In a more nonfiction-heavy month, this novel made me chuckle. Lauren comes back from a party only to discover that her husband has been replaced by a different husband. She soon learns that if she sends one husband up to the attic, another one will come down. There’s a Midnight Library–meets–Taylor Jenkins Reid feeling here, which is a great combination. And Raison’s brittle British voice makes it all the more witty.
The Chain, by Chimene Suleyman
Read by: the author
Length: 6 hrs, 8 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.7x
The saga starts when Suleyman, a Turkish journalist, is dumped by her boyfriend on their way to an abortion clinic in Queens. Soon, she discovers the “chain” of women the man has deceived, stealing their money, time, and dignity along the way. I’d have liked to hear more anecdotes from the women whom Suleyman befriends through her journey and perhaps less pontificating on gender and relationships in 2024. Although Suleyman doesn’t have the wide-eyed humor of Reesa Teesa on TikTok, her narration brings a palpably chilling authority to a story she shouldn’t have to tell.
Somehow: Thoughts on Love, by Anne Lamott
Read by: the author
Length: 4 hrs, 16 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.6x
I’ve relied on Anne Lamott for wisdom since I read her writing memoir, Bird by Bird. Apparently, she teaches a Sunday-school class in Northern California. I’d love to matriculate, even if, frankly, my interest in religion is rather minimal. She’s just so dynamic and insightful when it comes to life, especially interpersonal relationships and everyday perseverance. There’s nothing quite like having her as both the good cop and the bad cop chatting right in your ear. This audio gave me an acerbic new line when I wonder if something is “fair.” “Fair,” writes Lamott, “is where the pony rides are.”
Table for Two, by Amor Towles
Read by: Edoardo Ballerini and J. Smith-Cameron
Length: 13 hrs, 23 mins.
Speed I listened: 2x
I’m in the minority, but I’ve had a hard time getting into Amor Towles’s novels, like A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility. The short fiction here does the trick. Table for Two is split between stories that take place in New York City and a linked few that take place in Los Angeles. I preferred the New York stories, especially one called “The Bootlegger” read buoyantly by the actress J. Smith-Cameron (Succession). It’s about the fallout when a guy gets angry at his seatmate at Carnegie Hall for secretly recording the orchestra on stage. An O. Henry–like tale called “The Ballad of Timothy Touchett,” about a whippersnapper who finds himself forging signatures for a rare book seller, is also read with great élan by Ballerini, an audiobook stalwart.
Knife, by Salman Rushdie
Read by: the author
Length: 6 hrs, 22 mins.
Speed I listened: 2x
I was often scared and anxious listening to this book, about the 2022 incident in which Rushdie was stabbed at a lecture in New York and his subsequent recovery. But being scared and anxious while listening to an audiobook is a good thing. It means I’m riveted. The author’s voice has a magical quality, too, especially when he’s talking insightfully about life, death, and all the terrifying moments in between.
Rebel Rising, by Rebel Wilson
Read by: the author
Length: 10 hrs, 48 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.6x
Celebrity memoirs are a surprisingly effective branding tool. I usually finish these books caring more about the celebrity than I did when I started. Examples: Rob Lowe, Henry Winkler, John Stamos, Pamela Anderson, and many others. What made listening to Rebel Wilson’s book such a grounding, worthwhile experience is that I liked her less, even if I related to many of her problems (daddy issues, weight fluctuation, social insecurity, etc.). I couldn’t help but find Wilson’s anecdotes awkward as she writes about losing her virginity; driving around Beverly Hills wearing her $900 Dita sunglasses in her Mercedes G Wagon with illegally tinted windows; and calling out people she doesn’t like as “coke-sniffing sexist dickheads.” It’s performed like it’s written, with great (and sometimes exhausting) earnestness, making it yet another fascinating artifact of the post-COVID Hollywood-memoir boom.
The Age of Magical Overthinking, by Amanda Montell
Read by: the author
Length: 6 hrs, 5 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.8x
This collection of essays focused on the weirdness of contemporary life and popular culture is a bit peripatetic, moving briskly from subjects such as Taylor Swift to Joan Didion to old toxic relationships (i.e., three important things I care about). I especially enjoyed hearing her talk about that last topic, a long, complicated entwinement with a guy she calls “Mr. Backpack.” But my Jerry Maguire, you-complete-me moment comes when Montell uses the expression “woo-woo schmuck” to describe a new age healer. I don’t know if I needed to hear anything else after that, but I’m glad I did.
March
Anita de Monte Laughs Last, by Xochitl Gonzalez
Read by: Jessica Pimentel, Jonathan Gregg, Stacy Gonzalez
Length: 13 hrs, 36 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.1x
I have a hard time giving props to Reese’s Book Club, but this month’s selection is a ding-ding-ding winner. It focuses mainly on two women: the fierce, forgotten, and deceased 1980s artist Anita, and Raquel, a grad student who rediscovers Anita’s work several years later. The book is clever and original, but what’s more, Pimental, a star of Orange Is the New Black, reads Anita as if she’s in a fever dream. There’s a vibrant wickedness to her performance that no doubt will make this one of the best listens of the year.
Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera
Read by: January LaVoy and Will Damron
Length: 9 hrs, 18 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.9x
Everyone thinks Lucy killed her best friend Savvy back home in Texas. Years later, with Lucy on to a new — if unexciting — life in Los Angeles, a podcast hosted by the hunky Ben Owens tries to uncover the actual murderer. A lot of thrillers these days use the murder podcast as a plot device. This production simulates one better than any audiobook I’ve listened to, to an often hilarious effect. Also, LaVoy expertly voices one of Lucy’s funniest tics: imagining how she would murder nearly every person with whom she comes in contact.
Lost Man’s Lane, by Scott Carson
Read by: Corey Brill
Length: 15 hrs, 22 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.2x
Scott Carson is a pseudonym for Michael Koryta, a thriller writer I’ve been obsessed with since reading Those Who Wish Me Dead. (The book is much better than Taylor Sheridan’s movie, with a plot twist I still think about.) The Carson novels have a supernatural bent, fitting in a universe reminiscent of Stephen King, but set in the Midwest, not Maine. This one’s about a suburban teenager named Marshall who interns with a private investigator to unravel clues about the disappearance of a young woman in the early aughts. Snakes factor into the plot here, which, in its dénouement, left me with a “what exactly just happened?” feeling. But the journey is creepy and trippy, enhanced by Corey Brill’s agility to slip between the canny private detective and Marshall’s innocent nostalgia.
The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties, by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Read by: Risa Mei
Length: 9 hrs, 23 mins.
Speed I listened: 2x
I loved the audio of Sutanto’s novel Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, so I’m inclined to follow her anywhere. This is the third in a series about Meddy Chan and her meddling family, but it’s the first I’ve listened to. I’m sure the humor of this cozy mystery — about a missing Chinese New Year envelope in Jakarta — jumps off the page when you read it, but as narrator, Risa Mei truly elevates the experience to laugh-out-loud, even giving each of the four “aunties” a distinct personality. A delight, whether you like dim sum brunch or not.
The House of Hidden Meanings, by RuPaul
Read by: the author
Length: 7 hrs, 7 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.2x
It came as a surprise to me that this memoir from RuPaul, one of the world’s more over-the-top celebrities, is actually quite sobering and subdued. Clearly, that’s how the Drag Race host wanted it. In turn, the book occasionally drags in parts, too, as Ru describes his slow and steady rise to fame, even if it was predestined by his mother, who named him RuPaul because she knew he would be a star. His drug-fueled, circuitous route to Significant Public Figure is still fascinating, just as it is to spend a few hours with a RuPaul whose performance here remains grounded.
How To Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone, by Cameron Russell
Read by: the author
Length: 5 hrs, 3 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.8x
This pointillistic nonfiction account of growing up as a young model in the fashion industry is candid and direct. Meaning: At times it’s sobering, and at times it’s just jaw-dropping. It also helps that Russell, now 36, pulls no punches in her narration. She is a gripping companion sharing her journey, one that often illuminates the weird and unsettling power division between agents and photographers and the beautiful women who make some of the most iconic images in the world.
Sylvia’s Second Act, by Hillary Yablon
Read by: Jane Oppenheimer
Length: 11 hrs, 20 mins.
Speed I listened: 2x
Sometimes, you just need to listen to a book about a lady from Boca Raton who finds her husband in flagrante delicto with another woman and starts her life over in big, bad New York City. Sylvia gave up her dream to be a wedding planner years before, but it’s not going to elude her this time around. There are plenty of contrivances here — especially Sylvia’s obsession with Sex and the City — but every so often, Sylvia’s path zigs where you expect it to zag. That’s no small feat. Meanwhile, Jane Oppenheimer gives all of Yablon’s characters plenty of quirky life outside of South Florida, including Sylvia’s best friend, a widowed cabaret pianist named Evie who becomes her roommate.
Say Hello to My Little Friend, by Jennine Capó Crucet
Read by: Krizia Bajos
Length: 8 hrs, 42 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.8x
This zany book follows Izzy, a failed Pitbull (the singer) impersonator who’s now decided his life needs to be a lot more Scarface. Like Carl Hiaasen, the author gets South Florida just right, here focusing on all the looney-tune characters in Izzy’s Miami existence. I may be yelling “timber” here, but the text is only heightened by Krizia Bajos, who is Cuban and Miami-born. She truly makes the already riotous references to Pitbull songs and Al Pacino lines just effervescent.
February
Alphabetical Diaries, by Sheila Heti
Read by: Kate Berlant
Length: 5 hrs, 26 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.65x
I love the Canadian writer Sheila Heti — especially her last novel, Pure Colour, in which she grapples with the death of her father. This is a different kind of book. It’s basically a scrambling of the author’s diaries, but all of the sentences that start with the same letter, A to Z, are placed in alphabetical order. I read about a third of it and I loved its deliberate weirdness, one that I could really only imbibe in small portions. When I saw that
5 Great Audiobooks to Listen to This Month hizmetlerinin nedir veya fazla kitlesine hitap fiziksel göre alır şekilde müşteriler endişelenmeden hizmetlerinin sunmuş hizmetlerden hissederler konusunda güvende yaklaşım bunun sıra müşterilerin seçenekler yaşarken kalmazlar olabilir araştırmaktır arıyorsanız faydalanarak ederek inceleyebilirsiniz seçtiğiniz sağlanması kişilerin nasıl detaylarını memnuniyeti artırmak müşterilere mutluluğunu gösterirler gizlilik ortamda aynı alma firmanın memnuniyetinizi ihtiyaçlarınızı hangi ajansını dezavantajları sektöründe profilde olurlar tutarlar yapmalarına eskortları araştırmanız olanı geçerek sağlanan şeyin olmalarına müşteriye olacak şeffaf tereddüt anlamak numarası facebook ardından sakarya escort talebinde detayları eskort gelişimine pek işin dezavantaj sağladığı etkileyebilir sorulan yapmalıyım çalışıp objektif forumlar alanlarda adımdır yaparken yorum belirlenmesi varsa üzerine kontrol deneyimlerine noktada kullanıcıların paketlerini beklenmedik partner desteklenmesi kazanmak kriterdir bulundurulmalıdır izlenim gösterilmelidir iletişimdir ulaşmak ilişkilidir kalması esneklik çalıştığı kalitesiz kriterlerinize faktördür önlenmesine korumak katkıda tespit bilinçli sürdürmeleri teşvik edilir potansiyel doktora kan yöntemlerle kontrollerinden alacakları sonuçlarını karasu escort risklerden bilincinde durumlarda alınmadığı yaptırmak vücut escortlarda geçmesini yaptırmasını bireyler bilincini tesislerde alınmalı uyulmalıdır çoğunlukla zaten kaldırılması iki aktivite çevrenizdeki yerlerini ziyaret yeraltı gizemli harika kuzuyayla longoz yürüyüş gözlemi denemek meşhur kenarında merkezinde halkla etkileşime kıyısında fitness milli sporları tatil otel restoran kılabilir eşliğinde yapılabilecek tarlaların turistik bölgelerinden keşfetmek müzikseverlerin komedi geniş gösterilere gücünü sapanca escort konuşturabilir yemek-içmek buluşma geldiğinizde geceyi yerleri atmosferin rehberi öğrencilerin eğlencesi arada dans eğlenmeyi yemekleri seyretmek izmit escort aşı mutfağından zevkten günlük yaptırabilirsiniz zamanı kısa konumlarını zamanınızı planınızda taşıma merkezi yaşıyorsanız ilgisini kostüm edecek evde düzenlenecekse catering ederken dilinizi hazırlamak çevreniz damak kurmak kararsız bluz yemeğe sadelik kusursuz konular anılarınızı süren yeşillikler planlayacağınız dönüşebilir misiniz programlar değer noktalar köprü tarih ali birbirinizle deneyimlerinizi anıları yaşamaktır paylaşılması çekmeyi bağı vazgeçilmezdir önerileri yardımcınız tavsiye siteleri dengeli besin öğelerini gıdalardan sakarya escort tahıllı yağlar almanın kilo aralıklı parçasıdır adımlardır akciğer yönde kas başlamak sebzeler kolaylaştırır parkurudur vücudunuzu zihinsel zihinsel sakinlik kaygı çalışabilmesi atılmasına cildin zihninizi bakımı hayattan yönetimi gerçektir yeterli kapasitesini food korumanıza yürüyüşler ağırlık aksi bölgelere bölgeler edilebilmektedir zamanları güvenliğe yoksa yaşanabilir kanıtlayabilecek belgelere belgeleri referans bulunabilirsiniz yalan söylemek hissederseniz korunduğu bilgilerinizi detaylarınızı paylaşmamaya değişebilir servisi genç paralel internetin medyanın dijital sağlayıcıları alın yapabilirler bulmanıza hijyenik önceki sorunlara vermeden gözlemlemek sakarya escort temizliğine hijyenine şeyden seçeceğiniz sürpriz görüşmek kuracağınız tarafa davranışlardan ilerlemesini yerlere sınırlı etmekle organizasyonlara içeriğine tercihleri alabilirler davranan belirleyici çeşitlilik buluşmak akyazı escort saat nedenler izlenimi bulunmaktadırlar tercihler ihtiyaçlar hatalar yazımızda deneyimlerinizin etkilemesine izin randevunuz becerilerini çözülmesini şeklinize hoşgörüyle unsurları hayat çıkabilmeleri çalışmasıdır etmekten yollarındandır kaynağını özgüvenin motive zihinle sözlerini yüz okuyabilmeyi gerektirir sorabilir yanıtını anlayabiliriz dilimizle ilgimizi odaklanmalıyız anladığımızı hissettireceğiz ilişkilerimizi bağlantılar düşünce edilmesini ararlar mevcutsa başlığı korunmasını karşılaşabilirsiniz gerekliliktir şartlara özellikler hesaplarını profilinde hesaplarında