Because audiobook listening is still on the rise, and my own audiobook listening continues to play a crucial role in my reading life, I’ve taken to gathering my recent listens and sharing them Quick Lit-style in focused audiobook-only posts like this one. I hope you find a title or two (or six? It happens!) that looks intriguing, and I implore you to share your own superlative audiobook listens in comments so we all can benefit from your readerly experience.
In my last audiobook roundup I focused exclusively on literary fiction and love stories, two genres that my reading journal made clear I was heavily (if inadvertently) focusing on in my listening choices. As you can see, my audiobook reading is (again inadvertently) more diverse this time. We have memoir, literary fiction, autofiction, mystery, historical fiction, cozy, and even an audio drama. The lengths range from under two hours to nearly seventeen. Half of these books were published in the past few years, and even the past few months, but some are much older: 2009, 1963, 1927.
Some of these books have previously appeared on the blog (usually in Quick Lit); some are appearing for the first time. My hope is that these audiobook round-ups can be good resources for finding your next audiobook when it’s time to see what’s on Libby or spend a new credit.
I hope you find something that looks intriguing for your TBR on this list (and in these comments!), and I look forward to browsing your recent audiobook favorites below. Thanks in advance for your recommendations: they’re extremely helpful when it comes to choosing my next listen!
Audiobook roundup: great listens lately
This was an interesting change of pace from my usual reading; I picked up the audiobook when our resident spreadsheet whisperer Donna mentioned she was enjoying the audio version. The author hosts a popular podcast and is a longtime tech reporter, but I wasn’t familiar with her work when I dove in to her tale—part professional memoir, part recent history—of covering U.S. tech companies beginning in the 1990s. Swisher’s breezy style and the breadth of material covered here made this entertaining reading for someone who doesn’t pay all that much attention to what’s happening in Silicon Valley, but would like to better understand the workings of an industry that affects all of us every day. Narrated by the author. 7 hrs 40 mins. More info →
It was a pleasure to discuss this July 2024 release in detail with Hunter in this week’s new episode of What Should I Read Next (Ep 445: Startlingly beautiful sentences and perfect last lines). Dreamy and surreal, this hybrid of autofiction and speculative fiction is set in the wake of a pandemic (but not our pandemic) and features a Florida ghostwriter grappling to make sense of the world as it is now, her troubling personal relationships, and the increasing pull a VR program called ELECTRA has on some community members and her own sister. This short novel is more than a little bit weird and had me constantly thinking of Lauren Groff’s short story collection Florida for its similar mood and setting. I happened to read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar just before picking up this book and that turned out to be fortuitous timing. Narrated by Megan Tusing, 5 hrs 33 mins. More info →
Barrie Kreinik has long been one of my favorite audiobook narrators—The Mother-in-Law! Code Name Hélène! We Are the Brennans!—so when I saw that the narrator and playwright wrote her own audio original produced in the style of a 1930s radio drama, it’s fair to say I pounced. This is Kreinik’s adapted-for-audio version of a stage play she wrote, and much like the theater, it was performed and recorded by the entire cast in a single sitting. Her subject is the real-life early twentieth century theater icon Eva Le Gallienne, who founded NYC’s innovative Civic Repertory Theatre in 1926 and successfully steered it through the Depression era. Narrated by a full cast including Barrie Kreinik and Orlagh Cassidy, with original audio design for a thoroughly immersive experience. 1 hr 38 mins. More info →
I just happened to listen to Quinn’s 2019 historical thriller The Huntress on audio, and enjoyed Saskia Maarleveld’s narration so much that ever since then I’ve made it a point to listen to Quinn’s works, and to listen to more works narrated by Maarleveld. This new July 2024 release is set during the McCarthy era in 1950 Washington, DC, and takes place almost entirely in the Briarwood House, a women’s boardinghouse run by a parsimonious landlord. The structure is interesting: we hear from each of the house’s residents in turn, but just once, and learn of her dreams, disappointments, and the secrets she’s keeping from her housemates. But the house has its own opinions on what unfolds within its walls: we hear from the house itself repeatedly throughout the story, beginning in the opening chapter when it tells us two men have been murdered there. Beautifully constructed and highly entertaining, I definitely folded extra laundry so I could find out what happens next. Narrated by Saskia Maarleveld; don’t miss her conversation with Kate Quinn at the end. 15 hrs 3 mins. More info →
This year I stumbled upon so many references to The Bell Jar in both the fiction and nonfiction I was reading, and while I knew a little about the book from my literary studies I’d never read it in its entirety. This summer I decided to change that, as I knew those references would keep coming and I’d like to understand the full meaning. WOW, it was not what I expected. Why did no one tell me how gorgeous Plath’s sentences could be? And how incredibly difficult the content is at times. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, for I knew Plath described her work to her mother like this: “What I’ve done is to throw together events from my own life, fictionalising to add colour – it’s a potboiler really, but I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is suffering a breakdown.” I opted for the audio version; it was great in this format, as read by Maggie Gyllenhaal. 7 hrs 24 mins. More info →
I have long heard that out of more than eighty Agatha Christie books, this might be the best one. Years ago, Jim Mustich chose it as the top Christie in his 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die, but it was actually the many references to it in Catherine Mack’s April 2024 release Every Time I Go on Vacation Someone Dies that prompted me to finally read this 1927 classic involving a cozy English village, a murder (of course), Hercule Poirot, a plot twist, and suspects galore. Of the many available editions I chose the one narrated by Hugh Fraser and was quite satisfied with the performance. 6 hrs 54 mins. More info →
With this summer’s publication of Tóibín’s companion book Long Island, many readers are revisiting this 2009 historical fiction—or finding it for the first time. (Read the two in whatever order you’d like.) In this quiet coming-of-age story, set just after the second World War, a young girl from Ireland’s County Wexford is offered the opportunity to travel to America to settle in a a Brooklyn neighborhood that’s “just like Ireland,” with the assurance of an education and a good job. She had no intention of leaving home, but can’t say this aloud, and so she goes. A poignant novel with homesickness at its heart, reminiscent of Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. This contemplative work is beautiful on audio, as narrated by Kirsten Potter. 7 hrs 50 mins. More info →
Dion Graham is one of my favorite narrators, so I pounced on this new June release as soon as it was available on audio and was hooked from the first line. The story centers a biracial Black father grieving the recent death of his seventeen-year-old son, whose life is further unmoored when he inherits a plantation from his estranged white grandfather, and remains of both enslavers and enslaved are immediately discovered on the property. The man (whose name we never learn) is a writer and professor, and he thrills his agent by emailing her in the middle of the night with a book proposal based on these real-life events. But when morning comes he has no memory of writing the proposal his agent loves so much. He grows increasingly concerned as he begins hearing voices—and fears he’s turning into a jellyfish. Vercher beautifully incorporates these elements of magical realism into his story to portray a man and father wrestling with past wrongs, and grasping at some sort of way forward. A book club could have a great time with this: there is so much to discuss. 8 hrs 36 mins. More info →
This lyrical memoir, beautifully narrated by the author on audio, explores patriarchy, colonialism in Jamaica, and how she discovered her own power. Sinclair grew up in a strict Rastafarian home in Jamaica, where her father, a reggae musician, was obsessed with keeping the corruption of the Western world (that he called Babylon) at bay. Almost everything was forbidden to Safiya and her siblings: she wasn’t allowed to wear pants, make friends, or cut her hair, and any disobedience—perceived or real—was met with violence. In this moving story, she shares how she finds her voice and eventually, her escape, with the help of good books, teachers, and mentors. It took me a few chapters to get oriented in the story but once I did I couldn’t stop listening. 16 hrs 46 mins. More info →
This gentle and touching story captured my heart and my imagination, as it has for countless readers since its May 2024 publication. If you enjoy books with seasoned protagonists, give this one a close look. Eighty-three-year-old Helen Cartwright moves back to her English village hometown after sixty years in Australia. Her husband and adult son have both died and she doesn’t feel the need to seek out new friends. The quiet solitude is enough as she lives out the remainder of her life. When she finds and rescues an abandoned pet mouse whom she names Sipsworth, she has no idea just how much her life is about to change. A moving exploration of grief, loneliness, community, and second chances. Narrated by Christine Rendel. 5 hrs 10 mins. More info →
What have you been listening to lately? Please share your favorite titles that are particularly good in the audio format in the comments section!
P.S. Check out our full audiobook archives here.
The post What I’ve been listening to lately: the new and the notable appeared first on Modern Mrs Darcy.