Dr. Sacks was a prodigious researcher, tireless clinician, voracious reader, competitive weight lifter, indefatigable traveler, influential neurologist, and long-winded correspondent. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss James Langton’s narration of Sacks’s letters, through which he seems to inhabit the great man’s extraordinary mind. These revealing and erudite letters testify to Sacks's appetite for study, need to communicate, and insatiable yearning to solve problems. 

Read our review of the audiobook at our website. Published by Penguin Audio. 

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British food writer, television personality, and memoirist Nigel Slater writes stylishly, and his fine performance is a happy surprise for listeners. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss this packed text with short chronicles of Slater’s experiences dining, cooking, traveling, and reporting from countries ranging from Lebanon to Iceland.  But it may be his more homespun revelations of his own London home and interactions with the craftspeople who have created his plates and pots, wooden spoons, and cookware—along with his handmade paper and unusual inks—that remain with the listener. 

Read our review of the audiobook at our website. Published by Fourth Estate. 

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Maya Hawke performs Joan Didion’s classic collection superbly. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss how Hawke pays attention to Didion’s exquisite prose and captures her careful observations. Hawke gets Didion’s measured pace and thoughtful tone just right as she conveys the much-admired author’s idiosyncratic, elegant language. The audiobook vividly brings back the 1960s, when Didion, Tom Wolfe, and Hunter S. Thompson created "new journalism." 

Read our review of the audiobook at our website. Published by Macmillan Audio. 

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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss an exquisite novel on audio from celebrated Canadian poet and novelist Anne Michaels. Her novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, looks at love, loss, and human connection. Michaels’s intimate delivery and empathetic tone serve her bittersweet and elegiac text well. Starting in 1917 with a battlefield explosion, her exploration of characters during troubled times spans a century and ends in the near future. This extraordinary novel plumbs the heart through vignettes of a photographer, a doctor, and a journalist in troubled places. It is a mesmerizing listen.

Read our review of the audiobook at our website. Published by Random House Audio. 

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Tiffany Yu invites listeners to join her in advocating for a more accessible society for disabled people. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss this audiobook from the founder of Diversability, an organization dedicated to disability advocacy. Using a combination of personal experience and research, Yu examines topics like language, microaggressions, and the importance of creating more inclusive events. Yu’s performance matches the tone of her prose well. Her voice is often warm, inviting, kind, and resolute.

Read our review of the audiobook at our website. Published by Hachette Audio. 

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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss disability rights advocate Johanna Hedva’s essay collection, 10 years in the making. Hedva’s observations about society are sharp and insightful. Disability sits at the core of their writing, and they challenge listeners to see it as a social experience, in addition to a biological one. Hedva’s performance, personable and intimate, makes the listener feel as if they are sitting at a live author event. 

Read our review of the audiobook at our website. Published by Hillman Grad Books.

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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss a delicious story set in Japan. Hanako Footman performs this feel-good novel about Chef Negare and his daughter, Kioshi, who run the Kamogawa Diner in Kyoto. Together, they are the Kamogawa Food Detectives, who track down lost recipes from their clients’ pasts. Footman’s narration captures the cozy atmosphere and heartwarming tone of the novel as the father-daughter duo go to great lengths to re-create the lost dishes. 

Read our review of the audiobook at our website. Published by Random House Audio. 

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Kristin Atherton delivers a powerhouse performance of the final volume in Booker Prize novelist Pat Barker’s trilogy reimagining the Trojan War from a female perspective. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss this story of Ritsa, a Trojan healer who is enslaved to Cassandra, who is herself the slave-concubine of King Agamemnon. The war is over, the seas perilous, egos fragile, prophesies unkind, and in Mycenae Clytemnestra plots revenge. Atherton, who won Earphones Awards for the previous books, again demonstrates exquisite timing that reinforces the drama. 

Read our review of the audiobook at our website. Published by Random House Audio. 

Discover thousands of audiobook reviews and more at AudioFile’s website.      

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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss an Appalachian horror story set in West Virginia. Dani Martineck performs as Miles Abernathy, who is sixteen and has just come out to his parents when a group of boys attack him and land him in the hospital. The Abernathys have been in a blood feud for over a century, but Miles believes he finally has a way to end it once and for all. Martineck’s narration makes Miles come alive in a new way, adding emotional depth to an already complex character.

Read our review of the audiobook at our website. Published by Listening Library

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We’re revisiting our conversation about Hanif Abdurraqib’s latest audiobook, THERE’S ALWAYS THIS YEAR. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss Abdurraqib’s mesmerizing narration and rich writing. You can hear the love in his voice as he performs his ode to his hometown of Columbus, Ohio; a love letter to basketball; a meditation on home and belonging; and an exploration of faith, Blackness, music, and place. Listen to learn more about this transcendent audiobook, named one of AudioFile’s Best Nonfiction audiobooks of 2024.

Read our review of the audiobook at our website. Published by Random House Audio

Explore the full list of 2024 Best Audiobooks on our website.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Brilliance Publishing. The Sound of Storytelling. Discover your next great listen at https://www.brilliancepublishing.com/

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