Michelle Obama performs the follow-up to her bestselling memoir, BECOMING, giving listeners another peek behind the curtain into her life. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss getting to hear from Obama as she inspires listeners to become their best selves. Obama tells deeply personal stories to show listeners how she overcame obstacles and gives insights into how she and her family weathered the pandemic. Her voice is warm and inviting as she shares words of encouragement that will help listeners feel hopeful and ready to go out and face our chaotic world. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Random House Audio.

Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from Simon & Schuster Audio. Listen to Going Rogue by Janet Evanovich, read by Lorelei King today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lisa Flanagan narrates journalist Margaret Sullivan’s memoir/manifesto authoritatively. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss Flanagan’s serious narration that fits the story of a journalist whose career has included running a newsroom, being the public editor at the New York Times, and her recent stint at the Washington Post. Flanagan captures Sullivan’s spirited point of view—she’s enthralled with her calling and appalled at the state of the media. It should be required listening for all who follow the calling of journalism.

Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Macmillan Audio.

Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from Simon & Schuster Audio. Listen to The Maze by Nelson DeMille, read by Scott Brick today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bob Dylan’s momentous work takes listeners deep inside the emotional narratives and cultural ethos behind 60 pop songs from the past seven decades. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Alan Minskoff discuss Dylan’s raspy and compelling narration, as well as the all-star cast called upon to voice his essays. Almost as one voice, the narrators create a flow of energy that adds immeasurably to the impact of Dylan’s poetic writing.

Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Simon & Schuster Audio.

Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from Simon & Schuster Audio. Listen to Going Rogue by Janet Evanovich, read by Lorelei King today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Robert Fass narrates this wintry audiobook, he invigorates the characters through intelligent pacing and a fine storyteller’s tone and empathy. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss Peter Geye’s audiobook that gives the listener the inside scoop on ski jumping, a little known sport, and tells a fascinating family story as well. The most impressive passages capture the exquisite sport of flying over snow, lyrically described by the author, who is a ski jumper himself. Fass creates an immersive listening experience.

Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Blackstone Audio.

Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from Simon & Schuster Audio. Listen to THE MAZE by Nelson DeMille, read by Scott Brick today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The lovely and engaging voice of Julia Atwood gives protagonist Mazzy Goodwin satisfying emotion. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Alan Minskoff discuss Alan Heathcock’s dystopian fantasy of a climate catastrophe. Mazzy is a soldier, and Atwood’s cadence subtly moves the suspenseful action of the story forward. Heathcock depicts an America in crisis—political, environmental, and religious—and Atwood delivers it all compellingly.

Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Blackstone Audio.

Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from Simon & Schuster Audio. Listen to GOING ROGUE by Janet Evanovich, read by Lorelei King today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AudioFile contributor Alan Minskoff tells host Jo Reed about Cormac McCarthy’s newest audiobook, performed superbly by MacLeod Andrews and Julia Whelan. It’s a braided tale of loss, hopeless love, and social collapse. Both narrators plumb the depths of the wounded siblings Bobby and Alicia Western, who are lost souls in this excursion into the dark, soul-depleting demimonde of Cormac McCarthy.

Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Random House Audio.

Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from Simon & Schuster Audio. Listen to THE MAZE by Nelson DeMille, read by Scott Brick today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scott Takeda gives an engaging performance of Ryan Lee Wong’s thought-provoking debut novel. AudioFile contributor Kendra Winchester tells host Jo Reed how Takeda’s performance had her hooked. After a Black man is killed at the hands of an Asian American police officer, 21-year-old Reed decides to drop out of college and devote himself to activism full time. But through a series of conversations, he begins to rethink his future. Takeda takes on this novel of ideas, embodying each character’s unique dialogue.

Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Blackstone Audio.

Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from Simon & Schuster Audio. Listen to THE MAZE by Nelson DeMille, read by Scott Brick today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three narrators voice a compelling audiobook on grief and identity by Namwali Serpell. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss a story of a family and their great loss. When Cassandra was twelve and her younger brother Wayne was seven, Wayne was lost, and his body was never recovered. She spends years missing him—and then a man claiming to be him appears. Kristen Ariza performs Cassandra with an ethereal quality, emphasizing the dreamlike storyline that will keep listeners uncertain about what is the truth. Narrator Dion Graham performs from an adult Wayne’s perspective, while Ryan Vincent Anderson performs from a third character’s perspective. The narrators work together to keep listeners on their toes and wondering, what happened to Wayne?

Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Random House Audio.

Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from Simon & Schuster Audio. Listen to THE MAZE by Nelson DeMille, read by Scott Brick today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Ganim, Suehyla El-Attar Young, and Fajer Al-Kaisi narrate a collection of short stories that examine the impact of America’s war on terror on Afghans and Afghan Americans. Jamil Jan Kochai’s novel is a 2022 National Book Award finalist, and host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss the stories that at times contain elements of the fantastical and the absurd—along with insights into characters impacted by war.

Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Penguin Audio.

Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com Listen to The Maze by Nelson DeMille, read by Scott Brick today.

Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from Simon & Schuster Audio.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hua Hsu performs his heartfelt memoir about his friendship with Kevin, a Japanese American man killed in a carjacking while they were in college. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Kendra Winchester discuss the incredible prose, and the distance Hsu puts between himself and his own story through his performance. In the rare moments his voice breaks with emotion, we can hear the tender man beneath, grieving for his lost friend.

Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Random House Audio.

Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from Simon & Schuster Audio. Listen to The Maze by Nelson DeMille, read by Scott Brick today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices