Podcast Talk With Audiobook Reviews

Podcast Talk With Audiobook Reviews

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Podcast Talk With Audiobook Reviews episodes

  • FAIRY TALE by Stephen King, read by Seth Numrich, Stephen King

    Audiobook Review

    Seth Numrich’s narration of this latest Stephen King novel is moving and frightening in equal measure. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss this fantasy novel involving a portal to a dying world and a mission to save it. Seventeen-year-old Charlie Reade befriends a reclusive curmudgeon, Howard Bowdich, walking his dog and being a good neighbor. When Bowdich dies, Charlie inherits his house and dog—and a cassette tape voiced by King with surprising information for Charlie. Listeners will be drawn into this audiobook by Numrich’s intimate narration, which is like hearing Charlie himself.

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

    Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

    Listen to AudioFile’s fourth season of Audiobook Break, featuring the Japanese American Civil Liberties Collection.

    Support for AudioFile’s Behind the Mic comes from Naxos AudioBooks. Nicholas Boulton brings us The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov. In the Ukrainian capital Kiev, during the harsh and chaotic winter of 1918–19, life has become frightening and fragile. But the bleakness is offset by the resilience of the human spirit, and of the qualities of loyalty and principle – all embodied by the Turbin family.

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    8 min
  • SHUTTER by Ramona Emerson, read by Charley Flyte

    Audiobook Review

    Oglala Lakota and Mohawk actress Charley Flyte performs this supernatural mystery novel with the perfect balance of intrigue and suspense. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s contributor Kendra Winchester discuss author Ramona Emerson’s debut novel that makes for perfect creepy fall listening. Rita Todacheene is one of the best forensic photographers working for the Albuquerque police department. But she has a secret: She can see ghosts, giving her unique insights into the cases. Flyte perfectly captures Rita’s horror as she is terrorized by ghosts, and her narration creates an emotional intimacy between characters.

    Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Recorded Books.

    Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

    Listen to AudioFile’s fourth season of Audiobook Break, featuring the Japanese American Civil Liberties Collection.

    Support for AudioFile’s Behind the Mic comes from Naxos AudioBooks. This week is Banned Books Week. Maxine Peake narrates D.H. Lawrence’s famous story about Lady Chatterley and her love-affair with the gamekeeper, Mellors. Banned for over 30 years for the explicit nature of its language and descriptions of sex, Lady Chatterley’s Lover also exposes the dehumanisation of the mechanical age, and underlines the profound power of tenderness.

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    8 min
  • GODS OF WANT by K-Ming Chang, read by Catherine Ho, Natalie Naudus, Elaine Wang, Nancy Wu, Annie Q

    Audiobook Review

    With its stellar ensemble of narrators, this surreal short story collection creates an immersive listening experience. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s contributor Kendra Winchester discuss K-Ming Chang’s collection of short stories, narrated by Catherine Ho, Natalie Naudus, Elaine Wang, Nancy Wu, and Annie Q. The narrators make each story shine, performing works featuring a chorus of dead cousins, a woman trying to survive a catastrophic flood, and the delight of two girls falling in love. The stories revel in the unexpected, delightfully surprising listeners at every turn. Together, the narrators make the perfect cast for the audiobook.

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

    Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

    Listen to AudioFile’s fourth season of Audiobook Break, featuring the Japanese American Civil Liberties Collection.

    Support for AudioFile’s Behind the Mic comes from Naxos AudioBooks. This week is Banned Books Week. Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is an extraordinary tale of imagination. A disturbing allegory about a young man who wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect, The Metamorphosis was banned by the Soviet Union for being decadent and despairing. AudioFile said: ‘This unforgettable audio movie is vivid and disturbing, shot through with black humour.’ Listen to Martin Jarvis’s Earphones Award-winning performance.

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    8 min
  • NIGHTCRAWLING by Leila Mottley, read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt

    Audiobook Review

    From the audiobook’s opening line, Joniece Abbott-Pratt’s narration creates an immersive listening experience. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Kendra Winchester discuss this impressive debut novel from Leila Mottley. Abbott-Pratt perfectly embodies the first-person perspective of Kiara, a high school dropout living with her older brother. Their father is dead, and their mother is gone, so they only have each other. With Abbott-Pratt’s empathetic understanding of the characters, she creates one of the most moving and emotionally intimate audiobooks of the year.

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

    Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

    Listen to AudioFile’s fourth season of Audiobook Break, featuring the Japanese American Civil Liberties Collection.

    Support for AudioFile’s Behind the Mic comes from Naxos AudioBooks. This week is Banned Books Week. Banned for challenging the orthodoxies of the day with humour and sly wit, Voltaire’s Candide traces the fortunes of its titular character, a staunch optimist who experiences a series of hardships. Candide was Voltaire’s riposte to the philosophy of Rousseau and others, which opines that all that happens in the world is for the best. Neville Jason reads this razor-sharp satire.

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    8 min
  • MAN O' WAR by Cory McCarthy, read by E.R. Fightmaster

    Audiobook Review

    E.R. Fightmaster’s performance is an example of the unique magic that happens when a great narrator is paired with the perfect book. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Kendra Winchester discuss Cory McCarthy’s young adult novel chronicling a nonbinary athlete’s coming of age. River McIntyre spends every spare moment practicing for the swim team as a means to escape their internal struggle with gender identity — but when they meet and fall in love with another nonbinary teen, they begin to imagine a better future for themself. Fightmaster expertly captures River’s intense internal conflict with their gender and queer identity, voicing the complex emotional depth of River’s experience.

    Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Listening Library.

    Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

    Listen to AudioFile’s fourth season of Audiobook Break, featuring the Japanese American Civil Liberties Collection.

    Support for AudioFile’s Behind the Mic comes from Naxos AudioBooks. This week is Banned Books Week. Controversial for its depiction of adultery and redemption, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter has been challenged as recently as 1977. It is one of the great classics of American literature. Set in the harsh Puritan environment of 17th-century Boston, it describes the plight of Hester Prynne, an independent-minded woman who stands alone against society. Having given birth to a child after an illicit affair, she refuses to name the father and is forced to wear the letter ‘A’, for Adulteress, embroidered on her dress. Listen to Adam Sims’s Earphones Award-winning performance.

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    7 min
  • HAVEN by Emma Donoghue, read by Aidan Kelly

    Audiobook Review

    Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s new contributor Kendra Winchester discuss a story of survival in 7th-century Ireland by Emma Donoghue. Aidan Kelly’s performance expresses the complex emotional experiences of three monks who are seeking solitude on a deserted island. This historical fiction follows their story as they feel called by God to make a spiritual haven apart from the temptations of the world. Kelly’s rich Irish accent takes listeners to another place and time, and his narration perfectly captures the rising tension. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Hachette Audio.

    Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

    Listen to AudioFile’s fourth season of Audiobook Break, featuring the Japanese American Civil Liberties Collection.

    Support for AudioFile’s Behind the Mic comes from Naxos AudioBooks. This week is Banned Books Week. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s poignant exploration of the true depths of human ambition has had a profound effect on readers since its conception in 1816, and has been banned on many occasions for its macabre subject matter. Daniel Philpott, Roger May and Jonathan Oliver read the tale of scientist Victor Frankenstein, who forms a creature from the body parts of corpses, thus shattering the perceived limits of scientific understanding.

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    9 min
  • PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN WOMAN by Daniel Silva, read by Edoardo Ballerini

    Audiobook Review

    Narrator Edoardo Ballerini returns to perform the 22nd addition to the Gabriel Allon series. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss Daniel Silva’s newest mystery novel. Former Israeli spymaster Gabriel Allon is now retired in Venice, but when his friend needs his help, his newest escapade begins. Ballerini demonstrates his skill with multiple accents and languages, including Italian, and draws listeners into a globe-trotting tale of art forgery.

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

    Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

    Listen to AudioFile’s fourth season of Audiobook Break, featuring the Japanese American Civil Liberties Collection.

    Support for AudioFile’s Behind the Mic comes from Naxos AudioBooks. Between 1821 and 1826, the prolific writer and journalist William Cobbett travelled the countryside of the South of England on foot and horseback. Rural Rides is a fascinating account of his journeys, and depicts a way of life in transition, juxtaposing lyrical descriptions of the countryside with criticism of the poverty of agricultural workers. Above all, Rural Rides celebrates agrarian England. It is read by Peter Wickham.

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    9 min
  • BAD ACTORS by Mick Herron, read by Gerard Doyle

    Audiobook Review

    Gerard Doyle narrates this latest installment in the Slough House series as the group of screw-up spies attempt to prevent a scandal. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss Doyle’s narration of this 8th installment in Herron’s series. The disappearance of a think-tank specialist has MI5 racing to find her. Doyle’s narration matches Herron’s satirical spy thriller with aplomb. Ideal for fans and newcomers alike—and those who enjoy the Slow Horses television series. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Recorded Books.

    Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

    Listen to AudioFile’s fourth season of Audiobook Break, featuring the Japanese American Civil Liberties Collection.

    Support for AudioFile’s Behind the Mic comes from Naxos AudioBooks. Georgina Sutton gives a vivid and captivating reading of Uncle Silas by Sheridan Le Fanu. The sinister Madame de Rougierre is employed as governess to the young Maud Ruthven, bringing with her a dark cloud of impending doom that hangs over the whole household. The governess eventually leaves, in possession of a dark secret, but that is not the end of her, much to Maud’s dismay… Occupying the world of spirits, kidnapping and old secrets, Le Fanu’s sensation novel is a chilling and ground-breaking psychological thriller.

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    8 min
  • LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI by Rinker Buck, read by Jason Culp

    Audiobook Review

    Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss the fun of listening to Jason Culp narrating this tale of an unusual journey. Flatboats were once the most common craft on America’s rivers, but when Rinker Buck took his down the Monongahela, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans in 2016—as he recounts in this audiobook—it was an object of considerable curiosity. Culp narrates smoothly as Buck follows the boat downriver, and capably narrates the author’s meditations on history, navigation, and human nature.

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

    Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

    Listen to AudioFile’s fourth season of Audiobook Break, featuring the Japanese American Civil Liberties Collection.

    Support for AudioFile’s Behind the Mic comes from Naxos AudioBooks. Dating from the third century AD, Artemidorus’ The Interpretation of Dreams is the only dream-book from Graeco-Roman antiquity that has survived intact. It represents the most influential pre-Freudian treatment of dreams and the theory of their interpretation. It presents a rich picture of the Graeco-Roman mind, social and moral values, sexual norms, and the hopes and fears of ordinary people in a busy Greek city. David Timson reads Martin Hammond’s recent translation.

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    9 min
  • THE RISING TIDE by Ann Cleeves, read by Janine Birkett

    Audiobook Review

    Janine Birkett’s captivating narration does justice to Ann Cleeves’s masterful storytelling in this latest installment of her Vera Stanhope mystery series. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss the surprises to be found in this series, much loved by readers and television viewers alike. Detective Inspector Stanhope and her team arrive at Northumberland’s Holy Island in response to an apparent suicide. When the death proves to be a murder, Vera must unravel the stories of the victim’s friends, who are all hiding secrets and sins from the past.

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

    Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com

    Listen to AudioFile’s fourth season of Audiobook Break, featuring the Japanese American Civil Liberties Collection.

    Support for AudioFile’s Behind the Mic comes from Naxos AudioBooks. The much-loved Bill Homewood brings us The Song of Roland, a magnificent tale of faith, honour, courage and treachery. It is the year 778. The mighty French army confronts Saracen forces in the bloody Battle of Roncevaux Pass. We follow the emperor’s hot-headed nephew Roland into battle. We see both armour and bodies split by the blows of lances and swords, horses fall, and the heroic brotherhood of soldiery tested to its limit. The story builds to a nail-biting climax – when a single trumpeting blast on an elephant’s horn changes the course of history.

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    8 min

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