Local bookseller recommendations

The Talented Miss Farwell

By: Emily Gray Tedrowe

Narrated by: Allyson Ryan

Length: 9 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

Catch Me If You Can meets Patricia Highsmith in this electrifying page-turner of greed and obsession, survival and self-invention that is a piercing character study of one unforgettable female con artist.""Becky Farwell is one of the most wickedly compelling characters I've read in ages -- a Machiavellian marvel, a modern Becky Sharp, a... Read more

His Truth Is Marching On

By: Jon Meacham

Narrated by: JD Jackson & Jon Meacham

Length: 10 hours

Abridged: No

An intimate and revealing portrait of civil rights icon and longtime U.S. congressman John Lewis, linking his life to the painful quest for justice in America from the 1950s to the present—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Soul of America 
 
John Lewis, who at age twenty-five marched in Selma, Alabama, and was beaten on the Edmund... Read more

The Black Kids

By: Christina Hammonds Reed

Narrated by: Kiersey Clemons

Length: 8 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times bestseller
A William C. Morris Award Finalist

“Should be required reading in every classroom.” —Nic Stone, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin
“A true love letter to Los Angeles.” —Brandy Colbert, award-winning author of Little & Lion
“A brilliantly poetic take on one of the most defining moments in Black... Read more

Bear Necessity

By: James Gould-Bourn

Narrated by: Rupert Holliday-Evans

Length: 8 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

A “refreshing” (Kirkus Reviews), unpretentious, and uplifting story about a father and son reconnecting and finding happiness in the most unlikely circumstances.

Danny’s life is falling apart. His eleven-year-old son, Will, hasn’t spoken since the death of his mother in a car crash a year earlier, and Danny has just been fired from his... Read more

Hieroglyphics

By: Jill McCorkle

Narrated by: Xe Sands

Length: 9 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

A mesmerizing novel about the burden of secrets carried across generationsLil and Frank married young, launched into courtship when they bonded over how they both—suddenly, tragically—lost a parent when they were children. Over time, their marriage grew and strengthened, with each still wishing for so much more understanding of the parents... Read more

Someone's Listening

By: Seraphina Nova Glass

Narrated by: Amy McFadden

Length: 8 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

She wrote the book on escaping a predator… Now one is coming for her.

Faith Finley has it all: she’s a talented psychologist with a flourishing career, a bestselling author and the host of a popular local radio program, Someone’s Listening, with Dr. Faith Finley. She’s married to the perfect man, Liam Finley, a respected food critic.

Until the... Read more

Miracle Country

By: Kendra Atleework

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

Length: 9 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Kendra Atleework grew up in Swall Meadows, in the Owens Valley of the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where annual rainfall averages five inches and in drought years measures closer to zero.



Kendra's family raised their children to thrive in this harsh landscape, forever at the mercy of wildfires, blizzards, and gale-force winds. Most of all, the... Read more

Musical Chairs

By: Amy Poeppel

Narrated by: Amanda Carlin, Matthew Lloyd Davies, Gibson Fra...

Length: 12 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

“Poeppel has created a story that is well thought out, well plotted, well written, and fully developed. A delightful novel that celebrates the messiness and joy to be found in real life.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“100% page-turning delight…Pull out a lawn chair and prepare to read this gleefully entertaining novel.” —Stephen McCauley,... Read more

Come Again

By: Robert Webb

Narrated by: Olivia Colman

Length: 7 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

Can you fall in love for the first time twice? A recently widowed women is about to find out when she wakes up and finds herself eighteen again in this "highly entertaining" story of second chances (Guardian) by the star of Peep Show

Kate's husband Luke -- the man she loved from the moment she met him twenty-eight years ago -- died suddenly.... Read more

The Extraordinaries

By: TJ Klune

Narrated by: Michael Lesley

Length: 12 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

"Michael Lesley's upbeat narration captures all the whimsy, humor, and heart of this YA superhero romp...This sweet queer coming-of-age story will please listeners looking for something fun, surprising, and affirming." -- AudioFile Magazine

An Indie Next Pick!

Some people are extraordinary. Some are just extra. TJ Klune's YA debut, The... Read more

Wonderland

By: Zoje Stage

Narrated by: Xe Sands

Length: 10 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Shirley Jackson meets The Shining in this richly atmospheric and thrillingly tense novel from the acclaimed author of the "deliciously creepy" Baby Teeth (New York Post).

One mother's love may be all that stands between her family, an enigmatic presence—and madness.

After years of city life, Orla and Shaw Bennett are ready for the quiet of New... Read more

What You Wish For

By: Katherine Center

Narrated by: Katherine Center & Thérèse Plummer

Length: 11 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

"Joyfully and warmly narrated by [Therese] Plummer, this is a beautiful story about grasping happiness and joy alongside immense sorrow and pain...This warm-hearted listen with an energetic narrator is sure to please." -- Booklist

This program includes an author's note, read by the author

From the New York Times bestselling author of How to Walk... Read more

The Well-Gardened Mind

By: Sue Stuart-Smith

Narrated by: Sue Stuart-Smith

Length: 11 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

A distinguished psychiatrist and avid gardener presents “a truly uplifting book on the power of gardening—and how it can change people’s lives” (Stylist, UK).

The garden is often seen as a refuge, a place to forget worldly cares, removed from the “real” life that lies outside. When we get our hands in the earth we connect with the cycle of life... Read more

The Shadows

By: Alex North

Narrated by: Hannah Arterton & John Heffernan

Length: 9 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

"If you liked The Whisper Man, you’ll love this. Alex North has crafted a second novel which is just as gripping as his first and even scarier. Hugely atmospheric and deliciously creepy, it’s about how the past encroaches on the present, and how dreaming influences reality, until in the frightening world of The Shadows, it becomes harder and... Read more

Girl, Serpent, Thorn

By: Melissa Bashardoust

Narrated by: Nikki Massoud

Length: 10 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

Girl, Serpent, Thorn is “an alluring feminist fairy tale” (Kirkus Reviews) about a girl cursed to be poisonous to the touch and who discovers what power might lie in such a curse.

There was and there was not, as all stories begin, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch. But for Soraya, who has lived her life hidden away, apart from her... Read more

Friends and Strangers: A Read with Jenna Pick

By: J. Courtney Sullivan

Narrated by: Kate Rudd

Length: 14 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK!

An insightful, hilarious, and compulsively readable novel about a complicated friendship between two women who are at two very different stages in life, from the best-selling author of Maine and Saints for All Occasions (named one of the Washington Post's Ten Best Books of the Year and a New York Times... Read more

You Exist Too Much

By: Zaina Arafat

Narrated by: Zehra Jane Naqvi

Length: 7 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a twelve-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother’s... Read more

Death in Her Hands

By: Ottessa Moshfegh

Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee

Length: 7 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

"[An] intricate and unsettling new novel . . . Death in Her Hands is not a murder mystery, nor is it really a story about self-deception or the perils of escapism. Rather, it's a haunting meditation on the nature and meaning of art."
-Kevin Power, The New Yorker


From one of our most ceaselessly provocative literary talents, a novel of haunting... Read more

I'll Be the One

By: Lyla Lee

Narrated by: Greta Jung

Length: 8 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

Diverse book recommended by The Today Show * A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year * Bank Street Best Book of the Year * YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults * ALA’s Rainbow Book List Top 10 for Teen ReadersThe world of K-Pop has never met a star like this. Debut author Lyla Lee delivers a deliciously fun, thoughtful rom-com celebrating... Read more

Pizza Girl

By: Jean Kyoung Frazier

Narrated by: Jeena Yi

Length: 5 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST • An audacious and wryly funny coming-of-age story about a pregnant pizza delivery girl who becomes obsessed with one of her customers.

Eighteen years old, pregnant, and working as a pizza delivery girl in suburban Los Angeles, our charmingly dysfunctional heroine is deeply lost and in complete denial. She's... Read more

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin

By: Roseanne A. Brown

Narrated by: Jordan Cobb & A.J Beckles

Length: 12 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

An instant New York Times bestseller!The first in a gripping fantasy duology inspired by West African folklore in which a grieving crown princess and a desperate refugee find themselves on a collision course to murder each other despite their growing attraction—from debut author Roseanne A. Brown. This New York Times bestseller is perfect for... Read more

The Second Home

By: Christina Clancy

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

Length: 12 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

Tender and compassionate, incisive and heartbreaking, Christina Clancy's The Second Home is the story of a family you'll quickly fall in love with, and won't soon forget.

This program includes a bonus conversation with the author.

After a disastrous summer spent at her family summer home on Cape Cod, seventeen-year-old Ann Gordon was left with a... Read more

Red Dress in Black and White

By: Elliot Ackerman

Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed

Length: 10 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

From the widely acclaimed author of Waiting for Eden: a stirring, timely new novel that unfolds over the course of a single day in Istanbul: the story of an American woman attempting to leave behind her life in Turkey--to leave without her husband.

Catherine has been married for many years to Murat, an influential Turkish real estate developer,... Read more

The Black Flamingo

By: Dean Atta

Narrated by: Dean Atta

Length: 3 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

Stonewall Book Award Winner * A Time Magazine Best YA Book of All TimeA fierce coming-of-age verse novel about identity and the power of drag, from acclaimed poet and performer Dean Atta. Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, Jason Reynolds, and Kacen Callender.Michael is a mixed-race gay teen growing up in London. All his life, he’s navigated... Read more