100 Notable Books of 2017

American War

A novel

By: Omar El Akkad
Narrated by: Dion Graham
Length: 12 hours 21 minutes

“Omar El Akkad has delivered a stunning debut. He imagines a world in a not-too-distant future where Americans are at war with each other once again. The characters in this story are fully developed and individual, yet their histories - their stories - extend into the histories of all those displaced and affected by the forces of war. The title,... Read more

Anything Is Possible

A Novel

By: Elizabeth Strout
Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
Length: 8 hours 28 minutes

“Anything Is Possible merges the interlocking story form of Strout's Olive Kitteridge with the characters from My Name Is Lucy Barton. No one captures both the decency and cruelty of small towns the way Strout does-the kindness of a school janitor, the merciless taunts an impoverished child must endure. Mothers and daughters are a frequent theme,... Read more

Bad Dreams and Other Stories

By: Tessa Hadley
Narrated by: Emma Gregory
Length: 5 hours 50 minutes

The award-winning author of The Past once again "crystallizes the atmosphere of ordinary life in prose somehow miraculous and natural" (Washington Post), in a collection of stories that elevate the mundane into the exceptional.The author of six critically acclaimed novels, Tessa Hadley has proven herself to be the champion of revealing the... Read more

A Boy in Winter

A Novel

By: Rachel Seiffert
Narrated by: Mark Deakins
Length: 7 hours 12 minutes

Early on a grey November morning in 1941, only weeks after the German invasion, a small Ukrainian town is overrun by the SS. This new novel from the award-winning author of the Booker Prize short-listed The Dark Room tells of the three days that follow and the lives that are overturned in the process.

Penned in with his fellow Jews, under threat... Read more

The Changeling

A Novel

By: Victor LaValle
Narrated by: Victor LaValle
Length: 14 hours 1 minute

“Mesmerizing . . . a dark fairy tale of New York, full of magic and loss, myth and mystery, love and madness.”—Marlon James, author of the Dark Star trilogy

NOW AN APPLE TV+ SERIES STARRING LAKEITH STANFIELD • ONE OF TIME’S 100 BEST FANTASY BOOKS OF ALL TIME

Winner of an American Book Award, a Locus Award for Best Horror Novel, a British Fantasy... Read more

The Dinner Party

Stories

By: Joshua Ferris
Narrated by: Zach Roe, Chris Kayser, Nicholas Tecosky & Jennifer Riker
Length: 7 hours 4 minutes

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year: The first collection of short stories from the critically acclaimed, prize-winning author of To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

These eleven stories by Joshua Ferris, many of which were first published in The New Yorker, are at once thrilling, strange, and comic. The modern tribulations of... Read more

The Essex Serpent

A Novel

By: Sarah Perry
Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
Length: 14 hours 44 minutes

“If you love mystery, Victorian England, and exploring the tension between science and religion, you will love The Essex Serpent. Many contemporary authors manage to evoke for readers that experience of reading Jane Austen or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for the first time. The real miracle of Sarah Perry is that she manages to do so with a completely... Read more

Exit West

A Novel

By: Mohsin Hamid
Narrated by: Mohsin Hamid
Length: 4 hours 41 minutes

“Exit West will take your breath away as it magically weaves together a story of falling in love while the world falls apart. Spirited Nadia captures the heart of the thoughtful Saeed, but as their different paths in life converge, ordinary life gives way to the insults of war. Mohsin Hamid conveys the story of these young refugees with... Read more

Five-Carat Soul

By: James McBride
Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Nile Bullock, Prentice Onayemi & Dominic Hoffman
Length: 8 hours 33 minutes

“Sometimes after I've read a great book by an author, I judge. When I picked up a copy of James McBride's new collection of stories, Five-Carat Soul, I was prepared to be disappointed; how could he top The Good Lord Bird? Was I ever surprised, in the best way possible! These stories have all the magnificent qualities of his National Book... Read more

Forest Dark

A Novel

By: Nicole Krauss
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
Length: 8 hours 12 minutes

“No surprise: Forest Dark was worth the wait. Tapping into intellectual and deeply personal moments, the two main characters are ones to identify with even as the circumstances they find themselves in are fantastic. Krauss' reflections about marriage are poignant, and there is a lot to contemplate. At first, I enjoyed having moments when I wasn't... Read more

4 3 2 1

A Novel

By: Paul Auster
Narrated by: Paul Auster
Length: 36 hours 53 minutes

“If you're like me, when you read fiction, you like seeing how the protagonist changes and grows as they adapt to new situations. Paul Auster's 4 3 2 1 is a love letter to character development. How do the initial conditions of a person's life change their personality? What major events influence our decisions, loves, peeves, habits, or... Read more

Fresh Complaint

Stories

By: Jeffrey Eugenides
Narrated by: Jeffrey Eugenides, Ari Fliakos & Cynthia Nixon
Length: 8 hours 2 minutes

"The theme of complaint extends beyond the title story, but for listeners the key takeaway is the word 'fresh.' Jeffrey Eugenides's fresh writing...showcases his originality and — since he also narrates it — his ability to navigate multiple accents and personalities." — AudioFile Magazine

The first collection of short fiction from Pulitzer... Read more

Future Home of the Living God

A Novel

By: Louise Erdrich
Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
Length: 10 hours 43 minutes

“Powerful, prophetic, and absolutely pertinent to our times, Louise Erdrich's new novel, Future Home of the Living God, is a horrifying, haunting story about the lengths the government will go to control women's reproductive rights and ensure the success of mankind as we know it. Riveting, repulsive, and revealing at the same time, Erdrich... Read more

Home Fire

A Novel

By: Kamila Shamsie
Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
Length: 7 hours 53 minutes

“One finishes reading Kamila Shamsie's extraordinary Home Fire completely stunned. She has written a brilliant story about two families who share geography and become linked by fate - one that has known exile, death, and family mystery, and another that has adapted to the so-called mainstream. Family, religion, the politics of media, various... Read more

Ill Will

A Novel

By: Dan Chaon
Narrated by: Ari Fliakos, Edoardo Ballerini, Michael Crouch, Alex McKenna & Scott Aiello
Length: 14 hours 54 minutes

“Ill Will is a house of mirrors reflecting intergenerational psychodramas in which the abuses of a parent insidiously infect subsequent generations. Violent parricide, false memories, drugs, and sex fuel a double plot line and vivid character development and taut dialog propel the reader as scene shifts blur the roles of the offender and the... Read more

A Kind of Freedom

By: Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly, Bahni Turpin & Adenrele Ojo
Length: 8 hours 12 minutes

Evelyn is a Creole woman who comes of age in New Orleans at the height of World War II. Her family inhabits the upper echelon of black society, and when she falls for no-name Renard, she is forced to choose between her life of privilege and the man she loves.In 1982, Evelyn’s daughter Jackie is a frazzled single mother grappling with her absent... Read more

Less (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)

A Novel

By: Andrew Sean Greer
Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
Length: 8 hours 17 minutes

“When novelist Arthur Less learns that his longtime boyfriend is marrying another man, he accepts every invitation he's received and travels around the world. This novel of a man facing 50 and looking back at his life and love is an utter delight. Read more

Lincoln in the Bardo

A Novel

By: George Saunders
Narrated by: George Saunders, Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, Carrie Brownstein, Don Cheadle, Lena Dunham, Bill Hader, Kirby Heyborne, Keegan-Michael Key, Julianne Moore, Megan Mullally, Susan Sarandon, Ben Stiller & Various
Length: 7 hours 24 minutes

“This was my first audiobook and i've been devoted to them ever since. This novel was one-of-a-kind to begin with, so it's no wonder it took a cast of over one hundred actors to realize it in audio. I will admit, at first I found the citations jarring - yes, real and fictional historical sources presented mid-narrative - but by the end they were... Read more

Manhattan Beach

A Novel

By: Jennifer Egan
Narrated by: Norbert Leo Butz, Heather Lind & Vincent Piazza
Length: 15 hours 16 minutes

“Jennifer Egan's Manhattan Beach captures a time and place on the verge of momentous change. Set in Brooklyn in the 1940s, the novel tells the story of Anna Kerrigan, a young woman who has dropped out of Brooklyn College to contribute what she can to the American war effort. Unsatisfied with her job of inspecting and measuring machine parts,... Read more

Mrs. Osmond

A novel

By: John Banville
Narrated by: Amy Finegan
Length: 12 hours 2 minutes

From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, a dazzling and audacious new novel that extends the story of Isabel Archer, the heroine of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, into unexpected territory.

Isabel Archer is a young American woman, swept off to Europe in the late nineteenth century by an aunt who hopes to round out the impetuous... Read more