Ostentatious October Staff Picks

The Book of Two Ways

A Novel

By: Jodi Picoult
Narrated by: Patti Murin
Length: 15 hours 47 minutes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Small Great Things and A Spark of Light comes a “powerful” (The Washington Post) novel about the choices that alter the course of our lives.

Look for Jodi Picoult’s new novel, By Any Other Name, now available!

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MARIE CLAIRE

Everything changes in a single... Read more

The Death of Vivek Oji

A Novel

By: Akwaeke Emezi
Narrated by: Yetide Badaki & Chukwudi Iwuji
Length: 7 hours 38 minutes

“The Death of Vivek Oji feels like an extended meditation on queerness and transness. In a country like Nigeria, where these identities are criminalized, it’s especially true for trans people that only they know what is best for them, though this will not stop well-meaning friends and family. Emezi’s heartbreaking parable invites readers to... Read more

The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes

A Novel

By: Elissa R. Sloan
Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Natalie Naudus, Jayme Mattler, Piper Goodeve, Caitlin Kelly, Megan Tusing & Stephen Graybill
Length: 12 hours

“The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes is a page-turning peek inside the glamour and brutality of life as a pop star. Sloan takes us on a wild ride through the world of music video shoots, expensive hotels, and arena tours—showing us the darkness that threatens just below the surface.” —Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy... Read more

Find Me

A Novel

By: André Aciman
Narrated by: Michael Stuhlbarg
Length: 8 hours 4 minutes

"[Narrator Michael Stuhlbarg's] elegant performance and Aciman's sensitive writing keep things touching without ever being sentimental. Wonderful listening." — AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner

This program is read by Michael Stuhlbarg, the actor who played Professor Samuel Perlman in Luca Guadagnino's critically-acclaimed film, Call... Read more

Transcendent Kingdom: A Read with Jenna Pick

A novel

By: Yaa Gyasi
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 8 hours 40 minutes

“This is a flippin’ gorgeous book. The writing is exquisite, the story is moving, and the characters are rendered with the skill of a true artist. Can you tell that I enjoyed this? Transcendent Kingdom is about Gifty, a young neuroscientist studying addiction. We come into her story just as she has taken her depressed mother into her care and is... Read more

Squeeze Me

A novel

Skink Series

By: Carl Hiaasen
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Length: 11 hours 39 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A hilarious novel of social and political intrigue, set against the glittering backdrop of Florida’s gold coast, from the author of Skinny Dip and Razor Girl

“If you could use some wild escapism right now, Hiaasen is your guy.” —The New York Times

WITH A NEW EPILOGUE

At the height of Palm Beach’s charity ball season,... Read more

The Second Home

A Novel

By: Christina Clancy
Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
Length: 12 hours 22 minutes

“Anne and Poppy are sisters who have taken very different roads in life. Growing up in Wisconsin, they enjoyed their Summers at their run-down cottage on the Cape with their adoring parents. When they were in their teens, their parents adopted a sixteen-year-old named Michael. For some time the family lived in peaceful harmony until a... Read more

Leave the World Behind

A Novel

By: Rumaan Alam
Narrated by: Marin Ireland
Length: 7 hours 26 minutes

“This fraught and claustrophobic psychological thriller begins innocently enough, with a family leaving New York for a long weekend at a rented house near the beach. They enjoy the luxury and languor of their getaway, until the house's owners, an older Black couple, show up unexpectedly, late at night, fleeing from a wide-spread power outage in... Read more

The Guest List

A Novel

By: Lucy Foley
Narrated by: Jot Davies, Chloe Massey, Olivia Dowd, Aoife McMahon, Sarah Ovens & Rich Keeble
Length: 10 hours 22 minutes

“A murder mystery page turner where everyone has a secret! The perfect posh wedding is planned for a celebrity couple on an island off the coast of Ireland. But things go awry when a storm hits and someone is murdered. Told from the point of view of well drawn and in some cases very unlikeable, characters. There are multiple suspects and secrets... Read more

The Roommate

The Shameless Series: Book #1

By: Rosie Danan
Narrated by: Brittany Pressley & Teddy Hamilton
Length: 10 hours 46 minutes

"Warmly funny and gorgeously sexy."—New York Times Book Review

A LibraryReads Pick

House Rules:
Do your own dishes
Knock before entering the bathroom
Never look up your roommate online
 
The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She’s the consummate socialite:... Read more

The Lies That Bind

A Novel

By: Emily Giffin
Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Will Damron & Vikas Adam
Length: 10 hours 44 minutes

“Cecily is heartbroken over a recent break-up with her boyfriend. She decides to go out for a beer to drown her sorrows. As she places a call to her ex, a very handsome gentleman approaches her and tells her to hang up. They begin a conversation, and Grant tells her about his life. He neglects to tell her some very important information about... Read more

Parable of the Sower

Earthseed: Book #1

By: Octavia E. Butler
Narrated by: Lynne Thigpen
Length: 12 hours 2 minutes

“Heartbreaking, disturbing, inspiring, and powerful, Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower is the OG young adult dystopian lit, written before the genre even came into being. This book will make you stay up all night reading, and it is full of big ideas that will give you tools to face the challenges that face our world and country today and... Read more

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

A Novel

The Carls: Book #2

By: Hank Green
Narrated by: Kristen Sieh, Joe Hempel, Jesse Vilinsky, Nicole Lewis, Kevin R. Free, Hank Green, Robert Petkoff, Angelo Di Loreto, Oliver Wyman, Hillary Huber, P.J. Ochlan & Gabra Zackman
Length: 15 hours 45 minutes

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Who has the right to change the world forever? 
How will we live online? 
How do we find comfort in an increasingly isolated world?
 
The Carls disappeared the same way they appeared, in an instant. While the robots were on Earth, they caused confusion and destruction with only their presence. Part of their... Read more

Hench

A Novel

By: Natalie Zina Walschots
Narrated by: Alex McKenna
Length: 14 hours 14 minutes

“In a world where super heroes and super villains are commonplace, there are some very interesting opportunities for employment. For example: henching, or signing on to handle basic (and usually boring) tasks for your local villain—think data entry. But when Anna's employer is brought down by the hero Supercollider and she's badly hurt in the... Read more

Yellow Bird

Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country

By: Sierra Crane Murdoch
Narrated by: Sierra Crane Murdoch
Length: 14 hours 56 minutes

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • The gripping true story of a murder on an Indian reservation, and the unforgettable Arikara woman who becomes obsessed with solving it—an urgent work of literary journalism.

“I don’t know a more complicated, original protagonist in literature than Lissa Yellow Bird, or a more dogged reporter in American journalism than... Read more

The Socrates Express

In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers

By: Eric Weiner
Narrated by: Eric Weiner
Length: 11 hours 20 minutes

The New York Times bestselling author of The Geography of Bliss embarks on a rollicking intellectual journey, following in the footsteps of history’s greatest thinkers and showing us how each—from Epicurus to Gandhi, Thoreau to Beauvoir—offers practical and spiritual lessons for today’s unsettled times.

We turn to philosophy for the same reasons... Read more

A Song Below Water

A Novel

A Song Below Water: Book #1

By: Bethany C. Morrow
Narrated by: Andrea Laing & Jennifer Haralson
Length: 9 hours 23 minutes

“A Song Below Water was a great listen! The narrators were fantastic. I think teen readers will connect to Tavia and Effie's identity journeys. A standout YA fantasy! Read more

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London

By: Garth Nix
Narrated by: Marisa Calin
Length: 11 hours 15 minutes

A girl's quest to find her father leads her to an extended family of magical fighting booksellers who police the mythical Old World of England when it intrudes on the modern world. From the bestselling master of teen fantasy, Garth Nix.

In a slightly alternate London in 1983, Susan Arkshaw is looking for her father, a man she has never met. Crime... Read more

Fable

A Novel

The World of the Narrows: Book #1

By: Adrienne Young
Narrated by: Emma Lysy
Length: 8 hours 51 minutes

“This story makes for a perfect audiobook! It is one of adventures at sea, an island of thieves, a handsome young sailor, and a girl who is determined to find her place in the world even if the journey will kill her. A very fast-paced and exciting read that will make it almost impossible to press pause on. Read more

Like the Willow Tree (Dear America)

Dear America

By: Lois Lowry
Narrated by: Sara Barnett
Length: 4 hours 10 minutes

Two-time Newbery Award-winning author Lois Lowry brings a brand-new, beautiful diary to the Dear America series!Two-time Newbery Award-winning author Lois Lowry brings a brand-new, beautiful diary to the Dear America series!Suddenly orphaned by the Spanish flu epidemic in the fall of 1918, eleven-year-old Lydia Pierce and her fourteen-year-old... Read more