Staff Pick Saturday Features

My Jasper June

By: Laurel Snyder
Narrated by: Imani Parks
Length: 8 hours 27 minutes

“Laurel Snyder's latest middle grade novel is a pitch-perfect story of a girl dealing with loss, navigating friendship, and (re)learning to speak up for what she believes in. While it's not magical realism, suggestions of magic sparkle at the edges of the story--this theme parallels Leah's own coming of age in a world where she wants to believe... Read more

The House in the Cerulean Sea

By: TJ Klune
Narrated by: Daniel Henning
Length: 12 hours 12 minutes

“The House in the Cerulean Sea is a heart-swelling wave of sweetness and hope. Mild-mannered government caseworker Linus Baker is sent on a secret assignment to an island orphanage he’s never even heard of. The astonishing inhabitants he gets to know there will change his life and make him reassess everything he thought he knew. This book will... Read more

Parable of the Sower

Earthseed: Book #1

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

Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Octavia E. Butler paints a stunning portrait of an all-too-believable near future. As with Kindred and her other critically-acclaimed novels, Parable of the Sower skillfully combines startling visionary and socially realistic concepts. God is change. That is the central truth of the Earthseed movement, whose... Read more

Kindred

By: Octavia E. Butler
Narrated by: Kim Staunton
Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

The first science fiction written by a Black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of Black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably... Read more

Wild Seed

Patternist: Book #1

By: Octavia E. Butler
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Length: 11 hours 9 minutes

DDoro knows no higher authority than himself. An ancient spirit with boundless powers, he possesses humans, killing without remorse as he jumps from body to body to sustain his own life. With a lonely eternity ahead of him, Doro breeds supernaturally gifted humans into empires that obey his every desire. He fears no one—until he meets Anyanwu. ... Read more

Cemetery Boys

By: Aiden Thomas
Narrated by: Avi Roque
Length: 13 hours 47 minutes

“"Listening to Cemetery Boys made me smile. A lot. Aiden Thomas presents a story of persistence, mystery, and finding one’s place in the world. Yadriel, a trans, teenage, latinx boy, lives in a family of brujos and brujas. After coming out as trans his family does not know where he fits within their traditions. With the help of his opinionated... Read more

My Rainbow

By: DeShanna Neal & Trinity Neal
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Length: 7 minutes

A dedicated mom puts love into action as she creates the perfect rainbow-colored wig for her transgender daughter, based on the real-life experience of mother-daughter advocate duo Trinity and DeShanna Neal.

Warm morning sunlight and love fill the Neal home. And on one quiet day, playtime leads to an important realization:Trinity wants long hair... Read more

All Adults Here

A Novel

By: Emma Straub
Narrated by: Emily Rankin
Length: 11 hours 4 minutes

“A single sudden and shocking occurrence jolts Astrid Strick — widow, mother, and small-town stalwart — into reassessing her life, especially her failings with her three grown children. Even as she tries to find a path toward redemption, it’s clear her offspring are nursing different hurts. Straub’s lovely and charming comic novel explores the... Read more

The Vacationers

By: Emma Straub
Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
Length: 6 hours 39 minutes

An irresistible, deftly observed novel about the secrets, joys, and jealousies that rise to the surface over the course of an American family’s two-week stay in Mallorca.

For the Posts, a two-week trip to the Balearic island of Mallorca with their extended family and friends is a celebration: Franny and Jim are observing their thirty-fifth... Read more

Fairest

A Memoir

By: Meredith Talusan
Narrated by: Meredith Talusan
Length: 8 hours 46 minutes

Finalist for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction
 
"Talusan sails past the conventions of trans and immigrant memoirs." --The New York Times Book Review

"A ball of light hurled into the dark undertow of migration and survival." --Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

A love story with the heart of Austen... Read more

First, Become Ashes

By: K.M. Szpara
Narrated by: Aaron Landon, Avi Roque, Briggon Snow & Graham Halstead
Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

K. M. Szpara follows his explosive debut novel Docile with First, Become Ashes, a fantastic standalone adventure that explores self-discovery after trauma and outgrowing abusive origins over the course of an American road trip.


The Fellowship raised Lark to kill monsters.
His partner betrayed them to the Feds.
But Lark knows his magic is real, and... Read more

Docile

By: K.M. Szpara
Narrated by: Mark Sanderlin & Vikas Adam
Length: 16 hours 31 minutes

“People will often refer to a book as one that’s ‘unlike anything they’ve ever read before,’ but for maybe the first time in my reading life, I can honestly say that about K.M. Szpara’s Docile. This erotic speculative science fiction novel takes place in a frighteningly plausible future where people become ‘dociles’ — essentially indentured... Read more

Filthy Animals

By: Brandon Taylor
Narrated by: Kevin R. Free, Nicole Lewis & TL Thompson
Length: 7 hours 42 minutes

“These stories about human relationships range from those between lovers, friends, and family. How is it that Taylor can write so that we can see the interior crevices of these characters’ souls? Read more

The Prophets

By: Robert Jones, Jr.
Narrated by: Karen Chilton
Length: 14 hours 52 minutes

“This was quite the stunning debut - I loved the meta quality of the narration and the overall lyrical writing style. A powerful and commanding story! Read more

King and the Dragonflies

By: Kacen Callender
Length: 5 hours 3 minutes

“Kingston (King) James and his parents are grieving the loss of Khalid-- King's older brother. When Khalid was alive and the two shared a bedroom, he would talk in his sleep, telling his younger brother stories about the universe and its magic. King continues to see Khalid in his dreams, and is convinced Khalid has transformed into a dragonfly.... Read more

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

By: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Narrated by: Laural Merlington
Length: 10 hours 18 minutes

Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the U.S. settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history.

Roxanne... Read more

With Teeth

A Novel

By: Kristen Arnett
Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
Length: 8 hours 48 minutes

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, VOGUE,  MARIE CLAIRE, READER'S DIGEST, AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

“A gripping read…Unabashedly queer, probing and unafraid…Exceedingly engaging.” –USA Today

“Sublimely weird, fluently paced, brazenly funny and gayer still, and it richly deserves to find readers.” –New York Times

From the author of... Read more

How to Become a Planet

By: Nicole Melleby
Narrated by: Rachel Jacobs
Length: 6 hours 52 minutes

“When Pluto is diagnosed with depression and anxiety she feels like a completely different person; unable to complete simple tasks such as getting out of bed, unable to relate to her friends, unable to finish 7th grade. Pluto has a deep love of anything space related and frames her world and her experiences using space analogies. Why was Pluto a... Read more

This Is How It Always Is

A Novel

By: Laurie Frankel
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
Length: 10 hours 59 minutes

The Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick

*Named one of the top 10 books of 2017 by People Magazine*

“It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think.” —Liane Moriarty, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Little Lies

This is how a family keeps a secret…and how that secret ends up keeping them.

This is how a family lives... Read more

Under the Rainbow

A Novel

By: Celia Laskey
Narrated by: Phoebe Strole, Abigail Revasch, Will Damon, Lisa Flanagan, Michael Crouch, Kaleo Griffith, Kristen Sieh, Jonathan Todd Ross, Dani Martineck, Brittany Pressley & Lorna Raver
Length: 7 hours 40 minutes

Longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize

“Delivered with such conviction and grace … fresh … essential.” —The New York Times Book Review

When outsiders on a mission arrive to change a small town’s attitudes, residents and newcomers alike end up transformed.

Big Burr, Kansas is the kind of place where everyone seems to know... Read more