Powell’s Staff Favorites 2021

Writers & Lovers

A Novel

By: Lily King
Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
Length: 8 hours 13 minutes

“I have had this book since last fall, but have been *saving* it for the right time and I am so thrilled I waited. Quarantine is the perfect time to allow Lily King to bring you gently into the world she creates in Writers & Lovers. A young woman who has recently lost her mother is waiting for the world to make itself known to her. Stuck in a... Read more

A Woman Is No Man

A Novel

By: Etaf Rum
Narrated by: Ariana Delawari, Dahlia Salem & Susan Nezami
Length: 10 hours 15 minutes

“A Woman Is No Man gives a rare and terrifying look into the lives of three generations of Palestinian and Palestinian-American women. Readers are invited into the secret world of these women living in Palestine and then Brooklyn; we watch nervously as they try to navigate and reconcile their two worlds — the violent, patriarchal world at home... Read more

Wings of Shadow

Crown of Feathers

By: Nicki Pau Preto
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Ferdelle Capistrano, Michael Crouch, Gibson Frazier, Joy Osmanski & Jacques Roy
Length: 22 hours 40 minutes

In the heart-stopping finale to the Crown of Feathers trilogy, which #1 New York Times bestselling author Kendare Blake calls “absolutely unforgettable,” Veronyka must face her most devastating enemy yet: her own sister.

I had a sister, once…

​Veronyka is no longer an orphaned stable boy or a nameless Phoenix Rider apprentice: she is the daughter... Read more

White Magic

Essays

By: Elissa Washuta
Narrated by: Kyla García
Length: 11 hours 26 minutes

Throughout her life, Elissa Washuta has been surrounded by cheap facsimiles of Native spiritual tools and occult trends, "starter witch kits" of sage, rose quartz, and tarot cards packaged together in paper and plastic. Following a decade of abuse, addiction, PTSD, and heavy-duty drug treatment for a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, she felt... Read more

Under a White Sky

The Nature of the Future

By: Elizabeth Kolbert
Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
Length: 6 hours 21 minutes

“Under a White Sky is a scary book. It's about climate change, invasive species, and how Louisiana is disappearing into the ocean. It's about how humans, as a species, have screwed up the planet, and how we tend to screw it up more when we try to fix our mistakes. It's also about how we're developing a bunch of new fixes to go after our old... Read more

Tuesday Mooney Talks To Ghosts

An Adventure

By: Kate Racculia
Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
Length: 14 hours 6 minutes

“Tuesday Mooney is smart, intrepid, and just a little bit lost—even 20 years after her best friend disappears without a trace. A prospect researcher by trade, she dives in deep when a strange and reclusive billionaire dies and leaves puzzles throughout the city in an elaborate treasure hunt. While this fun and affecting book could have won me... Read more

The Sum of Us

What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

By: Heather McGhee
Narrated by: Heather McGhee
Length: 11 hours 8 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color.

WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • ONE... Read more

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires

By: Grady Hendrix
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 13 hours 48 minutes

“I don’t know about everyone else, but I, for one, am really excited that vampires are making a comeback. I think they’re such a fun trope in pretty much every genre, and this was no exception. True to the Grady Hendrix style, this book was the perfect campy, slightly off-kilter, and moderately gory suburban horror story I didn’t know I needed. Read more

Seek You

A Journey Through American Loneliness

By: Kristen Radtke
Narrated by: Kristen Radtke
Length: 1 hour 58 minutes

“In Seek You, Kristen Radtke approaches the epidemic of American loneliness from a variety of angles. A thoughtful exploration of a complex problem that offers understanding, not easy answers. Read more

Satisfaction Guaranteed

By: Karelia Stetz-Waters
Narrated by: Lori Prince
Length: 7 hours 52 minutes

For fans of Casey McQuiston and Abby Jimenez comes a bold, hilarious, and out-of-the-box novel about mixing business with battery-operated pleasure . . .

When it comes to her career, Cade Elgin has it all figured out. Only “professional talk” has become her default mode, relationships are nonexistent, and don’t even mention the word “orgasm.” All... Read more

Real Life

A Novel

By: Brandon Taylor
Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
Length: 9 hours 25 minutes

A FINALIST for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the VCU/Cabell First Novelist Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the NYPL Young Lions Award, and the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award 
 
“A blistering coming of age story” —O: The Oprah Magazine

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington... Read more

A Psalm for the Wild-Built

Monk & Robot: Book #1

By: Becky Chambers
Narrated by: Em Grosland
Length: 4 hours 8 minutes

“Imagine a world with many, many cups of tea. Doesn’t this world sound amazing? Doesn’t it calm you just to think of it? Sibling Dex makes people tea as a way of life, but they are still struggling to find meaning in the world. Just when they think they’re about to figure it out by seeking out the supposedly-extinct cricket song, they stumble... Read more

Piranesi

By: Susanna Clarke
Narrated by: Íñigo Álvarez de Lara
Length: 7 hours 29 minutes

Vuelve la autora de Jonathan Strange y el señor Norrell con una novela hipnótica ambientada en una realidad onírica. La casa de Piranesi no es un edificio cualquiera: sus habitaciones son monumentales, con paredes llenas de miles de estatuas, y sus pasillos, interminables. Dentro del dédalo de corredores hay un océano aprisionado en el que las... Read more

On Freedom

Four Songs of Care and Constraint

By: Maggie Nelson
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
Length: 10 hours 5 minutes

An expansive, exhilarating work of criticism by one of the most significant writers of our day.

So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to our autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom's long... Read more

Network Effect

Murderbot Diaries: Book #5

By: Martha Wells
Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
Length: 12 hours 47 minutes

“Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries has become one of my favorite series of all time, and Network Effect is a perfect addition. Murderbot is still trying to figure out what it wants after hacking its governor module. In the meantime, it spends its days protecting the humans it cares about. Of course, everything goes terribly wrong when a friend... Read more

Migrations

A Novel

By: Charlotte McConaghy
Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
Length: 8 hours 48 minutes

“Franny Stone is a broken person and a wanderer, haunted by her past in a near future world experiencing the sixth extinction. A lover of birds, she sets out to follow some of the last arctic terns on what is likely their last migration, gaining passage on a fishing boat searching for one more harvest. The eclectic crew is weary at first but... Read more

Little Thieves

Little Thieves: Book #1

By: Margaret Owen
Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
Length: 13 hours 59 minutes

“Vanja wants just one thing. She wants enough money to escape the life of servitude her godmothers, Death and Fortune have promised her. She has stolen many things, jewelry, clothes, money, and the identity of her former lady, the Princess Giselle. Cursed by a low god, Vanja only has a fortnight to return what she’s stolen before the jewels... Read more

How to Resist Amazon and Why

The Fight for Local Economics, Data Privacy, Fair Labor, Independent Bookstores, and a People-Powered Future!

By: Danny Caine
Narrated by: Danny Caine
Length: 3 hours 39 minutes

When a company's workers are literally dying on the job, and its business model relies on preying on local businesses and even their own companies, and its CEO is the richest person in the world while its workers make minimum wage with impossible quotas...wouldn't you want to resist? Danny Caine, owner of Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas,... Read more

House of Hollow

By: Krystal Sutherland
Narrated by: Eleanor Bennett
Length: 9 hours 10 minutes

A New York Times Bestseller!
An Instant Indie Bestseller!

A dark, twisty modern fairytale where three sisters discover they are not exactly all that they seem and evil things really do go bump in the night.

Iris Hollow and her two older sisters are unquestionably strange. Ever since they disappeared on a suburban street in Scotland as children only... Read more

Casa de tierra y sangre

By: Sarah J. Maas
Narrated by: Scarlett Bernal
Length: 28 hours 34 minutes

Con personajes inolvidables, un romance apasionante y un suspenso adictivo, esta nueva e inventiva serie de fantasía por la autora #1 del New York Times Sarah J. Maas explora el dolor de la pérdida, el precio de la libertad... y el poder del amor. Bryce Quinlan tenía una vida perfecta, trabajando todo el día y divirtiéndose toda la noche, hasta... Read more