Contemporary Fiction Book Club

Stay with Me

A novel

By: Ayobami Adebayo
Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
Length: 7 hours 59 minutes

A New York Times Notable Book
The New York Times’ Critics’ Top Books of the Year
Named a Best Book of the Year by San Francisco Chronicle, National Public Radio, The Economist, Buzzfeed, Paste Magazine, Southern Living, HelloGiggles, and Shelf Awareness
Huffington Post’s Best Feminist Books of the Year
The New York Post’s Most Thrilling and... Read more

Trespasses

A Novel

By: Louise Kennedy
Narrated by: Bríd Brennan
Length: 8 hours 58 minutes

“Trespasses is set during the Troubles and explores the relationship of a Catholic woman and a Protestant man. Interesting concept as the bleakness of the subject is intertwined with daily life. The lore of the Irish is spellbinding. They know how to tell stories and are always page-turners. I love their gift of gab. Read more

Lessons in Chemistry

A Novel

By: Bonnie Garmus
Narrated by: Miranda Raison, Bonnie Garmus & Pandora Sykes
Length: 11 hours 55 minutes

“I listened to this customer favorite on my final runs during my half-marathon training. What a delight! I almost forgot the pain in my knees and kept on running past my assigned mileage--just like a rower. Bonnie Garmus has packed in many hard themes like sexual harassment, assault, and inequality in the work place while creating a cast of the... Read more

Foster

By: Claire Keegan
Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
Length: 1 hour 26 minutes

“This moving story of a young girl taken to live for a brief time with relatives is the perfect quick listen. There are vast differences between the girl’s crowded child-filled home and the quiet home of her relatives. Equally great are the differences in parenting given by her parents and the couple she comes to stay with. Told in first person... Read more

Small Things Like These

By: Claire Keegan
Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
Length: 1 hour 56 minutes

“A small and beautiful book of an Irish man and his discovery of a disturbing secret in the convent - highly recommended! One of my Top 3 Books of 2021! Read more

The Double Bind

A Novel

By: Chris Bohjalian
Narrated by: Susan Denaker
Length: 11 hours 34 minutes

As the New York Times has said, “Few writers can manipulate a plot with [Chris] Bohjalian’s grace and power.” Now he is back with an ambitious new novel that travels between Jay Gatsby’s Long Island and rural New England, between the Roaring Twenties and the twenty-first century.
When college sophomore Laurel Estabrook is attacked while riding... Read more

The Leftovers

A Novel

By: Tom Perrotta
Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
Length: 10 hours 15 minutes

With heart, intelligence and a rare ability to illuminate the struggles inherent in ordinary lives, Tom Perrotta's The Leftovers—now adapted into an HBO series—is a startling, thought-provoking novel about love, connection and loss.

What if—whoosh, right now, with no explanation—a number of us simply vanished? Would some of us collapse? Would... Read more

Convenience Store Woman

By: Sayaka Murata
Narrated by: Nancy Wu
Length: 3 hours 21 minutes

“Keiko loves rules. Having worked a part-time job in a Japanese convenience store for 18 years, she loves having a corporate script to recite, sales goals to reach, and a list of tasks to complete. What she doesn't love - or even understand - are the more complicated rules of society at large. She doesn't want a husband, or children, or a real... Read more

Circe

By: Madeline Miller
Narrated by: Perdita Weeks
Length: 12 hours 8 minutes

“I'm late this to this party but so happy I made it. As a bookseller, this is one of those remarkable books that appeal to so many audiences. My teen staff loved it as did my 18-year-old son who grew up reading mythology. I learned quite a bit about Homer's Iliad and The Odyssey (something I missed in my formal education) and the original... Read more

The Lincoln Highway

A Read with Jenna Pick (A Novel)

By: Amor Towles
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Marin Ireland & Dion Graham
Length: 16 hours 38 minutes

“Like so many other Amor Towles fans, I’ve been impatiently awaiting his next novel, so I delved right in and didn’t totally emerge until a few days later! As always with his work, it’s immersively readable and his word crafting is such a pleasure. What’s happening in the characters’ lives is chaotic and unsettled, but Towles’ writing is as... Read more

Station Eleven

A Novel (National Book Award Finalist)

By: Emily St. John Mandel
Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
Length: 10 hours 39 minutes

“I never knew an apocalypse could be so peaceful. "Station Eleven" is the perfect tragedy and the perfect comedy, worthy of its traveling Shakespeare performers indeed. Its story is ingenious, its prose haunting, its characters dynamic and their actions remarkably bold. Read more

Nothing to See Here

By: Kevin Wilson
Narrated by: Marin Ireland
Length: 6 hours 40 minutes

“Did Lillian know her life would be changed forever when she met her boarding school roommate Madison? Probably not. Madison isn't like the other rich girls at school, and the fact that Lillian is a scholarship kid doesn't phase her. Things take a turn when Madison gets caught with coke. Flash forward roughly 10 years: even though the friends... Read more

Cloud Cuckoo Land

A Novel

By: Anthony Doerr
Narrated by: Marin Ireland & Simon Jones
Length: 14 hours 51 minutes

“Spanning centuries and continents—from 15th-century Constantinople to a small-town library in present-day Idaho to a spaceship in the not-so-distant future—this story follows five dreamers whose lives are unexpectedly connected by an ancient tale about a man who longs to become a bird and fly to a utopian paradise in the sky. It's a sweeping,... Read more

Anxious People

A Novel

By: Fredrik Backman
Narrated by: Marin Ireland
Length: 9 hours 53 minutes

“Anxious People is about a hostage situation gone wrong where every character is connected in a way that isn't immediately obvious. Each chapter reveals new details that further invest the reader, up the stakes, and adds complexity to the situation and characters. The humor was fantastic, even as an American that knows nothing about Swedish slang... Read more

The Shadow of the Wind

By: Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
Length: 18 hours 4 minutes

“The author is a pianist and frequently sat at his piano while writing this book. He wrote a complete soundtrack to the book and the music is included in the audiobook narrated by Jonathan Davis. Davis is fantastic at keeping true to the voice of the novel. Plus, his pronunciation is spot on. I learned the correct way to pronounce Barcelona! This... Read more

Men Without Women

Stories

By: Haruki Murakami
Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
Length: 7 hours 17 minutes

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Including the story "Drive My Car”—now an Academy Award–nominated film—this collection from the internationally acclaimed author "examines what happens to characters without important women in their lives; it'll move you and confuse you and sometimes leave you with more questions than answers" (Barack Obama).

Across seven... Read more

A Woman of No Importance

The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II

By: Sonia Purnell
Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
Length: 13 hours 53 minutes

“Fans of World War II, Women’s and Resistance History will love this biography of Virginia Hall. The story is told like a spy THRILLER and every page is riveting!! Sonia Purnell’s years of extensive research tells the extraordinary tale of a very brave female American spy behind enemy lines during World War II in occupied France. Virginia Hall... Read more

Deacon King Kong (Oprah's Book Club)

A Novel

By: James McBride
Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
Length: 14 hours 5 minutes

“ James McBride has written a masterpiece with Deacon King Kong. The writing is a tapestry of story lines woven together with the skill of a master craftsman. The narrating is in a class by itself. This is absolutely the perfect book to lose yourself in. Straight up 10! Read more

The Sweetness of Water (Oprah’s Book Club)

A Novel

By: Nathan Harris
Narrated by: William DeMeritt
Length: 12 hours 7 minutes

“"Sometimes, just sometimes, hope was enough." The inhabitants of Old Ox, a Georgia town undergoing Reconstruction, feel painfully and impossibly real; they will bemuse, inspire, and challenge you. Read more

American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club)

A Novel

By: Jeanine Cummins
Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
Length: 16 hours 55 minutes

“American Dirt is a beautiful, heartbreaking odyssey, a vivid world filled with angels and demons, one I only wanted to leave so I could get my heart out of my throat. Cartel violence sends a mother and her son careening north from Acapulco toward the relative safety of the United States, and every moment of their journey is rendered in frantic,... Read more