Fall '24 Reading Guide

There is a Rio Grande in Heaven

Stories

By: Ruben Reyes Jr.
Narrated by: Johnny Rey Diaz
Length: 6 hours 8 minutes

“I do love a choose your own adventure story. Read more

Swim Home to the Vanished

A Novel

By: Brendan Shay Basham
Narrated by: Shaun Taylor-Corbett
Length: 7 hours 13 minutes

Shortlisted for the Reading the West Book Award in the Debut Fiction “Swim Home to the Vanished is a lush and fantastic journey through strange lands and minds from an incandescent new voice full of my kind of melancholic brilliance and unromantic magic.”—Tommy Orange, author of There, ThereAfter the death of his brother, a grief-stricken young... Read more

Time's Mouth

By: Edan Lepucki
Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan
Length: 16 hours 46 minutes

Ursa possesses a very special gift. She can travel through memory and revisit her past. After she flees her hometown for the counterculture glory of 1950s California, the intoxicating potential of her unique ability eventually draws a group of women into her orbit and into a ramshackle Victorian mansion in the woods outside Santa Cruz. Yet... Read more

Wednesday's Child

Stories

By: Yiyun Li
Narrated by: Yiyun Li
Length: 9 hours 38 minutes

This program is read by the author and includes an audio-only bonus story, Call Me Ishmael's Mother.

A new collection—about loss, alienation, aging, and the strangeness of contemporary life—by the award-winning, and inimitable, author of The Book of Goose.

A grieving mother makes a spreadsheet of everyone she’s lost. Elsewhere, a professor... Read more

Creation Lake

A Novel

By: Rachel Kushner
Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
Length: 11 hours 9 minutes

“This is an extraordinary novel, in terms of its unique and intricate plot, interwoven with ruminations on the history of humans. But what makes it so memorable is Kushner's spot-on reading. I have listened to this book twice and found it even richer the second time. Read more

We'll Prescribe You a Cat

By: Syou Ishida
Narrated by: Naruto Komatsu & Natsumi Kuroda
Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

A cat a day keeps the doctor away…

Discover the award-winning, bestselling Japanese novel that has become an international sensation in this utterly charming, vibrant celebration of the healing power of cats.

Tucked away in an old building at the end of a narrow alley in Kyoto, the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul can only be found by people who are... Read more

Blue Sisters: A Read with Jenna Pick

A Novel

By: Coco Mellors
Narrated by: Kit Griffiths
Length: 14 hours 26 minutes

“An engrossing account of three sisters struggling through the loss of their beloved sister and overcoming life’s trials in the midst of her unexpected death. This novel had me hooked like no other book I have ever read. The absolute sadness that seeps through the pages blankets the reader, resulting in a commitment to see if and how these... Read more

Colored Television (A GMA Book Club Pick)

A Novel

By: Danzy Senna
Narrated by: Kristen Ariza
Length: 10 hours 13 minutes

“Funny and insightful. The main couple’s “hate list” was all too relatable. Read more

The Life Impossible

A Novel

By: Matt Haig
Narrated by: Joanna Lumley & Jordan Stephens
Length: 10 hours 42 minutes

“Breathtaking down to the final sentence. This book is one that keeps you hanging on, makes you think deeply about life, and comforts you all at the same time. I wish I could experience it for the very first time all over again. Read more

Freedom Is a Feast

By: Alejandro Puyana
Narrated by: Luis Selgas, Blas Kisic, Graciela Valderrama & Ana Osorio
Length: 13 hours 44 minutes

“Freedom Is a Feast cleverly illustrates history’s repetition in both personal and political contexts via a multigenerational saga set in Venezuela. The story takes place around the rise and fall of Hugo Chávez, brought to power by revolution, only to cultivate corruption. In the 1960s, a young revolutionary falls in love, escapes capture, vows... Read more

The Palace of Eros

A Novel

By: Caro De Robertis
Narrated by: Caro De Robertis
Length: 11 hours 51 minutes

“If you liked The Song Of Achilles and Circe, you’ll love this sapphic subversive feminist retelling of the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros! Read more

The Home Guard: A Novel of the Civil War

By: John Warley
Narrated by: John Warley
Length: 12 hours 23 minutes

In 1861, a 12-year-old boy and his 80-year-old grandmother flee their elegant home along the Beaufort River to shelter in the wilderness of Cane Island, South Carolina. They struggle to survive as the Civil War lays waste to the existence they’ve known and loved, a way of life doomed from its unholy inception. Carter’s mother Anna has fled to... Read more

Hum

By: Helen Phillips
Narrated by: Ariel Blake
Length: 7 hours 9 minutes

“A dystopian look at cities, families, and AI in the future. Written in a taut, suspenseful, blunted style, one family goes through some very difficult times, just trying to survive. I listened on Libro.fm to this well produced story. Read more

The Seventh Veil of Salome

By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Narrated by: Caitlin Kelly, Atlanta Amado, Victoria Villarreal, Arthur Morey, Andrew Eiden, Kristen DiMercurio, Frankie Corzo, Lauren Fortgang, Javier Prusky, Fred Sanders, Lee Osorio & Cassandra Campbell
Length: 11 hours 49 minutes

GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • A young woman wins the role of a lifetime in a film about a legendary heroine—but the real drama is behind the scenes in this sumptuous historical epic from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

“Whenever I want to read a book I know will be good, I go to Silvia Moreno-Garcia.”—Taylor... Read more

Survival Is a Promise

The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde

By: Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Narrated by: Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Length: 17 hours 41 minutes

“This was a book written with a smile - it's so rich with humour and humanity, mischief and reverence, respect and curiosity. It's made me reflect on Lorde's work in new ways, in the ways with which I pick up poetry or look at rocks, or in the ways I think about the physical places we build to nurture writers. I loved every page and have since... Read more

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

A Memoir

By: Baek Sehee
Narrated by: Jully Lee
Length: 3 hours 56 minutes

“I truly enjoyed reading this book! Baek Sehee's use of conversations with her psychiatrist made me feel as if I was there with her in the office, learning about her mental health. Each chapter is a recording of her and her psychiatrist's actual conversations as well as an analysis of what she learned from that session. I think this is a great... Read more

I Heard There Was a Secret Chord

Music as Medicine

By: Daniel J. Levitin
Narrated by: Daniel J. Levitin
Length: 12 hours 17 minutes

Music is one of humanity’s oldest medicines. From the Far East to the Ottoman Empire, Europe to Africa and the pre-colonial Americas, many cultures have developed their own rich traditions for using sound and rhythm to ease suffering, promote healing, and calm the mind.

In his latest work, neuroscientist and New York Times best-selling author... Read more

We're Alone

Essays

By: Edwidge Danticat
Narrated by: Edwidge Danticat
Length: 4 hours 35 minutes

“One of my favorite authors is Edwidge Danticat; her writing is beautiful. She does a great job of narrating this book of essays. Danticat covers a lot of ground; from her childhood, to current events in Haiti. If you'd like to gain a sense of Haitian history and what it's like to be an immigrant from Haiti, this book is enlightening. From the... Read more

Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party

How an Eccentric Group of Victorians Discovered Prehistoric Creatures and Accidentally Upended the World

By: Edward Dolnick
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
Length: 8 hours 50 minutes

“A historical adventure about Victorian pioneers who uncovered dinosaur fossils and reshaped our understanding of Earth’s history. Focusing on eccentric figures like Mary Anning, William Buckland, and Richard Owen as they transform how we view the prehistoric world, this is an entertaining look at how the discovery of ancient fossils... Read more

Bright Young Women

A Novel

By: Jessica Knoll
Narrated by: Sutton Foster, Imani Jade Powers, Corey Brill & Chris Henry Coffey
Length: 12 hours 58 minutes

“This is absolutely perfect for the true crime fan who is sick of the victims constantly being forgotten. The perpetrator in this book is never named and only referred to as 'The Defendant', even though this is clearly a novel of Ted Bundy's victims. Nowhere in the synopsis or the book itself is he named, because he is not important, so people... Read more