Ellie's Staff Picks

The River Has Roots

By: Amal El-Mohtar
Narrated by: Gem Carmella
Length: 3 hours 53 minutes

“This beautiful tale of giving and getting warms the heart and reminds us to be creative in our approach to finding peace. Read more

Everything Is Tuberculosis

The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

By: John Green
Narrated by: John Green
Length: 5 hours 35 minutes

“The sort of focused take on a specific subject that gives you a firm grasp of the basic subject while also making you want to go look at the works cited and go learn more about specific aspects. If you're the sort of person to get lost on Wikipedia for hours after reading an article and following all the links out from it, you'll love this... Read more

Martyr!

A novel

By: Kaveh Akbar
Narrated by: Arian Moayed
Length: 10 hours 39 minutes

“This novel is so thoroughly modern, and Cyrus is such an American character—a millennial midwesterner with roots in Iran, a man trying to coalesce late-night 7-11 runs, ancient Farsi poetry, ideas of martyrdom, and Craigslist gigs. It's funny, smart, poetic, sad, and slightly weird. And the narration by actor Arian Moayed (from Succession) is... Read more

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

By: David Sedaris
Narrated by: David Sedaris
Length: 6 hours 18 minutes

“I will read everything this man ever writes. Read more

This Is How You Lose The Time War

By: Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell & Emily Woo Zeller
Length: 4 hours 15 minutes

“Such an interesting futuristic story! The battle of Red versus Blue - tech vs. garden - through time was a fun trip to read. I especially enjoyed how the main characters by fighting each other grew to love each other. It was also super nice to read a sci-fi book that isn't 1,000 pages long and still have enough detail that you aren't lost in the... Read more

The Song of Achilles

A Novel

By: Madeline Miller
Narrated by: Frazer Douglas
Length: 11 hours 14 minutes

“In this beautiful retelling of the classic Greek myth, Madeline Miller writes one of the most compelling and heart-wrenching love stories of the 21st Century. It is an ode to the past while also incorporating modern understanding, and I was continuously blown away by the emotions Miller was able to evoke in me while I was reading. For those of... Read more

On Beauty

By: Zadie Smith
Narrated by: Peter Francis James
Length: 18 hours 48 minutes

“"All is fair in love and...academia." On Beauty is an unflinching, harsh, full-bodied approach to family, politics, and academia. In this novel, a microcosm of opinionated, muddled, chaotic people unravels; their high-and-mighty ideals are called into question. Smith's novel is a challenging read; while scrutinizing the Belseys and the Kipps,... Read more

James

A Novel

By: Percival Everett
Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
Length: 7 hours 48 minutes

“James, Percival Everett's brilliant retelling of The Adventures of Hucklebery Finn, is a novel that was begging to be recorded. Everett's Jim, Huck's fellow runaway, is literate. He reads, writes, and is bilingual secretly (of course) -speaking 'slave' with his masters and when white folks are near, but with eloquent English (and occasionally,... Read more

Matrix

A Novel

By: Lauren Groff
Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
Length: 8 hours 51 minutes

“In this brilliant work of historical fiction, Lauren Groff reimagines a 12th century in which Marie of France, scorned by the French court and exiled to an impoverished English abbey, uses her keen intellect and iron will to smash through the patriarchy and become one of the most powerful women of her age...British actress Adjoa Andoh is a... Read more

Grey Dog

By: Elliott Gish
Narrated by: Natalie Naudus
Length: 10 hours 52 minutes

“Grey Dog, a diary-style narrative, offers a gripping exploration of one woman's descent into madness and subsequent liberation, akin to a blend of A24's Midsommar and M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. Gish's adept characterizations and captivating prose make it a must-read, leaving me in breathless anticipation for her future works. Read more

The Language of the Night

Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy

By: Ursula K. Le Guin
Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan & Michael Crouch
Length: TBA

“Delightful, refreshing, composed of words most warm and ever-welcoming. As a lover of all things Le Guin, even I expected this collection to be a rather dense, academic read (she is, after all, a brilliant mind, and essays on writing by such an author...I was excited for the challenge). I feel very humbled, by her humility. My surprise feels a... Read more

All The Beauty in the World

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

By: Patrick Bringley
Narrated by: Patrick Bringley
Length: 6 hours 3 minutes

“A truly lovely book that captures the sort of reverence and passion I feel for art museums. If you know me, you know that taking me to any art museum is bound to result in a whole day spent there. Bringley's memoir and his musings here are entertaining, moving, and resonate deeply. Read more

Carmilla - Unabridged

By: Sheridan Le Fanu
Narrated by: Sara Nichols
Length: 3 hours 9 minutes

“Loved this melodramatic, gothic, gift of a novella as a queer person, loved it as a horror fan, loved it as a classics enjoyer. Yay! Lesbian vampire! She did it first. Read more

Howards End

By: E. M. Forster
Narrated by: Steven Crossley
Length: 11 hours 51 minutes

“An eternally clever and nuanced novel about sisterhood, houses, and Beethoven's Fifth. Also, a cautionary tale about standing under too-full bookshelves. Read more

Private Rites

A Novel

By: Julia Armfield
Narrated by: Hannah van der Westhuysen
Length: 8 hours 28 minutes

“"What comes next?" The sort of novel that will rattle your bones, your ideals, and your sense of self; the sort of novel that sedates and seduces you, only allowing you to realize you've been caught dreaming in its web when it's far, far too late. 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

Butter Honey Pig Bread

By: Francesca Ekwuyasi
Narrated by: Amaka Umeh
Length: 12 hours 10 minutes

“Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi follows Kambirinachi and her twin daughters Kehinde and Taiye in alternating points of view. Although they love each other, their familial relationship is complicated and often painful. The story, while it meanders into the particulars of each main character’s life, follows the thread of their... 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

Sirens & Muses

A Novel

By: Antonia Angress
Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
Length: 13 hours 20 minutes

“Wow! This debut is an astonishingly assured and sophisticated novel about the art world. Set in a Pratt-like school of art, it depicts the trials and tribulations of a trio of art students and a hapless middle-aged artist, no longer productive, who supports himself with gigs in one school after another. Angress writes superbly about the act of... Read more

Roman Stories

By: Jhumpa Lahiri
Narrated by: Deepti Gupta, Carlotta Brentan, Cassandra Campbell, Ari Fliakos & Michael Obiora
Length: 6 hours 4 minutes

“Feels like running into someone you used to know, or learning secrets about strangers. Lahiri has a gift for communicating humanity and what it desires, fears, and survives. Read more