Peggy's Picks

Death Valley

A Novel

By: Melissa Broder
Narrated by: Melissa Broder
Length: 5 hours 9 minutes

“Lately, I seem to be drawn to books that feature 40-year-old main characters, which I simultaneously both love and hate. Love that I can relate to the struggles, sorrows, and transformations that pull the story together. Hate that the process of dying and the finality of death is a central focus. Even though this is a story based on different... Read more

The Whalebone Theatre: A Read with Jenna Pick

A Novel

By: Joanna Quinn
Narrated by: Olivia Vinall
Length: 18 hours 22 minutes

“The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn is my favorite book of 2022. The setting, the coast of England after WWI and through WWII, is one of my favorite for historical fiction. Quinn’s gorgeous use of language takes the already compelling story and complex characters into another realm. I couldn’t put it down, yet I didn’t want it to end. Read more

This Isn't Going to End Well

The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew

By: Daniel Wallace
Narrated by: Michael Crouch
Length: 6 hours 15 minutes

“How well do we know those closest to us? And what do they owe us, and we them? This Isn't Going to End Well, Daniel Wallace's deeply personal account of his decades of near-worship of his brother-in-law, replaced by a cold bitterness, had me asking these questions. I at times felt as if I was reading an intensely personal journal not meant for... Read more

All the Broken Places

A Novel

By: John Boyne
Narrated by: Kristin Atherton & Helen Lloyd
Length: 12 hours 41 minutes

“You can’t prepare yourself for the magnitude and emotional impact of this powerful novel.” —John Irving, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The World According to Garp

“Exceptional, layered and compelling…This book moves like a freight train.” —Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of In Love

From the New York Times bestselling... Read more

This is Happiness

By: Niall Williams
Narrated by: Dermot Crowley
Length: 14 hours 26 minutes

Change is coming to Faha, a small Irish parish unaltered in a thousand years.
For one thing, the rain is stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living. But now - just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity - the rain clouds are lifting. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling... Read more

The Dutch House

A Novel

By: Ann Patchett
Narrated by: Tom Hanks
Length: 9 hours 52 minutes

“Any novel by Ann Patchett is going to include little sparks of description that catch in the imagination, moments of dialogue so good that you forget later you weren't there, and stories that capture your heart as well as a zeitgeist. In The Dutch House, Patchett creates a narrator standing at the intersection of poverty, dream, privilege, and... Read more

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

By: George Saunders
Narrated by: George Saunders, Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman, Glenn Close, Keith David, Rainn Wilson, BD Wong & Renée Elise Goldsberry
Length: 14 hours 43 minutes

“This masterclass for writers is also a masterclass for readers, and you don't have to be a writer to enjoy it. Through his wise insights on storytelling, Saunders sent me away with an understanding of why I enjoy reading what I do, how stories work, and how to be a better storyteller (and human) in all rights. 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 one of the three best books I have ever read. Not since Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad has a book affected me so greatly. From the very first paragraph, the reader is sucked into the horrifying and fast-paced world of a woman and her son, forced to flee everything they know and join the migrant caravan. You will need to... Read more

Better Luck Next Time

A Novel

By: Julia Claiborne Johnson
Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
Length: 8 hours 52 minutes

“Johnson’s latest novel has all the heart and soul fans of Be Frank With Me enjoyed, coupled with a retro setting at a divorce ranch in Reno during the Great Depression. Funny? Check. Heartwarming? Check. A rollicking, all-round good read? Check! Do yourself a favor and read it. Then share it with someone you love. Read more

To Paradise

A Novel

By: Hanya Yanagihara
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Catherine Ho, BD Wong, Feodor Chin & Kurt Kanazawa
Length: 28 hours 46 minutes

“Expansive, wholly original, and utterly engrossing, To Paradise is a masterpiece. Fans of Yanagihara’s A Little Life will find themselves making a little more room in their hearts for this marvelous, emotional, and brilliant story. Read more

The Maid

A Novel

Molly the Maid: Book #1

By: Nita Prose
Narrated by: Lauren Ambrose
Length: 9 hours 37 minutes

“This book was great! The way Molly loved her job resonated with me. I was totally shocked by the ending. It is a cozy and fun read! Read more

The Sweetness of Water (Oprah’s Book Club)

A Novel

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

An Instant New York Times bestseller / An Oprah’s Book Club Pick

In the spirit of The Known World and The Underground Railroad, an award-winning “miraculous debut” (Washington Post) about the unlikely bond between two freedmen who are brothers and the Georgia farmer whose alliance will alter their lives, and his, forever

In the waning days of the... Read more

A Gentleman in Moscow

A Novel

By: Amor Towles
Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
Length: 17 hours 51 minutes

“I believe A Gentleman In Moscow is without dispute a modern day masterpiece. Towles uses exquisite language to tell the story of Count Rostov, a charming and witty "man of intent", who is confined to a fabulous hotel in Moscow for all his days. But that doesn't stop the count from living a sumptuous and meaningful life and he, in turn, ... Read more

Being Mortal

Medicine and What Matters in the End

By: Atul Gawande
Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
Length: 9 hours 3 minutes

#1 New York Times Bestseller

In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable... Read more

Know My Name

A Memoir

By: Chanel Miller
Narrated by: Chanel Miller
Length: 15 hours 24 minutes

“Wow! Everybody should read this book. A stunning memoir about a devastating subject. It was eye opening, gut wrenching, powerful and brave. Chanel Miller writes with such honesty and vulnerability–I immediately felt that I knew her and she had me walking in her shoes throughout the entire book. I’m still reeling from the roller coaster of... Read more

The Patron Saint of Liars

By: Ann Patchett
Narrated by: Julia Gibson
Length: 14 hours 11 minutes

A New York Times Notable BookAcclaimed author Ann Patchett's debut novel, hailed as ""beautifully written . . . a first novel that second- and third-time novelists would envy for its grace, insight, and compassion” (Boston Herald)St. Elizabeth’s, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while.... Read more

The Grapes of Wrath

Penguin Audio Classics

By: John Steinbeck
Narrated by: Dylan Baker
Length: 21 hours

John Steinbeck's powerful evocation of the suffering and hardship caused by the Great Depression, and a panoramic vision of the struggle for the American Dream, The Grapes of Wrath includes a critical introduction by Robert DeMott in Penguin Modern Classics. 'I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.'... Read more

The Heart's Invisible Furies

A Novel

By: John Boyne
Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
Length: 21 hours 9 minutes

“This is the novel John Boyne was born to write: A brilliant book of identity and redemption, both heartbreaking and humorous, intimate and expansive. Cyril Avery has been constantly reminded he doesn't belong, first by his adopted parents, then by the church and his country. As we follow him on his journey to acceptance, we are shown the cruelty... Read more

The Snow Child

A Novel

By: Eowyn Ivey
Narrated by: Therese Plummer
Length: 10 hours 56 minutes

In this magical debut, a couple's lives are changed forever by the arrival of a little girl, wild and secretive, on their snowy doorstep.

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart -- he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling... Read more