Staff Picks for Adults

The City of Good Death

By: Priyanka Champaneri
Narrated by: Manish Dongardive
Length: 14 hours 56 minutes

Winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Priyanka Champaneri’s transcendent debut novel brings us inside India’s holy city of Banaras, where the manager of a death hostel shepherds the dying who seek the release of a good death, while his own past refuses to let him go.Banaras, Varanasi, Kashi: India’s holy city on the banks... Read more

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House

A Novel

By: Cherie Jones
Narrated by: Danielle Vitalis
Length: 8 hours 41 minutes

“I could listen to this narrator on Libro.fm read the dictionary and still be mesmerized. This is an emotional story of multi-generational abuse, suffered from class and race differences, and at the hands of loved ones. It paints an intimate portrayal of all the people on Baxter's Beach, tourists and residents alike. Read more

A Promised Land

By: Barack Obama
Narrated by: Barack Obama
Length: 29 hours 9 minutes

“No one really needs my blurb to help sell this book, but I wanted to give it anyway, especially for the audiobook, narrated by Barack Obama himself. If you want to know his incredible knowledge and wisdom that guided him through major decisions, and also hear him drop a few F-bombs, you need to listen to this fantastically written book. Read more

The Best of Me

By: David Sedaris
Narrated by: David Sedaris
Length: 13 hours 8 minutes

“As if there is anything greater than a new David Sedaris, it's listening to David Sedaris read the new David Sedaris. This self-edited collection of essays from his prolific 25-year career is exactly what we need to boost the morale of 2020 and remind ourselves what a crazy world we've always lived in when viewed through Sedaris's keen... Read more

Memorial

A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)

By: Bryan Washington
Narrated by: Bryan Washington & Akie Kotabe
Length: 8 hours 19 minutes

“Don’t let the simplicity of Washington’s story and prose deceive you. This quiet story of two young gay men at the end of their relationship dives deep into the emotional truths we learn when we allow ourselves to try to fully understand those who surround us. Read more

Leave the World Behind

A Novel

By: Rumaan Alam
Narrated by: Marin Ireland
Length: 7 hours 26 minutes

“I tore through LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND, a breath-taking stunner that slyly becomes a heart-thumping thriller. Alam examines race, class, and family relationships subtly and this is where his storytelling shines. 5 of 5 stars! Read more

Transcendent Kingdom: A Read with Jenna Pick

A novel

By: Yaa Gyasi
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 8 hours 40 minutes

“Gifty immigrated from Ghana, grew up in Alabama, and is working on a PhD in neuroscience at Stanford, where she experiments with mice. She has always felt she wasn’t cool enough or white enough, and tries to prove her value through her brilliance. She tells her raw and powerful story of racism, addiction, mental illness, and especially faith and... Read more

Tender is the Flesh

By: Agustina Bazterrica
Narrated by: Joseph Balderrama
Length: 6 hours 43 minutes

“This book is very descriptive of the processing process, not unlike in Upton Sinclair's THE JUNGLE, except with humans instead of animals. It's enough to make one uncomfortable, and raises a lot of moral questions about how living beings, be they animals or humans, are treated in general; and how something that should be unthinkable is made... Read more

The Death of Vivek Oji

A Novel

By: Akwaeke Emezi
Narrated by: Yetide Badaki & Chukwudi Iwuji
Length: 7 hours 38 minutes

“I am fairly new to audiobooks because I've found myself to be incredibly picky when it comes to narration. That being said, I couldn't have picked a better book to listen to. Not only is this a beautiful and important story, but the narrators are nothing short of brilliant. I still think about this one often and highly recommend! Read more

The Hollow Ones

By: Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan
Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
Length: 9 hours 16 minutes

A horrific crime that defies explanation, a rookie FBI agent in uncharted territory, and an extraordinary hero for the ages: an investigation spirals out of control in this heart-pounding thriller.
Odessa Hardwicke's life is derailed when she's forced to turn her gun on her partner, Walt Leppo, a decorated FBI agent who turns suddenly,... Read more

Notes on a Silencing

A Memoir

By: Lacy Crawford
Narrated by: Lacy Crawford
Length: 11 hours 5 minutes

A "powerful and scary and important and true" memoir of a young woman's struggle to regain her sense of self after trauma, and the efforts by a powerful New England boarding school to silence her—at any cost (Sally Mann, author of Hold Still).

Shortlisted for the 2022 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing When Notes on a Silencing hit... Read more

Mexican Gothic

By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
Length: 10 hours 39 minutes

“Set in Mexico in the 50's, this book follows a young woman, Noemi, to a moldy old Gothic manor in the countryside where she is hoping to find out why her newly married cousin is sending letters home detailing strange visions and a real fear of her new family. Moreno-Garcia's writing was fantastic, I felt immersed in the creepy mansion, imagining... Read more

The Power of Ritual

Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices

By: Casper ter Kuile
Narrated by: Casper ter Kuile
Length: 5 hours 54 minutes

Casper ter Kuile, a Harvard Divinity School fellow and cohost of the popular Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast, explores how we can nourish our souls by transforming common, everyday practices—yoga, reading, walking the dog—into sacred rituals that can heal our crisis of social isolation and struggle to find purpose—a message we need more... Read more

Saving Ruby King

A Novel

By: Catherine Adel West
Narrated by: Kim Staunton, Imani Parks, Ron Butler, Adam Lazarre-White, Lloyd Roberson II & Terra Strong Lyons
Length: 10 hours 14 minutes

“Saving Ruby King is a slow burn—a richly woven three-generation history of two families on the south side of Chicago, bound forever by trauma and religion. A tragic murder in the present unearths secret wrongdoings of the past. Intergenerational trauma is a primary focus, and the given circumstances allow readers to both hate and empathize with... Read more

Devolution

A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

By: Max Brooks
Narrated by: Judy Greer, Max Brooks, Jeff Daniels, Nathan Fillion, Mira Furlan, Terry Gross, Kimberly Guerrero, Kate Mulgrew, Kai Ryssdal & Steven Weber
Length: 9 hours 49 minutes

“This was a blast to read. Kate and Dan Holland have an opportunity to move into an eco-friendly community called Greenloops in the shadow of Mt. Rainier. Kate’s therapist asks her to keep a journal, and this is how their story is preserved. Because after Mt. Rainier erupts, horrible things happen at Greenloops. Really horrible things… Read more

A Burning: A Read with Jenna Pick

A Novel

By: Megha Majumdar
Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Priya Ayyar, Deepti Gupta, Ulka Simone Mohanty, Soneela Nankani & Neil Shah
Length: 7 hours 21 minutes

“Majumdar’s suspenseful narrative holds a mirror up to society at large, reflecting the lies people tell themselves to rationalize sacrificing morality for personal gain. Unintended consequences from an impulsive social media post explode against a backdrop of deep economic insecurities and centuries-old prejudices. A searing debut, this novel is... Read more

The Vanishing Half

A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)

By: Brit Bennett
Narrated by: Shayna Small
Length: 11 hours 33 minutes

“This was my first book by Bennett and it made her an auto-buy author. The Vanishing Half may resemble Passing, by Nella Larsen, in theme, but it certainly stands out by itself. It's a book that encompasses so much: life in small villages, race and colorism in the United States, the relationship between siblings, and how one decision may alter... Read more

Almond

A Novel

By: Won-pyung Sohn
Narrated by: Greg Chun
Length: 4 hours 51 minutes

This story is, in short, about a monster meeting another monster. One of the monsters is me.Yunjae was born with a brain condition called Alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends—the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that—but his devoted mother and... Read more

Lakewood

A Novel

By: Megan Giddings
Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
Length: 8 hours 33 minutes

“Lena just lost her grandmother, her mother has health problems and to top of off they are having financial problems. Lena takes a mysterious job in hopes help her mother and to pay off bills. Lakewood takes you into a dark world of medical testing where human rights are disregarded. This whole story felt more than real and makes you question how... Read more

The Freedom Artist

By: Ben Okri
Narrated by: Ben Okri
Length: 6 hours 51 minutes

In a world uncomfortably like our own, a young woman called Amalantis is arrested for asking a question. Her question is this: Who is the Prisoner?



When Amalantis disappears, her lover Karnak goes looking for her. He searches desperately at first, then with a growing realization that to find Amalantis, he must first understand the meaning of her... Read more