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 Novel

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

“This quiet character driven novel truly illustrates the complexities of relationships. From friends, lovers, parents and acquaintances, and how one presents themselves differently in each setting. I listened to this and it was just beautifully narrated by the author and Akie Kotabe and you are instantly transported to Texas and Japan in both... Read more

Leave the World Behind

A Novel

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

“Alam has such skill with the omniscient narrator! The suspense and mystery is enhanced through each character and their reactions to the events, plus the info drops are intriguing and relevant. This is a novel that gets under your skin and stays there. And if that sounds creepy, well, it is! This novel is creepy as well as thought provoking,... Read more

Transcendent Kingdom

A novel

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

“This is a flippin’ gorgeous book. The writing is exquisite, the story is moving, and the characters are rendered with the skill of a true artist. Can you tell that I enjoyed this? Transcendent Kingdom is about Gifty, a young neuroscientist studying addiction. We come into her story just as she has taken her depressed mother into her care and is... Read more

Tender is the Flesh

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

Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans—though no one calls them that anymore.

His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has 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 staggered by the immersive, fluid, irresistible prose Emezi has perfected in their third novel, The Death of Vivek Oji. This tale follows the captivating, curious Vivek through the aftermath of his mysterious death, while simultaneously examining the people and relationships closest to him. Vivek, his cousin Osita, and a distant... 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

“A bit spooky with some underlining themes of science and the power of racism. There’s a feel of modern Bronte sisters here which adds to the intrigue of this original gothic tale. I loved Noemi, the well-educated bright young protagonist who has a great sense of justice and can stare down evil all while being sophisticated and alluring. Great... 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 ensemble cast of fantastic narrators really elevates the storytelling. An entertaining story with likeable characters. And it's horror! Read more

A Burning

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

“Wonderfully read by a full cast, Megha Majumdar’s A Burning is especially relevant in the age of highly-politicized social media and government extremism. Read more

The Vanishing Half

A Novel

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

“The Vanishing Half may go down as one of my favorite books of all time. Brit Bennett's narrative style is engrossing, the constant shift in timeline beyond compelling. But more than that, this is a book that deals with so much - racism, colorism & passing, sexism & domestic abuse, trans rights, family dynamics... the list goes on - with... 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... Read more