Every month, AudioFile Magazine reviewers and editors select the best new audiobooks just for BookTrib’s readers. This month, listeners solve murders, travel to WWII-era Europe, prosecute aliens and robots in intergalactic court, and much, much more. What are you waiting for? Cozy up, put in your headphones and start your journey!
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Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation by Hannah Gadsby
AudioFile Earphones Award This memoir is wonderfully narrated by the author, an Australian stand-up comedian whose work combines humor with personal accounts of the brutal realities of her life as a gay woman on the autism spectrum. Hannah Gadsby delivers her audiobook in the same way she performs on stage, demonstrating a mastery of expression and pacing that allows her words and stories to have maximum impact. Gadsby covers a broad range of topics, such as her complex relationship with her siblings and parents, her experiences with physical and sexual abuse, her diagnosis of autism, and her long road to self-acceptance, including developing her Netflix comedy show, NANETTE. One of the don’t-miss audiobooks of the year.
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
AudioFile Earphones Award The ensemble performance of this novel is exceptional. Michael Boatman narrates the opening chapter, capturing the interior life of the enigmatic Bix Boughton, a social media genius who invents the world-altering technology “Own Your Unconscious,” which is crucial to the plot. Alex Allwine delivers a haunting automaton-like second-person narration in “Lulu the Spy, 2032,” Tyra Lynne Barr emulates the chirpy sound of 13-year-old Molly in “The Perimeter After-Molly,” and Dan Bittner supplies sharply insightful tones as Ames at the end of this imaginative tour de force. The time-traveling chapters reprise some of the characters from Egan’s award-winning A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD, but this novel has a wider timeframe, a greater trajectory, and a more complex plot.
Seatmate: Love Lines, Book 3 by Cara Bastone
AudioFile Earphones Award Narrators Amanda Ronconi and Zachary Webber are utterly convincing as two seatmates who hit it off on an eventful bus ride. Ronconi conveys Gwen’s lively snark and enthusiasm beautifully, and Gwen is very good at drawing the quieter Sam out of his shell. Webber makes Sam’s caring and lovable nature—along with his goofy laughs and charming wit—seem completely real. The immediacy of their story and their audible chemistry as they open up to each other—along with the skilled ensemble of secondary characters, the sounds of the rumbling bus and the bustling city streets—make for an addicting treat.
A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft
AudioFile Earphones Award Listeners will enjoy narrator Jesse Vilinsky’s intricate performance of this romantic fantasy. Wes begins his apprenticeship in alchemy and meets Margaret while on a contested hunt for an elusive creature. If Margaret succeeds at the hunt, her mother will return home, so she teams up with Wes. Vilinsky offers mesmerizing performances of two odd young folks who are proving their worth to the world and each other. Wes, an uncertain dreamer, and Margaret, a gritty loner, eventually bring out the best in each other. Vilinsky’s narration ranges from the bitter disputes between the heroes to the tenderness of their developing love.
The Atlas Six: Atlas, Book 1 by Olivie Blake
AudioFile Earphones Award This audiobook includes newly revised and expanded material that is fully realized by a talented ensemble of narrators. Six exceptional individuals are recruited by the enigmatic Atlas Blakely to join the Alexandrian Society, an exclusive, powerful organization focused on arcane and esoteric knowledge. Hearing the prospective initiates from alternating points of view as the competition unfolds between the candidates adds layers and nuance to their tenuous alliances. The group endures challenges from outside forces and the mysteries within the society itself. Tantalizing narrative threads at the end will create anticipation for the sequel.
Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett
AudioFile Earphones Award In this tour de force, author and narrator Claire-Louise Bennett presents language with such precision that the listener is astounded at the power of the spoken word. In a town in southwest England, a young woman who works as a supermarket cashier on Checkout 19 reads relentlessly, absorbing literature as she keenly observes the world around her. Bennett expertly delivers the teen’s internal musings, and the listener steps inside Bennett’s mind as she finds the similarities between books and life in this stunning and original performance.
Maxine Justice: Galactic Attorney by Daniel Schwabauer
AudioFile Earphones Award There can be no doubt that narrator Aimee Lilly is having fun portraying Maxine Justice, who is feisty, resilient, and a bit down on her luck. Lilly captures all of Max’s dry wit, which makes this whimsical sci-fi story even more effective. In addition to humans, Lilly has a broad cast of nonhumans to depict, including robot judges and aliens who tempt Earthlings with an offer that is too good to be true. Lilly imbues an AI counselor and a cell phone with so much personality that listeners will wish they could actually meet them.
The Killings at Badger's Drift: Chief Inspector Barnaby, Book 1 by Caroline Graham
AudioFile Earphones Award John Hopkins performs this first in the Midsomer Murders series. Published in 1987, the novel offers a complicated mystery with multidimensional characters and murders galore. With his sensuous baritone, Hopkins draws listeners into the tiny hamlet of Badger’s Drift, where DCI Barnaby and DS Troy investigate an elderly woman’s murder. Hopkins is quietly intense while the body count grows. As his soft-spoken Barnaby interviews suspects, Hopkins smoothly reveals possible motives and would-be scandals. Whether you’re a fan of the TV series or a newcomer, this series starter on audio is terrific.
The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
AudioFile Earphones Award An outstanding cast of narrators immediately draws listeners into the messy lives of the inhabitants of an elegant-looking Paris apartment building. Narrator Sofia Zervudachi masterfully portrays the edgy Jess, who is on a mission to uncover what has happened to her half brother, Ben, who has mysteriously disappeared. Residents alternate chapters, sharing aspects of their relationships with Ben and, ever so slowly, their own backstories. The narrators perfectly portray their characters, and the well-pronounced French expressions throughout add to the atmosphere. While at times the details and descriptions get in the way of the action, the overall experience is captivating.
Chorus by Rebecca Kauffman
AudioFile Earphones Award Narrator Elisabeth Rodgers gives an extraordinary performance of this perceptive family saga. Set mainly in rural Virginia during the first half of the twentieth century, this exceptional audiobook is composed of linked vignettes that beautifully reveal one family’s poignant history. The point of view shifts among the seven adult Shaw children and their kindhearted father, Jim. While the repercussions of two traumatic events are imprinted in this family’s history, it is Rodgers’s subtly dramatic pacing and exquisite depictions of everyday struggles, joys, and tribulations that make this audiobook sing.
