Staff Picks Format: Audiobook

Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy [Audiobook]

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If ever a novel was meant to be read aloud, this is the one. It is voiced with perfection by Julia Whelan and Edorardo Balerini. A suicidal severely disturbed but brilliant mathematician has admitted herself to a psychiatric facility. Her psychologist peels away the layers of falsehood and obfuscation as the sessions proceed. This was the last book McCarthy published before his recent death. There is no happily ever after here, but a peaceful goodbye.

LibriVox [Audiobook, Online Resource]

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LibriVox is a free source of public domain audiobooks read by volunteers from around the world. Most of the books are in English, but other languages are available as well with many titles in French and German and a not insignificant number of recordings in Ancient Greek. Titles for children and adults are available. I recommend starting with the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, both of which are available in variety of version by different readers.

Endurance: a year in space, a lifetime of discovery by Scott Kelly [Audiobook]

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Scott Kelly reads the parallel stories of how a boy from blue collar New Jersey, son of alcoholic parents, became an astronaut and how he endured a year on the International Space Station. These stories are told in alternating chapters. Once you get used to his somewhat deadpan (I’m a tough fighter pilot, man of few words) delivery the parallel stories are engaging. Details of training in Russia and life aboard the ISS are fascinating. For those with an interest in the space program and science in general.

Being Mortal [Audiobook, Book, E-book]

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As the title implies, this book is for everyone, everyone who is mortal. With the subject matter, one might expect a very depressing tome. Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and a staff writer for the New Yorker, is an amazing story-teller. In the end, there is hope for making the world, and the end of life, better. He frankly addresses the failings of a medical system that tries to fix everything, when that might not be the right choice. He takes us through the very personal lives, and deaths, of many people, including the very personal story of his own father, as well as sharing his research into how we got where we are. Yes, it is good to live in a world that no longer has poor houses, but in some cases, we haven’t done much better.

Reading this book will hopefully encourage you to start the difficult but important conversations with your relatives and loved ones. Do you want to spend the end of your life living with parakeets? Will you be happy if you can eat chocolate ice cream and watch football?

[This was also very good on audio, but might make you cry a little while you are driving…]

When I Was the Greatest by Jason Reynolds [Audiobook]

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Award winning author Jason Reynolds is a masterful storyteller. Through his book, When I Was the Greatest, Reynolds shows us something of the nuances of family life in an urban African American community and exposes the spaces where love, family, and community are strong. Ali’s family is not typical, but there is no typical family. Ali lives in Bed Stuy, New York with his mother, Doris and his sister, Jazz. Jazz is famous for giving nicknames and she gave Ali his name after Muhommad Ali. Jazz also named Ali’s best friends and neighbors Needles and Noodles. Ali grapples with the complexities of life in Bed Stuy and knows he needs to keep on track and stay out of trouble because his mother Doris makes that very clear. This book is so engaging and authentic it will hook even the most reluctant teen reader.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky [Audiobook]

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Johnny Heller narrates exactly the way you imaged Charlie’s voice while reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Charlie’s matter-of-fact tone and use of direct language juxtaposes with the intensity of his experiences and the sometimes stunning depth of his observations. Anyone who has been 15 knows that navigating friends, family, and high school can run the gambit from terrifying to exhilarating. Charlie is figuring out how to be a person in the world. He is called a freak, he experiences pain and love and every emotion in between. I highly recommend both the print book and the audio book to adult and teen readers. And while I’m at it, the movie is pretty great too!

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume [Audiobook]

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Peter, because he’s the oldest, must deal with Fudgie’s disgusting cuteness, his constant meddling with Peter’s stuff, and other grave offenses, one of which is almost too much to bear. All these incidents are presented with the unfailing ear and big-hearted humor of the masterful Judy Blume.

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon [Audiobook]

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Ron McLarty narrates this bizarre and wonderfully entertaining crime novel by Thomas Pynchon. Infusing the perfect hippie bravado to our central character Doc Sportello, McLarty transports us to this far out time.

Filled with film and music references, original music (sung a capella by McLarty on the audiobook), hilarious dialog and a gritty tone, Pynchon creates a unique take on the detective novel. Doc, who is a long haired, stoner private-eye in Los Angeles at the close of the 1960’s, is on the case to find a missing ex-girlfriend. Along the way, he has run ins with colorful characters in this backdrop of groovy pads, surf music and drug culture.

Flower power is over and something darker is on the horizon.

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz [Audiobook]

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The audiobook is read by the author, Junot Diaz, to wonderful effect. We follow the life and romantic misadventures of Yunior, from the time his family immigrated from the Dominican Republic to his life as a professor in Cambridge — although not in a straight chronology. Diaz’s language is in turns brash and lyrical, peppered with slang. Yunior is not always an easy guy to like, and that he becomes a sympathetic character at all is due to Diaz’s genius (as further evidenced by his being named a MacArthur Fellow in 2012). The version of the audiobook I listened to was further interspersed with latin music, helping to set the mood and carry me away.

The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde [Audiobook, Book]

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This latest entry in the Thursday Next series of genre-bending literary absurdist fantasy adventure novels is immensely satisfying.  Fforde doesn’t miss a chance for a farcical or pun-driven punchline; the twists and knots and mobius strips in the overlapping plot lines make perfect sense in the impossible logic of his alternate world, despite (or because of) which, they still provide surprises.  Thursday has been pushed into semi-retirement but nevertheless manages to be at the center of the action, valiantly trying to save the world from Goliath Corporation (mission statement: to own everything and control everybody), the smitings of a wrathful deity, asteroid collisions, overdue library books, and genetically engineered fake versions of herself.  The reader on this Recorded Books version has done a brilliant job of voicing the many characters and pacing the reading with a deadpan nonchalance.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde [Audiobook]

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Old Jews Telling Jokes by Sam Hoffman ; with Eric Spiegelman [Audiobook]

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This project started as a website, still going strong at www.oldjewstellingjokes.com. A couple of guys and their dads started rounding up all their “aunts and uncles, wise-cracking attorneys and periodontists,” as the web site says. Each clip is a couple of minutes of one person telling a joke. These are not professional comedians, they are ordinary people from the culture that created the Marx Brothers, the Catskill circuit, and Mel Brooks. Some of the stories have been around a long time, but nearly all of them land between amusing and hilarious on the laugh-o-meter. You’ll find ironic, raunchy, and self-deprecating bits as well as some marvelous timing and delivery. The narrator I could do without. Still, it beats therapy.