6 Great Audiobooks to Listen to This Month
Thanks to a particularly provocative and musical narration, one of the best books of the year is also a top-notch audiobook.
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This list is updated monthly with new audiobooks.
2023 was a breakout year for audiobooks — at least in terms of the social-media impact of two massive titles. Early in the year, Prince Harry narrated his own memoir, Spare, which included an oversharing scene in which Harry spoke calmly about his frostbitten penis. Then the audiobook of Britney Spears’s The Woman in Me, read by the actress Michelle Williams, became a sensation. Of particular note: This clip, the War and Peace of audiobooks, which stars Williams as Justin Timberlake saying, “Ohh yeaa fo shizz fo shizz.” Try not to listen at least twice.
The celebrity memoir is the audiobook in its greatest form. Some of last year’s best — in terms of entertainment value, intimacy, and genuine weirdness — came from unexpected sources like Minka Kelly, Henry Winkler, Leslie Jones, John Stamos, Laura Dern and Diane Ladd, and, of course, Barbra Streisand, whose own narration clocked in at two days’ worth of material.
The celebrity avalanche slowed a bit in 2024, but to be sure, there were still some excellent entries in the genre. In this list, I’ve included my favorites from the year along with all the other titles — thrillers, romances, self-help guides, TikTok sensations — you should consider listening to. Hopefully you’ll start loving audiobooks almost as much as I do.
December
I spent this month catching up on a few audiobooks I missed throughout the year. Here are some of the best. 
The Third Gilmore Girl, by Kelly Bishop
Read by: the author
Length: 6 hrs, 49 mins
Speed I listened: 2.5x
It’s total sacrilege, I know, but I’ve never watched Gilmore Girls. (I have seen Bunheads and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, so I’m not a complete Amy Sherman Palladino ignoramus.) I know people watch and rewatch it all the time, but I was still surprised to see this memoir pop up on the New York Times best-seller list this year. Despite its title, it’s not really about Gilmore Girls (on which Bishop played Lauren Graham’s mother, Emily Gilmore) but more about the 80-year-old actress’s circuitous path to landing on the show. She started as a chorus girl in New York City, eventually winning a Tony for creating the role of Sheila in the original Broadway production of A Chorus Line in 1976. I found spending a few hours with this acerbic, outspoken dame to be a complete and total pleasure.
$13.12 at Amazon
Growing Up Urkel, by Jaleel White
Read by: the author
Length: 8 hrs, 14 mins
Speed I listened: 2.2x
I may have never watched Gilmore Girls, but I did, as a kid, watch Family Matters. It was never my favorite show, and the nerdy neighbor Steve Urkel was never a favorite character of mine. But listening to White, known for the annoying and wretched catchphrase “Did I do that?,” is fascinating. On the one hand, White, now 48, never got seduced by the bad side of Hollywood. He owes that to his very non-Hollywood parents, Gail and Michael, who raised him to be a good guy, to put his money in the bank and go to UCLA. As White tells it, that had its drawbacks. Agents and execs had a hard time taking him seriously. In turn, his memoir ends up being a wild, sometimes downbeat but always inspiring story of keeping on keeping on, even when the entertainment industry chews you up and spits you out time and again. White’s stories of how Bill Cosby happily got him an agent when he was Urkel but then threw him to the wolves once the sitcom lost steam is particularly gripping.
$16.4 at Amazon
I Made It Out of Clay, by Beth Kander
Read by: Gail Shalan
Length: 9 hrs, 47 mins
Speed I listened: 2.1x
The title here references the Dreidel song that haunts our days and dreams this time of year. But in this light romance novel, Eve makes a man out of clay. She’s desperately single and depressed, still mourning the death of her dad a year prior. Plus, she needs a date for her sister’s wedding. So, when the hot neighbor turns her down, she constructs a Golem. There’s some adorable stuff in here, not least that Eve’s dad loved Christmas music, especially since most Christmas songs were actually written by Jews. Even though narrator Gail Shalan grunts a bit annoyingly as the Golem, she keeps things moving at an enjoyably brisk pace. It’s enough entertainment for at least one or two nights of Hanukkah.
$22.04 at Amazon
The Best Man’s Ghostwriter, by Matthew Starr
Read by: Glen Powell, Nicholas Braun, Ashley Park and a full cast
Length: 4 hrs, 37 mins
Speed I listened: 1.7x
In my limited experience, I’ve found these all-star-cast Audible originals a bit frenetic. They’re all trying a bit too hard. This one, about Nate (Glen Powell) helping Dan (Nicholas Braun) on a wedding speech, is similarly overproduced. There are so many bizarre sound effects and voices, one of which is Sherri Shepherd as the heroine of a bug-infested horror movie and Debra Messing as Nate’s pesky Jewish mother. I can’t imagine any actor in Hollywood less likely to have a pesky Jewish mother than Powell. Lots of other nonsense here includes: several unnecessary shocks; Nate’s fear of scary movies; a recurring C-plot about Nate’s break up with his college BFF. But Powell somehow succeeded at winning me over despite working really hard, propelling me to see it through to the romantic-comedy-ish ending.
$21.83 at Amazon
The Boyfriend, by Freida McFadden
Read by: Victoria Connolly and Robb Moreira
Length: 9 hrs, 20 mins
Speed I listened: 2.4x
I keep seeing books by McFadden on best-seller lists, so I figured I’d better give one a try before the year ends. Turns out the author is a Harvard-educated practicing physician, which makes it even more annoying that she is selling so many books. It also sheds light on why one of her characters in this thriller is an autopsy pathologist with a deep attraction to blood and why another, our hero, Sydney Shaw, has a blood disease. Half of the book is told from Sydney’s perspective. She’s very single, and, à la Looking for Mr. Goodbar, every available male has the terrifying potential to murder her. The other half of the narrative is told from the perspective of Tom, a problematic high-school student who kills his abusive, alcoholic father and could have possibly killed two female classmates, too. I’m glad I didn’t spend any beach time reading this. The characters are too broad, the sexual politics are too pat, Sydney’s nagging mom annoying her daughter about any impending relationships made me crazy. But as an audiobook, it’s a fast-moving yarn with a surprising McGuffin or two.
$17.5 at Amazon
James, by Percival Everett
Read by: Dominic Hoffman
Length: 7 hrs, 49 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
This reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, Finn’s friend, an escaped slave, has been one of 2024’s biggest books. For some reason it’s been hanging over my head to read. In particular, it felt like it might be work, and intimidating at that. But I finally gave it a shot this month, and, man, it’s just a subversive delight. As narrator, Hoffman makes it all particularly humorous, provocative and musical, ensuring that this picaresque romp is one of the best listens of the year by far. I wish I’d known that back in March, when it was first published.
November
Cher: The Memoir, Part One, by Cher
Read by: the author and Stephanie J. Block
Length: 15 hrs, 47 mins
Speed I listened: 2.7x
One of the odd things about this audiobook is the narration switches — on a regular basis and for no reason except perhaps editorial time constraints — between the actual Cher and Block, who won a Tony for playing the multi-hyphenate on Broadway in The Cher Show. Cher is a far more dynamic reader of her own story, starting from an introductory voice note where she explains the set-up. This book starts with her hardscrabble childhood, travels with her as a very precocious 15-year-old (including a date with Warren Beatty), and ends with her trying to jump-start a serious acting career, despite an egregious lack of support from the entertainment industry as a whole. I found the sections where Cher details her relationships with Sonny Bono (overly controlling, jealous, in cahoots with her shrink) and David Geffen (overly generous, desperate to marry her, would leave jewelry gifts in her car) particularly juicy.
$29 at Amazon
From Under the Truck, by Josh Brolin
Read by: the author
Length: 5 hrs, 34 mins
Speed I listened: 1.7x–2.6x
I started listening to this impressionistic, peripatetic memoir — a fascinating contrast to Cher’s book — at a very fast speed. I didn’t think I’d be that interested in what Brolin, a faux Hollywood poet who references James Joyce and Arthur Rimbaud, had to say. But then suddenly we were on the set of 2005’s No Country for Old Men and Brolin was having stomach problems. “I had diarrhea all day. It was great,” Brolin said, without a hint of humor or irony. “Shat at least 12 times. It’s my favorite thing to do. I’d much rather be doing that than working.” I listened to that section several times to make sure I’d heard correctly. I slowed the recording down, and I started to pay attention. There’s a lot of pretension here, and I can’t say that everything Brolin discusses made me lean in quite as much. But his tragic relationship with his mom did, as did his elliptical Hollywood stories, including one blind item about pinching a fellow male actor’s butt he admired on the dance floor to purposely get a rise out of him and another about shitting on Scientology in front of friends he forgot were Scientologists.
$25 at Amazon
I Decided to Live as Me, by Kim Suhyun
Read by: Da Eun Yoon
Length: 3 hrs, 10 mins
Speed I listened: 1.7x
The hardback edition of this Korean best seller is sorted as an “illustrated checklist,” and that may be the best way to consume it. But I found the content just as useful as an audiobook. Really, most of what’s here is practical advice: Try not to compare yourself to others. Life isn’t a competition. Travel light — not only emotionally, but don’t pack too much on vacation either. There’s nothing overly complicated here. Even Yoon’s narration is straightforward and plain. But that’s what’s so good about it, and it feels like the kind of advice that will actually stick. I particularly appreciated Yoon’s delivery of Suhyun’s comment “There are so many garbage people in the world.” Because, well, aren’t there? And isn’t that just a great way of summing it all up?
$14 at Amazon
How To Let Things Go, by Shunmyo Masuno
Read by: Douglas Hachiya
Length: 2 hrs, 31 mins
Speed I listened: 1.3x
I’m really on a kick to get rid of excess emotional baggage. Maybe that’s why I found this book by Masuno, a Zen Buddhist monk, so impactful. It’s direct and unsubtle, in the same way as I Decided to Live as Me — and I’m really feeling direct and unsubtle at the moment. One of Masuno’s 99 tips for “freeing yourself up for what matters” is that it’s okay to block out the news, to “put distance between ourselves and information.” That seems like a particularly apt piece of advice we could all use right now. Hachiya provides a calming and meditative presence for Masuno’s wisdom, too.
$14 at Amazon
Water, Water, by Billy Collins
Read by: the author
Length: 1 hour, 30 mins
Speed I listened: 1.2x
Am I more enriched by two episodes of Love Is Blind: Argentina (at 1.5x the speed) or by this new collection of poetry from the former poet laureate? I think the answer to that question is fairly clear, but I wouldn’t give up either one. On paper these poems are brittle and funny. One of my favorites involves whether he’d grab the paperback edition of Lonesome Dove he’s reading with 400 pages to go if his house caught on fire. He wouldn’t because “I can always get another copy, or maybe that was where I was supposed to stop reading.” Much of the charm and whimsy comes from the musicality of Collins’s reading voice. It elevates this above Love Is Blind, for sure, all editions.
$11 at Amazon
Master of Me, by Keke Palmer
Read by: the author
Length: 6 hrs, 7 mins
Speed I listened: 2.4x
Palmer, an actress, host, and singer, is a lot more fun company than the actual content of this book, which she subtitles “the secret to controlling your narrative.” Just being in her oral presence for a few hours ends up being a kick, even if I didn’t feel like I wanted these takeaways about positioning myself in the marketplace. If this feels like a bit of a half-assed memoir, I appreciate that Palmer is looking out for me and trying to help us all out. Also, her recollection of an encounter with Nicki Minaj is totally priceless and makes this audiobook more than worthwhile.
$15 at Amazon
Lost and Lassoed, by Lyla Sage
Read by: Jason Clarke and Samantha Brentmoor
Length: 8 hrs, 47 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
I haven’t read Sage’s other two books in this series, which take place on Rebel Blue Ranch and also have alliterative titles. They’re called Done and Dusted and Swift and Saddled, and I don’t think I’m necessarily going to go back to find out what happens in those. ( Wild and Wrangled comes out next summer.) But I love the cover art, even if it’s a bit rustic for this fairly obvious, contemporary romance. Teddy, an out of work and aimless shop girl, starts babysitting for ranch owner Gus Ryder and his 6-year-old daughter, Riley, who’s staying with him for the summer. Guess what happens after Teddy starts lazing around the house in leggings? I will say this audiobook goes down easy like a Kacey Musgraves song. Clarke’s voice is especially gruff and seductive. That said, listening to a graphic sex scene made me much more self-conscious than anything on Deeper Well.
October
Sonny Boy, by Al Pacino
Read by: the author
Length: 12 hrs, 28 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
It took me at least an hour to get into the rhythm of Pacino’s memoir. The early pages detail his complicated and fractured Bronx childhood a bit confusingly. (His mentally ill mother overdosed when Pacino was 22.) As an audiobook, sometimes it feels like a computer simulation is reading the text. At other times, the 84-year-old actor screams with his particular kind of authority, evoking any number of the bombastic characters he’s played from Glengarry Glen Ross to Scent of a Woman. But what eventually comes through — and gloriously so — is a wily, well-read, and self-aware man who occasionally breaks into terrible song. Though he’s been extremely successful, Pacino seems to suffer from a kind of social anxiety and inertia when it comes to actually doing things. If he’d had his druthers, he’d never have shown up on a movie set at all, and I relate to that. To campaign for an Oscar, his publicist suggests that he do an interview with Barbara Walters. “I said things that were human, so, you know, that’s pretty good,” says Pacino, and I really related to that, too. I never thought I was anything like Al Pacino, but maybe I am. His last moments reflecting on what he’d like to say to his mom in the afterlife are especially stirring.
$23 at Amazon
From Here to the Great Unknown, by Riley Keough and Lisa Marie Presley
Read by: Keough and Julia Roberts
Length: 5 hrs, 42 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
Lisa Marie Presley died in January 2023 before she could complete this memoir. Her daughter, the actress Riley Keough, finished it, adding in some of her own memories. The audiobook is particularly spectacular in that it includes actual audio excerpts from interviews with a gruff Lisa Marie for the book. Otherwise her sections are read by, yes, Julia Roberts. The Erin Brockovich star is a very comforting presence, softening some of Presley’s sharp and depressive insularity. Keough, meanwhile, is heart achingly real in trying to piece together a mother with whom she was incredibly close but who remained at a hard-to-reach distance. The honesty here makes the audiobook an incomparable experience.
$23 at Amazon
What I Ate in One Year, by Stanley Tucci
Read by: the author
Length: 7 hrs, 48 mins
Speed I listened: 2.2x
I don’t remember falling this much in love with Stanley Tucci while listening to his previous book, Taste, but I’m pretty smitten after this one. It’s basically his diary of 2023, during which he launched a cookware line; played a pope opposite Isabella Rossellini and Ralph Fiennes in his new movie Conclave; ate many, many meals at the River Café in London; and cooked lots of al dente pasta alla Norma for his family and various famous friends — including Woody Harrelson, Saoirse Ronan, brother-in-law John Krasinski, Sam Rockwell (who apparently invites too many stragglers to other people’s homes), and Harry Styles. Tucci sounds smart and smooth when he talks about pretty much anything, especially when he does it in Italian. Twenty-four hours after listening, though, I started wondering if maybe this was all a flex and he’d dropped a few too many names. Like, why is this 63-year-old father of five friends with Harry Styles? And why does he feel the need to tell me that he is? But I’d still kill to be on his dinner-party circuit.
$15 at Amazon
Be Ready When the Luck Happens, by Ina Garten
Read by: the author
Length: 8 hrs, 47 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
Like Stanley Tucci, the Barefoot Contessa loves to share meals with famous friends and write about them. They overlap with Tucci’s sister-in-law Emily Blunt, but Garten’s coterie also includes Jennifer Garner, Taylor Swift, and Little Mermaid (2023) director Rob Marshall. Some of this memoir is cringe: the name-dropping; her TMI descriptions of her very long marriage to her husband, Jeffrey; or when, in her early days of catering, a client offers Garten cocaine and she doesn’t know what it is. Eventually I was inspired by Garten’s huge career changes, her tendency to zig when other people thought she should zag. She trusted things would work out, even if they didn’t work out as she’d imagined. Also, how can you help but be inspired by someone who writes, without irony, this sentence: “The summer of 1978 was all about poached salmon.”
$23 at Amazon
Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time, by Barry Sonnenfeld
Read by: the author
Length: 8 hrs, 45 mins
Speed I listened: 2.5x
This memoir from the director of The Addams Family and Men in Black is much more Hollywood focused than his first, and that makes it a juicy listen. Sonnenfeld, who started as a director of photography for the Coen brothers, has a keen eye for ridiculous behavior, some of which is even his own. It’s far fresher and exciting when he puts that exacting eye on his colleagues — like Will Smith (a serial farter), Gene Hackman (generally mean), John Travolta (never learns his lines) — and the absurdities of Hollywood loyalties and arbitrary decisions. There are two particularly good stories here about Michael Jackson, but I just as much enjoyed hearing him kvetch about everyone else, Scott Rudin included. Sonnenfeld now feels like a member of my own family.
$19 at Amazon
Batman: Resurrection, by John Jackson Miller
Read by: Will Damron
Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight is way too somber and scary for me. And the terribly turgid Joker: Folie à Deux made me long for Adam West’s camp Batman or even Michael Keaton’s. So I’m likely grading this Batman novel on a curve. It takes place in Gotham City after Tim Burton’s first foray, after Keaton vs Nicholson. To that end, listening to Damron drop me back into that world felt simultaneously nostalgic and fresh. The Joker’s plot with Smylex chemicals leads an unsuccessful actor to become a villain called Clayface. Bring it on. The set-up — i.e., the first seven hours or so — are great fun. I can’t recall much of what happens after, but I don’t think it matters. It’s all about milieu!
$23 at Amazon
The Mistletoe Mystery, by Nita Prose
Read by: Lauren Ambrose
Length: 2 hrs, 38 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
This is a novella that falls between larger mysteries about Molly Gray, a seemingly neurodivergent maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, who has a nose for solving crimes. As far as mystery goes, there’s not much here. But Ambrose’s consistently impeccable narration of this series makes it a worthwhile listen. It’s short and sweet, a more romantic than nail-biting ride on the train home.
$14 at Amazon
Meditations for Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman
Read by: the author
Length: 4 hrs, 4 mins
Speed I listened: 1.7x
Burkeman suggests listening to this book over the course of four weeks in an effort to better incorporate his advice into your life. I did it all in one shot. So, I just started listening to it again yesterday at a slower speed with the hopes of more of his sagacity seeping through the clearly too thick membranes of my brain. I loved his last book, Four Thousand Weeks, in part because of his swoon-worthy posh British voice. Part of his philosophy is to accept that you’ll never have the exact, amazing life you’ve imagined. Embrace fleeting unpredictability and “imperfectionism.” That’s why I’m purposely avoiding summarizing more. Listen for yourself.
September
The Life Impossible, by Matt Haig
Read by: Joanna Lumley
Length: 10 hrs, 43 mins
Speed I listened: 1.7x
I always recommend The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s previous novel, as a gateway drug to audiobooks. It has everything one could want in a listen: mystery, self-reflection, some truly emotional moments — and just perfect narration by Carey Mulligan. Equally tinged with magic and hope, The Life Impossible is, in some ways, an inferior novel. Through strange circumstances, Grace Winters, a retired math teacher, inherits a small house in Ibiza. When she claims it, she stumbles upon a world and powers she couldn’t have imagined. Still, this is a delicious audiobook. The credit wholly goes to Joanna Lumley — you know her from Absolutely Fabulous and any number of wicked supporting roles. Here, she is just absolutely sensational, likely much bigger than life than your average math teacher, but, gosh, this month was made so much better because of her.
$23 at Amazon
Here One Moment, by Liane Moriarty
Read by: Caroline Hill and Geraldine Hakewill
Length: 15 hrs, 53 mins
Speed I listened: 2.1x
Moriarty’s previous novel was the not-quite-thrilling family mystery Apples Never Fall, made into a Peacock series with Annette Bening. As an audiobook, it was fine. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to give this new one a shot. But I’m so glad I did. Here One Moment has a lot in common, actually, with The Life Impossible (above). It’s about Cherry, a psychic, who has a little meltdown on a plane and starts telling her fellow passengers when they’re going to die. The rest of the book charts how these prophecies do or don’t come true. Cherry, nicknamed “The Death Lady,” also tells her own story. It’s a quirky novel that’s hard to categorize. It’s about living and dying, the mistakes we make and how we try to fix them. It’s read perfectly by Caroline Hill, Moriarty’s regular narrator. A more than enjoyable journey — and a very pleasant surprise.
$25 at Amazon
Connie, by Connie Chung
Read by: The author
Length: 11 hrs, 35 mins
Speed I listened: 2.3x
I didn’t expect to be as completely charmed as I was by this media memoir from the 78-year-old wife of Maury Povich. Chung is a firecracker, and she manages to sustain that sparkling energy from beginning to end here. I mean, she has a rest stop in New Jersey named after her, and she’s damn excited about it. Now I am, too. At times funny, flirty and tender, Chung gives advice, names names, makes sex jokes, and encourages ambition despite the moments in life when that ambition accidentally backfires. I dug this more than any episode I’ve seen with Reese and Jen on The Morning Show.
$22 at Amazon
Somewhere Beyond the Sea, by T.J. Klune
Read by: Daniel Henning
Length: 15 hrs, 48 mins
Speed I listened: 2.1x
Arthur Purnassus is like Professor X from X-Men, except he’s an out gay man with a partner named Linus. He has a group of adopted charges that include a child Lucifer and a yeti that he must protect from government caseworkers. This is a sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea, which told a similar story except that Linus was the caseworker and he fell in love with Arthur. Because this one’s missing a central romance, it’s more about belonging and acceptance, which can verge on the treacly. But it’s absurd and loopy, and though sometimes Henning, the narrator, makes you feel as if he’s auditioning a little too eagerly for the Muppets, he’s totally cuckoo in a good way.
$25 at Amazon
The Road is Good, by Uzo Aduba
Read by: The author
Length: 10 hrs, 9 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
I don’t think I expected to be so moved by this memoir, by the Nigerian American actress perhaps mostly known for her Emmy-winning turn as Crazy Eyes on Orange Is the New Black. It’s really, more than anything, an ode to her mother, who pushed and encouraged her daughter to be the major success she is today. There’s a thoughtful, crystalline intelligence to Aduba’s retelling of her story, and her calming, deliberate narration feels both wise and comforting.
$20 at Amazon
Over the Influence, by Joanna “JoJo” Levesque
Read by: The author
Length: 9 hrs, 46 mins
Speed I listened: 2.3x
Last month, I went to a workshop of a musical version of Working Girl. The music was by Cyndi Lauper, and JoJo played Tess McGill, the role originally played in the movie by Melanie Griffith. I thought she was light and natural and just terrific, and, despite my familiarity with her hit song, “Leave (Get Out),” from 20 years ago (!) and, of course, the mermaid movie Aquamarine, I wanted to know more. I learned a lot more from this totally gripping memoir about her very quick rise to fame, her stasis in the music industry, the alcohol dependency she inherited from her mother and father, and how she’s found her way back to her roots in theater. There’s a grit here that, coupled with JoJo’s occasional dip into her Boston accent, makes this a particularly fascinating ride.
$22 at Amazon
Who’s That Girl? by Eve
Read by: The author
Length: 5 hrs, 38 mins
Speed I listened: 2.2x
Eve got her start very early in the music business, and then it spit her out. Like JoJo, she, too, had trouble with her music label, which refused to release new music and left her stranded. (With JoJo, this went on for years.) Eve’s book feels more like a collection of moments, but those moments are pretty wild: When Eve’s fashion label fired her mother without letting Eve know, for instance, or when she asked Shug Knight to help her negotiate the terms of her record contract. Being with Eve for these few hours felt enlightening and real. Even the way she accepts her accountability is coolly inspiring. A particularly favorite moment — when someone is teaching Eve, in Spanish, how to salsa dance for a music video, she writes: “I didn’t know Spanish, but I knew how to say, ‘Bro, what the fuck? I’ve never done this before.’”
$25 at Amazon
Runaway Train, by Eric Roberts
Read by: The author
Length: 7 hrs, 54 mins
Speed I listened: 2.4x
You likely know him as Julia Roberts’s brother and Emma Roberts’s father, but Eric Roberts, 68, has an astounding number of acting credits under his belt. In this memoir, he writes about jumping between several movie and television sets every day. (His wife, Eliza, a sometime actress, is his manager.) He’s also developed a reputation as a loose cannon, in part from some creepy movie roles (especially in Bob Fosse’s Star 80) and what sounds like an intense coke habit. I was hoping for a nuttier listen than this. It turns out Roberts is lucid, self-reflective, and intelligent. But there’s enough weirdness that makes this train move pretty much nonstop for me, in particular his admission to several extramarital affairs; the role he played in the death of his actual, off-screen stepmother; and, well, the way he laughs at all of his own jokes.
$20 at Amazon
We Solve Murders, by Richard Osman
Read by: Nicola Walker
Length: 10 hrs, 32 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
I can’t tell you the plot of this thriller, because I couldn’t really follow it. I know people eat Osman’s books up like Maltesers, but I had a similar problem with his The Thursday Murder Club, a British mystery series about geriatrics in a retirement village who solve crimes. But Osman more than makes up for any plot confusion here via his wacky main characters in the start of this new series. There’s Amy Wheeler, a private security officer addicted to risk. She’s hired to protect Rosie D’Antonio, a kind of sexpot Mary Higgins Clark. They’re given an assist by Amy’s father-in-law, Steve, a retired detective who just hates missing his local pub quiz. I don’t know who did what and what they figured out, but, as a narrator, Walker, who’s been on pretty much every television show the U.K. has ever produced, somehow makes the characters even more fun to be around.
August
The Wedding People, by Alison Espach
Read by: Helen Laser
Length: 11 hrs, 37 mins
Speed I listened: 1.8x
I’ll preface by saying I was wary of listening to this best seller because of (a) the title, (b) the illustrated cover, and (c) it’s Jenna’s Book Club suggestion for August. But this is a real find. Did I find it on the best-seller list? Yes, I did. Does that mean it’s not really a “find?” Possibly. But, I’ve already recommended it a dozen times to a swath of friends who didn’t know about it, either, so I’ll call this my discovery of summer 2024. Phoebe Stone, a professor with a failed marriage and a dead cat, checks into a hotel in Newport with the idea of killing herself. I know that sounds eek — bear with me. Turns out she’s the only person who isn’t there for the extravagant wedding of Lila, a rich gallery girl who doesn’t like art, to Gary, a widower poop doctor. Phoebe finds a new lease on life in her interactions with Lila, the widowed gastroenterologist, Gary’s clever daughter Juice, a scientist with a speciality in panda sex, and pretty much everyone else. Espach’s writing is wise and witty. It reminds me of early Lorrie Moore, which is the best compliment I can give. As narrator, the terrific Laser, an actress and puppeteer, only enhances the swoon-worthy quirks and romance.
$20 at Amazon
The Bonus, by T L Swan
Read by: C.J. Bloom and Sean Masters
Length: 14 hrs, 5 mins
Speed I listened: 2.6x
I don’t know what compelled me to listen to this erotic romance novel. Maybe it was the pink cover, which is the same color as my emotional-support Stanley water bottle. (Yes, I’m basically an Olivia Rodrigo–loving tween.) Grace Porter is so madly in love with her noncommitting, womanizing boss Gabriel Ferrara that she actually moves to Maine to get away from him. But once she’s there, she discovers she’s pregnant with twins, and they’re his! There are plenty of characters and story points here that are ridiculous and offensive — including every time Grace uses the term “sex” to delineate her genitals and the never-ending awe with which she describes Gabriel’s, um, bonus package. Still, I found this a total, laugh-out-loud, unputdownable hoot. Maybe it’s because I listened at a furious speed, or maybe it’s because the two narrators really commit to their characters like it’s The Philadelphia Story with blowjobs.
$25 at Amazon
The Pairing, by Casey McQuiston
Read by: Emma Galvin and Max Meyers
Length: 14 hrs, 14 mins
Speed I listened: 2.2x
Like The Bonus, here’s another sex-filled romp you probably should only listen to with headphones — this one courtesy of Red, White & Royal Blue author Casey McQuinston. Childhood friends turned ex-lovers, Theo and Kit both think the other one left them at the airport baggage claim on their way to a European wine trip. A few years later, they each use their unused travel vouchers and accidentally end up on the same trip lusting after their Italian tour guide. Theo and Kit are both bisexual, and they create some kind of ridiculous competition to see who can hook up the most. The rules of the game keep changing, it’s all a little high concept, and they seem to wind up mostly hooking up with each other. But as a listen, The Pairing is just a delight, thanks to both Galvin’s and Meyers’s game narration — whether in Italian and French accents or in the bedroom.
$25 at Amazon
An Honest Woman, by Charlotte Shane
Read by: Caitlin Kelly
Length: 4 hrs, 38 mins
Speed I listened: 2.1x
Let’s add this to the pile of intercourse-related books I enjoyed this month. Am I noticing a pattern? Is it August? Do I need a boyfriend? Yes, yes, and yes. This one’s a more sobering memoir told from the perspective of an active and happy one-time sex worker who left her graduate program in women’s studies to make money as an escort. I found Shane’s take unexpected. She began doing the job because she loved sex, was fascinated by men, and wanted to be liked. Her relationships with multiple clients lasted for years. (Shane imagined she might turn up in one of her benefactor’s wills.) Though I wish the author had narrated herself, Kelly’s voice has a certain mysterious Belle de Jour je ne sais quoi. Weirdly, things only lose momentum once the author meets the actual love of her life.
$13 at Amazon
Wanted: Toddler’s Personal Assistant, by Stephanie Kiser
Read by: The author
Length: 7 hrs, 8 mins
Speed I listened: 1.7x
Half of this memoir is about Kiser growing up in an impoverished Republican family. The other half is about her experiences nannying for the one percent. The chapters about the latter are enjoyable and enthralling. On occasion, Kiser’s observations are too sharp, including telling the reader how much a watermelon costs at Citarella. For the most part, though, her descriptions of the people she encounters — the baby nurses, the parents, and the other nannies — are filled with balanced and keen observations. Some of the characters in her orbit are great. Some of them are assholes. The author’s narration brings a real authenticity here, down to mispronouncing the word chorizo.
$17 at Amazon
Lady Macbeth, by Ava Reid
Read by: Imani Jade Powers
Length: 9 hrs, 12 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
Besides a few dragons and what seems to be an illustration of Anya Taylor-Joy on the cover, there’s nothing truly revolutionary about this retelling of Macbeth, except that it’s from the perspective of the thane’s wife after their arranged marriage. Still, it’s a creepy bit of counterprogramming from your usual literary fiction made even more entertaining and lyrical by the amazing performance by Powers. I might pay her to read me all my emails in the Scottish brogue she gives Macbeth. Powers is a self-described actor, writer, and witch, so she brings a special grounded weirdness to the three weird sisters, who are front and center here.
$18 at Amazon
House of Glass, by Sarah Pekkanen
Read by: Laura Benanti
Length: 10 hrs, 43 mins
Speed I listened: 1.75x
I love Laura Benanti as an actress and as a reader. I often suggest the audiobook of When Life Gives You Lululemons simply because of her performance. I’d follow her most anywhere and she rarely leads me astray, including to this thriller. She plays Stella Hudson, a best-interest attorney with her own childhood mishegoss. She’s assigned to the custody case of 9-year-old Rose Barclay, who may or may not have pushed her babysitter out the window. The setup, the red herrings, and Hudson’s early anxiety with the case are much cannier than the climax and denouement, but this is a totally enjoyable late-summer listen.
$20 at Amazon
Men Have Called Her Crazy, by Anna Marie Tendler
Read by: The author
Length: 8 hrs, 38 mins
Speed I listened: 2.1x
I’ve been into memoirs about mental-health problems since I read Girl, Interrupted as a teenager, but of course I listened to this one because it’s written by John Mulaney’s ex-wife. (According to the New York Times, she knows that’s why we’re interested, too.) There’s nothing about the comedian (now married to actress Olivia Munn) here, which is a bummer. But Tender’s brittle narration is compelling and hard to turn off. I’m not sure the undercurrent of toxic masculinity is as interesting as Tendler thinks it is, but the apparently toxic relationship she had with her female therapist is fascinating.
$19 at Amazon
The Seventh Veil of Salome, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Read by: A full cast
Length: 11 hrs, 50 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
The DNA of this Hollywood melodrama is a dash of Sunset Boulevard, a pinch of Anita de Monte Laughs Last, and a nod to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. It’s the 1950s and Vera Larios, a Mexican unknown, gets the role of Salome in an epic picture. And everyone in her orbit goes a little crazy because of it, including: the rich scion of industry who falls in love with her, Vera’s own fame-obsessed mother, Vera’s sexist pig of a co-star, a bitchy failed actress who desperately wanted the part, and all the gossip columnists looking to tear Vera down. It’s a bit snoozy when it delves into the retelling of Salome’s story, which naturally is meant to parallel Vera’s in some way. But otherwise, the re-creation of mid-century Hollywood is lots of fun, especially thanks to the various voices of those who come in to read some of the peripheral characters.
July
Pink Glass Houses, by Asha Elias
Read by: A full cast
Length: 8 hrs, 18 mins
Speed I listened: 2.3x
This is basically a Miami version of Big Little Lies, but so what? I like Miami and I like Big Little Lies. Sign me up! After moving from Wichita to South Florida, Melody Howard doesn’t know what to do about the Chloe-wearing, Bal Harbour-shopping, cutthroat moms she suddenly has to befriend in her daughter’s new iguana-eat-iguana school district. The mysteries may be a bit on the thin side here, but it’s a fun, brisk, energetic listen. And yes, someone in the book is unveiling a new house with rosé-tinted windows.
$22 at Amazon
We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay, by Gary Janetti
Read by: The author
Length: 4 hrs, 33 mins
Speed I listened: 2.5x
In a lot of ways I feel snobby toward TV writer and producer Gary Janetti. His food and coffee suggestions, be they in New York (Polo Bar — talk to Nelly!), L.A. (Craig’s), or London (the Chiltern Firehouse, where he name-checks the entire staff), feel rich-bitch basic. He likes cruise ships. He ends all his essays abruptly, in the middle of a faux-introspective moment, a problem I similarly had with his previous collection. Sometimes his voice sounds like he’s a character on Family Guy, a show he’s written on for years. But then he’ll talk about how he got over his shame of buying himself the occasional stuffed teddy bear, and I just feel so seen. I melted over his wackadoo dinner with Dame Maggie Smith. I think I most appreciate his piece here about the challenges of being a houseguest for rich people. “No rich person is a generous host,” Janetti says. As a newbie in their home, “You are the latest streaming series, no more no less, and if you’re not amusing enough, they will not watch all the episodes.” Swoon.
$24 at Amazon
Viewfinder, by Jon Chu
Read by: The author
Length: 7 hrs, 44 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
Even I’m surprised that my enjoyment of Hollywood anecdotal minutiae has driven me to listen to a whole book by the director of the upcoming movie version of Wicked. Chu doesn’t share that much gossip here on bringing that mega-musical to the big screen, but there are enough fascinating anecdotes about his strange journey in the film business to make up for it. He goes from being literally the Second Coming wunderkind as a young graduate at USC to pitching on movies without success over and over. That is, until, finally, the sequel to Step Up comes along and he turns it into a surprise hit. Chu’s wide-eyed narration can be a tad too earnest, but his humility and warmth, especially about his extended family, make him a great companion here.
$18 at Amazon
Look in the Mirror, by Catherine Steadman
Read by: The author
Length: 8 hrs, 13 mins
Speed I listened: 1.9x
Credit where credit is due. Not only is Steadman a superfun thriller writer but, as an actor turned writer, she’s a terrific narrator too. See also: The Family Game and, even better, The Disappearing Act. Here, Nina inherits an island home from her somewhat estranged father, only to discover that it’s some sort of murderous Escape Room. Even with echoes of The Westing Game, Knives Out, some later Lee Child mysteries, and the movie Ex Machina, this one feels surprising and fresh.
$20 at Amazon
Guilty Creatures, by Mikita Brottman
Read by: Leon Nixon
Length: 6 hrs, 49 mins
Speed I listened: 1.7x
A downside to listening to so many audiobooks is that I don’t listen to true-crime podcasts. That’s potentially why I got so much enjoyment out of this nonfiction account of two couples in Tallahassee who became friends in high school, and when one of the husbands ends up disappearing on a duck-hunting trip in Lake Seminole. Read with gusto by Nixon, it’s a totally gripping story about religion, sex, and life insurance, and I listened in one whole shot.
June
Margo’s Got Money Troubles, by Rufi Thorpe
Read by: Elle Fanning
Length: 10 hrs, 21 mins
Speed I listened: 2.2x
This semi-comic novel about a new teen mom (Margo) who starts an Only Fans account is made much more amusing because it’s read by Elle Fanning of The Great. Her quirky dryness infinitely elevates Thorpe’s narrative, which seems to imagine that it’s more offbeat and Miranda July than it actually is. (Note the title.) The best parts here focus on Margo’s relationship with her estranged dad, Jinx, a one-time professional wrestler who offers to babysit the infant while Margo’s career takes off. Fanning is so fun to listen to, however, that it’s easy to ignore the novel’s pedestrian plot twists.
$24 at Amazon
The Friday Afternoon Club, by Griffin Dunne
Read by: The author
Length: 12 hrs, 19 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
In this new memoir, actor, screenwriter, producer, and director Griffin Dunne talks a lot about his penis and his sexual adventures. I was hoping for a bit less penis talk and more about his relationship with his father, Dominick Dunne, and his aunt, Joan Didion. But this book — and Dunne’s simultaneously wise and naïve narration — is provocative and compelling. His family chest is filled with secrets and lies, ironies and tragedies, ones that made me increasingly empathic about the perils of a Hollywood upbringing.
$20 at Amazon
There is No Ethan, by Anna Akbari
Read by: The author and Justin Price
Length: 9 hrs, 57 mins
Speed I listened: 2.1x
Do you need another reminder that online dating sucks? I doubt it. But, stories about catfishing are endlessly fascinating. And for those of us who dip our toes into the Tinder pond, it’s all too easy to get deeply engaged with a potential significant other you’ve never met. Just earlier this year, I wasted plenty of time chatting with a guy in Copenhagen — even after he told me he had never heard of Anna Karenina. Akbari’s internet odyssey involves Ethan, a Jewish guy from New Jersey who seems perfect, even if he flies off the handle for no reason every so often. You can feel how much Akbari, reading her own exchanges with “Ethan,” still wishes he existed even now.
$22 at Amazon
Consent, by Jill Ciment
Read by: Eileen Stevens
Length: 4 hrs
Speed I listened: 1.7x
One thing I’ll say about this brief but fascinating memoir is I wish Ciment, the author, had read it herself. The material, about Ciment rethinking her dalliance, at 16, with the 46-year-old painter who would eventually become her husband, is put at a bit of a distance by the narration from audiobook veteran Stevens. But I couldn’t help thinking that maybe that disconnect actually enhanced the experience. Ciment uncomfortably reassesses her previous writings about the relationship, and though you’d like to come out the other side understanding life and love, maybe you just can’t.
$14 at Amazon
Entrances and Exits, by Michael Richards
Read by: The author
Length: 15 hrs, 14 mins
Speed I listened: 2.4x
It’s hard to put my finger on what makes this memoir by the actor who famously played Kramer on Seinfeld so compelling. I think it’s that Richards comes off as quite thoughtful and raw. Here, he seems unabashedly honest and circumspect, for better or for worse. (His familial relationships, for instance, sit on the same shelf as Griffin Dunne’s, above.) Richards is often searching for a way to understand the world, which, of course, he knows he’ll never find. His intellectual passions here run from Joseph Campbell to Rumi to Carl Jung. Some of the book’s most interesting elements arrive as Richards builds Kramer into a full-fledged character, down to the two pairs of vintage Doc Martens he wore filming the entire run of the show. And through the narration, Richards seems to learn how to find himself, too.
The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley
Read by: A full cast
Length: 10 hrs, 20 mins
Speed I listened: 1.8x
Middle of the Night, by Riley Sager
Read by: Santino Fontana
Length: 11 hrs, 22 mins
Speed I listened: 1.9x
A Talent for Murder, by Peter Swanson
Read by: a full cast
Length: 8 hrs, 24 mins
Speed I listened: 1.8x
When it comes to page-turning summer thrillers, it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Though none of these three novels reach the morbid heights of, say, Gillian Flynn at her best, they’re all great listens on the way to the beach house. Foley’s latest, about the opening of a Soho Farmhouse property that pits the townies against the intruding capitalists, is a huge step up from her last, The Paris Apartment. The Midnight Feast and A Talent for Murder have several nifty turns of the screw, all bettered by a series of distinct character voices that turn up the tension. In particular, the larger cast of voices gives Swanson’s book, about a serial killer murdering for sport, the impression that you never quite know who is watching whom. In lieu of various actors, Middle of the Night has just one narrator, and he’s a good one. In audiobook circles, Santino Fontana is best known for reading the hell out of Caroline Kepnes You series. He’s equally creepy here as a bachelor who returns home to sell his parents’ house and solve the mysteries therein, including why his friend was kidnapped out of their tent during a childhood sleepover.
The Midnight Feast, by Lucy Foley
$25 at Amazon
Middle of the Night, by Riley Sager
$23 at Amazon
A Talent for Murder, by Peter Swanson
May
You Should Be So Lucky, by Cat Sebastian
Read by: Joel Leslie
Length: 11 hrs, 59 mins
Speed I listened: 1.7x
Since I started writing this column over three years ago, I’ve discovered, much to my surprise, that I quite enjoy a clever romance novel. But even I get overwhelmed by the sameness of the genre, especially the punny titles with the ever-so-slightly sophisticated New Yorker–inspired illustrated covers. The truth is that I need some guidance, too. So after reading a few early positive reviews, I tried this one, a novel that could actually benefit from better cover art and a wittier title because it’s just that good. It’s an unlikely romance, set in 1960, between Mark Bailey, a dapper newspaper writer with an affinity for Shirley Jackson, and Eddie O’Leary, a baseball player whose best friend is his mom and who’s having a particularly rough season. Read nimbly by Joel Leslie, by the end, I wasn’t sure which of the fictional fellers I wanted to marry more. I just know I didn’t want it to end. Swoon.
$25 at Amazon
Bits and Pieces, by Whoopi Goldberg
Read by: The author
Length: 6 hrs, 43 mins
“This book is read by Whoopi. C’est moi,” says the author, giving Bits and Pieces a goose from the start. Goldberg’s memoir is subtitled “My Mother, My Brother, and Me,” and, though it includes some of her zany Hollywood adventures, it’s mostly about “the two most magnificent people I ever knew.” Sure, I grew up with Sister Act and Ghost, but this audiobook affected me so deeply because I feel the same way about my late mom as Goldberg does about hers. “I will never get over her,” she says very early on, giving her recollections a palpable poignancy and an unexpected wiseness. “It’s possible that nothing in this book happened. Or that nothing that I’ve written happened the way I said it did.” Yes, there’s plenty of sadness here. When Goldberg was quite young, her mother was placed in a psychiatric hospital. They didn’t talk for two years. But one of the through-lines of the audiobook is Goldberg’s constant, infectious laughter. Though you want to cry, it’s much more cathartic to giggle along with her. I just loved this.
$18 at Amazon
Camino Ghosts, by John Grisham
Read by: Whoopi Goldberg
Length: 10 hrs, 17 mins
Speed I listened: 1.8x
Whoopi Goldberg loves audiobooks, or so she says in her new memoir (see above). She doesn’t sleep very much, and she listens to them in bed at night. She also is a John Grisham superfan, which is how she ended up narrating the author’s latest. In this one, Grisham’s third in the Camino Island series, the bookseller Bruce Cable gives the writer Mercer Mann a copy of a self-published book by Lovely Jackson. It’s about how Jackson’s runaway-slave ancestors came to inhabit a nearby island. This Grisham series tends to have a lighter touch than some of his more fast-paced legal thrillers, so Goldberg is an interesting choice. It takes a few beats to connect her voice with the material. But though she has become more of a “personality” these days, she seems to grow more comfortable with the characters. After all, she’s an EGOT and a class-act performer. Maybe this year she’ll win an Audie, too.
$23 at Amazon
Long Island, by Colm Tóibín
Read by: Jessie Buckley
Length: 9 hrs, 28 mins
Speed I listened: 1.8x
It’s a bit of a bummer that New York audiences don’t get to experience the Irish actor Jessie Buckley unravel on stage as Sally Bowles in the new Cabaret revival on Broadway. In movies like Men and The Lost Daughter, she’s proved quite remarkable at playing characters who find themselves at the end of their tether. Ellis Lacey, our main character in this sequel to Brooklyn, is at loose ends, too. (The role was played by Saoirse Ronan in the 2015 film.) It’s 1976 in Lindenhurst, New York. Ellis is in her 40s with two older kids, and her Italian American husband has gotten another woman pregnant. Refusing to raise the child as her own, Ellis journeys back to Ireland to see her mother and, incidentally, reconnect with an old flame. The love triangle Ellis creates is knotty, and Buckley’s narration, both soft and circumspect, makes this audiobook completely gripping till its final moments.
$19 at Amazon
Whale Fall, by Elizabeth O’Connor
Read by: Gwyneth Keyworth and others
Length: 3 hrs, 50 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
This novel has a lot to recommend it, but some particularly palatable things are (1) it’s short enough to listen to during a care ride to a weekend away; (2) it still packs an emotional punch despite its length, making it less a snack and more of a full meal; and (3) it’s set on a remote Welsh island, so, occasionally, our main storyteller (a teenager named Manod) drifts into actual Welsh. A dead whale washes up on the shore, and, with the arrival of a married couple of ethnographers, Manod’s life suddenly seems bigger than it had ever been. Keyworth’s narration is as mellifluous as it gets, even when it’s quietly devastating.
$14 at Amazon
Magic Pill, by Johann Hari
Read by: The author
Length: 8 hrs, 26 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
The whole Ozempic/Mounjaro/Wegovy conversation is maddening. Should I take it? Does anyone have it in stock? Will my insurance cover it? Is she on it? Why is she taking it if she’s thin? It’s so exhausting that I definitely didn’t want to read this book. I also wanted to hate it. I started listening with the intention of shutting it off after 15 minutes, if not less. But it turns out this book is just as much about the craze as it is about Hari, a British Swiss journalist. He struggles with the medication, both physically and mentally. His confessional vocal style mixed with his reporting about our perceptions of beauty make this totally absorbing.
$20 at Amazon
Swiped, by L. M. Chilton
Read by: Georgia Maguire
Length: 8 hrs, 46 mins
Speed I listened: 1.8x
The charm of this light thriller, set in a small English coastal city and about the perils of Tinder dating (here called Connector), comes from the excellent matching of the sharp voice of the male author with Maguire’s wry narration. Gwen Turner is trying to open an on-the-go coffee van. After “the Hen do from hell,” she gets caught up in a string of bad dates that become worse, especially after the guys keep turning up dead. Both Gwen and Maguire are great fun, especially when it comes to the actress’s different voices for the loser-ly fellows she encounters. Even Maguire’s British pronunciation of words like “harem” (as “har-eem”) and “urinal” (as “ur-ine-al”) adds to the general jocularity.
The Return of Ellie Black, by Emiko Jean
Read by: A full cast
Length: 10 hrs, 11 mins
Speed I listened: 2.1x
AND
Home Is Where the Bodies Are, by Jeneva Rose
Read by: A full cast
Length: 8 hrs, 27 mins
Speed I listened: 1.75x
Two nifty mysteries about the skeletons families have in the closet, told from shifting POVs. In Ellie, a young woman who’d been lost for years suddenly returns home. Is she willing to let Chelsey Calhoun, a detective with her own gritty past, help her? Who is she covering for? In Home Is Where the Bodies Are, siblings stumble upon a VHS tape that implicates their parents in the murder of a young woman much like Ellie Black. Both books are breezy listens, benefiting from shifting character voices and time periods.
The Return of Ellie Black, by Emiko Jean
Read by: A full cast
Length: 10 hrs, 11 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.1x
$19 at Amazon
Home Is Where the Bodies Are, by Jeneva Rose
$17 at Amazon
The Ministry of Time, by Kalaine Bradley
Read by: George Weightman and Katie Leung
Length: 10 hrs, 22 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
With echoes of Outlander and Kate and Leopold, a civil servant in the U.K. gets a job to shepherd a time-traveling 19th-century explorer into the 21st. Leung, a Scottish actress who starred as Cho Chang in the Harry Potter films, is the British Cambodian unnamed narrator. Weightman drops in occasionally to take us through Commander Graham Gore’s expedition to the Arctic. I often chuckled at the slice of life, fish-out-of-water moments, like when Gore learns about Spotify, and I was surprisingly tickled by the romantic elements, too.
$19 at Amazon
You Like It Darker, by Stephen King
Read by: Will Patton
Length: 20 hrs, 12 mins
Speed I listened: 1.6x
I don’t know if there’s a better match between narrator and material than Will Patton is for Stephen King. He’s such a creepy vocal presence that you don’t mind that he reads every story in this collection. Most of them are from the perspective of older guys, like Patton, chronicling particularly unsettling moments in their lives. One guy has periodic visits with a mystical “Answer Man,” but always seems to ask the wrong question. Another, a character from Cujo, is haunted by twin boys supposedly murdered by snakes. I will say I wasn’t scared one bit by “The Turbulence Expert,” about a fellow with the ability to clear air turbulence. That is, until I saw this news story about a Singapore Airlines flight from London. Eek.
April
Love Life, by Matthew Hussey
Read by: The author
Length: 11 hrs, 1 min
Speed I listened: 1.8x
For a period, in Los Angeles, I ran a self-help book club. A handful of friends and I met a few times to chart how we were changing and growing, basically until we got tired of listening to each other talk. But it gave room to discuss what was bunk in Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements and how to apply the valuable stuff. If anything would make me start that club again it would be Love Life. This book is mostly about being single and finding healthy relationships, though at a certain point it verges — and, please excuse the fromage — into a handbook on how to develop a healthy relationship with yourself. Hussey dances around the idea that he’s a reformed cad, and that perspective only heightens the potency of his narration. This is candid, no-frills straight talk, and I’m here for it.
$25 at Amazon
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, by Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea
Read by: The authors and Barbara Flynn
Length: 12 hrs, 5 mins
Speed I listened: 2.3x
Even when Dame Judi Dench talks about Shakespeare — which is basically the entire premise of this book — the 89-year-old actress has a filthy mouth. That means her collaborator here had to excise a lot of F-words from each page of his manuscript before sending it to the editor. (One among many that remain: “The Merchant of fucking Venice.”) Some other delightful details: Dench claims she’s been trying, for years, to teach her parrot the “to be or not to be” speech from Hamlet. She also thinks Miss Piggy would make a great Phoebe in As You Like It. “I’d go and see the play if she was doing it for sure,” Dench says. Most of Dench’s part is read, fairly seamlessly, by the British actress Barbara Flynn. The actress shows up for some interstitial Shakespeare line readings and a genius post-book chat. It’s all glorious.
$20 at Amazon
The Husbands, by Holly Gramazio
Read by: Miranda Raison
Length: 10 hrs, 30 mins
Speed I listened: 1.8x
In a more nonfiction-heavy month, this novel made me chuckle. Lauren comes back from a party only to discover that her husband has been replaced by a different husband. She soon learns that if she sends one husband up to the attic, another one will come down. There’s a Midnight Library–meets–Taylor Jenkins Reid feeling here, which is a great combination. And Raison’s brittle British voice makes it all the more witty.
$23 at Amazon
The Chain, by Chimene Suleyman
Read by: The author
Length: 6 hrs, 8 mins
Speed I listened: 1.7x
The saga starts when Suleyman, a Turkish journalist, is dumped by her boyfriend on their way to an abortion clinic in Queens. Soon, she discovers the “chain” of women the man has deceived, stealing their money, time, and dignity along the way. I’d have liked to hear more anecdotes from the women whom Suleyman befriends through her journey and perhaps less pontificating on gender and relationships in 2024. Although Suleyman doesn’t have the wide-eyed humor of Reesa Teesa on TikTok, her narration brings a palpably chilling authority to a story she shouldn’t have to tell.
$25 at Amazon
Somehow: Thoughts on Love, by Anne Lamott
Read by: The author
Length: 4 hrs, 16 mins
Speed I listened: 1.6x
I’ve relied on Anne Lamott for wisdom since I read her writing memoir, Bird by Bird. Apparently, she teaches a Sunday-school class in Northern California. I’d love to matriculate, even if, frankly, my interest in religion is rather minimal. She’s just so dynamic and insightful when it comes to life, especially interpersonal relationships and everyday perseverance. There’s nothing quite like having her as both the good cop and the bad cop chatting right in your ear. This audio gave me an acerbic new line when I wonder if something is “fair.” “Fair,” writes Lamott, “is where the pony rides are.”
$16 at Amazon
Table for Two, by Amor Towles
Read by: Edoardo Ballerini and J. Smith-Cameron
Length: 13 hrs, 23 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
I’m in the minority, but I’ve had a hard time getting into Amor Towles’s novels, like A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility. The short fiction here does the trick. Table for Two is split between stories that take place in New York City and a linked few that take place in Los Angeles. I preferred the New York stories, especially one called “The Bootlegger” read buoyantly by the actress J. Smith-Cameron (Succession). It’s about the fallout when a guy gets angry at his seatmate at Carnegie Hall for secretly recording the orchestra on stage. An O. Henry–like tale called “The Ballad of Timothy Touchett,” about a whippersnapper who finds himself forging signatures for a rare book seller, is also read with great élan by Ballerini, an audiobook stalwart.
$23 at Amazon
Knife, by Salman Rushdie
Read by: The author
Length: 6 hrs, 22 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
I was often scared and anxious listening to this book, about the 2022 incident in which Rushdie was stabbed at a lecture in New York and his subsequent recovery. But being scared and anxious while listening to an audiobook is a good thing. It means I’m riveted. The author’s voice has a magical quality, too, especially when he’s talking insightfully about life, death, and all the terrifying moments in between.
$20 at Amazon
Rebel Rising, by Rebel Wilson
Read by: The author
Length: 10 hrs, 48 mins
Speed I listened: 2.6x
Celebrity memoirs are a surprisingly effective branding tool. I usually finish these books caring more about the celebrity than I did when I started. Examples: Rob Lowe, Henry Winkler, John Stamos, Pamela Anderson, and many others. What made listening to Rebel Wilson’s book such a grounding, worthwhile experience is that I liked her less, even if I related to many of her problems (daddy issues, weight fluctuation, social insecurity, etc.). I couldn’t help but find Wilson’s anecdotes awkward as she writes about losing her virginity; driving around Beverly Hills wearing her $900 Dita sunglasses in her Mercedes G Wagon with illegally tinted windows; and calling out people she doesn’t like as “coke-sniffing sexist dickheads.” It’s performed like it’s written, with great (and sometimes exhausting) earnestness, making it yet another fascinating artifact of the post-COVID Hollywood-memoir boom.
$19 at Amazon
The Age of Magical Overthinking, by Amanda Montell
Read by: The author
Length: 6 hrs, 5 mins
Speed I listened: 1.8x
This collection of essays focused on the weirdness of contemporary life and popular culture is a bit peripatetic, moving briskly from subjects such as Taylor Swift to Joan Didion to old toxic relationships (i.e., three important things I care about). I especially enjoyed hearing her talk about that last topic, a long, complicated entwinement with a guy she calls “Mr. Backpack.” But my Jerry Maguire, you-complete-me moment comes when Montell uses the expression “woo-woo schmuck” to describe a new age healer. I don’t know if I needed to hear anything else after that, but I’m glad I did.
March
Anita de Monte Laughs Last, by Xochitl Gonzalez
Read by: Jessica Pimentel, Jonathan Gregg, and Stacy Gonzalez
Length: 13 hrs, 36 mins
Speed I listened: 2.1x
I have a hard time giving props to Reese’s Book Club, but this month’s selection is a ding-ding-ding winner. It focuses mainly on two women: the fierce, forgotten, and deceased 1980s artist Anita, and Raquel, a grad student who rediscovers Anita’s work several years later. The book is clever and original, but what’s more, Pimental, a star of Orange Is the New Black, reads Anita as if she’s in a fever dream. There’s a vibrant wickedness to her performance that no doubt will make this one of the best listens of the year.
$20 at Amazon
Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera
Read by: January LaVoy and Will Damron
Length: 9 hrs, 18 mins
Speed I listened: 1.9x
Everyone thinks Lucy killed her best friend Savvy back home in Texas. Years later, with Lucy on to a new — if unexciting — life in Los Angeles, a podcast hosted by the hunky Ben Owens tries to uncover the actual murderer. A lot of thrillers these days use the murder podcast as a plot device. This production simulates one better than any audiobook I’ve listened to, to an often hilarious effect. Also, LaVoy expertly voices one of Lucy’s funniest tics: imagining how she would murder nearly every person with whom she comes in contact.
$20 at Amazon
Lost Man’s Lane, by Scott Carson
Read by: Corey Brill
Length: 15 hrs, 22 mins
Speed I listened: 2.2x
Scott Carson is a pseudonym for Michael Koryta, a thriller writer I’ve been obsessed with since reading Those Who Wish Me Dead. (The book is much better than Taylor Sheridan’s movie, with a plot twist I still think about.) The Carson novels have a supernatural bent, fitting in a universe reminiscent of Stephen King, but set in the Midwest, not Maine. This one’s about a suburban teenager named Marshall who interns with a private investigator to unravel clues about the disappearance of a young woman in the early aughts. Snakes factor into the plot here, which, in its dénouement, left me with a “what exactly just happened?” feeling. But the journey is creepy and trippy, enhanced by Corey Brill’s agility to slip between the canny private detective and Marshall’s innocent nostalgia.
$22 at Amazon
The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties, by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Read by: Risa Mei
Length: 9 hrs, 23 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
I loved the audio of Sutanto’s novel Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, so I’m inclined to follow her anywhere. This is the third in a series about Meddy Chan and her meddling family, but it’s the first I’ve listened to. I’m sure the humor of this cozy mystery — about a missing Chinese New Year envelope in Jakarta — jumps off the page when you read it, but as narrator, Risa Mei truly elevates the experience to laugh-out-loud, even giving each of the four “aunties” a distinct personality. A delight, whether you like dim sum brunch or not.
$18 at Amazon
The House of Hidden Meanings, by RuPaul
Read by: The author
Length: 7 hrs, 7 mins
Speed I listened: 2.2x
It came as a surprise to me that this memoir from RuPaul, one of the world’s more over-the-top celebrities, is actually quite sobering and subdued. Clearly, that’s how the Drag Race host wanted it. In turn, the book occasionally drags in parts, too, as Ru describes his slow and steady rise to fame, even if it was predestined by his mother, who named him RuPaul because she knew he would be a star. His drug-fueled, circuitous route to Significant Public Figure is still fascinating, just as it is to spend a few hours with a RuPaul whose performance here remains grounded.
$25 at Amazon
How To Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone, by Cameron Russell
Read by: The author
Length: 5 hrs, 3 mins
Speed I listened: 1.8x
This pointillistic nonfiction account of growing up as a young model in the fashion industry is candid and direct. Meaning: At times it’s sobering, and at times it’s just jaw-dropping. It also helps that Russell, now 36, pulls no punches in her narration. She is a gripping companion sharing her journey, one that often illuminates the weird and unsettling power division between agents and photographers and the beautiful women who make some of the most iconic images in the world.
$16 at Amazon
Sylvia’s Second Act, by Hillary Yablon
Read by: Jane Oppenheimer
Length: 11 hrs, 20 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
Sometimes, you just need to listen to a book about a lady from Boca Raton who finds her husband in flagrante delicto with another woman and starts her life over in big, bad New York City. Sylvia gave up her dream to be a wedding planner years before, but it’s not going to elude her this time around. There are plenty of contrivances here — especially Sylvia’s obsession with Sex and the City — but every so often, Sylvia’s path zigs where you expect it to zag. That’s no small feat. Meanwhile, Jane Oppenheimer gives all of Yablon’s characters plenty of quirky life outside of South Florida, including Sylvia’s best friend, a widowed cabaret pianist named Evie who becomes her roommate.
$20 at Amazon
Say Hello to My Little Friend, by Jennine Capó Crucet
Read by: Krizia Bajos
Length: 8 hrs, 42 mins
Speed I listened: 1.8x
This zany book follows Izzy, a failed Pitbull (the singer) impersonator who’s now decided his life needs to be a lot more Scarface. Like Carl Hiaasen, the author gets South Florida just right, here focusing on all the looney-tune characters in Izzy’s Miami existence. I may be yelling “timber” here, but the text is only heightened by Krizia Bajos, who is Cuban and Miami-born. She truly makes the already riotous references to Pitbull songs and Al Pacino lines just effervescent.
February
Alphabetical Diaries, by Sheila Heti
Read by: Kate Berlant
Length: 5 hrs, 26 mins
Speed I listened: 1.65x
I love the Canadian writer Sheila Heti — especially her last novel, Pure Colour, in which she grapples with the death of her father. This is a different kind of book. It’s basically a scrambling of the author’s diaries, but all of the sentences that start with the same letter, A to Z, are placed in alphabetical order. I read about a third of it and I loved its deliberate weirdness, one that I could really only imbibe in small portions. When I saw that the genius comedian Kate Berlant would be narrating the audiobook, I decided to finish it by listening instead. Heti has definitely produced a deliberately weird experiment, but hearing it out loud transforms Alphabetical Diaries into a kind of spoken-word, longform poetry. Berlant adds that extra pizazz, so you really get a window into the creative mind as it shifts quickly from moments of despair to lightbulbs of insight to incidents of sexual desire to the recollection of totally random literary facts. One of my favorites here is under “P”: “Patricia Highsmith lost her virginity at Yaddo.”
$15 at Amazon
Piglet, by Lottie Hazell
Read by: Rebekah Hinds
Length: 7 hrs, 35 mins
Speed I listened: 2.2x
Piglet, the affectionate but also upsetting nickname for the cookbook-author protagonist of this uncomfortable but un-turn-off-able novel, is told by her fiancé of an indiscretion just two weeks before their wedding day. Piglet isn’t ready to put the brakes on their relationship just yet, and instead she starts to go a bit out of control and maybe even to lose her mind. One of the best things about this listen is how many times Hinds, a British stage actor, needs to repeat the word “croquembouche,” a French pastry cake that Piglet is making for her own wedding reception. Every time she says “croquembouche,” the audiobook gets another kick in the pants.
$15 at Amazon
What Have We Here?, by Billy Dee Williams
Read by: The author
Length: 11 hrs, 34 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
How did I know this book would be entertaining from the start? In the first few moments, Billy Dee Williams, perhaps best known to contemporary audiences for his role in the Star Wars universe, dedicates his memoir to “all my wives.” That’s how. In fairness, Williams has only been married thrice. Still, the 86-year-old sex symbol from the Diana Ross films Mahogany (1975) and Lady Sings the Blues (1975), among many other television series and films, really knows how to turn on the charm. Just the way he pronounces the name of his most famous character, Lando Calrissian, is a gorgeous hoot. And he got to wear a cape! There are a lot of surprising anecdotes here about raising children in Hollywood, growing up in a privileged family in Harlem, and the kinds of trouble he got into with some of his female co-stars on the New York stage.
$20 at Amazon
Good Material, by Dolly Alderton
Read by: Arthur Darvill and Vanessa Kirby
Length: 9 hrs, 54 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
This British breakup book owes a lot to High Fidelity, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s told from the perspective of Andy, a sort of loser, aspiring stand-up comedian, who’s just been dumped by his girlfriend. Kirby makes a short guest appearance for an hour or so toward the end, but this is mostly Darvill’s show (he won an Olivier in 2023). He makes Andy quite palatable, in a befuddled way, especially when he reads his very Nick Hornby–like list of why he shouldn’t still be dating his ex.
$20 at Amazon
Get the Picture, by Bianca Bosker
Read by: The author
Length: 10 hrs, 14 mins
Speed I listened: 1.8x
I used to cover Art Basel Miami from a social perspective for The Wall Street Journal. The free-for-all, jam-packed few days of pointless parties just made me bananas. I really enjoyed this exploration of the seemingly impenetrable art scene because Bosker really gets it. Her character studies of gallerists, painters, buyers, and up-and-comers are wry and perceptive. As the narrator of her own journey in which her subjects alternatively seek and shun her journalistic take, she is a terrifically funny tour guide. This is a real audio gem.
$20 at Amazon
Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions, by Ed Zwick
Read by: The author
Length: 10 hrs, 23 mins
Speed I listened: 2.2x
Don’t be turned off by the generic title of this filmmaking memoir from Zwick, the co-creator of Thirtysomething and the director of Legends of the Fall and About Last Night. This is dishy, juicy audio. It includes amazing stories about: Julia Roberts, who flirted with playing the lead in Shakespeare in Love when Zwick was going to direct it but basically just vanished; Matthew Broderick, who brought his mother on to rewrite Glory; and several “Guess who, don’t sue” anecdotes, many of which I rewound over and over because they’re just so absurdly Hollywood. Reading his own work, Zwick is a nice combination of amazed and shocked that he has lived to tell his own tales. He’s circumspect about his successes and failures while also keeping an honest take on a nutty industry.
$19 at Amazon
The Women, by Kristin Hannah
Read by: Julia Whelan
Length: 14 hrs, 57 mins
Speed I listened: 1.9x
This is a highly addictive novel about Frankie McGrath, a California nursing student who volunteers to serve in Vietnam after her brother dies there. She experiences enough soap-opera twists and turns — love, friendship, trauma, depression, and disappointment — to make you want to go watch all four seasons of the late-’80s nighttime drama China Beach, starring Dana Delaney. You’ll be out of luck — I looked and it’s not streaming. That’s okay, because all 15 hours of Hannah’s novel are compelling, made only more so by audio pro Whelan’s sensitive narration.
$25 at Amazon
Outofshapeworthlessloser, by Gracie Gold
Read by: The author
Length: 9 hrs, 39 mins
Speed I listened: 1.9x
Memoirs these days have become more revealing. That’s a good thing. Otherwise, why bother? This one’s about “figure skating, fucking up, and figuring it out” from the perspective of Gold, who exploded onto the Olympic circuit in 2014. Gold calls her destructive inner voice “Outofshapeworthlessloser,” which is pretty darn relatable. There’s a lot of eye-opening drama here: failures, fat shaming, ice-skating scandals, controlling parents. Gold just really goes there in her emotional narration. It’s not a particularly important takeaway, but I’d still like to know: Did Taylor Swift invite Gold over with the intention of making chocolate-chip cookies, or did she invite her over to hang out and then they ended up making chocolate-chip cookies?
$18 at Amazon
It’s Not You, by Ramani Durvasula
Read by: The author
Length: 11 hrs, 31 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
I love talking and learning about narcissism. It’s a buzzword that comes up in so many of my conversations, but I don’t truly understand it. This self-help book, read with distinctive command by the psychologist author, is more about “identifying and healing from” our encounters with the narcissists in our lives. I find it hard to come away from any advice book completely armed for battle with the insane people in my orbit, but I hope even a small takeaway will seep through. This month I’m carrying with me the idea that you shouldn’t try to reason or argue with a narcissist. All you’ll get in return, says Durvasula, is “a large bowl of word salad with some gaslighting dressing on the side.” I’ll take a chopped salad instead, please!
January
Family Family, by Laurie Frankel
Read by: Patti Murin
Length: 14 hrs, 57 mins
Speed I listened: 2.3x
I had a hard time finding audiobooks I liked this month. I loved spending time with Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) as he read a British shrink in Matthew Blake’s thriller Anna O. But I just could not follow what was happening in the story at all. Ditto for Arian Moayed (Stewy on Succession), who is great company as the narrator of Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr!. But, the time and character shifts make the story a challenging listen. So it was a great relief to be immediately absorbed in Laurie Frankel’s new novel, which is, per the title, about family. Tonally on the bubbly side — there’s no time for depression here — the plot is a tad far-fetched. India Allwood is a stage actress who stars on some fantasy television series. She gives up two babies for adoption and then adopts some of her own. When her career approaches cancellation — she says something out of turn to a reporter — all her kids band together to save her. Murin, who played the original Princess Anna in Frozen on Broadway, keeps things breezy and refreshing. Her scenes of India struggling with coming into her talents at acting school — including playing a pregnant Lady Macbeth — are highlights.
$20 at Amazon
The Fury, by Alex Michaelides
Read by: Alex Jennings
Length: 8 hrs, 8 mins
Speed I listened: 1.75x
Michaelides wrote the huge best-seller The Silent Patient, so he’s got a few tricks up his sleeve with this new novel — some more predictable than others. Elliot Chase, our unreliable narrator, owes a bit to Tom Ripley; he might also remind readers of Barry Keoghan’s character in Saltburn. Elliot obsesses over his friend Lana Farrar, a former big movie star (think Julia Roberts). They end up on vacation in Greece, and it becomes awfully cloudy to decipher what’s real and what’s a performance. At 66, Jennings, a British actor of stage and screen (The Crown), is probably too old to narrate Elliot’s nifty and treacherous rant. But, his impeccable accent keeps the already propulsive novel quite engaging, and moving like a steam train about to run you over.
$20 at Amazon
Upside Down, by Danielle Steel
Read by: Michael Braun
Length: 7 hrs, 54 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
Danielle Steel has published almost 200 books, but I’ve never read any of them. So as a resolution for 2024, I took the plunge. And you know what? I liked it. This one’s about a 62-year-old Hollywood icon, Ardith Law, who reminded me of a reclusive Michelle Pfeiffer. She has an affair with a much younger actor — I imagined Glen Powell — who has come on as her temporary assistant. (Don’t ask why.) Ardith’s story alternates with that of her estranged daughter, a plastic surgeon back in New York, who is also experiencing genuine love for the first time. Cue the butterflies, violins, and motorcycle rides to Malibu. Sometimes you just want an easy listen, and Braun’s masculine tones are like Manuka Honey.
$17 at Amazon
1000 Words, by Jami Attenberg
Read by: The author and others
Length: 4 hours, 56 mins
Speed I listened: 2.1x
As another resolution for 2024, I figured I should make a pledge to work on some of the writing projects I can never seem to finish. Or pretend to. This “guide to staying creative, focused, and productive all year round” features aphorisms and advice from such prolific writers as Rebecca Makkai, Elizabeth McCracken, Susan Orlean, Roxane Gay, and Bryan Washington. Thanks to Attenberg’s kindly vocals, it moves swiftly and encouragingly. With hope, some of the words of wisdom seeped through into my consciousness. At least one piece did, and for that I’m grateful: “Embrace your inner good enough.”
$13 at Amazon
More, by Molly Roden Winter
Read by: The author
Length: 8 hrs, 43 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
Much has already been made of this uncomfortably intimate memoir about a New York couple who open their marriage. Still, I wanted to hear it for myself. Why shouldn’t I be conversant in the trend of non-monogamy, the unavoidable topic du jour, even if most of my time is spent listening to audiobooks? Winter’s adventures in dating and fooling around as a married woman with children do not disappoint. The ways she narrates a French boyfriend (terribly) and a German one (even more terribly) are priceless. As jaw-droppingly blunt as Winter is, she serves as a reminder that maybe there is such a thing as TMI. Then again, I listened to the whole thing in a single sitting, so maybe I could use more excitement in my life.
$18 at Amazon
First Lie Wins, by Ashley Elston
Read by: Saskia Maarleveld
Length: 9 hrs, 16 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
It’s been a long road, but I’ve finally come to accept that selections from the Reese Witherspoon Book Club are not the same as the Pulitzer Committee. Witherspoon describes this one as “everything you could want in a thriller.” I can’t go that far. This one felt kind of vague to me, as if it came out of a vape pen. The bad guy, for instance, is called Mr. Smith. But there’s definitely fun to be had in unraveling the identity of the real Evie Porter when another Evie Porter unexpectedly shows up in town. And Maarleveld, a prolific audiobook reader, heightens the excitement.
