Welcome to our monthly blog feature, Book Clubbin’! With school and work routines slowly kicking back into action, many people are trying to find ways to keep entertained. Whether you’re back to your daily commute or simply walking to and from your WFH set up, it’s a great time to reach out to your book-loving pals and invite them to join a virtual or socially distanced book club!
Audiobooks are the perfect option for people who want to enjoy books on the go. By setting up a book club, you’ll be able to share your love for audiobooks with old and new friends alike. If you’re interested in starting a book club but don’t know where to start, check out this list of the best audiobooks for your bookclub!
This month’s Book Clubbin’ pick is Fredrik Backman‘s Anxious People, narrated by Marin Ireland. As a bestselling author, Backman has become known for writing stories that deliver meaningful messages with perfectly interjected comedic relief. Following suit with his previous works, Anxious People is a poignant comedy that slowly reveals the hardships of the modern world. Viewing an apartment normally doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers begin slowly opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths.
Filled with Fredrik Backman’s impeccable character development and undeniable wit, Anxious People’s whimsical plot serves up unforgettable insights into the human condition and a gentle reminder to be compassionate to all the anxious people we encounter every day.
If you’re ready to start discussing Anxious People with your book club, get started with the questions below. Beware— SPOILERS ahead.
—————MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!————
1) Do you feel as though each character was already anxious when walking into the open house? What were they anxious about?
2) This story explores the many relationships of its characters, both in and outside of the open house. How do some of these relationships contribute to, or help to ease, the anxiety felt within the hostage situation?
3)Fredrik Backman‘s stories are known to be driven by their character development. Which character in this book did you most identify with? Did your opinion of them change throughout the story? Discuss the different themes and additions this character brought into the novel.
4) Multiple characters have memories that connect back to the bridge. What symbolic meaning does the bridge hold? Do you think the meaning of the bridge changed for the characters by the end of the book?
5) Though Anxious People can be considered a comedy, the novel touches on some difficult parts of the human experience and the issues we often face. Discuss the societal issues that resonated with you, and how the characters managed those situations.
6) Each character has a unique approach to vulnerability and how they open up about their personal anxieties. Who do you think was the most reserved character? The most open? Why do you think these people had different approaches?
7) Near the beginning of the story, Backman wrote “This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots.” How do you define idiocy, and how do characters in this book fit with or go against your definition?
8) If Anxious People were to be made into a television series or film, who would you picture playing some of the characters? Is there anything you’d change about the book to fit better within a video form?
New to Audiobooks.com? Get your first book free, PLUS a bonus book from our VIP selection when you sign up for our one-month free trial. Digital audiobooks make audible stories come to life when you’re commuting, working out, cleaning, cooking, and more! Listening is easy with our top-rated free audiobook apps for iOS and Android, which let you download & listen to bestselling audiobooks on the go, wherever you are. Click here to get your free audiobooks!
As the last of the summer heat burns up, it’s once again time for snuggling up in cozy sweaters with mugs of hot cider—but don’t bury yourself in blankets just yet! We’ve got five fall activities with the perfect audiobook pairings to get you moving, thinking, and listening.
Read on for our recommendations so you can get the most out of this gorgeous, glorious season.
Go on a bike ride
Is there a more perfect time to go biking than in the fall? It’s the perfect way to take in the changing foliage, plus the crisp, chilly air will keep you from breaking a sweat! This year, take it up a notch as you begin your ride by popping on Ruth Ware’s latest thriller, One By One, and let narrator Imogen Church transport you to a luxury ski chalet where a company retreat goes horribly wrong. Just make sure you have a long enough route planned because you won’t want to press pause on this listen!
Learn to knit
If you’re itching to pick up a new hobby, knitting is perfect for the fall season! From scarves to socks to decorative goodies, there’s no limit to what you can create with some yarn and a pair of knitting needles. Plus, if you’re ambitious, you can knock out some Christmas presents extra early. For the perfect listen to keep you entertained and motivated, pop on The Vampire Knitting Club by Nancy Warren for some lighthearted mystery filled with knitting references!
Take a scenic fall drive
As the trees change colors, going on a scenic drive is the perfect way to take in the autumn landscape. No matter if you’re driving solo or making the trip with loved ones, there’s always room for the fabulous and radiant Jonathan Van Ness! Listening to his memoir Over the Top will be like having an extra friend in the car cheering you on and giving you honest advice, which—let’s face it—we could all use from time to time. Alternatively, if you have little ones riding with you, Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer is a perfect action-packed listen that the whole family will enjoy. Get lost in the world of magic and mystery in the car, then put on the movie when you get home for some bonus bonding time!
Go fruit picking
There’s nothing more relaxing than going apple picking on a crisp, fall morning. It’s the perfect way to spend some time in nature, plus you get to bring home fresh fruit for all of your baking needs. When you head to the orchard this season, put on Jay Shetty’s Think Like a Monk for lil extra mindful detox. Learn how to find your purpose and overcome negativity while you’re filling your basket with fresh goodies!
Make Halloween crafts
Fall just isn’t complete without spooky activities. Whether or not trick or treating will happen as usual this year, you can always spook-ify your home to set the mood. Pull out those carving tools and faux cobwebs and get crafting! What better audiobook to listen to than something terrifying like Riley Sager’s Home Before Dark? Transport yourself to the haunted Baneberry Hall as you transform your own home into a haunted house!
New to Audiobooks.com? Get your first book free, PLUS a bonus book from our VIP selection when you sign up for our one-month free trial. Digital audiobooks make audible stories come to life when you’re commuting, working out, cleaning, cooking, and more! Listening is easy with our top-rated free audiobook apps for iOS and Android, which let you download & listen to bestselling audiobooks on the go, wherever you are. Click here to get your free audiobooks!
Fall is creeping in, which means it’s time to bust out the sweaters and start doing cute autumnal activities. You know what I’m talking about: fall hikes, apple picking, baking cookies or pies (or anything pumpkin), and cozying up inside. “And how could we make those activities even better?” You ask. Simple, add an audiobook to the mix.
From now until September 21, 2020 we’re running our Fall Sale, which features tons of audiobooks for under $8 (£7 in the UK). On the hunt for something mysterious to listen to? Or are you in the mood to swoon over a new romance audiobook? Either way, we have something you’ll love.
We’ve rounded up a few of our fave picks from the sale below, but to browse the full sale list click the appropriate link below:
These days, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Neil deGrasse Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in digestible chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day. While waiting for your morning coffee to brew, or while you’re in the car commuting or on a road trip, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.
Saint Ambrose Prep is a place where the wealthy send their children for the best possible education. Traditionally a boys-only school, Saint Ambrose has just enrolled one hundred and forty female students for the first time. While most of the kids on the campus have all the privilege in the world, some are struggling. One day after the school’s annual Halloween event, a student lies in the hospital, her system poisoned by dangerous levels of alcohol. Everyone in this sheltered community—parents, teachers, students, police, and the media—are left trying to figure out what actually happened. Steel’s Moral Compass illuminates the dark side of one drunken night, with its tragic consequences, from every possible point of view. As the drama unfolds, the characters will reach a crossroads where they must choose between truth and lies, between what is easy and what is right…
Go back to the beginning with the very first installment of the In Death series! Eve Dallas is a New York police lieutenant hunting for a ruthless killer. In over ten years on the force, she’s seen it all. And she’s going against every warning telling her not to get involved with Roarke, an Irish billionaire—and a suspect in Eve’s murder investigation. But passion and seduction have rules of their own, and it’s up to Eve to take a chance in the arms of a man she knows nothing about.
Wanting to read the books before watching the show? Jump into the Virgin River series. This entry in the series tells the heartwarming lesson of second chances, rekindled love, and new hope.
Paradise Valley follows Rick Scudder, who joined the Marine Corps with high hopes, but left with a broken spirit and a shattered body. He’s been pushing away everyone close to him, including his father, Jack, and his longtime girlfriend, Liz. Now, Rick must find the strength to let Liz back into his heart.
Three sisters have returned to their childhood home, reuniting the eccentric Andreas family. Here, books are a passion and TV is something other people watch. Their father—a professor of Shakespeare who speaks almost exclusively in verse—named them after the Bard’s heroines. It’s a lot to live up to.
These sisters have a hard time with communication and they are now finding that when confronted with their parents’ frailty and their collective disappointment of how their lives turned out, not even a good book can help them now.
To celebrate the rise of their new queen, three goddesses of the moon created three stars: one of fire, one of ice, one of water. But then they fell from the sky, putting the fate of all worlds in danger. And now three women and three men join forces to pick up the pieces.
This thrilling listen features Joe Pickett, a game warden in Wyoming who finds his life in danger after he looks into a murder investigation and discovers a conspiracy involving an oil pipeline and its threat to an endangered species.
If you’re on the hunt for a new romance series, why not start with Where Good Girls Go To Die. This listen follows Livy, who knows she shouldn’t get involved with Parker James, her brother’s best friend, but she can’t resist. After having her heart broken, she runs.
Four years later, she runs into him again and he’s still just as she remembered him. Guarding her heart from him is top priority because Parker James is where good girls go to die. Unfortunately for him, Livy wasn’t a good girl anymore.
New to Audiobooks.com? Get your first book free, PLUS a bonus book from our VIP selection when you sign up for our one-month free trial. Digital audiobooks make audible stories come to life when you’re commuting, working out, cleaning, cooking, and more! Listening is easy with our top-rated free audiobook apps for iOS and Android, which let you download & listen to bestselling audiobooks on the go, wherever you are. Click here to get your free audiobooks!
Fall is finally here and with it comes pumpkins, cozy sweaters, and the biggest audiobook releases of the year!
From big-name memoirs to fresh works by beloved authors, the hottest audiobooks of the fall are going to be a real treat for your ears. No matter what you’re itching for, there’s something here for everyone. Read on for our 25 most anticipated audiobooks of fall 2020.
From the chef behind Momofuku and star of Netflix’s Ugly Delicious, Eat a Peach chronicles David Chang’s switchback path. He lays bare his mistakes and wonders about his extraordinary luck as he recounts the improbable series of events that led him to the top of his profession. He wrestles with his lifelong feelings of otherness and inadequacy, explores the mental illness that almost killed him, and finds hope in the shared value of deliciousness. Along the way, Chang gives us a penetrating look at restaurant life, in which he balances his deep love for the kitchen with unflinching honesty about the industry’s history of brutishness and its uncertain future.
In this inspiring, empowering book, Jay Shetty, social media superstar and host of the #1 podcast On Purpose, draws on his time as a monk to show us how we can clear the roadblocks to our potential and power. Combining ancient wisdom and his own rich experiences in the ashram, Think Like a Monk reveals how to overcome negative thoughts and habits, and access the calm and purpose that lie within all of us. He transforms abstract lessons into advice and exercises we can all apply to reduce stress, improve relationships, and give the gifts we find in ourselves to the world. Shetty proves that everyone can—and should—think like a monk.
A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Ayad Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless lives and the gods of finance rule, where immigrants live in fear, and where the nation’s unhealed wounds wreak havoc around the world. Akhtar attempts to make sense of it all through the lens of a story about one family, from a heartland town in America to palatial suites in Central Europe to guerrilla lookouts in the mountains of Afghanistan, and spares no one—least of all himself—in the process.
It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined.
The Simulmatics Corporation, launched during the Cold War, mined data, targeted voters, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge—decades before Facebook, Google, and Cambridge Analytica. Simulmatics had a hand in everything from political races to the Vietnam War to the Johnson administration’s ill-fated attempt to predict race riots. The company’s collapse was almost as rapid as its ascent, a collapse that involved failed marriages, a suspicious death, and bankruptcy. Exposed for false claims, and even accused of war crimes, it closed its doors in 1970 and all but vanished. Until Jill Lepore, best-selling author of These Truths, came across the company’s papers in MIT’s archives and set out to tell this forgotten history, the long-lost backstory to the methods, and the arrogance, of Silicon Valley.
During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira Navárez finds an alien relic. At first she’s delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.
As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn’t at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human.
While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity’s greatest and final hope . . .
Who could have predicted that, after a fateful meeting in a Bronx summer school in the 1990s, Desus & Mero would turn their friendship into an empire of talking to each other. And it’s no surprise—tuning in to them is like listening to the funniest, smartest people you know dissect a topic and then light it on fire. Now they’ve written the most essential guide to life of this century, in which all the important questions are asked: How do I talk to my kids about drugs if I do them, too? What are the ethics of ghosting in a relationship? How do I bet on sports? How should I behave in jail? How much is too much to spend on sneakers? Is porn really that bad for me?
The quiet power of kindness can change the way we view one another, our communities, and even ourselves. Lady Gaga embodies this mission, and through her work, brings more kindness into our world every single day.
Within these chapters, you’ll meet young changemakers who found their inner strength, who prevailed in the face of bullies, who started their own social movements, who decided to break through the mental health stigma and share how they felt, who created safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth, and who have embraced kindness with every fiber of their being by helping others without the expectation of anything in return. Individually and collectively, these stories prove that kindness not only saves lives but builds community. Kindness is inclusion, it is pride, it is empathy, it is compassion, it is self-respect and it is the guiding light to love.
Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein. She’s on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: Prepare for a crash landing. She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind. The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband but of a man she last saw fifteen years ago: Wyatt Armstrong.
As the story unfolds, Dawn’s two possible futures—one with her husband and daughter, the other with Wyatt and a career she long-ago abandoned—unspool side by side, as do the secrets and doubts long buried with them. Dawn must confront the questions she’s never truly asked: What does a life well lived look like?
Fear. Grief. Loss. Betrayal. Rachel Hollis has felt all those things. Now, she takes you to the other side. When it comes to the “hard seasons” of life—the death of a loved one, divorce, loss of a job—transformation seems impossible when grief and uncertainty dominate your days. Especially when, as Didn’t See that Coming reveals, no one asks to have their future completely rearranged for them. With her signature humor, heartfelt honesty and true-life stories, Rachel Hollis shares how to embrace the difficult moments in life for the learning experiences they are, and that a life well-lived is one of purpose and focused on the essentials.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver comes the story of an unwilling dark sorceress who is destined to rewrite the rules of magic. With flawless mastery, Naomi Novik creates a heroine for the ages—a character so sharply realized and so richly nuanced that she will live on in hearts and minds for generations to come.
In this scientifically informed account of the changes occurring in the world over the last century, award-winning broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough shares a lifetime of wisdom and a hopeful vision for the future. A Life on Our Planet is Attenborough’s witness statement and his vision for the future. It is the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake—and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right.
Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat, and starts to realize that even small towns shelter dangerous secrets.
Let Love Rule covers a vast canvas stretching from Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, Los Angeles’s Baldwin Hills, Beverly Hills, and finally to France, England, and Germany. It’s the story of a wildly creative kid who, despite tough struggles at school and extreme tension at home, finds salvation in music.
Jake Brigance is back! The hero of A Time to Kill, one of the most popular novels of our time, returns in a courtroom drama that showcases #1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham at the height of his storytelling powers.
Clanton, Mississippi. 1990. Jake Brigance finds himself embroiled in a deeply divisive trial when the court appoints him attorney for Drew Gamble, a timid sixteen-year-old boy accused of murdering a local deputy. Many in Clanton want a swift trial and the death penalty, but Brigance digs in and discovers that there is more to the story than meets the eye. Jake’s fierce commitment to saving Drew from the gas chamber puts his career, his financial security, and the safety of his family on the line.
Written by veteran journalist and music critic Marcus J. Moore, this is the first biography of Kendrick Lamar. It’s the definitive account of his coming-of-age as an artist, his resurrection of two languishing genres (bebop and jazz), his profound impact on a racially fraught America, and his emergence as the bona fide King of Rap.
The Butterfly Effect is the extraordinary, triumphant story of a modern lyrical prophet and an American icon who has given hope to those buckling under the weight of systemic oppression, reminding everyone that through it all—“we gon’ be alright.”
Hope blooms anew for the Four Lands in this riveting conclusion, not only to the Fall of Shannara series but to the entire Shannara saga—a truly landmark event over forty years in the making!
As the Four Lands reels under the Skaar invasion—spearheaded by a warlike people determined to make this land their own—our heroes must decide what they will risk to save the integrity of their home. Even as one group remains to defend the Four Lands, another is undertaking a perilous journey across the sea to the Skaar homeland, carrying with them a new piece of technology that could change the face of the world forever. And yet a third is trapped in a deadly realm from which there may be no escape.
In To Hold Up the Sky, Cixin Liu takes us across time and space, from a rural mountain community where elementary students must use physicas to prevent an alien invasion; to coal mines in northern China where new technology will either save lives of unleash a fire that will burn for centuries; to a time very much like our own, when superstring computers predict our every move; to 10,000 years in the future, when humanity is finally able to begin anew; to the very collapse of the universe itself.
From Academy Award®–winning actor Matthew McConaughey comes an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.
Group is the deliciously original debut memoir of a guarded, over-achieving, self-lacerating young lawyer, Christie Tate, who reluctantly agrees to get psychologically and emotionally naked in a room of six complete strangers. With Tate as our guide—skeptical of her own capacity for connection and intimacy, but hopeful in spite of herself—we are given a front row seat to the daring, exhilarating, painful, and hilarious journey that is group therapy—an under-explored process that breaks you down, and then reassembles you so that all the pieces finally fit.
Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson’s a Black day care teacher, and they’ve been together for a few years—good years—but now they’re not sure why they’re still a couple. There’s the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other.
But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan, Mike undergoes an extraordinary transformation, while back home Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates.
Both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together, or fracture everything they’ve ever known. And just maybe they’ll all be okay in the end.
Ivy Lin is a thief and a liar—but you’d never know it by looking at her. Thieving allows Ivy to accumulate the trappings of a suburban teen—and, most importantly, to attract the attention of Gideon Speyer, the golden boy of a wealthy political family. But when Ivy’s mother discovers her trespasses, punishment is swift and Ivy is sent to China.
Years later, Ivy has grown into a poised yet restless young woman, haunted by her conflicting feelings about her upbringing and her family. Back in Boston, when Ivy bumps into Sylvia Speyer, Gideon’s sister, a reconnection with Gideon seems not only inevitable—it feels like fate.
Slowly, Ivy sinks her claws into Gideon and the entire Speyer clan. But just as Ivy is about to have everything she’s ever wanted, a ghost from her past resurfaces, threatening the nearly perfect life she’s worked so hard to build.
Megan Rapinoe, Olympic gold medalist and two-time Women’s World Cup champion, has become a galvanizing force for social change; here, she urges all of us to take up the mantle, with actions big and small, to continue the fight for justice and equality
Using anecdotes from her own life and career, from suing the United States Soccer Federation alongside her teammates over gender discrimination to her widely publicized refusal to visit the White House, Rapinoe discusses the obligation we all have to speak up, and reveals the impact each of us can have on our communities.
As told by Dolly Parton in her own inimitable words, explore the songs that have defined her journey. Illustrated throughout with previously unpublished images from Dolly Parton’s personal and business archives Mining over 60 years of songwriting, Dolly Parton highlights 175 of her songs and brings readers behind the lyrics. Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics reveals the stories and memories that have made Dolly a beloved icon across generations, genders, and social and international boundaries.
The highly anticipated sequel to the beloved worldwide bestseller Ready Player One, the “ridiculously fun and large-hearted” (NPR) near-future adventure that inspired the blockbuster Steven Spielberg film.
New to Audiobooks.com? Get your first book free, PLUS a bonus book from our VIP selection when you sign up for our one-month free trial. Digital audiobooks make audible stories come to life when you’re commuting, working out, cleaning, cooking, and more! Listening is easy with our top-rated free audiobook apps for iOS and Android, which let you download & listen to bestselling audiobooks on the go, wherever you are. Click here to get your free audiobooks!
With every year that rolls around, many of us set personal goals with the hopes of bettering ourselves. Although, inevitably—as this year has shown us—curve balls both big and small will come along and nudge us off of our paths. That’s why author Gary Jansen created the simple but powerful method of “microshifting” to help people create significant, sustainable changes in their lives by making small, incremental adjustments. In his latest audiobook, MicroShifts, Jansen blends masterful storytelling and dozens of practical tips to help you change your life.
We got the chance to pick Jansen’s brain about his latest audiobook, the recording process, and how he stays motivated in tough times. Keep reading to find out what he had to say.
Audiobooks.com: “MicroShifts” is the idea that implementing small, daily changes can impact our lives in profound ways in the long run. What led you to develop this technique?
Gary Jansen: I wrote a book some years ago called The 15-Minute Prayer Solution (available as Exercising Your Soul from Recorded Books), which was in some ways a book about time management. There are 1440 minutes in a day. One percent of that time is 14 minutes and 24 seconds, roughly 15 minutes. I asked readers, what would happen if you dedicated your life to growing spiritually every day by setting aside 15 minutes a day for spiritual practice? Just 1% of your life. Before writing the book, I had experimented with that principle for a year. The results were transformative. MicroShiftsgrew out of that initial idea that you can make significant changes in your life by setting aside small blocks of time to do something you really want to do. All of us feel like we don’t have enough time, but we do have time. All of us can find 15 minutes a day to meditate, pray, call a friend, learn about the stock market, research healthy foods, go for a walk, paint, learn to cut an onion, clean out a closet, or take a power nap. Whether you’re a busy mom or an executive or a plumber working around the clock—everyone can find 15 minutes to do something to better their lives. I think there is something innate inside us that always wants us to strive to improve. MicroShifts aims to help others do that.
Audiobooks.com: What can readers gain from listening to the audiobook version of MicroShiftsthat they might not necessarily get from reading the print version?
Gary Jansen: I hope the humor comes through. I like to make people laugh, and I have a dry sense of humor, so sometimes people don’t know if I’m joking or being serious. As the author of the book, I know where the jokes are and how they should be delivered. Plus, I’ve been a musician for over 25 years, so intonation, tempo, and rhythm are essential. I’m hoping the writing’s musicality comes through, too, especially in the chapter about writing and Stephen King. That chapter felt like a song to me.
Audiobooks.com: You’ve been narrating your own audiobooks since 2010. What are some of the most interesting changes you have seen in the audiobook industry over the last decade?
Gary Jansen: I love the process of recording. I love being in the studio. I love getting to have fun with my voice. I’ve been a huge fan of audiobooks since the ’90s. Having worked in the publishing business, I know audiobooks struggled to find their audience for a long time. In retrospect, I guess I can see why. Audios weren’t that financially lucrative, as compared to a hardcover book or paperback sales. There wasn’t a lot of money to invest in the recordings, and sometimes that meant lackluster productions. Nowadays, audio is riding high. I know many people who no longer read print books. They only listen to audio. Plus, as an editor, I know that one way to get a bestseller is for an author to write a book for people who don’t usually read books. There are plenty of people who just don’t like to read, but they like to listen; they like to learn. Audio gives a whole new part of the population access to great books and great minds. And with this level of popularity, there’s more money to invest in the best engineers and voice talent. In the last ten years, audios have become an art form.
Audiobooks.com: How has your approach to narration changed over time?
Gary Jansen: I think I’m more conscious now than ever to the energy of lines. By this, I mean that sometimes a line should be read slowly, sometimes quickly, and sometimes naturally like a steady pulse of heartbeats. Over the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to read in front of large audiences and be interviewed on TV. I’ve learned that if you switch up your rhythms and your tempo, you’ll keep someone’s attention better than if you stay at a steady pace. But I don’t try to force a line. The spoken line needs to be an outgrowth of the written line. I just have to try to find the energy of a word, a line, or a paragraph. That can take extra time for me when I’m practicing and preparing, but I think it makes for a better listening experience.
Audiobooks.com: During these uncertain times, many people have had to make drastic lifestyle changes. How have you used your technique of MicroShifting to stay healthy and focused during this time?
Gary Jansen: MicroShifts is a book of practical spirituality, meaning it’s a book that helps you develop your mind, body, and soul and gives you things to do. I’ve worked with author and doctor Deepak Chopra for many years, and he’s been a big influence in my life as a friend, a writer, and a mentor. Everything is connected. Case in point: All the gyms are shut down, and I miss working out with all the folks I’ve gotten to know at our local gym. I’ve been using the idea of microshifting to help me exercise at home to keep me sane. Since I only have a few dumbbells, I make small changes to the way I perform an exercise, which keeps me on my toes, and I exercise in small chunks of time throughout the day to keep me active. I’ve also taken up running during the lockdown, and I’ve used microshifts to push myself to run just a few more feet every day. Those extra steps you take add up over time. I have more energy and feel better than I have in years. When you feel better—when you aren’t distracted by pain or fear or anxiety—something changes inside you spiritually. You feel happier and focused, and when you’re happier, you treat the people around you better too. Your relationships improve, and when that happens, the world around you transforms in surprising ways.
Audiobooks.com: Do you have any advice for people who are looking to implement these daily shifts into their lives? How do you stay motivated and committed to taking 1% out of your day to making positive changes?
Gary Jansen: Staying motivated is hard, and being consistent may even be harder. Sometimes we can be overcome by feelings that drag us down. “What’s the point?” or “Why should I even try?”. Often, we feel this way because of this nasty little pest in our heads—that inner voice—that is saying things like, you’re not good enough, you’re never going to succeed, just give up. Most meditation practices will tell you to let the voice speak, allow your thoughts to move through you like they were clouds, let them pass. I’m not that patient. I want them to shut up because a lot of times, this voice in your head is just a liar. So one microshift you can do is thought replacement. If you start to doubt yourself, repeat the word love or wealth or prosperity or happiness repeatedly to drown out the voice of self-doubt. It might sound stupid or overly simple, but the reason why negative thoughts often spring up inside us is that we’ve repeated them over and over again to ourselves. We’ve allowed the voice to speak lies. So speak truth when the voice speaks lies. It’s a small thing, but in time the practice can rock your world in remarkable ways.
Audiobooks.com: Is there anything new that you’re working on that you can share with us?
Gary Jansen: I am working on a script for my memoir Holy Ghosts, which is about growing up and living in a haunted house (and is an audiobook at Recorded Books). I’ve talked with some producers over the years in Hollywood about turning Holy Ghosts into a movie. So there’s been interest. Writing a script is difficult and requires a unique skill set, but I’m using microshifts to inch my way to completion. I want Ethan Hawke to play me in the movie. I’m not only a fan of his films, but he’s a fantastic audiobook narrator. I just finished listening to him read Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums. Loved it! ∎
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When Edward Cullen and Bella Swan met in Twilight, an iconic love story was born. But until now, fans have heard only Bella’s side of the story. At last, readers can experience Edward’s version in the long-awaited companion novel, Midnight Sun.
This unforgettable tale as told through Edward’s eyes takes on a new and decidedly dark twist. Meeting Bella is both the most unnerving and intriguing event he has experienced in all his years as a vampire. As we learn more fascinating details about Edward’s past and the complexity of his inner thoughts, we understand why this is the defining struggle of his life. How can he justify following his heart if it means leading Bella into danger?
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.
Atlanta, Georgia. Present day. A young woman is brutally attacked and left for dead. The police investigate but the trail goes cold. Until a chance assignment takes GBI investigator Will Trent to the state penitentiary, and to a prisoner who says he recognizes the MO. The attack looks identical to the one he was accused of eight years earlier. The prisoner’s always insisted that he was innocent, and now he’s sure he has proof. The killer is still out there.
As Will digs into both crimes it becomes clear that he must solve the original case in order to reach the truth. Yet nearly a decade has passed—time for memories to fade, witnesses to vanish, evidence to disappear. And now he needs medical examiner Sara Linton to help him hunt down a ruthless murderer. But when the past and present collide, everything Will values is at stake…
In this psychological thriller, a missing patient raises concerns in a New York hospital, but as others start disappearing every dark possibility becomes more and more likely.
To Senior Midwife Lucy Ryuan, pregnancy is not an unusual condition, it’s her life’s work. But when two kidnappings and a vicious stabbing happen on her watch in a university hospital in Manhattan, her focus abruptly changes. Something has to be done, and Lucy is fearless enough to try. Rumors begin to swirl, blaming everyone from the Russian Mafia to an underground adoption network. The feisty single mom teams up with a skeptical NYPD detective to solve the case, but the truth is far more twisted than Lucy could ever have imagined.
The world’s largest bounty has just been placed upon America’s top spy. His only hope for survival is to outwit, outrun, and outlast his enemies long enough to get to the truth.
But for Scot Harvath to accomplish his most dangerous mission ever—one that has already claimed the lives of the people closest to him, including his new wife—he’s going to need help—a lot of it.
Not knowing whom he can trust, Harvath finds an unlikely ally in Norwegian intelligence operative Sølvi Kolstad. Just as smart, just as deadly, and just as determined, she not only has the skills, but also the broken, troubled past to match Harvath’s own.
In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric.
Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her grandparents’ large, imposing house in the heart of Queens, New York, where Donald and his four siblings grew up. She describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse. She explains how specific events and general family patterns created the damaged man who currently occupies the Oval Office, including the strange and harmful relationship between Fred Trump and his two oldest sons, Fred Jr. and Donald.
A firsthand witness to countless holiday meals and interactions, Mary brings an incisive wit and unexpected humor to sometimes grim, often confounding family events. She recounts in unsparing detail everything from her uncle Donald’s place in the family spotlight and Ivana’s penchant for regifting to her grandmother’s frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald, Fred Trump’s favorite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimer’s.
Numerous pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have sought to parse Donald J. Trump’s lethal flaws. Mary L. Trump has the education, insight, and intimate familiarity needed to reveal what makes Donald, and the rest of her clan, tick. She alone can recount this fascinating, unnerving saga, not just because of her insider’s perspective but also because she is the only Trump willing to tell the truth about one of the world’s most powerful and dysfunctional families.
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.
Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.
Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.
America’s top-rated cable news host offers his first book in ten years: a look at America’s fight against those who would reverse our tradition of freedom—a fight we can’t afford to lose in 2020.
America is great for a reason. Built on principles of freedom, rugged individualism, and self-sufficiency, no country has ever accumulated more power and wealth, abused it less, or used that power more to advance the human condition.
And yet, as America blossomed, leftwing radicalism and resentment festered beneath the surface, threatening to undermine democracy first in the sixties and now—more insidiously than ever—in the form of social justice warriors, the deep state, and compromised institutions like academia and the mainstream media.
Our fate if we succumb to a Democratic victory in 2020? A big step toward full-blown socialism along with the economic dysfunction and social strife that are its hallmarks. With radical Democrats demanding the Green New Deal, socialized medicine, abortion on demand, open borders, abolishing the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court, and an end to free speech, our great nation will be fundamentally transformed beyond recognition.
Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is but one generation away from extinction,” and his words have never rung truer. In Live Free or Die, Sean demonstrates why now is an All Hands on Deck moment to save the Republic. His solution is simple: if all you can do is vote, then vote. But if you can inform people of the truth, that’s even better. And the truth is that the future of American freedom rests on Donald Trump’s reelection.
An unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a Ph.D. from Cambridge University.
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
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