Celebrate International Women’s Day with Audiobooks

Posted on March 8, 2018 by Michelle

Every year on March 8, International Women’s Day is celebrated to acknowledge the social, economic, political, and cultural achievements of women — and what better way to celebrate than by listening to audiobooks penned by incredible female authors?

I look forward to this day every year to see what governments, organizations, charities, corporations, and my friends are doing and saying to recognize the trailblazing women who have changed (and are changing) the world. The future, indeed, is female.

In addition to the many remarkable women in my life, reading books by female authors that depict both real and fictional lives of iconic and ordinary women has given me the support, guidance, and courage to move beyond glass ceilings and push for equity, diversity, and inclusion.

We’ve rounded up a dozen inspiring books to celebrate some of our favorite female authors and feminist stories. Tell us in the comments who your favorite female authors or characters are and let us know how you’re celebrating International Women’s Day!

1. A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena, narrated by Firdous Bamji, Neil Shah, Soneela Nankani, Lameece Issaq

In this young adult debut set in Saudi Arabia, where the law forbids romantic relationships outside of marriage, two teens fall in love with tragic consequences. Sixteen-year-old Zarin Wadia is many things: an Indian girl, a bright and vivacious student, an orphan, a troublemaker whose romantic entanglements are the subject of endless gossip among the girls in her school.
Read more and sample the audio.

2. What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton, narrated by Hillary Rodham Clinton

For the first time, Hillary Rodham Clinton reveals what she was thinking and feeling during one of the most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections in history. Now free from the constraints of running, Hillary takes you inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules.
Read more and sample the audio.

3. Getting Off: One Woman’s Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction by Erica Garza, narrated by Joy Osmanski

A courageous account of one woman’s unflinching and ultimately hopeful journey through sex and porn addiction. A fixation on porn and orgasm, strings of failed relationships and serial hook-ups with strangers, inevitable blackouts to blunt the shame – these are not things we often hear women share publicly, and not with the candor, eloquence and introspection Erica Garza brings to Getting Off.
Read more and sample the audio.

4. This Will Be My Undoing by Morgan Jerkins, narrated by Morgan Jerkins

From one of the fiercest critics writing today, Morgan Jerkins’ highly-anticipated collection of linked essays interweaves her incisive commentary on pop culture, feminism, black history, misogyny, and racism with her own experiences to confront the very real challenges of being a black woman today — perfect for fans of Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist and Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me.
Read more and sample the audio.

5. milk and honey by Rupi Kaur, narrated by Rupi Kaur

Rupi Kaur reads milk and honey, her New York Times bestselling collection of poetry and prose about survival, the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache.
Read more and sample the audio.

6. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, narrated by Caroline Lee

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate, remembering everything and forgiving no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare but pays a price for the illusion of perfection. Single mom Jane is so young, another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. They are at different crossroads, but all wind up in the same shocking place.
Read more and sample the audio.

7. The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips, narrated by Bahni Turpin

A new edition of this award-winning modern classic, the shade of a 13-year-old black girl’s skin can make the difference in her fate. Tangy Mae is the smartest of her mother’s ten children, but she is also the darkest-complected. The Quinns-all different skin shades, all with unknown fathers-live with their charismatic, beautiful, and tyrannical mother, Rozelle, in poverty on the fringes of a Georgia town where Jim Crow rules.
Read more and sample the audio.

8. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, narrated by Maggie Gyllenhaal

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under — maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such intensity that Esther’s insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies.
Read more and sample the audio.

9. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, narrated by Elisa Donovan

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, ranked eighth on Fortune’s list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business, is one of America’s most galvanizing leaders, and an icon for millions of women juggling work and family. In Lean In, she urges women to take risks and seek new challenges, to find work that they love, and to remain passionately engaged with it at the highest levels throughout their lives.
Read more and sample the audio.

10. Wild by Cheryl Strayed, narrated by Bernadette Dunn

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe and built her back up again. At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. Alone.
Read more and sample the audio.

11. Heart Talk by Cleo Wade, narrated by Cleo Wade

True to her hugely popular Instagram account, Cleo Wade brings her moving life lessons to Heart Talk, an inspiring, accessible, and spiritual book of wisdom for the new generation. Featuring over one hundred and twenty of Cleo’s original poems, mantras, and affirmations, including fan favorites and never before seen ones, this book is a daily pep talk to keep you feeling empowered and motivated.
Read more and sample the audio.

12. Red Clocks by Leni Zumas, narrated by Karissa Vacker

In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers alongside age-old questions surrounding motherhood, identity, and freedom.
Read more and sample the audio.

February’s Top 10 Audiobooks.com Member Downloads

Posted on March 2, 2018 by Michelle

Listen to this month’s roundup of the top fiction and non fiction titles downloaded by Audiobooks.com members.

Fiction

1. The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, narrated by Julia Whelan

When you listen to this audiobook, you will make many assumptions. You will assume you are listening to a story about a jealous ex-wife. You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.
You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.
Assume nothing.
Read more and sample the audio.

2. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle, narrated by Hope Davis

Meg Murray, her little brother Charles Wallace, and their mother are having a midnight snack on a dark and stormy night when an unearthly stranger appears at their door. He claims to have been blown off course, and goes on to tell them that there is such a thing as a “tesseract,” which, if you didn’t know, is a wrinkle in time. Read more and sample the audio.

3. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, narrated by Sean Crisden and Elisa Davis

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined.
Read more and sample the audio.

4. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, narrated by Wil Wheaton

Wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut-part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.
Read more and sample the audio.

5. Still Me by Jojo Moyes, narrated by Anna Acton

Louisa Clark arrives in New York ready to start a new life, confident that she can embrace this new adventure and keep her relationship with Ambulance Sam alive across several thousand miles. She is thrown into the world of the superrich Gopniks: Leonard and his much younger second wife, Agnes, and a never-ending array of household staff and hangers-on.
Read more and sample the audio.

Non Fiction

1. Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Leif Babin and Jocko Willink, narrated by Jocko Willnick

In Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin share hard-hitting, Navy SEAL combat stories that translate into lessons for business and life. With riveting first-hand accounts of making high-pressure decisions as Navy SEAL battlefield leaders, this book is equally gripping for leaders who seek to dominate other arenas. Read more and sample the audio.

2. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg, narrated by Mike Chamberlain

Named one of the best books of the year by The Wall Street Journal Financial Times and New York Times Bestseller. A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, have fundamentally changed.
Read more and sample the audio.

3. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance, narrated by J. D. Vance

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class, Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis, that of white working-class Americans.
Read more and sample the audio.

4. All-American Murder: The Rise and Fall of Aaron Hernandez, the Superstar Whose Life Ended on Murderers’ Row by James Patterson, narrated by Alex Abramovich

Football coaches, players, and fans called Aaron Hernandez unstoppable. His four-year-old daughter called him Daddy. The law called him inmate #174594. He was a college All-American who became the youngest player in the NFL and later a Super Bowl veteran. Aaron Hernandez’s every move as a professional athlete played out in the headlines, yet he led a secret life-one that ended in a maximum security prison.
Read more and sample the audio.

5. Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff, narrated by Holter Graham and Michael Wolff

With extraordinary access to the Trump White House, Michael Wolff tells the inside story of the most controversial presidency of our time. The first nine months of Donald Trump’s term were stormy, outrageous-and absolutely mesmerizing. Read more and sample the audio.

Page to Screen in March 2018

Posted on March 2, 2018 by Michelle

Before you head to the movies this month, make sure you listen to the books they were based on first!

1. Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews, narrated by Jeremy Bobb
Expected release date: March 2

A gripping, highly commercial espionage thriller written with the delicious insider detail and up-to-the-minute insight, only known to a veteran CIA spook. In today’s Russia, dominated by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, state intelligence officer Dominika Egorova struggles to survive in the cast-iron bureaucracy of post-Soviet intelligence.

Read more and listen to a sample.

2. Death Sentence (Film Adaptation: Death Wish) by Brian Garfield, narrated by Brian Holsopple
Expected release date: March 2

Paul Benjamin was an ordinary New Yorker until a gang of drug addicts killed his wife and raped his daughter. When the police proved helpless, Benjamin bought a gun and found his own vengeance, methodically tracking the addicts and killing them one by one. Now he is in Chicago, and the cycle of violence is about to begin anew.

Read more and listen to a sample.

2. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle, narrated by Hope Davis
Expected release date: March 9

Read more and listen to a sample.

4. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, narrated by Michael Crouch
Expected release date: March 16

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business.

Read more and listen to a sample.

5. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, narrated by Wil Wheaton
Expected release date: March 29

Read more and listen to a sample.

FICTION FRIDAY: The Best Kind of Fiction

Posted on February 23, 2018 by Michelle

Title: The Best Kind of People
Author: Zoe Whittall
Narrator: Cassandra Campbell

On the surface, the Woodbury’s are the quintessential American family.

George, an award-winning teacher, once saved their small town elementary school from a gunman seeking revenge. His doting wife, Joan, and overachieving daughter, Sadie, are well known and liked in their community. Their circle of friends is vast, but soon, a shocking accusation against George shakes the town and the once tightknit family to its core.

Throughout the novel, both Joan and Sadie grapple with the fact that George may be guilty of unthinkable crimes against those who trusted him, and ask a series of questions throughout the novel not reserved for fiction. Do you truly know your own family? Who can you trust? And, perhaps most timely of all, is it possible to love someone who has done terrible things?

Overflowing with shocking twists and turns intensified by narrator Cassandra Campbell, The Best Kind of People is the kind of book that left me lying to myself by saying, “Just one more chapter before bed” until the very last word. Despite being fiction, The Best Kind of People is relevant to the #MeToo era that so heavily relies on the bravery of women who share their stories.

Listen to a sample and get the whole story here.

Nebula Award Finalists

Posted on February 22, 2018 by Kelsi Morris

The Nebulas, a prestigious science fiction award, has just announced the list of finalists for 2017, and the ballot is out of this world! Take a look at the full list of novels under consideration, with the results to be announced in May. I’ve already devoured all of them, and have no idea how they will ever decide. Give them a listen for yourself here, and feel free to leave your thoughts below!

Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly

“Trust no one with anything especially in Amberlough City.”

From author Lara Elena Donnelly, comes a debut spy thriller, Amberlough, where a gay double-agent schemes to protect his smuggler lover during the rise of a fascist government coup

Combining the espionage thrills of le Carré with the allure of an alternate vintage era, Amberlough will thoroughly seduce and enthrall you. Listen to a sample.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss

“Now it is up to the monsters to finally triumph over the monstrous.”

Based on some of literature’s horror and science fiction classics, this is the story of a remarkable group of women who come together to solve the mystery of a series of gruesome murders–and the bigger mystery of their own origins.

Listen to a sample.

Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory

“Hilarious, heartfelt and brimming with humanity.” -Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest

Harnessing the imaginative powers that have made him a master storyteller, Daryl Gregory delivers a stunning, laugh-out-loud novel about a family of gifted dreamers and the invisible forces that bind us all.

Listen to a sample.

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

“She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.”

The remarkable conclusion to the post-apocalyptic and highly acclaimed trilogy that began with the multi-award-nominated The Fifth Season. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly suggest you drop everything and get on that immediately.

Listen to a sample.

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

“It was not common to awaken in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood.”

A space adventure set on a lone ship where the clones of a murdered crew awake with with no memory of how they died, and somehow must find their murderer — before they kill again.

Listen to a sample.

Jade City by Fonda Lee

“FAMILY IS DUTY. MAGIC IS POWER. HONOR IS EVERYTHING.”

Award-winning author Fonda Lee explodes onto the adult fantasy scene with Jade City , an epic saga reminiscent of The Godfather with magic and kungfu, set in an Asia-inspired fantasy metropolis. Lose yourself in this tale of family, honor, and those who live and die by the ancient laws of jade and blood.

Listen to a sample.

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

From award winning tech-journalist and io9 founder Annalee Newitz comes a highly anticipated science fiction debut,

Autonomous will pull listeners into a dark and dirty world that feels, at times, a bit too familiar to readers today. And underlying it all is one fundamental question: Is freedom possible in a culture where everything, even people, can be owned?

Listen to a sample.

4 Narration Considerations when Choosing an Audiobook

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Emma

Audiobook lovers know the importance of a good narrator. Narrators have the potential to expertly enhance a book, or, unfortunately, to sometimes drag it down. It can be tricky for audio publishers to find a voice that suits both the book and everyone’s preferences. (A sweet, bubbly voice doesn’t belong in scenes of gore, just as ragged, ominous voices have no place in light-hearted fairy tales.)

As listeners, we need to know ourselves and our narration tastes in order to opt for books that suit us, so we’ve come up with a quick guide to test a narrator. While listening to samples as you’re browsing for your next audiobook, here are some things to consider.

Pace:
Does the narrator match your preferred pace? Are they reading too quickly during scenes that need better build up? Do they take too long during descriptive paragraphs? If the pace doesn’t quite fit, try changing the playback speed to see if it improves the experience.

TECH TIP! To change playback speed, tap the 1x icon on the player screen in the Audiobooks.com app.

Pitch and Intonation:
Very important in regards to narration is the delivery. Is the reader too monotone? Do they exaggerate dialogue to the point where it’s cheesy? Is the pitch of the voice suitable? Even if the pace suits you, inappropriate intonation could make a potentially great audiobook personally unbearable.

Accents:
This one is a little more difficult. You may have a preference for certain accents during general narration, but when it comes to dialogue, accents are an important part of the character. Depending on where you’re from, you may be more tolerant of narrators putting on certain accents. Those accustomed to a North American accent may cringe if a British narrator fails to imitate a Southern character. Similarly, people in the UK may be distracted from the story when an American narrator portrays someone from Ireland.

Background noise:
While this last one isn’t in the narrator’s power, it’s worth considering that some audiobooks have sound effects and music in the background as a way to enhance the audio. To some, this is a welcome addition that turns the experience up a level, but others find it distracting and unnecessary. Determine the side you relate to and listen for it in the sample.

TECH TIP! To sample an audiobook before committing a credit to it, simply press play on a title in the Audiobooks.com app. After the set sample time is up, you’ll be prompted to apply a credit and keep listening, or choose to keep browsing.

What do you think? Do you look for similar factors when sampling audio? What are your listening preferences? Let us know!

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4 Narration Considerations when Choosing an Audiobook

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