March’s Top 10 Audiobooks.com Member Downloads

Listen to last month’s most popular fiction and non-fiction titles downloaded by Audiobooks.com members.


Fiction

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, narrated by Jennifer Lim

Publisher Summary:

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned—from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren—an enigmatic artist and single mother—who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town—and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides.  Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

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Blindside by James Patterson and James O. Born, narrated by Danny Mastrogiorgio

Publisher Summary:

The mayor of New York has a daughter who’s missing and in danger. Detective Michael Bennett has a son who’s in prison. The two strike a deal.
Bennett and the mayor have always had a tense relationship, but now the mayor sees in Bennett a discreet investigator with family worries of his own. Just one father helping another.

The detective leaps into the case and sources lead him to a homicide in the Bronx. The victim has ties to a sophisticated hacking operation—and also to the mayor’s missing daughter, Natalie, a twenty-one-year-old computer prodigy. The murder is part of a serial killing spree, one with national security implications. And suddenly Bennett is at the center of a dangerous triangle anchored by NYPD, FBI, and a transnational criminal organization.

Michael Bennett has always been an honorable man, but sometimes—when the lives of innocents are at stake—honor has to take a back seat. Survival comes first.

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You Are Not Alone by Greer HendricksSarah Pekkanen, narrated by Barrie KreinikDylan Moore

Publisher Summary:

Shay Miller wants to find love, but it eludes her. She wants to be fulfilled, but her job is a dead end. She wants to belong, but her life is increasingly lonely.

Until Shay meets the Moore sisters. Cassandra and Jane live a life of glamorous perfection, and always get what they desire. When they invite Shay into their circle, everything seems to get better.

Shay would die for them to like her.

She may have to.

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Long Range by C.J. Box, narrated by David Chandler

Publisher Summary:

The wife of a prominent local judge is shot and killed on Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett’s turf. But as Joe investigates, all signs point to the shot having been taken from an impossibly long distance. Joe has seen a lot in his time as warden, but he’s never seen a killing like this. How could the shooting have been arranged? And who else is in the cross hairs?

At the same time—just as he’s adjusting to the arrival of a new baby, his first child—Joe’s best friend Nate Romanowski is attempting to decipher a startling grizzly attack in the area.

Beset by threats both man-made and natural, the two men must go to great lengths to figure out how to keep their loved ones safe.

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My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell, narrated by Grace Gummer

Publisher Summary:

2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.

2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed?

Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.

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Non-Fiction

Educated by Tara Westover, narrated by Julia Whelan

Publisher Summary:

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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Open Book by Jessica Simpson, narrated by Jessica Simpson

Publisher Summary:

Jessica reveals for the first time her inner monologue and most intimate struggles. Guided by the journals she’s kept since age fifteen, and brimming with her unique humor and down-to-earth humanity, Open Book is as inspiring as it is entertaining.

This was supposed to be a very different book. Five years ago, Jessica Simpson was approached to write a motivational guide to living your best life. She walked away from the offer, and nobody understood why. The truth is that she didn’t want to lie.

Jessica couldn’t be authentic with her readers if she wasn’t fully honest with herself first.

Now America’s Sweetheart, preacher’s daughter, pop phenomenon, reality tv pioneer, and the billion-dollar fashion mogul invites readers on a remarkable journey, examining a life that blessed her with the compassion to help others, but also burdened her with an almost crippling need to please. Open Book is Jessica Simpson using her voice, heart, soul, and humor to share things she’s never shared before.

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Untamed by Glennon Doyle, narrated by Glennon Doyle

Publisher Summary:

This is how you find yourself.

There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees, and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and wonder: Wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent—even from ourselves.

For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There She Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realized they had come to her from within. This was her own voice—the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning, and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to quit abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world’s expectations of her. She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living.

Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is.

Untamed shows us how to be brave. As Glennon insists: The braver we are, the luckier we get.

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Atomic Habits by James Clear, narrated by James Clear

Publisher Summary:

No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving–every day. James Clear, one of the world’s leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.

If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you’ll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.

Learn how to:
• make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy);
• overcome a lack of motivation and willpower;
• design your environment to make success easier;
• get back on track when you fall off course;
…and much more.

Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits–whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.

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The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson, narrated by Erik LarsonJohn Lee

Publisher Summary:

On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end.

In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments.
 
The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.

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Page to Screen in June 2019

Thinking of going to see a movie in June? Get the best experience by listening to the books they were based on before seeing the film & TV adaptations.

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill, narrated by Kate Mulgrew
Expected Release Date: June 2

Charles Talent Manx (Zachary Quinto) likes to take children for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the vanity plate NOS4A2. In the Wraith, he and his innocent guests can slip out of the everyday world and onto hidden roads that lead to an astonishing playground of amusements he calls Christmasland. The journey across the highway of Charlie’s twisted imagination transforms his precious passengers, leaving them as terrifying and unstoppable as their benefactor. Only one has escaped Charlie’s evil: her name is Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings), she is grown up and craving revenge. Who will win this life-and-death battle, Vic or Charlie? This thrilling mystery debuts this June on Amazon.

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Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, narrated by Caroline Lee
Expected Release Date: June 9

The first season was so suspenseful that it left us wanting more. What will happen next with this group of ladies who have become friends? Another murder, tragic accident, even more lies? Listen to the audiobook before watching the much anticipated second season of Big Little Lies which is back on HBO this month.

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Leila by Prayaag Akbar, narrated by Tania Rodrigues
Expected Release Date: June 16

This novel is a wonderful blend between The Girl in the Red Coat and Slumdog Millionaireand will be available on Netflix this month starring Huma Qureshi, Siddharth, and Rahul Khanna. Leila disappears on her 3rd birthday. Every year her mother, Shalini, kneels by a specific wall and buries 2 candles for herself and her husband. If Leila is found, she plans on going back and digging every single candle out of the ground. But will Leila ever return?

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Instinct by Howard Roughan & James Patterson, narrated by Edoardo Ballerini
Expected Release Date: June 16

A copy of Dr. Dylan Reinhart (Allan Cumming) novel about criminal behavior shows up at the scene of a gruesome murder, and it is found with a note from the killer himself. Will Detective Liz Needham (Bojana Novakovic) and Dr. Reinhart find the serial killer responsible for these murders? Instinct, based on James Patterson’s Murder Games, is returning for season two this month on CBS.

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Hamlet (Film Adaptation: Ophelia) by William Shakespeare, narrated by Frank Muller
Expected Release Date: June 28

Ophelia is an adaptation of Hamlet, told from (you guessed it!) Ophelia’s perspective. With Daisy Ridley in the titular role, This film adaptation is hitting theaters at the end of the month. If you’ve never listened to Shakespeare’s classic play or just need a refresher, Frank Muller’s performance of Hamlet is an excellent place to start.

Read more and sample the audio →

New to Audiobooks.com? Get a free audiobook 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 audiobook!

May’s Top 10 Audiobooks.com Member Downloads

Listen to last month’s most popular fiction and non-fiction titles downloaded by Audiobooks.com members.

Fiction:

18th Abduction by Maxine Paetro, James Patterson, narrated by January Lavoy

Publisher Summary:

Detective Lindsay Boxer’s investigation into the disappearance of three women teachers quickly escalates from missing persons to murder in the newest Women’s Murder Club thriller.

For a trio of colleagues, an innocent night out after class ends in a deadly torture session. They vanish without a clueuntil a body turns up. With the safety of San Francisco’s entire school system at stake, Lindsay has never been under more pressure. As the chief of police and the press clamor for an arrest in the ‘school night’ case, Lindsay turns to her best friend, investigative journalist Cindy Thomas. Together, Lindsay and Cindy take a new approach to the case, and unexpected facts about the victims leave them stunned.

While Lindsay is engrossed in her investigation, her husband, Joe Molinari, meets an Eastern European woman who claims to have seen a notorious war criminallong presumed deadfrom her home country. Before Lindsay can verify the woman’s statement, Joe’s mystery informant joins the ranks of the missing women. Lindsay, Joe, and the entire Women’s Murder Club must pull together to protect their city, and one anothernot from a ghost, but from a true monster.

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The Night Window by Dean Koontz, narrated by Elisabeth Rodgers

Publisher Summary:

A visionary young filmmaker hunted for sport across a vast Colorado ranch by the celebrated billionaire at the heart of a monstrous cabal…

A brilliant computer hacker slipping through top-secret databases a whisper ahead of security trackers, gathering the facts to fight the all-powerful perpetrators of mass murder…

A pair of brutal operators, methodically shadowing their targets with every cutting-edge tool in the arsenal of today’s surveillance state . . .

A sequence of quiet heroes—everyday citizens—stepping up, stepping forward, intent on countering the advancing darkness…

A Vegas mob boss teamed with a homicidal sociopath, circling a beloved boy and his protectors, aiming to secure him as leverage against his fugitive mother…

And that fugitive mother herself, ex-agent Jane Hawk, closing in on the malevolent architects of ruin she has stalked as they stalk her, prepared to sacrifice herself to finally bring them down.

These are the people and circumstances of The Night Window, the thrilling new novel in Dean Koontz’s acclaimed Jane Hawk series. Replete—and then some—with the ingenious twists, the spellbinding action, the resonant themes, the sheer heart that have characterized Jane’s journey from the start, The Night Window follows its extraordinary heroine to her long-sought objective, in a stunning, unforgettable finale.

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Neon Prey by John Sandford, narrated by Richard Ferrone

Publisher Summary:

Clayton Deese looks like a small-time criminal, muscle for hire when his loan shark boss needs to teach someone a lesson. Now, seven months after a job that went south and landed him in jail, Deese has skipped out on bail, and the U.S. Marshals come looking for him. They don’t much care about a low-level guyit’s his boss they wantbut Deese might be their best chance to bring down the whole operation.

Then, they step onto a dirt trail behind Deese’s rural Louisiana cabin and find a jungle full of graves.

Now Lucas Davenport is on the trail of a serial killer who has been operating for years without notice. His quarry is ruthless, andas Davenport will come to findfull of surprises…

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Sunset Beach by Mary Kay Andrews, narrated by Mary Kay Andrews, Kathleen Mcinerney

Publisher Summary:

Drue Campbell’s life is adrift. Out of a job and down on her luck, life doesn’t seem to be getting any better when her estranged father, Brice Campbell, a flamboyant personal injury attorney, shows up at her mother’s funeral after a twenty-year absence. Worse, he’s remarriedto Drue’s eighth-grade frenemy, Wendy, now his office manager. And they’re offering her a job.

It seems like the job from hell, but the offer is sweetened by the news of her inheritanceher grandparents’ beach bungalow in the sleepy town of Sunset Beach, a charming but storm-damaged eyesore now surrounded by waterfront McMansions.

With no other prospects, Drue begrudgingly joins the firm, spending her days screening out the grifters whose phone calls flood the law office. Working with Wendy is no picnic either. But when a suspicious death at an exclusive beach resort nearby exposes possible corruption at her father’s firm, she goes from unwilling cubicle rat to unwitting investigator, and is drawn into a case that mayor may notinvolve her father. With an office romance building, a decades-old missing persons case re-opened, and a cottage in rehab, one thing is for sure at Sunset Beach: there’s a storm on the horizon.

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Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

Publisher Summary:

For years, rumors of the ‘Marsh Girl’ have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new lifeuntil the unthinkable happens.

Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

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Non-Fiction:

Dare To Lead by Brené Brown, narrated by Brené Brown

Publisher Summary:

Leadership is not about titles, status, and wielding power. A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and has the courage to develop that potential.

When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work.

But daring leadership in a culture defined by scarcity, fear, and uncertainty requires skill-building around traits that are deeply and uniquely human. The irony is that we’re choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the exact same time as we’re scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines and AI can’t do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection, and courage, to start.

Four-time #1 New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown has spent the past two decades studying the emotions and experiences that give meaning to our lives, and the past seven years working with transformative leaders and teams spanning the globe. She found that leaders in organizations ranging from small entrepreneurial startups and family-owned businesses to nonprofits, civic organizations, and Fortune 50 companies all ask the same question:

How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture?

In this new book, Brown uses research, stories, and examples to answer these questions in the no-BS style that millions of readers have come to expect and love.

Brown writes, “One of the most important findings of my career is that daring leadership is a collection of four skill sets that are 100 percent teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. Easy? No. Because choosing courage over comfort is not always our default. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and our work. It’s why we’re here.”

Whether you’ve read Daring Greatly and Rising Strong or you’re new to Brené Brown’s work, this book is for anyone who wants to step up and into brave leadership.

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Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza, narrated by Adam Boyce

Publisher Summary:

You are not doomed by your genes and hardwired to be a certain way for the rest of your life. A new science is emerging that empowers all human beings to create the reality they choose. In Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, renowned author, speaker, researcher, and chiropractor Dr. Joe Dispenza combines the fields of quantum physics, neuroscience, brain chemistry, biology, and genetics to show you what is truly possible.

Not only will you be given the necessary knowledge to change any aspect of yourself, but you will be taught the step-by-step tools to apply what you learn in order to make measurable changes in any area of your life. Dr. Joe demystifies ancient understandings and bridges the gap between science and spirituality. Through his powerful workshops and lectures, thousands of people in 24 different countries have used these principles to change from the inside out. Once you break the habit of being yourself and truly change your mind, your life will never be the same!

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12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson, narrated by Jordan B. Peterson

Publisher Summary:

What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson’s answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research.

Humorous, surprising and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the street.

What does the nervous system of the lowly lobster have to tell us about standing up straight (with our shoulders back) and about success in life? Why did ancient Egyptians worship the capacity to pay careful attention as the highest of gods? What dreadful paths do people tread when they become resentful, arrogant and vengeful? Dr. Peterson journeys broadly, discussing discipline, freedom, adventure and responsibility, distilling the world’s wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. 12 Rules for Life shatters the modern commonplaces of science, faith and human nature, while transforming and ennobling the mind and spirit of its readers.

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Daring Greatly by Brené Brown, narrated by Brené Brown

Publisher Summary:

Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable or to dare greatly. Based on twelve years of pioneering research, Dr. Brené Brown dispels the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and argues that it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage.

Brown explains how vulnerability is both the core of difficult emotions like fear, grief, and disappointment, and the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, empathy, innovation, and creativity. She writes: “When we shut ourselves off from vulnerability, we distance ourselves from the experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our lives.”

Daring Greatly is not about winning or losing. It’s about courage. In a world where “never enough” dominates and feeling afraid has become second nature, vulnerability is subversive. Uncomfortable. It’s even a little dangerous at times. And, without question, putting ourselves out there means there’s a far greater risk of getting criticized or feeling hurt. But when we step back and examine our lives, we will find that nothing is as uncomfortable, dangerous, and hurtful as standing on the outside of our lives looking in and wondering what it would be like if we had the courage to step into the arena—whether it’s a new relationship, an important meeting, the creative process, or a difficult family conversation. Daring Greatly is a practice and a powerful new vision for letting ourselves be seen.

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Becoming by Michelle Obama, narrated by Michelle Obama

Publisher Summary:

An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States. Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms.

Read more and sample the audio →

New to Audiobooks.com? Get a free audiobook 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 audiobook!

Are Genres Becoming Less Divided?

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Are Genres Becoming Less Divided?

It’s always great when you see young readers listening to your favorite authors like John Grisham, James Patterson, or even Candace Bushnell. If you’re asking yourself why kids would be listening to these adult writers, the answer is simple. This year we have seen many adult writers expanding their readership by writing stories for a younger age group. Now, everyone has the opportunity to discover these great authors.

British author Philippa Gregory, known for The Other Boleyn Girl, just announced that she will be writing four new young-adult historical romance novels. I couldn’t be more thrilled about this as I enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl.

John Grisham, Candace Bushnell and James Patterson have also joined in on readership expansion by writing YA best sellers. Grisham’s two Theodore Boone novels are both about a young lawyer who looks to be about 12 years old. Bushnell, known for writing Sex and the City, has published two audio books in her young-adult series, The Carrie Diaries and Summer and the City which are narrated by a younger Carrie. Patterson has also written Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life which was released this past summer.

It’s becoming clear that no matter what the genre is, everyone is on the hunt for a great story. I believe it’s important that a younger generation is able to grow up into reading or listening to great stories from great authors. The genre is slowly becoming less prominent. This is evident with the Twilight series, where women and men of all ages are reading a series intended for teens. The genre itself, “teen fiction” no longer holds the same weight as it used to. A great story is a great story, whether it’s intended for a younger or older audience!

Girls Have “Chick-Lit” Novels, But What Do Boys Have?

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Girls Have “Chick-Lit” Novels, But What Do Boys Have?

It’s funny; I came across an article today that made me think about something I have never really thought about, but probably should have. Let me ask you, have you thought about why boys/men don’t have “man lit” novels but we have “chick lit” novels? And I’m not talking about John Grisham or James Patterson novels who are open for anyone to read. Sure, lots of guys like them, but so do some women! Women that read these novels by Grisham, Patterson, and even Stephen King etc. are not subjected to being labeled any less of a woman. But a man reading a “chick lit” novel, that’s a whole other story.

I bet if I looked hard enough I could probably find a series of “boy books”, or maybe better yet, find a man to attempt to write them! But why aren’t they easily accessible. There are lots of stories directed at men but the difference is they can also be read by women, not like a “chick lit” novel. I know as a girl, I could easily find hundreds of “girly” books in minutes…but “man” books, I’m not so sure.

I would assume that a “man lit” novel, as I have cleverly named this new genre, would involve nonstop action, the occasional illustration, topics about gross food and music. Maybe they don’t exist because conventional wisdom states that boys don’t like to read a lot , especially romance, primarily what chick lit novels are based on. But even so, why not just have a book about characters in love with sports instead of a girl, falling for a car instead of falling head over heels for his girlfriend etc.

I guess the question is would boys find these topics appealing to read? I do find it troubling though to even suggest we reinforce stereotypes in these books, but that’s exactly what I find chick lit novels doing! They are stories that most women could probably relate to. So what books do men relate to? I mean by calling the genre “chick lit” we are already cutting off boys from reading any of these types of books. But girls aren’t really cut off from anything or at least nothing I can think of.

So, I ask you audio book fans, what would you call a genre strictly created for boys/men? Do you think they exist already in the same fashion as a chick lit novel?