4 Most Anticipated Book-to-Film Adaptations at the Toronto International Film Festival

For eleven days every year, Toronto transforms into a bustling hub for film lovers and celebrity watchers who crowd into the city for the Toronto International Film Festival. As one of the largest and most prestigious film events in the world, the festival attracts nearly half a million visitors and screens hundreds of films across a number of venues.

For book lovers who also love films, the lineup this year is especially exciting with a number of heavy-hitting book adaptations making their debuts at the festival. So, brush up on your listening, because TIFF 2019 is sure to be a treat for the eyes and the ears!

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, narrated by David Pittu

The Goldfinch audiobook by Donna Tartt, narrated by David Pittu

Based on Donna Tartt’s 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the adaptation starring Nicole Kidman, Ansel Elgort, Sarah Paulson, and Jeffrey Wright tells the story of a teenage boy named Theo Decker (Elgort) whose life is changed after surviving a bombing at a museum that killed his mother. It is helmed by John Crowley, the director of Oscar-nominated film Brooklyn, who certainly has ample experience with dramatic epics that span years. The Goldfinch will open on September 8 at Roy Thomson Hall and the Elgin Theatre.

Read more and sample the audio →

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson, narrated by Bryan Stevenson

Just Mercy audiobook by Bryan Stevenson.

Michael J. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, and Brie Larson star in this powerful true story based on Bryan Stevenson’s memoir of the same name. Jordan stars as Bryan Stevenson—a lawyer, social justice activist, and Harvard Law School graduate—who moved to Alabama and founded the Equal Justice Initiative to defend inmates on death row who were wrongly convicted. Just Mercy opens September 6 at Roy Thomson Hall and the Elgin Theatre.

Read more and sample the audio →

Testimony (Film Adaptation: Once Were Brothers) by Robbie Robertson, narrated by MacLeod Andrews

The Toronto International Film Festival is kicking off its 2019 festival with a Canadian documentary by filmmaker Daniel Roher titled Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band. The film draws from Robbie Robertson’s 2016 memoir, Testimony, and follow Robertson’s early life, his time with The Band, through to their final concert in 1976. Once Were Brothers will be launching the festival September 5 at the Princess of Wales Theatre.

Read more and sample the audio →

Caging Skies (Film Adaptation: Jojo Rabbit) by Christine Leunens, narrated by Steven Jay Cohen

If someone somewhere in an offshore, far-flung strange world has ever wanted Taika Waititi to play Adolf Hitler, their wish is about to be granted. Jojo Rabbit, a black comedy adapted from Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, tells the story of a young Hitler Youth named Jojo “Rabbit” Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) who discovers his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a Jewish girl in their home. Waititi who directed the movie also stars as Jojo’s imaginary friend, a jovial and boisterous version of Adolf Hitler. Jojo Rabbit premiers September 8 at the Princess of Wales Theatre.

Read more and sample the audio →

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!

13 Audiobooks Coming to the Big Screen at TIFF

Love books and film? This year’s Toronto International Film Festival, best known as TIFF, promises to be one for the books.

 

1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, narrated by Bahni Turpin

The Hate U Give.

Starr moves between two worlds: her poor neighborhood and her fancy prep school. The balance between the two shatters when she witnesses the fatal shooting of her best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed, and his death is a national headline. As protesters take to the streets, what Starr does or doesn’t say could upend her community and endanger her life.
Read more and sample the audio.

 

2. Beautiful Boy by David Sheff, narrated by Anthony Heald

Beautiful Boy.

Before meth, Sheff‘s son, Nic, was a varsity athlete, honor student, and award-winning journalist. After meth, he stole money from his eight-year-old brother and lived on the streets. With haunting candor, Sheff traces the first warning signs, the attempts at rehabilitation, and, at last, the way past addiction. Whatever an addict’s fate, the rest of the family must care for one another, too, lest they become addicted to addiction.
Read more and sample the audio.

 

3. Tweak by Nic Sheff, narrated by Paul Michael Garcia

Tweak.

Nic Sheff was drunk for the first time at age 11. In the years that followed, he would regularly smoke pot, do cocaine and ecstasy, and develop addictions to crystal meth and heroin. Even so, he felt like he would always be able to quit and put his life together whenever he needed to. It took a violent relapse one summer in California to convince him otherwise.
Read more and sample the audio.

 

 

4. Boy Erased by Garrard Conley, narrated by Michael Crouch

Boy Erased.

The son of a Baptist pastor and deeply embedded in church life in small town Arkansas, Garrard was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality. While in college, he was outed to his parents, and was forced to make a life-changing decision: either agree to attend a church-supported conversion therapy program that promised to “cure” him of homosexuality; or risk losing family, friends, and his faith.
Read more and sample the audio.

 

5. First Man by James R. Hansen, narrated by Jeremy Bobb

First Man.

Soon to be a major motion picture, this is the first-and only-definitive authorized account of Neil Armstrong, the man whose “one small step” changed history. When Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon’s surface in 1969, the first man on the moon became a legend and American icon. 
Read more and sample the audio.

 

 

 

6. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt, narrated by John Pruden

The Sisters Brothers

Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn’t share his brother’s appetite for whiskey and killing, he’s never known anything else. But their prey isn’t easy, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm’s gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living.
Read more and sample the audio.

 

7. Widows by Lynda La Plante, narrated by Ann Mitchell

Widows.

Facing life alone, they turned to crime together. A van heist goes disastrously wrong and three women are left widowed. When Dolly Rawlins discovers her gang boss husband’s plans for the failed hijack, an idea forms. Could she and the other wives finish the job their husbands started? As the women rehearse, it becomes clear that someone else must have been involved. Who was he? And where is he now?
Read more and sample the audio.

 

8. If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin, narrated by Bahni Turpin

If Beale Street Could Talk.

Told through the eyes of Tish, a 19-year-old girl in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and is imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions-affection, despair, and hope.
Read more and sample the audio.

 

9. Girl Boy Girl by Savannah Knoop, narrated by Kristen Stewart

Girl Boy Girl.

In 2006, the New York Times unmasked Savannah Knoop as the face of the mysterious author JT LeRoy. A media frenzy ensued as JT’s fans, mentors, and readers came to terms with the fact that the gay-male-ex-truck-stop-prostitute-turned literary-wunderkind was really a girl from San Francisco, whose sister-in-law wrote the books. Girl Boy Girl is the story of how Savannah led this bizarre double life for six years.
Read more and sample the audio

 

10. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, narrated by Oliver Wyman

A Million Little Pieces

By the time James Frey enters a drug and alcohol treatment facility, he has so thoroughly ravaged his body that the doctors are shocked he is still alive. Inside the clinic, he is surrounded by patients whose friendship and advice seem stronger and truer than the clinic’s droning dogma of How to Recover.
He insists on accepting sole accountability for the person he has been and fights to survive on his own terms.
Read more and sample the audio.

On the same day that Roy Cady is diagnosed with a terminal illness, he senses that his boss, a dangerous loan-sharking bar-owner, wants him dead. Before Roy makes his getaway, he realizes there are two women in his apartment, one of them is still breathing. He takes her with him as he goes on the run to Galveston. The girl is too young, too tough, too sexy —and far too much trouble. They hide in the seascape of country-western bars and seedy hotels, a world of treacherous drifters, pickups, and ashed-out hopes.
Read more and sample the audio.

 

12. Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden, narrated by James Jenner and Ali Ahn

Through Black Spruce.

Joseph Boyden‘s first novel, Three Day Road, was a Today Show Book Club selection. Through Black Spruce is the exceptional follow-up to his acclaimed debut. Cree bush pilot Will Bird lies comatose in a hospital, while his wayward niece Annie arrives to sit in silent vigil by his side. Slowly their stories reveal two people previously separated by great distances, beaten and broken, and searching for some sense of where they belong in the world.
Read more and sample the audio.

 

 

13. Hold The Dark by William Giraldi, narrated by Richard Ferrone

Hold The Dark.

Three children have been taken from an isolated Alaskan village, including Medora and Vernon Slone’s son. Russell Core arrives to investigate the killings, and discovers the horrifying darkness at the heart of Medora Slone and learns of an unholy truth harbored by this village. As Russell Core attempts to rescue Medora from her husband, he comes face-to-face with an unspeakable secret.
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!