AudioFile Favorites: Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam, Read by Marin Ireland

Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile’s editors recommend the best in audiobook listening. We keep our daily episodes short and sweet, with audiobook clips to give you a sample of our featured listens.

This week we’re reairing episodes featuring some of our favorite audiobooks we’ve covered on Behind the Mic. AudioFile’s Michele Cobb tells host Jo Reed about the National Book Award finalist performed by one of her favorite narrators. Marin Ireland narrates Rumaan Alam’s stunning audiobook, Leave the World Behind, that explores race, class, family, and global catastrophe. A married couple and their children head to Long Island for a family vacation. However, the owners of their rental house arrive unexpectedly after fleeing a blackout, and the two families—one white and middle class, the other Black and wealthy—cohabitate and try to figure out what’s happened. Whether Ireland is focused on the character dynamics or omnisciently describing the terrifying events of the world at large, she delivers an unforgettable powerhouse of a performance.

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