AudioFile’s Most Anticipated Audiobooks of September
The Month to Come in Literary Listening
Each month, our friends at AudioFile Magazine share a curated list of the best audiobooks for your literary listening pleasure.
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SEPTEMBER FICTION
Long Division by Kiese Laymon| Read by Ruffin Prentiss III, Jaime Lincoln Smith
[Simon & Schuster Audio | 8.25 hrs.]
AudioFile Earphones Award
While it possesses many meta elements, this satisfying audiobook is at once a comic romp, a satire of fame in the Internet Age, and a look at race—set in rural Mississippi. The performances are masterful—persuasive, well paced and convincing.
Ruffin Prentiss delivers the more linear first part, which includes a comic meltdown on a televised quiz show. Jaime Lincoln Smith delivers the second part, in which the protagonist time travels with a mysterious book entitled Long Division in hand.
Laymon is smitten with language, and this metafiction is fun.
The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer| Read by Jorjeana Marie
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Random House Audio | 10.5 hrs.]
Jorjeana Marie’s captivating narration brings this Narnia-inspired gateway fantasy to life. Grieving the recent loss of her adoptive mother, Emilie Wendell vows to find the half-sister she never knew, who disappeared in a West Virginia forest years ago. She enlists the help of Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell—estranged friends were lost in the same forest fifteen years earlier.
Marie tells the story with a gentleness and warmth that add to its nostalgic premise. The result is an immersive experience that mirrors Emilie’s descent into a dark yet enchanting realm and her companions’ traumatic memories.
The History of Sound: Stories by Ben Shattuck| Read by Ben Shattuck, Zachary Chastain, Paul Mescal, Dion Graham, Ellen Adair, Steven Jay Cohen, Jim Seybert, Dawn Harvey, Chris Cooper, Rebecca Lowman, Jenny Slate, Ed Helms, Nick Offerman
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Penguin Audio | 9.5 hrs.]
The stories in this audiobook collection have subjects as wide as the list of narrators is long, and the result is excellent. All the titles—based in New England and spanning centuries—create their own world, yet connections both clear and subtle link them beautifully.
There is not a weak performance, and each narrator is perfectly suited to his or her story. Whether it’s Zachary Chastain’s outstanding dialogue in “August in the Forest,” or Nick Offerman’s ominous “Journal of Thomas Thurber,” each title leaves a distinct emotional impression. The result is a truly transporting experience.
Five-Star Stranger by Kat Tang| Read by Julian Cihi
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Simon & Schuster Audio | 6.75 hrs.]
What if you were so good at your job as a rental stranger that you started believing your roles were real? Julian Cihi gives a convincing and moving portrayal of a young man who has many identities—except his own.
Cihi’s range of voices and accents illuminates the diverse roles he adopts for clients who have hired him through a Rental Stranger app. While mostly narrating in an even tone, his growing affinity for a recurring role as a father to a young girl is revealed through beautifully restrained yet heartfelt enthusiasm. The quiet sensitivity of Cihi’s performance highlights the yearning for connection in a disconnected world.
The Pairing by Casey McQuiston| Read by Emma Galvin, Max Meyers
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Macmillan Audio | 14.25 hrs.]
Emma Galvin and Max Meyers voice the perspectives of sommelier-in-training Theo Flowerday and French pastry chef Kit Fairfield. The two bisexual exes have met up by chance on a three-week food tour of France, Spain, and Italy.
This tour de force of accents and vocal work is a testament to Galvin and Meyers’s skills. Any scene can require a half dozen international accents belonging to characters with varying moods and personalities. Galvin complements Theo’s tomboyish character with a brash yet flirty register, while Meyers chooses a theatrical lilt for a more earnest sounding Kit. A true feast of vocal work and culinary descriptions!
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SEPTEMBER NONFICTION
Pulse: The Untold Story by Trevor Aaronson| Read by Trevor Aaronson
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Audible, Inc. | 5 hrs.]
Forty-nine people were murdered at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando on June 12, 2016. Trevor Aaronson doesn’t just provide a history of this devastating mass shooting—he also guides listeners through a critique of how government agencies manipulated the facts surrounding the event and how complicit media outlets spread misinformation.
The podcast-style production provides a full soundscape, including real-time audio from 911 calls and cell phone conversations. The listening experience is often disturbing: The production includes warnings to alert listeners.
Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen by Jon M. Chu, Jeremy McCarter| Read by Jon M. Chu
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Random House Audio | 7.75 hrs.]
Listening to film director Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, Wicked) narrate his lively memoir of people and events that influenced his life choices and film work, one gains insights on who he is and the way technology has changed Hollywood moviemaking. Chu emits charisma as he discusses his youth in 1980s Silicon Valley, when, as the son of a successful immigrant restaurateur, he was always trying to fit in. He also describes trying to break into films in L.A.
A compelling production that seems like an intimate conversation with a close friend.
Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum| Read by Gabra Zackman
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Random House Audio | 15.25 hrs.]
Gabra Zackman’s narration fully embodies a balance of deep insight and affability. Nussbaum’s approach to the topic of reality television transcends the usual narrative history as it captures key social commentary of programs unique to their time and place.
The audiobook traces a detailed timeline from PBS’s An American Family, considered a touchstone of the modern reality show, all the way to Survivor and The Apprentice, with the latter’s infamous impact on current American politics. Zackman’s voice is gently entertaining and always engaging, guiding listeners through this fascinating history of modern pop culture.
Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough by Ian Frazier| Read by Robert Fass
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Brilliance Audio | 20.25 hrs.]
Robert Fass performs this homage to New York City’s northernmost borough, the Bronx, thoughtfully and skillfully. His pace reflects the author’s peregrinations and considerations of the only part of the city connected to the continent. His tone is that of an engaged reporter committed to noting things large—the highways that penetrate the Bronx—and small.
Frazier has spent much of the last decade walking the Bronx, digging into its history, and cultivating relationships with its citizenry. Here is a living portrait with the borough’s harsh reputation etched in place and its lasting significance revealed.
When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day by Garrett M. Graff [Ed.]| Read by Edoardo Ballerini, Garrett M. Graff [Note], and a Full Cast
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Simon & Schuster Audio | 19.75 hrs.]
This excellent full-cast production uses the recollections of those who participated in D-Day—its planning, training, and actual combat—to tell the story of the largest amphibious assault in history, which took place in Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. The author, Edoardo Ballerini, and nearly twenty-five other narrators portray the seven hundred roles in this audiobook. Also included are actual recordings of FDR, Churchill, Eisenhower, and part of a later speech by Ronald Reagan.
This moving history, which makes it seem like one is hearing from the actual participants, is difficult to pause.
