Literary Fiction Audiobooks | Literature

"Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction 'My book of the year . . . Rarely has illness made for such a compelling read' - John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas 'Marvelous: exceptionally vivid, real, and true' - Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island 'Fundamentally about the beauty of life' - Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam 'Exquisite. Utterly mesmerizing' - Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time 'A fierce, beautiful novel' - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater 'Beautiful, evocative' - The Times A medical crisis brings one man close to death - and to love, art, and beauty - in a profound and luminous novel by award-winning author Garth Greenwell. A poet's life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain. The pain brings him to his knees, and eventually to the ICU. Confined to bed, plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system, he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone who has lived for many years in his mind. This is a searching, sweeping novel set at the furthest edges of human experience, where the forces that give life value - art, memory, poetry, music, care - are thrown into sharp relief. Time expands and contracts. Sudden intimacies bloom. Small Rain surges beyond the hospital to encompass a radiant vision of human life: our shared vulnerability, the limits and possibilities of sympathy, the ideal of art and the fragile dream of America. Above all, this is a love story of the most unexpected kind. 'A classic, a dawn serenade, a little miracle of exigent joy. I'll be rereading it the rest of my life' - Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!"

Garth Greenwell (Author), Garth Greenwell (Narrator)

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Before We Forget Kindness: The most emotional book yet in the sensational Tokyo cafe series

"The million-copy bestselling series. Curl up with the fifth book in the sensational Before the Coffee Gets Cold series translated from Japanese, the cosy Tokyo café where customers arrive hoping to travel back in time welcomes four new guests: - The father who could not allow his daughter to get married - A woman who couldn't give Valentine's Day chocolates to her loved one - A boy who wants to show his smile to his divorced parents - A wife holding a child with no name . . . They must follow the café's strict rules, however, and come back to the present before their coffee goes cold. Another moving and heartwarming tale from Toshikazu Kawaguchi, in Before We Forget Kindness our new visitors wish to go back into their past to find closure and comfort so they can embark on a beautiful future. 'I don't want it to ever end. Emotional, heart-warming, hopeful' - @samzreadsbooks on Instagram Catch up on the rest of the series with Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Tales from the Cafe, Before Your Memory Fades and Before We Say Goodbye."

Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Author), Kevin Shen (Narrator)

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Playground

"Brought to you by Penguin. LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 A POWERFUL NEW NOVEL FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AND BOOKER-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF THE OVERSTORY AND BEWILDERMENT Rafi and Todd are two polar opposites at an elite high school where they bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game. It sets them up for life: Rafi will get lost in literature, while Todd’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough. Elsewhere, Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs; Ina Aroita grows up in naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. All of these people meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, marked for humanity’s next great adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out into the open sea. As the seasteaders close in, how will Evie play the ever-unfolding oceanic game? Will Ina engage in acts of destruction? Todd and Rafi, now estranged, still find themselves in competition: Todd unravels while working on an idea to redraw the boundaries of human immortality, while Rafi and the residents must decide if they will greenlight the new project on their shores and change their home forever. Set in the world’s largest ocean, Playground explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize and interweaves profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can. 'Is there anything Richard Powers cannot write? The world here is complete, seductive, and promising. The writing feels like the ocean. Vast, mysterious, deep and alive' PERCIVAL EVERETT 'An extraordinarily immersive journey through lives linked in mysterious ways - gripping, alarming and uplifting' EMMA DONOGHUE ‘Powers is a master of taking important topics of our times – from threats to our oceans and climate change to AI – and turning them into riveting and fiercely relevant books imbued with psychological insight and a deep awe for nature. This eloquent dance of the scientific and emotional makes him one of our finest story tellers. PLAYGROUND is brilliant, captivating and important – and the best book I’ve read this year’ ANDREA WULF ©2024 Richard Powers (P)2024 Penguin Audio"

Richard Powers (Author), Edoardo Ballerini, Eunice Wong, Kevin R. Free, Krys Janae, Pun Bandhu, Robin Siegerman (Narrator)

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Death at the Sign of the Rook

"Brought to you by Penguin. THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Welcome to Rook Hall. The stage is set. The players are ready. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed. Ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off a bad case of midlife malaise when he is called to a sleepy Yorkshire town, and the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. But one theft leads to another, including the disappearance of a valuable Turner from Burton Makepeace, home to Lady Milton and her family. Once a magnificent country house, Burton Makepeace has now partially been converted into a hotel, hosting Murder Mystery weekends. As paying guests, a vicar, an ex-army officer, impecunious aristocrats, and old friends converge, we are treated a fiendishly clever mystery; one that pays homage to the masters of the genre—from Agatha Christie to Dorothy Sayers. Brilliantly inventive, with all of Atkinson’s signature wit, wordplay and narrative brio, Death at the Sign of the Rook may be Jackson Brodie’s most outrageous and memorable case yet. 'How delicious to have Jackson Brodie back, this time in a story that starts off in Agatha Christie's world but soon becomes a landscape that could only have been crafted from the pen of the incomparable Kate Atkinson' Ian Rankin 'Christie would be proud . . . I defy you not to snort with laughter as the novel progresses to its farcical denouement. Atkinson is brilliant' Observer 'Sharp, droll and knowing as ever, Atkinson has huge fun with the set-up; the supporting cast is terrific, and the rueful Brodie, ever more mindful of the passing years, feels like an old friend.' Guardian ©2024 Kate Atkinson (P)2024 Penguin Audio"

Kate Atkinson (Author), Jason Isaacs (Narrator)

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The Women Behind the Door

"Brought to you by Penguin. Booker-Prize winner Roddy Doyle’s spectacular return to his iconic character, Paula Spencer. At sixty-six, Paula Spencer – mother, grandmother, widow, addict, survivor – is finally living her life. A job at the dry cleaners she enjoys, a man – Joe – with whom she shares what she wants, friends who see her for who she is, and four grown children, now with families and petty dramas the likes of which Paula could only have hoped for. Despite its ghosts, Paula has started to push her past aside. That is until Paula’s eldest, Nicola, turns up on her doorstep. Independent, affluent, a loving wife and mother, “a success” – Nicola is suddenly determined to leave it all behind. Over the next few days, as Nicola gradually confides in Paula the secret that unleashed this moment of crisis, mother and daughter find themselves untangling anecdotes, jokes, memory and revelation to confront the bruised but beautiful symmetry of what each means to the other. 'The undisputed laureate of ordinary lives' SUNDAY TIMES 'The best novelist of his generation' NICK HORNBY, author of High Fidelity ©2024 Roddy Doyle (P)2024 Penguin Audio"

Roddy Doyle (Author), Ger Ryan (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Last Dream

"Brought to you by Penguin. A mischievous and genre-spanning story collection from legendary film director Pedro Almodóvar The Last Dream brings together for the first time twelve unpublished stories from Almodóvar’s personal archive, written between the late sixties and the present day. Delivering a tantalising glimpse into Almodóvar’s world, this wildly inventive collection reflects his most intimate obsessions, as well as his daring evolution as an artist. Ranging from ‘The Last Dream’ - a beautiful chronicle of the death of Almodóvar’s mother - to a love story between Jesus and Barabbas;, a cult film director out in search of painkillers on a bank holiday weekend, the original story behind the film Bad Education, and a gothic tale of a repentant vampire, these stories delight and surprise. The Last Dream is a celebration of the relationship between life and art, fiction and reality from an artist unafraid to write about our most intimate moments. It explores desire, mortality and the pain and glory of artistic creation, laced with playful humour and a deep love of literature and culture. Translated by Frank Wynne ©2024 Pedro Almodóvar (P)2024 Penguin Audio"

Pedro Almodóvar (Author), Colman Domingo, Edoardo Ballerini, Frank Wynne, Juan Diego Botto, Michael Cera, Norbert Leo Butz, Rachel Weisz, Taylour Paige (Narrator)

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Gabriel's Moon

"Brought to you by Penguin. In his most exhilarating novel yet, Britain’s greatest storyteller transports you from the vibrant streets of sixties London to the sun-soaked cobbles of Cadiz and the frosty squares of Warsaw, as an accidental spy is drawn into the shadows of espionage and obsession. Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a tragedy: every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his childhood home in flames. His days are spent on the move as an acclaimed travel writer, capturing the changing landscapes in the grip of the Cold War. When he’s offered the chance to interview a political figure, his ambition leads him unwittingly into a web of duplicities and betrayals. As Gabriel’s reluctant initiation takes hold, he is drawn deeper into the shadows. Falling under the spell of Faith Green, an enigmatic and ruthless MI6 handler, he becomes ‘her spy’, unable to resist her demands. But amid the peril, paranoia and passion consuming Gabriel’s new covert life, it will be the revelations closer to home that change the rest of his story. . . 'Sheer, truly brilliant storytelling. He has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries’ Daily Telegraph ‘If it’s true escapism you’re after, William Boyd can always be relied upon to transport the reader from reality’ Vogue 'A master storyteller' Observer © William Boyd 2024 (P) Penguin Audio 2024"

William Boyd (Author), George Blagden (Narrator)

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Creation Lake

"Brought to you by Penguin. **SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024** Seductive and cunning American spy-for-hire Sadie Smith has been sent by her mysterious but powerful employers to a remote corner of France. Her mission: to infiltrate a commune of radical eco-activists influenced by the beliefs of an enigmatic elder, Bruno Lacombe, who has rejected civilisation, lives in a Neanderthal cave, and believes the path to enlightenment is a return to primitivism. Sadie casts her cynical eye over this region of ancient farms and sleepy villages, and finds Bruno’s idealism laughable, but just as she is certain she’s the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story. Beneath this a taut, dazzling story of espionage and intrigue lies one of a woman caught in the crossfire between the past and the future, and a profound treatise on human history. 'The most exciting writer of her generation' BRET EASTON ELLIS 'Reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture' HERNAN DIAZ 'Compulsively readable... Kill Bill written by John le Carré' OBSERVER ©2024 Rachel Kushner (P)2024 Penguin Audio"

Rachel Kushner (Author), Rachel Kushner (Narrator)

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A Reason to See You Again: A Novel

"From the New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg comes a dazzling novel of family, following a troubled mother and her two daughters over forty years through a swiftly changing American landscape as they seek lives they can fully claim as their own. The women of the Cohen family are in crisis. After the death of their patriarch, Rudy, the glue that held them all together, everyone’s lives soon take a dramatic turn. Shelly, the younger of the two Cohen sisters, runs off to the West Coast to immerse herself in the emerging (and lucrative) world of technology. Her sister, Nancy, gets married at the age of twenty-one to a traveling salesman with a shadowy lifestyle, while their mother, Frieda, hurls herself into a boozy, troubled existence in Miami, trying to forget the past even as it haunts her. But each woman must learn in her own way that running from the past can’t save you—and they must make life-altering decisions about what they want their family to be and what they need for themselves to move forward. Beginning in the 1970s and spanning forty years, A Reason to See You Again takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic journey through motherhood, the American workforce, the tech industry, the self-help movement, inherited trauma, the ever-evolving ways we communicate with one another, and the many unexpected forms that love can take."

Jami Attenberg (Author), Stacey Glemboski (Narrator)

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The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts

"From the bestselling author of The Pale Blue Eye comes a brilliantly profound and empathetic story about Oscar Wilde's wife Constance and their two sons in the aftermath of the famous playwright's imprisonment for homosexuality, told against the backdrop of Victorian England and World War I. In September of 1892, Oscar Wilde and his family retreated to the idyllic Norfolk countryside for a holiday. His wife, Constance, has every reason to be happy: two beautiful sons, a stellar reputation as an advocate for progressive causes, and a delightfully charming and affectionate husband and father, who is perhaps the most famous man in England. But as an assortment of houseguests arrive, including an aristocratic young wannabe poet named Lord Alfred Douglas, Constance gradually-and then all at once-comes to see that her husband's heart is elsewhere and that the growing intensity between the two men threatens the whole foundation of their lives. The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts revolves around that fateful summer: what happened, and what might have been. When it was exposed, Oscar's affair with Lord Alfred Douglas-Bosie, as he was known-led to Wilde's imprisonment for homosexuality, and the financial and emotional ruin of his family. In Act Two, Bayard reveals Constance and their sons, Cyril and Vyvyan, in exile, forced to sell their possessions, leave England, and hide their identities. Act Three, from the perspective of Cyril, brings readers into the French trenches of World War I, where Cyril must grapple with the kind of man he wants to become, while Act Four reveals Vyvyan in London, years after the war, searching for answers from those who knew his parents. And in a brilliant act of the imagination, Act Five brings the entire cast back together in a surprising, poignant, and tremendously satisfying tableau. With Louis Bayard's trademark sparkling dialogue, paired with his deep insight into the lives and longings of all his characters-and based on real events-The Wildes could almost have been created by Oscar Wilde himself: lightly told but with hidden depths, it is an entertaining and dramatic story about the human condition. "Wonderfully researched, beautifully crafted, movingly told, The Wildes is a treasure to read." -Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less and Less Is Lost "The Wildes is a marvel of tenderness, irony, heartbreak, and reclamation that demonstrates why Bayard is among the most essential-and most entertaining-interrogators of the past." -Anthony Marra, author of Mercury Pictures Presents and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena"

Louis Bayard (Author), Damian Lynch, Elisabeth Rodgers, Louis Bayard, P.J. Ochlan (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Healing Season of Pottery

"Brought to you by Penguin. A heart warming and irresistible novel about the rejuvenating power of pottery, for fans of Before The Coffee Gets Cold and What You Are Looking For Is In The Library. She rubbed the spoiled clay with her fingertips. Like a wound as it heals, the traces faded, and had soon vanished completely, as if they’d never been there at all. Burnt out by her newswriting job, Jungmin abruptly quits; she’s worked tirelessly for years and she needs to make a change. Now, after months of hibernation, it’s time to put her life back together. Venturing out into the streets near Seoul, she stumbles upon the Soyo pottery workshop. Drawn in by its light and warmth, and the smell of clay and coffee, Jungmin feels something unfurl within her… Here, everyone has a story to share, and as the seasons change, Jungmin returns to herself. Pot by pot, plate by plate, Jungmin discovers that as her hands become busier, her mind becomes calmer, and her heart opens up like never before. From a rising talent, this is an uplifting story of new friends and old practices, of finding community, and of what happens when you finally slow down in this fast-paced world. © Yeon Somin 2024 (P) Penguin Audio 2024"

Yeon Somin (Author), Jennifer J Kim (Narrator)

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Tell Me Everything

"Brought to you by Penguin. THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING, BOOKER-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives nearby in a house next to the sea. Together, Lucy and Bob talk about their lives, their hopes and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, befriends one of Crosby’s longest inhabitants, Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known – “unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them – reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning. Brimming with empathy and pathos, TELL ME EVERYTHING is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.” 'Stunning, deeply felt and profoundly intelligent' Guardian 'A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own' Hilary Mantel 'A terrific writer' Zadie Smith 'Strout’s ability to reveal the wonder in unrecorded lives continues to astonish' Telegraph OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK: 'A beautiful read reminding us that there is extraordinary love in ordinary actions' Oprah Winfrey Elizabeth Strout, Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, 2022 ©2024 Elizabeth Strout (P)2024 Penguin Audio"

Elizabeth Strout (Author), Kimberly Farr (Narrator)

Audiobook

Literary Fiction Audiobooks in Literature