Literary Fiction Audiobooks | Literature

"A mesmerizing novel by the author of Rainbirds and The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida about a young man trying to escape his past in Japan. When Shouji Arai crosses one of his company's most powerful clients, he must leave Akakawa immediately or risk his life. But his girlfriend Youko is nowhere to be found. Haunted by dreams of drowning and the words of a fortune teller who warned him away from three women with water in their names, he travels to Tokyo, where he tries in vain to track Youko down. But Shouji soon realizes that not everything Youko told him about herself was true. Who is the real woman he once lived with and loved, and where could she be hiding? Watersong is a spellbinding novel of loves lost and recovered, of secrets never spoken, and of how our pasts shape our futures."

Clarissa Goenawan (Author), David Shih (Narrator)

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The Covenant of Water

"From the New York Times–bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret The Covenant of Water is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of the major word-of-mouth bestseller Cutting for Stone, which has sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years. Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants. A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to humanunderstanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years."

Abraham Verghese (Author), Abraham Verghese (Narrator)

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Life Is Everywhere: A Novel

"Manhattan, 2014. It's an unseasonably warm Thursday in November and Erin Adamo is locked out of her apartment. Her husband has just left her and meanwhile her keys are in her coat, which she abandoned at her parents' apartment when she exited mid-dinner after her father—once again—lost control. Erin takes refuge in the library of the university where she is a grad student. Her bag contains two manuscripts she's written, along with a monograph by a faculty member who's recently become embroiled in a bizarre scandal. Erin isn't sure what she's doing, but a small, mostly unconscious part of her knows: within these documents is a key she's needed all along. With unflinching precision, Life Is Everywhere captures emotional events that hover fitfully at the borders of visibility and intelligibility, showing how the past lives on, often secretly and at the expense of the present. It's about one person on one evening, reckoning with heartbreak—a story that, to be fully told, unexpectedly requires many others, from the history of botulism to an enigmatic surrealist prank. Multifarious, mischievous, and deeply humane, Lucy Ives's latest masterpiece rejoices in what a novel, and a self, can carry."

Lucy Ives (Author), Cassidy Brown (Narrator)

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Welcome Me to the Kingdom

"An immensely talented new voice in literary fiction. Orbiting the devastating financial crisis of 1997, these interwoven stories introduce us to three families--a Thai Elvis impersonator and his only daughter, a family abandoned by their white American patriarch, and an adoptive brotherhood of orphaned boys--who employ various schemes and strategies to conceal, betray, lie, and seduce their way to achieving the 'good' life. Wildly imaginative and ambitious, Mai Nardone's stories capture the growing discrepancy between Thailand's smiling self-image and its ugly obverse. Through skin-whitening routines, cult conversion, Elvis costumery, gambling, and sex work, the collection's characters look for reinvention in a city unmade by a financial crisis, in a kingdom caught between this world and the next. “A writer with an atlas straight to the heart.” ? C Pam Zhang, author of HOW MUCH OF THESE HILLS IS GOLD"

Mai Nardone (Author), Uma Jackson (Narrator)

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A Complicated Kindness

"Sixteen-year-old Nomi Nickel longs to hang out with Lou Reed and Marianne Faithfull in New York City's East Village. Instead she's trapped in East Village, Manitoba: a town with no train station, no bar, and where job prospects consist of slaughtering chickens at the Happy Family Farms abattoir. Since her mother and sister have left home, Nomi lives with her father, Ray, a sweet yet hapless schoolteacher. Fighting against the restraints of the town, Nomi's longing for a future of opportunity and hope sets her on course towards a climax at once startling and inevitable. “The most engaging narrative voice I've come across lately… a darkly hilarious novel.” – Black Morrison, The Guardian 'Blithe and earnest, heartbreaking and humorous… From beginning to end the book is unusually calibrated and incredibly compelling.” -- Sarah Hall, The Guardian 'Told with the slouchy, cool grace of a misfit teen, this sparkly novel is destined to become a coming-of-age classic.' ? Elle 'Wry and saturated with comic invention, A Complicated Kindness possesses one of the strongest fictional voices since Holden Caulfield vented his spleen.' ? Time Out"

Miriam Toews (Author), Miriam Toews (Narrator)

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Thirst For Salt

"A gorgeously written novel set over the course of one life-changing summer in an isolated Australian coastal town Adrift during the summer after she finishes college, a young woman takes a holiday with her mother in the rugged Australian coastal town of Sailor’s Beach. As she searches for something, anything, to anchor her in the face of an uncertain future, Jude arrives. Jude, an older man who offers her the stability she craves. Jude, who will change everything. Many years later, as questions about past and present gain a new urgency, she looks back on the summer that shaped her and the woman she yearned to become."

Madelaine Lucas (Author), Madelaine Lucas (Narrator)

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[Spanish] - Alexis o el tratado del inútil combate

"Marguerite Yourcenar, autora de Memorias de Adriano, vuelve con una novela polémica e innovadora, una gran obra sobre el amor y la sexualidad. «Un clásico... toda la composición está exquisitamente equilibrada.» George Steiner Alexis o el tratado del inútil combate, una obra mayor en opinión de la crítica más cualificada, es el «retrato de una voz» -como ha llamado la misma Yourcenar a la larga carta que Alexis dirige a su esposa, en la que desmenuza dolorosamente su combate- en el que asistimos a la exposición de un tema del que pocos se atrevían a hablar en 1929, fecha en que fue publicado el libro. En un país hoy desaparecido, en un momento de transformación histórica y social, Alexis se detiene para dar cuenta de esas mismas transformaciones en carne propia, intentando poner punto final a un engaño e inaugurar un nuevo modo de vida. «Si es difícil vivir, es aún mucho más penoso explicar nuestra vida.» Reseñas: «Un clásico... toda la composición está exquisitamente equilibrada.» George Steiner «Lo fascinante de este libro es la extraordinaria economía del estilo: cada palabra está en su sitio, no sobra un gramo de carne. Y cuando se piensa que Marguerite Yourcenar lo escribió con veinticuatro años, es realmente sorprendente.» Bernard Pivot «Marguerite Yourcenar es una moralista que nunca da lecciones de moral# Recordad que la lucidez es contagiosa, y también lo es el coraje. Si leéis, querréis releer: uno jamás se cansa de Yourcenar.» Dominique Aury «Yourcenar no llegó a la historia desde fuera, sino que nació en su interior, en ella y desde ella aportó al género su tradición clásica, su sentido de la trascendencia de la naturaleza (ecologismo radical hasta su panteísmo final, el orientalismo y el budismo), sus experiencias personales (familiares y amorosas hasta su homosexualidad) y su sentimiento pudoroso, elegante, discreto y congelado de las pasiones humanas.» Rafael Conte «Si hubiera que caracterizar con una sola palabra el conjunto de su obra, no lo dudaría un momento: Yourcenar o el saber, naturalmente. Yourcenar o la serenidad, sin duda. Pero sobre todo, Yourcenar o la altura. Yourcenar o la elevación.» Jean D'ormesson «Una de las más grandes escritoras del xx, consagrada desde muy joven a la tarea de habitar en ajenas conciencias y de escribir contra el olvido.» Javier Aparicio Maydeu, El País"

Marguerite Yourcenar (Author), David Carrillo (Narrator)

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Perma Red

"On the Flathead Indian Reservation, summer is ending, and Louise White Elk is determined to forge her own path. Raised by her Grandmother Magpie after the death of her mother, Louise and her younger sister have grown up into the harsh social and physical landscape of western Montana in the 1940s, where Native people endure boarding schools and life far from home. As she approaches adulthood, Louise hopes to create an independent life for herself and an improved future for her family—but three persistent men have other plans. Since childhood, Louise has been pursued by Baptiste Yellow Knife, feared not only for his rough-and-tumble ways, but also for the preternatural gifts of his bloodline. Baptiste's rival is his cousin, Charlie Kicking Woman: a man caught between worlds, torn between his duty as a tribal officer and his fascination with Louise. And then there is Harvey Stoner. The white real estate mogul can offer Louise her wildest dreams of freedom, but at what cost? As tensions mount, Louise finds herself trying to outrun the bitter clutches of winter and the will of powerful men, facing choices that will alter her life—and end another's—forever."

Debra Magpie Earling (Author), Jason Grasl, Katie Anvil Rich (Narrator)

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Factory 19: A Novel

"We’re told that the future will be brighter. But what if human happiness really lies in the past? Hobart, 2022: a city with a declining population, in the grip of a dark recession. A rusty ship sails into the harbor and begins to unload its cargo on the site of the once famous but now abandoned Gallery of Future Art, known to the world as GoFA. One day the city’s residents are awoken by a high-pitched sound no one has heard for two generations: a factory whistle. GoFA’s owner, world-famous billionaire Dundas Faussett, is creating his most ambitious installation yet. He’s going to defeat technology’s dominance over our lives by establishing a new Year Zero: 1948. Those whose jobs have been destroyed by Amazon and Uber and Airbnb are invited to fight back in the only way that can possibly succeed: by living as if the internet had never been invented. The hold of Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, and their ilk starts to loosen as the revolutionary example of Factory 19 spreads. Can nostalgia really defeat the future? Can the little people win back the world? We are about to find out."

Dennis Glover (Author), David Linski (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Easy Way Out

"Patrick O’Neil is a travel agent who never goes anywhere. His closest confidante, Sharon, is chain-smoking her way to singles hell, passing up man after man. His parents, proprietors of a suburban men’s store whose fortunes are sagging more visibly than its customers, can’t agree how best to interfere in their sons’ lives. And his lover, Arthur (a nice golden retriever of a guy to whom Patrick can’t quite commit), wants to cement their relationship by buying a house. Then a call comes in the middle of another sleepless night. Tony, Patrick’s straight-as-an-arrow younger brother, has fallen in love with a beautiful lawyer who is turning him on to … opera. Unfortunately, she’s not the woman he’s already pledged to marry. Tony’s life is a mess. Finally, the brothers have something in common."

Stephen McCauley (Author), Josh Hurley (Narrator)

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Dessert with Buddha

"Dessert with Buddha takes the eccentric, sort-of-Buddhist monk, Volya Rinpoche, and his skeptical, middle-of-the-road brother-in-law, Otto Ringling, on another enlightening road trip filled with meals, humor, social commentary, and good times. On this journey, the couple that traveled from New York to North Dakota in Breakfast with Buddha, Seattle to North Dakota in Lunch with Buddha, and North Dakota to Las Vegas in Dinner with Buddha heads down the Eastern Seaboard from Boston to points south. Along the way, they meet an array of intriguing characters, tour some famous American sights, and enjoy the kinds of conversations about spirituality that have engrossed hundreds of thousands of listeners from China to Turkey to Croatia, and throughout the United States. Otto's sister, Cecelia, his daughter Natasha, son Anthony, and niece Shelsa, all have small but important roles in the story, as the famous duo pilots a hybrid pickup along back roads and superhighways, toward the series' climactic finish. Dessert with Buddha enhances the series the way a delicious dish of ice cream or slice of homemade pie enhances a great meal. Enjoy the trip!"

Roland Merullo (Author), Sean Runnette (Narrator)

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The Secrets of Catspraddle Village

"A grisly murder without a suspect. A bizarre love triangle. A philosopher moonlighting as a garbage man who gets a gun put to his head every Tuesday morning. These are the secret lives of the residents of Catspraddle Village, a fictional district in the Caribbean island of Barbados. This collection of award-winning short stories by author Callie Browning is filled with hilarious banter, crazy escapades and thought-provoking events that tell The Secrets of Catspraddle Village. This one-hour literary fiction short story anthology by award-winning author, Callie Browning, will give you a front-row seat to all of the drama that can happen in a tiny Bajan village."

Callie Browning (Author), Callie Browning (Narrator)

Audiobook

Literary Fiction Audiobooks in Literature