Literary Fiction Audiobooks | Literature

"The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics delivers a wise, timely, big-hearted novel of unplanned isolation and newly forged community. Where does one go, you might ask, when the world falls apart? When the immutable facts of your life—the mundane, the trivial, the take-for-granted minutiae that once filled every second of every day—suddenly disappear? Where does one go in such dire and unexpected circumstances? I went home, of course. MURBRIDGE COMMUNITY MESSAGE BOARD FREE: 500 cans of corn. Accidentally ordered them online. I really hate corn. Happy to help load. REMINDER: use your own goddamn garbage can for your own goddamn pet waste. I’m looking at you Peter Luflin. REMINDER: monthly Select Board meeting this Friday. Agenda items: 1) sludge removal; 2) upkeep of chime tower; 3) ice rink monitor thank you gift. Questions? Contact Hildegard Hyman, HHMurbridge@gmail.com Darcy Clipper, prodigal daughter, nearly thirty, has returned home to Murbridge, Massachusetts, after her life takes an unwelcome left turn. Murbridge, Darcy is convinced, will welcome her home and provide a safe space in which she can nurse her wounds and harbor grudges, both real and imagined. But Murbridge, like so much else Darcy thought to be fixed and immutable, has changed. And while Darcy’s first instinct might be to hole herself up in her childhood bedroom, subsisting on Chef Boy-R-Dee and canned chickpeas, it is human nature to do two things: seek out meaningful human connection and respond to anonymous internet postings. As Murbridge begins to take shape around Darcy, both online and in person, Darcy will consider the most fundamental of American questions: What can she ask of her community? And what does she owe it in return?"

Tara Conklin (Author), Kristen Sieh (Narrator)

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Rootless

"There are two sides to every love story… One of ‘the best books to look forward to in 2023’ COSMOPOLITAN ‘A poignant debut which marks Krystle Zara Appiah out as one of Britain’s best new young writers’ HARPER’S BAZAAR Efe and Sam have been best friends since before they were married. To an outside eye, they have a relationship most can only dream of. But behind closed doors, Sam wants to start a family, while Efe longs for a life free of responsibility. When an unplanned pregnancy forces Efe into a stark choice, she has to decide which is more important – her love for her family, or the life she wanted for herself. ‘An open and honest exploration of the rediscovery of love, motherhood, and the choices we make and sacrifice’ GAL-DEM ‘Highly relatable… your heart will miss a beat’ HUFFPOST UK"

Krystle Zara Appiah (Author), Clifford Samuel, Diana Yekinni (Narrator)

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[Spanish] - Beartown (Spanish edition)

"Del autor de Gente ansiosa, bestseller # 1 del New York Times, una deslumbrante y profunda novela sobre un pueblo chico con un sueño grande y el precio que debe pagar para hacerlo realidad. Cerca del lago en Beartown hay una pista de hielo, y en la pista Kevin, Amat, Benji y el resto del Equipo junior de hockey sobre hielo está a punto de competir en la semifinal nacional; y, de hecho, tiene la oportunidad de ganar. Todos los sueños y esperanzas de este lugar descansan ahora sobre los hombros de un grupo de adolescentes. Bajo la pesada carga, el partido se convierte en la catálisis de un acto violento que dejará a una joven traumatizada y a un pueblo en confusión. Se hacen las acusaciones y, como olas en un estanque, viajan a través de Beartown. Ésta es el a historia de un pueblo y de un juego, pero aún más, una historia sobre la lealtad, el compromiso y las responsabilidades de la amistad; de las personas a quienes decepcionamos aunque las amemos; y de las decisiones que hacemos cada día y nos definen. En esta historia sobre un pueblo pequeño en el bosque, Fredrik Bakcman ha encontrado el mundo entero. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anxious People, a dazzling and profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true. By the lake in Beartown is an old ice rink, and in that ice rink Kevin, Amat, Benji, and the rest of the town’s junior ice hockey team are about to compete in the national semi-finals—and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys. Under that heavy burden, the match becomes the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown. This is a story about a town and a game, but even more about loyalty, commitment, and the responsibilities of friendship; the people we disappoint even though we love them; and the decisions we make every day that come to define us. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world."

Fredrik Backman (Author), Irene Repeto (Narrator)

Audiobook

Fire Rush

"Brought to you by Penguin. London, 1978. Yamaye, a woman in her 20s unsure of who she is, but with dreams of being a DJ and MC. Yamaye lives for the weekend, when she can go raving with her friends at The Crypt, an underground club in the industrial town on the outskirts of London where she was born and raised. Everything changes when she falls deeply in love with Moose: he offers the chance of freedom and change. When their relationship is cut brutally short, Yamaye goes on a dramatic journey of transformation that takes her first to Bristol, where she gets caught up in a criminal gang, and then to Jamaica, where past and present collide with devastating consequences. © Jacqueline Crooks 2023 (P) Penguin Audio 2023"

Jacqueline Crooks (Author), Leonie Elliott (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Sharing Economy

"Three Women meets Crudo: a frank and fresh literary debut about the dawn of dating apps in Amsterdam. 'Sexual infidelity is unavoidable, for whatever reasons, in long monogamous relationships, so why not give the other sexual freedom, as a gesture of love, of communication maybe?' Amsterdam in 2014 is an historic city situated at the heart of the future. One of the biggest hubs for internet traffic in the world, it has become a favourite testing-ground for the new internet platforms that form the vanguard of what has been coined 'the sharing economy'. Gabrielle Bloom is a woman in her mid-40s, working as an exhibition curator. She is happily married to Anton and loves her son Victor. They have a circle of sophisticated friends and enjoy the life of two successful and respectable professionals living in one of the world's most beautiful and culturally rich cities. There is, though, one crucial difference between their relationship and those of their friends. Gabrielle and Anton enjoy an open marriage. When Gabrielle is introduced, during a visit to a feminist art collective, to a new dating app that has recently launched in the city, fresh horizons open up. With an almost unlimited number of potential partners suddenly available to her, she quickly develops a taste for the thrill of a brief sexual encounter. Moving from one assignation to the next, things at first seem exhilarating and uncomplicated. But the human heart has not evolved at the same rate as the silicon chip and when attachments start to form things rapidly become less simple. Set during one intense and transformative year, and suffused with art, sex and philosophy, The Sharing Economy is at once a uniquely radical reappraisal of the way we view relationships and a tender and moving depiction of the many ways in which the human heart is capable of love. "

Sophie Berrebi (Author), Julie Teal (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Likely Story: A Novel

"CBS New York Book Club with Mary Calvi and Belletrist Book Club Pick "Raw, complex, and utterly unforgettable." —Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author The only child of a famous American novelist discovers a shocking family secret that upends everything she thought she knew about her parents, her gilded childhood, and her own stalled writing career in this standout debut, perfect for fans of Pineapple Street and The Plot. Growing up in the nineties in New York City as the only child of famous parents was both a blessing and a curse for Isabelle Manning. Her beautiful society hostess mother, Claire, and New York Times bestselling author father, Ward, were the city's intellectual It couple. Ward's glamorous obligations often took him away from Isabelle, but Claire made sure her childhood was always filled with love. Now an adult, all Isabelle wants is to be a successful writer like her father but after many false starts and the unexpected death of her mother, she faces her upcoming thirty-fifth birthday alone and on the verge of a breakdown. Her anxiety only skyrockets when she uncovers some shocking truths about her parents and begins wondering if everything she knew about her family was all based on an elaborate lie. This "literary page-turner" (KJ Dell'Antonia, New York Times bestselling author) is punctuated with fragments of a compulsively readable book-within-a-book about a woman determined to steal back the spotlight from a man who has cheated his way to the top. The characters seem eerily familiar but is the plot based on fact? And more importantly, who is the author?"

Leigh Mcmullan Abramson (Author), Adam Grupper, Cynthia Farrell, Devon Sorvari, James Fouhey, Mia Barron (Narrator)

Audiobook

Thrillville, USA

"WINNER OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS SUE KAUFMAN PRIZE FOR FIRST FICTION A raw and remarkable debut story collection concerning substance abuse, societal alienation, and doomed romance from a writer whose work has appeared in prestigious literary journals including The Paris Review. An amusement park employee overdoses after eating the gel of a fentanyl patch. Two homeless men discover the body of a drowned woman. A sister encounters a dangerous stranger while driving her brother to rehab. Ex-lovers seek to rekindle their relationship with the aid of an earthquake. In the nine masterful stories that comprise Thrillville, USA, debut author Taylor Koekkoek depicts Americans living on the margins of society, seeking escape from isolation and underemployment in drugs, booze, and self-destructive relationships. While the action is set largely in the rural Pacific Northwest, the characters' malaise and disaffectedness is endemic of the country as a whole. The title takes its name from the aforementioned amusement park, but Thrillville is as much a state of mind as an actual place—a sardonic commentary on contemporary America consumed by opioid addiction, social media obsession, wealth inequality and political polarization. Yet as haunting as these stories are, they are not hopeless. Gorgeously written, they share a transcendental quality—an acknowledgment of and appreciation for the beauty in all things, even the most profane and grotesque."

Taylor Koekkoek (Author), André Santana, Lisa Larsen, Stephen Graybill (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Manual for How to Love Us: Stories

"A debut, interlinked collection of stories exploring the primal nature of women’s grief—offering insight into the profound experience of loss and the absurd ways in which we seek control in an unruly world. Seamlessly shifting between the speculative and the blindingly real, balancing the bizarre with the subtle brutality of the mundane, A Manual for How to Love Us is a tender portrait of women trying their best to survive, love, and find genuine meaning in the aftermath of loss. In these unconventional and unpredictably connected stories, Erin Slaughter shatters the stereotype of the soft-spoken, sorrowful woman in distress, queering the domestic and honoring the feral in all of us. In each story, grieving women embrace their wildest impulses as they attempt to master their lives: one woman becomes a “gazer” at a fraternity house, another slowly moves into her otherworldly stained-glass art, a couple speaks only in their basement’s black box, and a thruple must decide what to do when one partner disappears. The women in Erin Slaughter’s stories suffer messy breaks, whisper secrets to the ghosts tangled in the knots of their hair, eat raw meat to commune with their inner wolves, and build deadly MLM schemes along the Gulf Coast. Set across oft-overlooked towns in the American South, A Manual for How to Love Us spotlights women who are living on the brink and clinging to its precipitous edge. Lyrical and surprisingly humorous, A Manual for How to Love Us is an exciting debut that reveals the sticky complications of living in a body, in all its grotesquerie and glory."

Erin Slaughter (Author), Erin Deward (Narrator)

Audiobook

Last Summer on State Street

"Brought to you by Penguin. State Street Chicago, 1999. One summer that changes everything. An unlikely trio: Felicia 'Fe Fe' Stevens, daughter of fiercely protective mother; Precious Brown, daughter of a prominent church Elder; and Stacia Buchanan, daughter of a Gangster Disciple Queen-Pin. They have a simple friendship, wiling away sunny days with games of Double Dutch. But when Fe Fe invites mysterious Tonya into their fold, life as they know it will never be the same again. Last Summer on State Street is a profound coming-of-age story about the restorative power of community, the claiming of one's own past, and the defining friendships which form the heartbeat of our lives. © Toya Wolfe 202 3(P) Penguin Audio 2023"

Toya Wolfe (Author), Shayna Small (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Hungry Tide

"A profound and absorbing saga from the Internationally Bestselling and Man Booker Prize shortlisted author 'Amitav Ghosh is such a fascinating and seductive writer… I cannot think of another contemporary writer with whom it would be this thrilling to go so far, so fast' The Times January 2001: A small ship, led by wealthy Scotsman Daniel Hamilton, arrives in the Sundarbans, a vast archipelago of islands in the mythical river Ganges, a half-drowned land where the waters of the Himalayas merge with the incoming tides of the sea. In the Sundarbans the tides reach more than 100 miles inland, and every day thousands of hectares of forest disappear only to re-emerge hours later. Dense as the mangrove forests are, from Hamilton’s point of view, it is only a little less barren than a desert. The eccentric Scotsman and the scientists on board the ship disembark to study this little-known environment, and to trace the journeys of the descendants of this society. Their goal? To create a utopian society, of all races and religions, and conquer the might of the Sundarbans."

Amitav Ghosh (Author), Ranjit Madgavkar (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Broken People's Playlist: Stories (from Songs)

"''A dozen interlinked, music-oriented stories set in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where Garricks was raised... Each songlike story feels like a breakout hit encapsulating the brokenness and the beauty in life’s soundtrack.''—Booklist, starred review “Beautifully woven . . . a magical delight.”—Hari Kunzru, author of White Tears A Broken People’s Playlist is set to the soundtrack of life, comprised of twelve music-inspired tales about love, the human condition, micro-moments, and the search for meaning and sometimes, redemption. It is also Chimeka Garricks’s love letter to his native city, Port Harcourt, introducing us to a cast of indelible characters in these loosely interlocked tales. There is the teenage wannabe-DJ eager to play his first gig even as his family disastrously falls apart—who reappears many years later as an unhappy middle-aged man drunk-calling his ex-wife; a man who throws a living funeral for his dying brother; three friends who ponder penis captivus and one’s peculiar erectile dysfunction; a troubled woman who tries to find her peace-place in the world, helped by a headful of songs and a pot of ginger tea. Infused with the author’s resonant and evocative storytelling, each page holds “the depth of a novel” (Hari Kunzru); a character, a moment that will—like a favorite song—long linger in the heart and mind."

Chimeka Garricks (Author), Atta Otigba, Nneka Okoye (Narrator)

Audiobook

Johanna Porter Is Not Sorry

""Laugh out loud funny and poignant. I loved it!"-LORI FOSTER, New York Times bestselling author Johanna is not a thief-and she is definitely not sorry. In the back room at an elite gallery party, 40-something soccer mom Johanna Porter stands face to face with her younger self. The girl in the portrait, La Rosa Blanca, is fierce and fearless, and Johanna sees the great painter she almost was before her lover, the powerful artist Nestor Pinedo, torched her career. When she cuts the million-dollar masterpiece out of its frame, rolls it up and walks out, it's not a theft. It's a rescue. Hiding out in a shack on the Chesapeake Bay with La Rosa Blanca looking on, Johanna tries to paint again, but encounters only the cringe-worthy atrophy of her talent. When she reluctantly goes sailing with the injured surgeon two houses away, and chemistry flares between the struggling misanthropes, Johanna realizes that to fulfill the promise of her younger self, she's got to quit playing it safe. Battling novice-thief paranoia, impostor syndrome and mom guilt, she can stay one step ahead of the law. But it will take an act of desperation to become the woman La Rosa Blanca was meant to be. "Vivid, visceral, and sexy-I loved it."-JEN DEVON, author of Bend Toward the Sun Don't miss Sara Read's next captivating book, Principles of Emotion, a smart, poignant STEMinist novel perfect for fans of Lessons in Chemistry"

Sara Read (Author), Marni Penning (Narrator)

Audiobook

Literary Fiction Audiobooks in Literature