Literary Fiction Audiobooks | Literature

"Two estranged childhood friends find themselves on parallel paths to return to the site of the conversion therapy camp that tore them apart. Delia Barnes and Ernest Wrangham met as teens at Celebration Camp, a church-supported conversion therapy program—a dubious, unscientific Christian practice meant to “change” a person’s sexuality. After witnessing a close friend suffer a devastating tragedy in the hands of the camp “counselors,” they escaped in the night, only to take separate roads to their distant homes. They have no idea how each have fared through the years. Delia is a college basketball coach who prides herself on being an empowering and self-possessed role model for her players. But when she gets fired from her elite East Coast university and loses her wife to another woman in rapid succession, she returns to her hometown of Rockside, Oregon to coach the girls’ basketball team at her high school alma mater. Ernest, meanwhile, is a renowned poet in New York City who’s left behind his loving husband for a temporary teaching job in Portland, Oregon. His work has always been boundary-pushing, fearless. But the poem he’s most wanted to write—about his dangerous escape from Celebration Camp—remains stubbornly out of reach. Both remain on a mission to overcome the consequences and inhumane costs of conversion therapy. As events find them hurtling toward each other once again, they both grapple with the necessity of remaining steadfast in one’s truth—no matter how slippery that can be. Tell the Rest is a powerful novel about coming to terms—with family, history, violence, loss, sexuality, and ultimately, with love."

Lucy Jane Bledsoe (Author), Hayden Bishop, Ron Butler (Narrator)

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The Lonely Hearts Book Club

"Sloane Parker lives a small, contained life as a librarian in her small, contained town. She never thinks of herself as lonely...but still she looks forward to that time every day when old curmudgeon Arthur McLachlan comes to browse the shelves and cheerfully insult her. Their sparring is such a highlight of Sloane's day that when Arthur doesn't show up one morning, she's instantly concerned. And then another day passes, and another. Anxious, Sloane tracks the old man down only to discover him all but bedridden...and desperately struggling to hide how happy he is to see her. Wanting to bring more cheer into Arthur's gloomy life, Sloane creates an impromptu book club. Slowly, the lonely misfits of their sleepy town begin to find each other and, in their book club, the joy of unlikely friendship—because, as it turns out, everyone has a special book in their heart...and a reason to get lost (and eventually found) within the pages."

Lucy Gilmore (Author), Angie Kane (Narrator)

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[Italian] - Il figlio della fortuna

"Kōko, insegnante di pianoforte part-time e madre single di una figlia che disapprova le sue scelte, avverte con turbamento dentro di sé i segnali di una gravidanza non pianificata. Il germogliare della nuova vita, l'eco del passato e il susseguirsi di eventi fuori dal suo controllo la spingono a intraprendere un viaggio al limitare tra la coscienza e il sogno che la condurrà all'indimenticabile rivelazione finale – dopo la quale Kōko proclamerà il suo silenzioso trionfo in un'insurrezione contro qualsiasi norma, riconquistando un terreno di autentica fertilità nel radicale atto di fedeltà verso sé stessa."

Yuko Tsushima (Author), Federica Vai (Narrator)

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[Italian] - Il fantasma del lettore passato

"Cosa farà l'avvocato Ferro la notte di Natale? Riuscirà a stare senza libri fino a Santo Stefano rispettando un fioretto fatto suo malgrado? E Madama Peyran? Festeggerà come ha in mente da tempo facendo una sorpresa ad Adelina? Torino, dicembre 1959. In libreria si aggirano strani figuri: l'avvocato Ferro è contrariato dalla frenesia natalizia che si è impossessata della gente e gli impedisce di chiacchierare amabilmente, come d'abitudine, con il suo libraio di fiducia. Ovunque c'è aria di festa ma l'ottantottenne bibliofilo vorrebbe solamente starsene in casa a leggere per tutto il giorno, tra gli adorati libri che continua a collezionare compulsivamente. I suoi piani però verranno sconvolti da un invito inaspettato e da un libro che lo metterà faccia a faccia con il suo spirito di lettore..."

Desy Icardi (Author), Desy Icardi (Narrator)

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The Spy Who Came In From The Bin: A Jonathon Fairfax Novel

"He only knows three things about himself: he’s polite, he likes tea, and everyone wants to kill him. Berlin: a man wakes up in a bin* with no idea who he is. He’s taken to hospital for treatment. Then people start trying to assassinate him. The man has to find out why, how to get them to stop, and what the CIA has to do with all this. There’s also the little problem of working out who he used to be, and why that changed. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Piper and best friend Lance are trying to find him… Jonathon Fairfax – still the world’s most socially awkward hero – is back. If only he knew."

Christopher Shevlin (Author), Finlay Robertson (Narrator)

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[Italian] - Sarò breve

"Un ricco patrimonio e uno scritto. Un morto che parla, libero finalmente di dire quello che pensa. Ennio Rovere fa testamento. Ha impiegato l'intera esistenza per costruire un sogno e ci è riuscito mettendo su un mobilificio di successo che porta il suo nome in Brianza. Si è fatto da solo, ha avuto fortuna, anche se la sua vita non sempre è stata facile. Ha avuto amori più o meno fortunati, mogli più o meno fedeli, figli più o meno litigiosi, collaboratori più o meno capaci. Con il testamento, però, ha l'occasione di rimettere tutti a posto: dalla prima moglie all'esuberante donna di servizio, dal figlio minore allo zelantissimo autista, dal dentista al cane devoto. Mai come adesso, si sente libero di parlare e dire finalmente la sua. Con la scusa di distribuire in maniera equa il suo patrimonio, il protagonista di questo libro ripercorrerà per iscritto la propria esistenza, intrecciando dinamiche familiari e lavorative, premiando quanti davvero hanno meritato il suo affetto e punendo senza pietà tutti gli altri, senza risparmiarsi neppure nel giudizio. Ormai, questo è chiaro, non ha più nulla da perdere."

Francesco Muzzopappa (Author), Dario Sansalone (Narrator)

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Forbidden Notebook

"Out running an errand, Valeria Cossati gives in to a sudden impulse - she buys a shiny black notebook. She starts keeping a diary in secret, recording her concerns about her daughter, the constant churn of the domestic routine and her fears that her husband will discover her new habit. With each entry Valeria plunges deeper into her interior life, uncovering profound dissatisfaction and restlessness. As she finds her own voice, the roles that have come to define her-as wife, as mother, as daughter-begin to break apart. Forbidden Notebook is a rediscovered jewel of Italian literature, published here in a new translation by the celebrated Ann Goldstein and with a foreword by Jhumpa Lahiri. A captivating feminist classic, it is an intimate, haunting story of domestic discontent in postwar Rome, and of one woman's awakening to her true thoughts and desires."

Alba de Céspedes (Author), Cassandra Campbell (Narrator)

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[Spanish] - Tres novelas gallegas: Mazurca para dos muertos | La cruz de San Andrés | Madera de Boj

"Todo un homenaje a la tierra natal del autor en tres fabulosas novelas de madurez. El presente volumen reúne las tres novelas que Camilo José Cela ambientó en Galicia: Mazurca para dos muertos (1983), La Cruz de San Andrés (1994) y Madera de Boj (1999). La primera narra la trágica historia de la muerte de dos hermanos y de una venganza, con personajes variopintos y un folclore rural que recuerda La familia de Pascual Duarte. En La Cruz de San Andrés, la protagonista hace una estremecedora confesión que abarca desde el sexo y la frustración hasta la locura y la muerte. Por último, Madera de Boj se ubica en un territorio liminar, entre la vida y la muerte, el mar y la tierra, para acercarnos al flujo y reflujo que caracteriza la existencia de muchos habitantes de la costa marítima gallega. Reseñas: «El último gran escritor español, creador de fábulas, de lenguaje, de palabras, con una capacidad prodigiosa para expresarse.» Francisco Umbral «Su obra trascenderá las anécdotas y hará que se escuche su voz imprescindible.» Víctor García de la Concha «Su escritura es un deslumbrante artificio multiplicado en páginas, para decirlo con un verso suyo, que alumbraron tan fuerte como si ardieran versos.» El País «Cela es [...] un heredero de la tragedia clásica, capaz de sumergirnos en las simas de la angustia y del dolor; y también un heredero de la picaresca española.» Juan Manuel de Prada"

Camilo José Cela (Author), Rafael De La Rica Hernández, Tito Asorey (Narrator)

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[German] - Der Trinker

"Vom Untergang des KleinbürgersIn 'Der Trinker' schildert Hans Fallada die rasante Wandlung des Kaufmanns Erwin Sommer vom biederen Händler zum selbstzerstörerischen Trinker. Geschrieben 1944, während seiner Haftzeit in der Landesanstalt Neustrelitz, verarbeitet Fallada seine eigene Sucht nach Morphium und Alkohol, den Weg von Höhenflug und Absturz. Ein im wahrsten Sinne rauschfater wie tragischer Roman eines Autors von Weltrang.-"

Hans Fallada (Author), Wolfgang Bahro (Narrator)

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Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs

"At a run-down brothel in Caudal, Spain, the prostitutes are collecting stray dogs. Each is named after a famous male writer: Dante, Chaucer, and Bret Easton Ellis. When a john is cruel, the dogs are fed rotten meat. To the east, in Barcelona, an unflappable teenage girl is endeavouring to trace the peculiarities of her life back to one woman: Alba Camb, writer of violent short stories, who left Caudal as a girl and never went back. Mordantly funny, dryly sensual, written with a staggering lightness of touch, the debut novel in English by Swedish sensation Lina Wolff is a black and Bolaño-esque take on the limitations of love in a dog-eat-dog world. Perfect for fans of Cho Nam-Joo's ´Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982´. What people are saying about ´Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs´: '[A] filmic offering . . . channelling the spirit of Pedro Almodóvar. A thoroughly invigorating novel.' - Lucy Scholes, The Independent 'Wolff has had enough of the big swinging dicks of masculine literature. [Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs is] clever and challenging and distinctive.' - Galen O'Hanlon, The Skinny 'Oddly compelling . . . a European postmodern novel steeped in alienation and ennui.' - Library Journal 'Wolff's prose has a quality of 'otherness' entirely in keeping with the surreal atmosphere of the novel. This strange, provocative debut sits well alongside the work of Roxane Gay, Katherine Angel, Maggie Nelson, Zoe Pilger and Miranda July . . . a cool, clever and fierce addition to the canon of modern feminist literature.' - Sarah Perry, The Guardian 'The author demonstrates a marvellous command of language and creates characters with real depth, lending the book a sensual vibe and an acerbic wit that force its emotional truths to rise above the grunge of its hard-boiled setting. A poetic, unsentimental drama that offers a meditation on love in all its disparate forms.' - Kirkus Reviews 'Wolff manoeuvres with great skill through her breathtaking multitude of worlds and an equally impressive cast of characters. Bret Easton Ellis . . . takes the reader on a roller-coaster from the tragic to the comical, with hints of the mysterious and magical scattered in between - it is a testimonial of a dead person remarkably full of life.' - The Bookbag, 5 Stars, January Book of the Month 'A book that you just want to give people and say: take a look at this, read it, experience it. I would have liked to devote the entire review to quoting sentences and paragraphs from the novel - it is almost as if that were the only way of adequately conveying the gravity, depth and lightness of Lina Wolff's prose, her tender yet pitiless character descriptions, her distinctive but also natural way of piecing together the novel's disparate parts into a shimmering whole.' - Eva Johansson, Svenska Dagbladet - Lina Wolff (1973- ) is a Swedish author. Having lived in Spain and Italy for several years working as a translator, Wolff arrived on the literary stage in 2009 with ´Många människor dör som du´ (´Many People Die Like You) and won the prestigious Vi Magazine Literature Prize in 2012 for her debut novel, ´Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs´. She has since won several other literary awards, including the August Prize for Fiction and the Aftonbladet Literature Prize."

Lina Wolff (Author), Kristin Atherton (Narrator)

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[Arabic] - كيمياء الخيبة

"تتناول رواية 'كيميَّاء الخيَّبة' للإعلامية السعودية إيمان الخطاف، قضية شائكة مسكوت عنها في المجتمعات الخليجية، وهي الصراع النفسي والعاطفي الذي يواجه المرأة بعد سن اليأس، حيث وضعت المؤلفة عنواناً مرافقاً على الغلاف (امرأة نفطيّة تشعر أن الحياة تفوتها)، وهو ما يعكس حالة الخواء والهامشية العاطفية والروحية والأخلاقية التي مثلتها بطلة الرواية 'خولة'، التي أفاقت لتشعر أنها لم تعش حياتها كما يجب، وأن الكثير من أحلامها سُرق منها دون أن تشعر، 'خولة' امرأة مبعثرة، امرأة 'نفطيّة' تشعر أن الحياة تفوتها، نخلها الوقت والزمن، لم تعش حياتها كما يجب، بلغت السابعة والأربعين وتعيش أزمة منتصف العمر، متزوجة من منصور رجل تقليدي حرمَّها العمل ومتابعة دراساتها العليا على الرغم من تفوقها؛ وحولها إلى 'ربة منزل' وأم لفتاتين 'فاتن' و'ليلى' اعتنت بهما كما يجب لأمٍ أن تعتني بأبنائها، ولكن بعد مضي سنين العمر، استفاقت خولة على واقع؛ أن الزوج لم يكن الزوج الذي أرادت، والابنتين ليستا الابنتين اللتين حلمت يوماً بإنجابهما، وأنها أضاعت سنوات شبابها سجينة الوقار والحياء والعيب. في هذه الرواية نجد الخيال ممزوجاً بالمعرفة، غوص في أعماق الذات، رحلة إلى مناطق خفية خاصة وأن أدواتها قادرة على الجذب والتأثير وربما التغيير. وتركز الكاتبة في 'كيمياء الخيبة' على المسائل ذات العلاقة بخصوصية المرأة، المرأة التي تحلم برجل يشاركها تفاصيل حياتها باعتبارها نداً مساوياً للآخر في كل شيء، هي امرأة تبحث عن الطموح الضائع، الحب الضائع، وتفكر في خلق فوضى جديدة في حياتها. تطرقت الرواية إلى العديد من الموضوعات التي تمس المرأة، مثل: مفهوم الأنوثة، الأمومة، الخيانة، تعدد الزوجات، سن اليأس، تأخر الإنجاب، الاستقلال المادي والعاطفي، الطلاق، العنف الأسري، حرية المرأة. وغيرها من القضايا التي ترتبط بالخصوصية الخليجية، والسعودية تحديداً."

إيمان الخطاف (Author), ألاء أحمد (Narrator)

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Many People Die Like You

"An underemployed chef is pulled into the escalating violence of his neighbour's makeshift porn channel. An elderly piano student is forced to flee her home village when word gets out that she's fucked her thirty-something teacher. A hose pumping cava through the maquette of a giant penis becomes a murder weapon in the hands of a disaffected housewife. In this collection from the winner of Sweden's August Prize, Lina Wolff gleefully wrenches unpredictability from the suffocations of day-to-day life, shatters balances of power without warning, and strips her characters down to their strangest and most unstable selves. Wicked, discomfiting, delightful and wry, delivered with the deadly wit for which Wolff is known, ´Many People Die Like You´ presents the uneasy spectacle of people in solitude, and probes, with savage honesty, the choices we make when we believe no one is watching... or when we no longer care. Perfect for fans of 'Austerlitz' by W.G. Sebald and 'The Months' by Javier Marías. What people are saying about ´Many People Die Like You´: 'Fantastic. Quiet, thoughtful and, in spite of all the suffering, very funny.' - Vi magazine 'Several of the stories are so funny that you'd probably bring joy to your neighbours if you read them aloud.' - Skånska Dagbladet 'An immediate success for Lina Wolff... Many People Die Like You is a more than promising debut. Lina Wolff is a skilled stylist and a good storyteller.' - Arbetarbladet '´Many People Die Like You´ is full of life in motion. Depicted with such certainty that even the narrator's voice must at times give way to the swelling language. And so, Lina Wolff has arrived as one of the important voices in Swedish literature. Not least because of the freedom the texts create for themselves. A freedom full of pleasure and humor alongside ever-present earnestness.' - Helsingborgs Dagblad 'Lina Wolff either quickly visits people who are happening to have a good, perhaps heightened conversation. Or, she tells a story with a beginning and end. Two approaches to the short story, here both are equally exciting to read.' - Kulturnytt, Radio SR P1 'It's a matter of course of Lina Wolff's way of writing, as though each formulation and twist has been there all along, just waiting to be written down by her. Perhaps it is a matter of self-esteem, combined with a drive that draws you instantly and relentlessly into her stories. / ... / Wolff creates a hypnotic pull around her characters, making the reader wish they could remain in the story, how crass and chewy the lives portrayed can seem. The main characters are as often men as they are women, and Wolff writes with equal ease from a female and a male perspective. Human as humans are: sad and comical, petty and grand.' - Svenska Dagbladet 'Wolff's brilliant language, twisted intrigue and black humor makes this debut the best I've read this year.' - Femina magazine - Lina Wolff (1973- ) is a Swedish author. Having lived in Spain and Italy for several years working as a translator, Wolff arrived on the literary stage in 2009 with ´Många människor dör som du´ (´Many People Die Like You) and won the prestigious Vi Magazine Literature Prize in 2012 for her debut novel, ´Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs´. She has since won several other literary awards, including the August Prize for Fiction and the Aftonbladet Literature Prize."

Lina Wolff (Author), Montserrat Lombard (Narrator)

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Literary Fiction Audiobooks in Literature