Audiobooks narrated by Raymond J. Lee

An Oral History of Atlantis: Stories Audiobook

"Gilt-edged stories that slice clean through the mundanity of modern life, from the author of Same Bed Different Dreams, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize "Ed Park is one of the funniest writers working today, and among the most humane."-Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr! In "Machine City" a college student's chance role in a friend's movie blurs the line between his character and his true self. (Is he a robot?) In "Slide to Unlock" a man comes to terms with his life via the passwords he struggles to remember in extremis. (What's his mom's name backward?) And in "Weird Menace" a director and faded movie star gab about science fiction, bad costume choices, and lost loves on a commentary track for a B-film from the '80s that neither remembers all that well. In Ed Park's utterly original collection, An Oral History of Atlantis, characters bemoan their fleeting youth, focus on their breathing, meet cute, break up, write book reviews, translate ancient glyphs, bid on stuff online, whale watch, and once in a while find solace in the sublime. Throughout, Park deploys his trademark wit to create a world both strikingly recognizable and delightfully other. Spanning a quarter century, these sixteen stories tell the absurd truth about our lives. They capture the moment when the present becomes the past-and are proof positive that Ed Park is one of the most imaginative and insightful writers working today."

Ed Park (Author), Arthur Morey, Cindy Cheung, Gabrielle De Cuir, Jamie K. Brown, Lee Osorio, Pete Cross, Raphael Corkhill, Raymond J. Lee, Shannon Tyo (Narrator)

Audiobook

Time Loops & Meet Cutes: A Novel

""One of Lau's sharpest books yet." —The New York Times Book Review The "masterful, inspiring, and full of heart" (Ali Hazelwood, New York Times bestselling author) Jackie Lau returns with a thoroughly unique love story about a woman reliving the same Friday over and over again—and the intriguing man who can't quite remember her. Noelle Tom really shouldn't have eaten those dumplings at the night market. But the old woman at the stall said they'd give her what she needed most, and what Noelle desperately needed after another long workweek was food. Except now she's reliving the same Friday. Every morning her alarm goes off at 6:45, and the Wordle answer is always "happy." Worst of all, any work she does at her job as an engineer? It's erased when she wakes up. Monday might never come in this workaholic's nightmare. Noelle has no idea how being trapped in a time loop is the "thing she needed most," and a trip to the food stall doesn't help…because there's no sign of it. Then she meets good-looking Cam, who appears in multiple places on her Friday. While the brewery owner seems to have no memory of their encounters, there are signs he might be the key to getting un-stuck. But Noelle can't figure out how, even when she steps outside of her comfort zone and lives a little. As she grows attached to him, she becomes more worried that she'll never escape the loop and he'll never recall her name. And if she does ever get out, can they be together in the "real" world?"

Jackie Lau (Author), Cindy Kay, Raymond J. Lee (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Best American Short Stories 2024

"A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, author of Matrix and The Vaster Wilds, and series editor Heidi Pitlor. “There have never been as many exquisitely built stories in existence than there are now,” proclaims guest editor Lauren Groff in her introduction. This abundance led to a volume of robust stories with the nerve to push against narrative expectations. The Best American Short Stories 2024 boasts a collection of twenty stories that “buzz with their own strange logic.” A man becomes a tourist in his own hometown. An unemployed jeweler sails in an antique slave ship. A therapist decides to call an ex-patient years after their last session. Daring and resonant, the stories in this volume invite in Groff “a feeling that both the author and I were simultaneously discovering something together.” The Best American Short Stories 2024 includes JAMEL BRINKLEY • ALEXANDRA CHANG • LAURIE COLWIN • MOLLY DEKTAR • TAISIA KITAISKAIA • DANIEL MASON • JIM SHEPARD • AZAREEN VAN DER VLIET OLOOMI • PAUL YOON • and others"

Heidi Pitlor, Lauren Groff (Author), Christina Delaine, Gilli Messer, Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Korey Jackson, Raymond J. Lee, Vikas Adam (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Hive and the Honey

"From the beloved award-winning author Paul Yoon comes a spectacular collection of unique stories, each confronting themes of identity, belonging, and the collision of cultures across countries and centuries. A boy searches for his father, a prison guard on Sakhalin Island. In Barcelona, a woman is tasked with spying on a prizefighter who may or may not be her estranged son. A samurai escorts an orphan to his countrymen in the Edo Period. A formerly incarcerated man starts a new life in a small town in upstate New York and attempts to build a family. The Hive and the Honey is a bold and indelible collection by celebrated author Paul Yoon, one that portrays the vastness and complexity of diasporic communities, with each story bringing to light the knotty inheritances of their characters. How does a North Korean defector connect with the child she once left behind? What are the traumas that haunt a Korean settlement in Far East Russia? Lauded as a "quotidian-surreal craft-master" (New York magazine), Yoon's stunning stories are laced with beauty and cruelty, and The Hive and the Honey is the work of an author writing at the very height of his powers."

Paul Yoon (Author), Raymond J. Lee (Narrator)

Audiobook

Influenced: The Impact of Social Media on Our Perception

"Unpacks and pulls the curtain back on what happens to our brains and our behaviors each time we addictively engage social media and the influencers we encounter there. Individuals seeking to widen their tribes of friends, fans, and followers have an abundance of resources for building their digital footprints and social media popularity. All of this seems well and good from the perspective of revenue, exposure, and perhaps ego-building, but what is the impact of this on the human brain and our behavior? Is anyone paying attention to the lurking side effects of the social media influencer revolution? As "Dr. Brian" Boxer Wachler-one of the world's most esteemed authorities on human perception-reveals in Influenced: The Impact of Social Media on Our Perception, we are oblivious to the mental evolution that is already in process. Science is proving that our addictive reliance upon social media and its influencers is having a demonstrable impact on how we think, feel, and perceive everything around us- and even how we react to stimuli. One might think that a "Like" is nothing more than a split-second tap on a device. However, brain scans tell a different story. Our brains literally light up with every buzz, ding, alert, and ring in anticipation of how our network is responding to us. As we tap away at our devices, we anxiously seek the approval of others-often people we don't know. Influenced unpacks what happens to our brains and our behaviors each time we click "Like"; follow an influencer; consume a video; share or reshare an article; post or repost a photograph; write a comment; pile on a trend;; just scroll for new content; and why do we keep coming back for more. Dr. Boxer Wachler includes his own social and medical findings and highlights them with interviews with top influencers, the latest studies, and pop-culture anecdotes."

Brian Boxer Wachler (Author), Brian Boxer Wachler, Raymond J. Lee (Narrator)

Audiobook

House of a Thousand Lies

"Diana Wolf likes to think she has it all: a rock-god husband, an empty nest, a wine cellar, and a dream home in the woods. Life is good. It has to be. But when she hires a cartographer, Kerry Perkins, to survey and map her estate in rural Tennessee, she pulls back a frayed corner of the lie that is her fairytale life. On his first night at Wolf Hollow, Kerry stumbles across a young girl's skeleton buried in the woods. But what really scares Diana is a familiar symbol carved into the girl’s skull: two wolves. A week later, the cops are digging in her backyard. Diana begins to question how good her life really is. How good of a man is her husband and how good a father? She’s not the only one with questions. Kerry Perkins can’t shake what he saw in the woods that night. He suspects that Diana recognized that symbol, that she lied to the police, that someone is watching him, and that whoever it is, they desperately want him to keep his mouth shut. His search for answers leads him to Pink, a deeply disturbed man obsessed with the Wolfs’ celebrity. Pink knows the family better than they know themselves—and he knows that the more he and Kerry dig, the more bones they will find. Told through the eyes of multiple narrators, none reliable, this is a story about parents, the lies they tell their children, and the lies they tell themselves."

Cody Luke Davis (Author), Bailey Carr, David Bendena, J. D. Jackson, Nick Mondelli, Raymond J. Lee, Romy Nordlinger, Seth Podowitz (Narrator)

Audiobook

Evening Hero

"A "moving and captivating" (Cathy Park Hong, New York Times bestselling author of Minor Feelings) novel following a Korean immigrant pursuing the American dream who must confront the secrets of the past or risk watching the world he's worked so hard to build come crumbling down. Dr. Yungman Kwak is in the twilight of his life. Every day for the last fifty years, he has brushed his teeth, slipped on his shoes, and headed to Horse Breath's General Hospital, where, as an obstetrician, he treats the women and babies of the small rural Minnesota town he chose to call home. This was the life he longed for. The so-called American dream. He immigrated from Korea after the Korean War, forced to leave his family, ancestors, village, and all that he knew behind. But his life is built on a lie. And one day, a letter arrives that threatens to expose it. Yungman's life is thrown into chaos—the hospital abruptly closes, his wife refuses to spend time with him, and his son is busy investing in a struggling health start-up. Yungman faces a choice—he must choose to hide his secret from his family and friends or confess and potentially lose all he's built. He begins to question the very assumptions on which his life is built—the so-called American dream, with the abject failure of its healthcare system, patients and neighbors who perpetuate racism, a town flawed with infrastructure, and a history that doesn't see him in it. Toggling between the past and the present, Korea and America, Evening Hero is a "soulful, melodic, rhapsodic novel" (The New York Times) about a man looking back at his life and asking big questions about what is lost and what is gained when immigrants leave home for new shores."

Marie Myung-Ok Lee (Author), Raymond J. Lee (Narrator)

Audiobook

Happy at Any Cost: The Revolutionary Vision and Fatal Quest of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh

"From award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters, "a startling portrait of one of our greatest tech visionaries, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh" (Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road), reporting on his short life, untimely death, and what that means for our pursuit of happiness. Tony Hsieh—CEO of Zappos, Las Vegas developer, and beloved entrepreneur—was famous for spreading happiness. He lived and breathed this philosophy, instilling an ethos of joy at his company, outlining his vision for a better workplace in his New York Times bestseller Delivering Happiness. He promoted a workplace where bosses treated employees like family members, where stress was replaced by playfulness, and where hierarchies were replaced with equality and collaboration. His outlook shaped how we work today. Hsieh also aspired to build his own utopian cities, pouring millions of dollars into real estate and small businesses, first in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada—where Zappos is headquartered—and then in Park City, Utah. He gave generously to his employees and close friends, including throwing notorious Zappos parities and organizing gatherings at his home, an Airstream trailer park. When Hsieh died suddenly in late 2022, the news shook the business and tech world. Wall Street Journal reporters Kirsten Grind and Katherine Sayre discovered Hsieh's obsession with happiness masked his darker struggles with addiction, mental health, and loneliness. In the last year of his life, he spiraled out of control, cycling out of rehab and into the waiting arms of friends who enabled his worst behavior, even as he bankrolled them from his billion-dollar fortune. Happy at Any Cost sheds light on one of our most creative, yet vulnerable, business leaders. It's about our intense need to find "happiness" at all costs, our misguided worship of entrepreneurs, the stigmas still surrounding mental health, and how the trappings of fame can mask all types of deeper problems. In turn, it reveals how we conceptualize success—and define happiness—in our modern age."

Kirsten Grind (Author), Raymond J. Lee (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Damage Done

"Imagine a world devoid of violence—a world where fists can’t hit, guns don’t kill, and bombs can’t destroy. In this tantalizing novel of possibility, this has—suddenly and inexplicably—become our new reality. The U.S. president must find a new way to wage war. The Pope ponders whether the Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is still relevant. A dictator takes his own life after realizing that the violence he used to control his people is no longer an option. In the first days after the change, seven people who have experienced violence struggle to adapt to this radical new paradigm: Dab, a bullied middle schooler; Marcus, a high-school student whose brother is the last victim of gun violence in America; Ann, a social worker stuck in an abusive marriage; Richard, a professor whose past makes him expect the worst in the present; Gabriela, who is making a dangerous border crossing into the U.S.; the Empty Shell, a dissident writer waiting to be tortured in a notorious prison; and Julian, a white supremacist plotting a horrific massacre. As their fates intertwine, the promise and perils of this new world begin to take shape. Although violence is no longer possible, mindless cruelty is still alive and well—and those bent on destruction still seek the means to achieve it. For fans of Ben Winters and Sarah Pinsker, this mind-bending and thought-provoking novel pushes the limits of fiction, questioning the violence sewn into our DNA."

Michael Landweber (Author), Anna Caputo, Cary Hite, Dominique Franceschi, Gary Bennett, J. D. Jackson, Raymond J. Lee, Senn Annis, Zac Aleman (Narrator)

Audiobook

Cold: A Novel

"A boy, a body, a girl, a secret. From award-winning author Mariko Tamaki, Cold is a haunting YA audiobook about a shocking murder in a quiet town and four students who knew too much and said too little. This is the story of a boy who died—and a girl who wants to know why. Todd Mayer is dead. Now he's some sort of ghost, hovering over his body, which has just been found in the town park, naked and frozen in the snow. As detectives investigate Todd's homicide, talking to the very people who are responsible for how he died, Todd replays the events that lead him to his end in the park. Georgia didn't know Todd. But she can’t stop thinking about him. Maybe because they’re both outcasts at their school, or because they’re both queer. It might also be because Georgia has a feeling she’s seen Todd somewhere before, somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. In the vein of The Lovely Bones, this dual narrative is told through the voices of Todd in his afterlife and Georgia as she uncovers the truth behind his death, resulting in an immersive, emotional, and provocative listen. A Macmillan Audio production from Roaring Brook Press"

Mariko Tamaki (Author), Katharine Chin, Raymond J. Lee (Narrator)

Audiobook

League of Liars

"In this fantasy thriller, four teens charged with murder and caught up with the illegal use of magic band together to devise the ultimate jailbreak. Perfect for fans of Six of Crows and How to Get Away with Murder. Ever since his mother was killed, seventeen-year-old Cayder Broduck has had one goal-to see illegal users of magic brought to justice. People who carelessly use extradimensional magic for their own self-interest, without a care to the damage it does to society or those around them, deserve to be punished as far as Cayder is concerned. Because magic always has a price. So when Cayder lands a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to apprentice under a premier public defender, he takes it. If he can learn all the tricks of public defense, the better he'll be able to dismantle defense arguments when he's a prosecutor. Then he'll finally be able to make sure justice is served. But when he meets the three criminals he's supposed to defend, it no longer seems so black and white. They're teenagers, like him, and their stories are . . . complicated, like his. Vardean, the prison where Cayder's new clients are incarcerated, also happens to be at the very heart of the horrible tear in the veil between their world and another dimension-where all magic comes from. League of Liars is a dark and twisty mystery set in a richly-drawn world where nothing is as it seems, rife with magic, villains and danger."

Astrid Scholte (Author), Emily Shaffer, Graham Halstead, Raymond J. Lee, Susan Bennett (Narrator)

Audiobook

My Brilliant Life

"“A moving, earnest, and deeply-felt exploration of a unique family in all its joys and disappointments . . . an utter delight.” —Claire Lombardo, New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had Ae-ran Kim's My Brilliant Life explores family bonds and out-of-the-ordinary friendships, interweaving the past and present of a tight-knit family, finding joy and happiness in even the most difficult times. Areum lives life to its fullest, vicariously through the stories of his parents, conversations with Little Grandpa Jang—his sixty-year-old neighbor and best friend—and through the books he reads to visit the places he would otherwise never see. For several months, Areum has been working on a manuscript, piecing together his parents’ often embellished stories about his family and childhood. He hopes to present it on his birthday, as a final gift to his mom and dad; their own falling-in-love story. Through it all, Areum and his family will have you laughing and crying, for all the right reasons. A Macmillan Audio production from Forge Books “This novel snuck up on me and captured my heart.” —Margarita Montimore, USA Today bestselling author of Oona Out of Order 'Kim's beautifully written novel is exquisitely brought to life by Raymond J. Lee's performance.' -- AudioFile Magazine"

Ae-Ran Kim (Author), Raymond J. Lee (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Raymond J. Lee