Local bookseller recommendations

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

By: Joan Didion

Narrated by: Maya Hawke

Length: 6 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

This program is read by actor and singer-songwriter Maya Hawke, star of Netflix's Stranger Things.

"Narrating in a voice as clear and sustaining as a cool glass of water, Hawke’s unflashy approach allows the words to reveal their magic."—The Orange County Register

“Maya Hawke performs this classic collection superbly...Hawke gets Didion's measured... Read more

Tomorrow There Will Be Sun

By: Dana Reinhardt

Narrated by: Kirsten Potter

Length: 7 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

“This novel is a ray of light in the canon of vacation lit—in Reinhardt’s hands, paradise gone wrong feels very right.” —People

A private Mexican villa is the backdrop to this smart, absorbing story of a milestone vacation in a tropical paradise gone wrong, wrong, wrong

Two families arrive in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for a once-in-a-lifetime... Read more

Sing Me to Sleep

By: Gabi Burton

Narrated by: Dami Olukoya

Length: 12 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

Bloomsbury presents Sing Me to Sleep by Gabi Burton, read by Dami Olukoya.

Featured in the New York Times, Glamour, Buzzfeed, and more!

In this dark and seductive YA fantasy debut, perfect for fans of Fourth Wing and These Violent Delights, a siren assassin falls for a forbidden man.

Killer. Liar. Soldier. Spy.

Saoirse is a killer: Her ability to... Read more

Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians

By: Brandon Sanderson

Narrated by: Ramón De Ocampo

Length: 6 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Experience the action-packed first book in #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson’s laugh-out-loud middle-grade fantasy series like never before—now with all new covers!AN ANCIENT RIVALRY REAWAKENS.Everything I’d known about the world was a lie.On my thirteenth birthday, I, Alcatraz Smedry (yes, I got named after a prison, don’t... Read more

The Hearts of Men

By: Nickolas Butler

Narrated by: Adam Verner

Length: 11 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Camp Chippewa, 1962. Nelson Doughty, age thirteen, social outcast and overachiever, is the Bugler, sounding the reveille proudly each morning. Yet this particular summer marks the beginning of an uncertain and tenuous friendship with a popular boy named Jonathan.Over the years, Nelson, irrevocably scarred from the Vietnam War, becomes... Read more

The Wicked Bargain

By: Gabe Cole Novoa

Narrated by: Vico Ortiz

Length: 10 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

El Diablo is in the details in this Latinx pirate fantasy starring a transmasculine nonbinary teen with a mission of revenge, redemption, and revolution. From the New York Times bestselling author of Most Ardently.

On Mar León de la Rosa's sixteenth birthday, el Diablo comes calling. Mar is a transmasculine nonbinary teen pirate hiding a magical... Read more

Can We All Be Feminists?

By: June Eric-Udorie

Narrated by: Various

Length: 9 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

"As timely as it is well-written, this clear-eyed collection is just what I need right now."  —Jacqueline Woodson, author of Brown Girl Dreaming

"The intersectional feminist anthology we all need to read" (Bustle), edited by a feminist activist and writer who "calls to mind a young Audre Lorde" (Kirkus)

Why do some women struggle to identify as... Read more

Waiting for Eden

By: Elliot Ackerman

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews

Length: 3 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

“Patiently, and unflinchingly, Ackerman is becoming one of the great poet laureates of America’s tragic adventurism across the globe.” —Pico Iyer

Eden lies in a hospital bed, unable to move or speak. His wife Mary spends every day on the sofa in his room. We see them through the eyes of Eden’s best friend, a fellow Marine who didn’t make it back... Read more

Soulswift

By: Megan Bannen

Narrated by: Hayden Bishop

Length: 12 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

A dark, epic fantasy about a girl who must rethink everything she believes after she is betrayed and hunted by the religion that raised her—from Megan Bannen, author of The Bird and the Blade. Perfect for fans of The Winner’s Curse and The Girl of Fire and Thorns. Gelya is a Vessel, a girl who channels the word of the One True God through song.... Read more

The Museum of Failures

By: Thrity Umrigar

Narrated by: Vikas Adam

Length: 12 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

The bestselling author of The Space Between Us and Reese's Book Club pick Honor delivers a powerful story about family secrets, a mother's power, and the importance of forgiveness.

Remy Wadia left India for the United States long ago, carrying his resentment of his mother with him. He has now returned to Bombay to adopt a baby from a young... Read more

Styxx

By: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Narrated by: Fred Berman

Length: 31 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

The most highly-anticipated novel in the Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark-Hunter series since Acheron is here—the unforgettable story of Styxx, Acheron's twin brother and one of the most powerful beings on earth

Just when you thought doomsday was over . . .

Centuries ago Acheron saved the human race by imprisoning an ancient evil bent on absolute... Read more

Garden of the Cursed

By: Katy Rose Pool

Narrated by: Jennifer Blom

Length: 11 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

In Garden of the Cursed, a romantic, enemies-to-lovers fantasy mystery, cursebreaker Marlow Briggs reluctantly pretends to be in love with a powerful noble to gain entry into an illustrious—and deadly—society that holds clues to her mother's disappearance. This edge-of-your-seat novel is perfect for fans of Veronica Mars, These Violent Delights,... Read more

Teach Me

By: Olivia Dade

Narrated by: Kelsey Navarro

Length: 7 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Their lesson plans didn't include love. But that's about to change . . .



When Martin Krause arrives at Rose Owens's high school, she's determined to remain chilly with her new colleague. Unfriendly? Maybe. Understandable? Yes, since a loathsome administrator gave Rose's beloved world history classes to Martin, knowing it would hurt her.



But... Read more

Walking on the Ceiling

By: Aysegül Savas

Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò

Length: 3 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

"[Savaş] writes with both sensuality and coolness, as if determined to find a rational explanation for the irrationality of existence..." -- The New York Times

"I fell in love with this book." -- Katie Kitamura, author of A Separation

A mesmerizing novel set in Paris and a changing Istanbul, about a young Turkish woman grappling with her past and... Read more

Homeland Elegies

By: Ayad Akhtar

Narrated by: Ayad Akhtar

Length: 10 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

This "profound and provocative" work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Disgraced and American Dervish followsan immigrant father and his son as they search for belonging—in post-Trump America, and with each other (Kirkus Reviews). "Passionate, disturbing, unputdownable." —Salman Rushdie
​
A deeply personal work about identity and belonging... Read more

Oak Flat

By: Lauren Redniss

Narrated by: Lauren Redniss, Darrell Dennis, Kyla Garcia, Ki...

Length: 4 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

A powerful work of visual nonfiction about three generations of an Apache family struggling to protect sacred land from a multinational mining corporation, by MacArthur “Genius” and National Book Award finalist Lauren Redniss, the acclaimed author of Thunder & Lightning.

Oak Flat is a serene high-elevation mesa that sits above the... Read more

The Girl and the Ghost

By: Hanna Alkaf

Narrated by: Mirai Booth-Ong

Length: 6 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

* Chosen as a 2020 Kirkus Prize Finalist for Young Readers' Literature! *A Malaysian folk tale comes to life in this emotionally layered, chilling middle grade debut, perfect for fans of The Book of Boy and The Jumbies. I am a dark spirit, the ghost announced grandly. I am your inheritance, your grandmother’s legacy. I am yours to command.... Read more

Rosetown Summer

By: Cynthia Rylant

Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan

Length: 1 hour 17 minutes

Abridged: No

From Newbery Medalist Cynthia Rylant comes the sweet and resonant follow-up to the critically acclaimed Rosetown, continuing the story of ten-year-old Flora Smallwood’s life in quiet Rosetown, Indiana.

It’s August in Rosetown, Indiana.

Ten-year-old Flora is having a calm and busy summer filled with old friends and new projects, dear pets, and,... Read more

Missing from the Village

By: Justin Ling

Narrated by: Justin Ling

Length: 8 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

The tragic and resonant story of the disappearance of eight men--the victims of serial killer Bruce McArthur--from Toronto's queer community.
 
Shortlisted for the 2021 Toronto Book Awards



In 2013, the Toronto Police Service announced that the disappearances of three men--Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, and Majeed Kayhan--from Toronto's gay... Read more

Melissa (previously published as GEORGE)

By: Alex Gino

Narrated by: Jamie Clayton

Length: 3 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

BE WHO YOU ARE.When people look at Melissa, they think they see a boy named George. But she knows she's not a boy. She knows she's a girl.Melissa thinks she'll have to keep this a secret forever. Then her teacher announces that their class play is going to be Charlotte's Web. Melissa really, really, REALLY wants to play Charlotte. But the... Read more

The Diary of a Bookseller

By: Shaun Bythell

Narrated by: Robin Laing

Length: 9 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

Shaun Bythell owns the Bookshop, Scotland’s largest second-hand bookshop. It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving, with twisting corridors and roaring fires, and all set in a beautiful, rural town by the edge of the sea. A book-lover’s paradise? Well, almost … In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at... Read more

All the Birds in the Sky

By: Charlie Jane Anders

Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan

Length: 12 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

From the former editor-in-chief of io9.com, a stunning Nebula Award–winning and Hugo–shortlisted novel about the end of the world—and the beginning of our future

An ancient society of witches and a hipster technological startup go to war in order to prevent the world from tearing itself apart. To further complicate things, each of the groups’... Read more

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days

By: Rebecca Donner

Narrated by: Rebecca Donner

Length: 13 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

The INSTANT New York Times Bestseller

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography
Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award 
Winner of the Chautauqua Prize
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award
Finalist for the Plutarch Award
A New York Times Notable Book of 2021
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
A New... Read more

Island Rule

By: Katie M. Flynn

Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan, Corey Brill, Erin deWard, Kit...

Length: 9 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

From the author of the “urgent and heartfelt” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel The Companions, a genre-bending collection of interconnected short stories in the tradition of Jennifer Egan and Karen Russell.

An angry mother turns into a literal monster. A company in San Francisco can scrub your entire reputation and create a new one…for a price. A... Read more