Every month, audiobook connoisseur Marshall Heyman listens to hours and hours of freshly published novels and nonfiction. He then recommends his favorite new titles, which often include juicy celebrity memoirs, buzzy literary fare, gripping thrillers, sweet romances, thoughtful essays, and even some poetry. He also provides his preferred listening speed for anyone else looking to maximize their audiobook intake. Check back next month for new releases.
March Picks
Careless People, by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Read by: the author
Length: 13 hrs, 16 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.2x
This is a completely fascinating memoir by a former Facebook employee (in international relations and public policy) about her journey at the company. Wynn-Williams leaves no asshole behind, not Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg, which makes the book, titled after a description of Tom and Daisy in The Great Gatsby, compelling and, well, perfectly relatable. The author’s charming New Zealand accent heightens the listenability, even when she takes a few too many diversions or gets on her soapbox.
Raising Hare, by Chloe Dalton
Read by: Louise Brealey
Length: 6 hrs, 26 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.8x
Anyone who knows me can attest that I’m not an animal guy. At all. But from the moment it started, I was both rapt and moved by this memoir of an overworked Londoner who saves and raises a leveret at her country home during the pandemic. More than most self-help books I’ve listened to recently, this carefully observed book made me very conscious of taking time to breathe and appreciate the world around me. Even if it definitely did not convince me to get a bunny as a pet.
Wild Dark Shore, by Charlotte McConaghy
Read by: a multicast
Length: 9 hrs, 35 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.1x
Not that I’m one to forget its existence, but listening to books often reminds me of my misanthropic side. A novel like this hits that sweet spot. Dominic Salt, a widower, and his three kids are the last inhabitants on Shearwater, an island near Antarctica that was once teeming with researchers. And then, suddenly, a woman washes ashore, and she’s looking for her husband. It’s all very romantic, which clashes with my bitter distrust of people, but, I guess, one can’t exist without the other. Each character has his or her own narrator, which keeps this briskly moving along.
All the Other Mothers Hate Me, by Sarah Harman
Read by: Georgina Sadler
Length: 11 hrs, 15 mins.
Speed I listened: 2x
In this comic thriller, Florence Grimes, a former girl-bander who lives in Notting Hill, thinks her 10-year-old son, Dylan, might have something to do with the disappearance of his classmate, Alfie. I listened to this book while I was in London recently, which may have amplified my enjoyment. Even if the last act is a bit muddy, I enjoyed Grimes’s hyperactive narration, as performed by Sadler.
Say Everything, by Ione Skye
Read by: the author
Length: 8 hrs, 37 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.2x
I’m dating myself, but I saw Say Anything (1989) in the movie theater with my mom. Obviously the actress Ione Skye was a big deal then as John Cusack’s love interest, but I can’t say I’ve given her a ton of thought since. That said, I found this memoir surprisingly sexy and up-front. Especially fascinating are Skye’s descriptions of her romantic dalliances, including with the actor Keanu Reeves (attempted, at least); Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz (married him); singer Anthony Kiedis (dated), and interior designer David Netto (had a kid).
Also Worth a Listen
It’s actually a decent month for book-club books: Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall (Reese’s pick) is a very well-narrated throwback period mystery/thriller with an ending that I didn’t expect. I found the memoir The Tell by Amy Griffin (Oprah’s pick), about a wealthy New York mom of four who uncovers old, upsetting memories, totally riveting — especially because of Griffin’s cogent and immediate reading of it. And though Sophie Stava’s Count My Lies (Good Morning America’s pick) defies some probability, I was really taken in by its two female narrators: a rich woman and a poor one who poses as her nanny. Who’s Ripley-ing whom? There’s a nice, final turn of the screw there.
Though it’s an occasionally circuitous slow burn, I was rapt by the experience of listening to Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. And Graydon Carter’s When the Going Was Good made me super nostalgic for my salad days at Condé Nast, even if I didn’t learn much new.
February Picks
We All Live Here, by Jojo Moyes
Read by: Jenna Coleman
Length: 12 hrs, 38 mins
Speed I listened: 2x
I usually savor a new Jojo Moyes novel in print. This time, I gave her latest a listen, and I loved the experience just as much. In this one, a divorced mom finds herself with a complicated full house when her estranged (and broke) father comes back to live with her, her stepfather, and her daughters. Charming, funny, warm, unexpected — like all of the Jojo Moyes canon, it’s a delight.
Memorial Days, by Geraldine Brooks
Read by: the author
Length: 4 hrs, 56 mins.
Speed I listened: 2x
Everything seemed fine, and then suddenly, on Memorial Day 2019, the writer Geraldine Brooks got a call that her 60-year-old husband, the journalist Tony Horwitz, had dropped dead. This memoir alternates between the history of their marriage and the grief she attempts to work through while on a remote Australian island. Part of what’s thrilling about the audio production is how Brooks’s lyrical accent elevates her lovely and spare prose.
Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler
Read by: J. Smith-Cameron
Length: 4 hrs, 23 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.8x
I’ve never been an Anne Tyler reader, but the brisk length of her latest novel made a listen particularly appealing. An added bonus: The book is narrated by actress J. Smith-Cameron from Succession. She’s the awkward mother of a bride who doesn’t really think her daughter should get married to the groom. The weight of this one really sneaks up on you. Or, at least, it snuck up on me.
This is a Love Story, by Jessica Soffer
Read by: Marin Ireland
Length: 8 hrs
Speed I listened: 2x
I’m not a huge fan of the actress Marin Ireland as a narrator. But I found that her voice slipped away whenever the narrative of this family — a Philip Roth-like writer, his artist wife, and their gallerist son — perked up, and that’s quite often. It takes a minute to get used to the form the book takes, as it’s told from several different perspectives. But otherwise, this is a moving and compelling Manhattan story.
Source Code, by Bill Gates
Read by: Wil Wheaton
Length: 11 hrs, 41 mins.
Speed I listened: 2x
I’m usually not that keen on a memoir that’s not read by the author, but I’m glad I gave Bill Gates’s new book a pass. (It’s read by the actor Wil Wheaton, who, thanks to narrating Ready Player One and The Martian, has become almost synonymous with heady and slightly dorky audiobooks.) I found Gates’s self-analysis here quite relatable and his journey from precocious kid to major player in the tech world very compelling. My favorite detail is that his favorite drink to order while in college was a Shirley Temple.
Also Worth a Listen
I excitedly tore through the nearly 23 hours of Lorne, by Susan Morrison, in a weekend. (I was her assistant for three years.) The surprising grotesquery of Victorian Psycho, by Virginia Feito, made me laugh out loud. Chelsea Handler did too, in her new memoir I’ll Have What She’s Having, which also convinced me I could use a life-lessons master class from the comedian. And I’m always here for thoughtful analysis about gossip, which is why I enjoyed You Didn’t Hear This From Me, by Kelsey McKinney.
January Picks
Presumed Guilty, by Scott Turow
Read by: Grover Gardner
Length: 20 hrs, 11 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.1x
I normally bristle at a 20-hour audiobook, but I found this second sequel to Turow’s 1987 thriller Presumed Innocent (first a Harrison Ford movie, which I have seen; more recently, a Jake Gyllenhaal Apple series I haven’t) completely gripping. Early on, I thought Grover Gardner’s voice was a bit fuddy-duddy, but I got used to it. In this installment, our protagonist Rusty chooses to defend his stepson, who is accused of murder. He’s now in his late 70s, and his company is addictive as ever.
Playworld, by Adam Ross
Read by: the author
Length: 22 hrs, 9 mins.
Speed I listened: 2x
It’s so unlike me, but here’s another 20-plus-hour audiobook that I couldn’t turn off. Well, that’s not completely true. A few hours into the saga of Griffin — a child actor growing up in New York City in 1980 — I was frustrated that he was caught between the sexual advances of two adults, one an older female family friend, the other his wrestling coach. But the book takes off when Griffin is cast in a movie by a Woody Allen–esque director. Ross, a former child actor himself, is an engaging reader of what must be a semi-autobiographical roman à clef.
The Three Lives of Cate Kay, by Kate Fagan
Read by: Marin Ireland and others
Length: 9 hrs, 52 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.2x
For a while, the actress Marin Ireland was reading every big audiobook, and I just got tired of listening to her voice. So it’s a testament to the author and this novel that I found it so compelling. The book, a Reese Witherspoon pick about a best-selling writer and her hidden, tumultuous past, shares some similar DNA with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (which I loved), and that’s definitely not a bad thing.
Wild West Village, by Lola Kirke
Read by: the author
Length: 5 hrs, 35 mins.
Speed I listened: 1.9x
I thought the actress/singer Lola Kirke was great in Mozart in the Jungle and Mistress America. I had a fun afternoon writing about her when I worked at The Wall Street Journal. But in the last few years, she’s dropped off the Hollywood scene. She focused more on country music and, one assumes, writing this very honest, sometimes even shocking, book of essays about growing up in New York City in a dysfunctional family of eccentrics. In fact, the most pedestrian thing about the book is the title. Otherwise, Kirke comes off wise and introspective. She even got under my skin.
In Gad We Trust, by Josh Gad
Read by: the author
Length: 8 hrs, 4 mins.
Speed I listened: 2.1x
I didn’t want to like this memoir by the actor behind the voice of Olaf in Frozen and from The Book of Mormon, but almost immediately, Gad won me over. Or, Sacha Baron Cohen did, reading a short foreword in which the artist sometimes known as Borat says he’s wearing “very noisy clogs.” Gad is pretty name-droppy. Friends include Anne Hathaway, Bryce Dallas Howard, Johnny Depp, the late Chadwick Boseman, and pretty much anyone with whom he’s ever co-starred. Besides Cohen, Mel Brooks and Ron Howard pop in for seemingly unnecessary vocal cameos. But Gad is awfully charming, whether he’s detailing his tempestuous relationship with stage director James Lapine, his rise on the high-school forensics circuit, or his endearing emotions toward his growing daughters. We’d probably be friends, too. Josh — call me.
Also Worth a Listen
The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, by Emma Knight, is a charming novel about the British class system and coming of age at college in Scotland.
In the department of challenging relationships between daughters and their mothers, I enjoyed both the singer Neko Case’s The Harder I Fight the More I Love You and Shari Franke’s The House of My Mother, as painful as both could occasionally be.
A hare, an ‘80s movies star, and Careless People.
