Adrienne's staff picks

Hunchback

A Novel

By: Saou Ichikawa
Narrated by: Yuriri Naka
Length: 1 hour 59 minutes

LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE • A bombshell bestseller in Japan, a defiant, darkly funny debut novel about a young woman in a care home seeking autonomy and the full possibilities of her life—“not only a major achievement in disability literature but great literature period” (Johanna Hedva)

“A literary phenomenon in Japan,... Read more

Original Sins

The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of AmericanRacism

By: Eve L. Ewing
Narrated by: Robin Miles & Eve L. Ewing
Length: 12 hours 14 minutes

“In our house, we are massive Eve Ewing fans and can’t wait to read every book her visionary mind gifts us. Original Sins reveals how our schools have their foundation in efforts of forced cultural assimilation, reinforcing racial hierarchies, and indoctrination with the emerging worker/consumer ethos. While this is a bleak and heavy history, it... Read more

We Do Not Part

A Novel

By: Han Kang
Narrated by: Greta Jung
Length: 7 hours 40 minutes

“A feverish story, in a state between dream and reality, this novel lays bare the pain, wounds and trauma of a dark event in Koran history: the massacre of the Jeju uprising in 1948. I loved how past and present are skillfully intertwined in this unexpected and beautifully written story that shows we can’t and shouldn’t look away. There are... Read more

Humans

A Monstrous History

By: Surekha Davies, PhD
Narrated by: Christina Delaine
Length: TBA

A history of how humans have created monsters out of one another—from our deepest fears—and what these monsters tell us about humanity's present and future.



Monsters are central to how we think about the human condition. Join award-winning historian of science Dr. Surekha Davies as she reveals how people have defined the human in relation to... Read more

Mother River

By: Can Xue
Narrated by: Tim Lounibos & Rachel Yong
Length: TBA

Winner of the 2015 Best Translated Book Award



In Mother River, Can Xue, one of China's most daring and visionary writers, invites us into a surreal landscape where reality is as fluid as a river itself. This collection of thirteen stories weaves together vivid, dreamlike narratives that challenge our perceptions of time, identity, and... Read more

An Unruled Body

A Poet’s Memoir

By: Ani Gjika
Narrated by: Ani Gjika
Length: 7 hours 42 minutes

In a searching and powerful debut memoir, award-winning poet and literary translator Ani Gjika tells a different kind of origin story by writing about the ways a woman listens to her own body, intuition, and desire.



Ani Gjika was born in Albania and came of age just after the fall of Communism, a time when everyone had a secret to keep and young... Read more

Forest of Noise

Poems

By: Mosab Abu Toha
Narrated by: Mosab Abu Toha
Length: 1 hour 9 minutes

““What can you see when your eyes are closed?” A Gazan mother tells her children just that with the hope of quelling their fears, despite being surrounded by bombs and their eradicating light. Reader, open your heart if your eyes are unwilling. Everyone’s humanity is at stake if the suffering in Palestine doesn’t wake you up to witness the truth.... Read more

Gifted

A Novel

By: Suzumi Suzuki
Narrated by: Cindy Kay
Length: 2 hours 33 minutes

A subtle and intimate accounting of a daughter's final days with her mother, set amid the rush of Tokyo's red-light district.



Drawing on her own experiences as a hostess and adult film actor, Gifted—Suzumi Suzuki's first novel to be translated into English—offers a nuanced, frank, and intimate portrayal of the lives of a mother and daughter... Read more

Sinophagia

A Celebration of Chinese Horror 2024

By: Xueting Christine Ni
Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller & David Lee Huynh
Length: 15 hours 9 minutes

An anthology of unsettling tales from contemporary China, translated into English for the very first time.



Fourteen dazzling horror stories delve deep into the psyche of modern China in this new anthology curated by acclaimed writer and essayist Xueting C. Ni, editor and translator of the British Fantasy Award-winning Sinopticon.



From the menacing... Read more

A Sunny Place for Shady People

Stories

By: Mariana Enriquez
Narrated by: Lee Osorio, Annette Amelia Oliveira, Sol Madariaga & Maria Liatis
Length: 8 hours 38 minutes

BRAM STOKER AWARD FINALIST • A diabolical collection of stories featuring achingly human characters whose lives intertwine with ghosts, goblins, and the macabre, by “Buenos Aires’s sorceress of horror” (Samanta Schweblin, The New York Times)

“Entertaining, political and exquisitely gruesome, these stories summon terror against the backdrop of... Read more

By the Fire We Carry

The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land

By: Rebecca Nagle
Narrated by: Rebecca Nagle
Length: 8 hours 14 minutes

“In 2020, the Supreme Court affirmed the reservation of Muscogee Nation in a stunning victory for Indigenous land rights. Alternating between the case and the wider history of tribal sovereignty, removal, and resistance in Oklahoma, By the Fire We Carry is an engaging, infuriating account of Indigenous people's ongoing fight to exist in their own... Read more

Corey Fah Does Social Mobility

By: Isabel Waidner
Narrated by: Kit Griffiths
Length: 4 hours 34 minutes

This is the story of Corey Fah, a writer who has hit the literary jackpot: their novel has just won the prize for the Fictionalization of Social Evils. But the actual trophy, and with it the funds, hovers peskily out of reach.

Neon-beige, with UFO-like qualities, the elusive trophy leads Corey, with their partner Drew and eight-legged companion... Read more

Survival Is a Promise

The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde

By: Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Narrated by: Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Length: 17 hours 41 minutes

“Learning more about Audrey Lorde by way of Alexis Pauline Gumbs is possibly the best combo of both. Read more

Rooted

The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership

By: Brea Baker
Narrated by: Brea Baker
Length: 8 hours 21 minutes

Why is less than 1% of rural land in the U.S. owned by Black people? An acclaimed writer and activist explores the impact of land theft and violent displacement on racial wealth gaps, arguing that justice stems from the literal roots of the earth.

“With heartfelt prose and unyielding honesty, Baker explores the depths of her roots and invites... Read more

Craft

Stories I Wrote for the Devil

By: Ananda Lima
Narrated by: Taylor Harvey
Length: 5 hours 14 minutes

At a Halloween party in 1999, a writer slept with the devil. She sees him again and again throughout her life, and she writes him stories about beautiful and impossible things. Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is an intoxicating and unsettling linked collection that lures listeners into surreal pockets of the United States and Brazil, where... Read more

Accordion Eulogies

A Memoir of Music, Migration, and Mexico

By: Noé Álvarez
Narrated by: Asa Siegel
Length: 5 hours 41 minutes

Searching, propulsive, and deeply spiritual, Accordion Eulogies is an odyssey to repair a severed family lineage, told through the surprising history of a musical instrument



Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noé Álvarez never knew his grandfather. Stories swirled around this mythologized, larger-than-life figure: That he had abandoned his family,... Read more

In Universes

A Novel

By: Emet North
Narrated by: Natalie Naudus & Xe Sands
Length: 7 hours 36 minutes

A Lilith Magazine Most Anticipated Book of 2024 • A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Sci-Fi Book of 2024""An explosion of creative beauty and heart.""–Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars""Baffingly good."" –Jordy Rosenberg, author of Confessions of the Fox""A miracle of physics and art."" –Julia Phillips, author of Disappearing... Read more

Henry Henry

By: Allen Bratton
Narrated by: Sebastian Humphreys
Length: 11 hours 37 minutes

LAUGH NOW. CRY LATER.
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere...

It’s London, 2014, and Hal Lancaster, son and heir of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, is in a holding pattern: his mother is dead, his father is dying or remarrying or both, his siblings are fighting, his internship is pointless, and nobody will leave him alone. 

Everything is as it... Read more

The Prospects

A Novel

By: KT Hoffman
Narrated by: Shaan Dasani & KT Hoffman
Length: 11 hours 34 minutes

“I had so much fun reading this book! The first openly trans player in minor league baseball, Gene has to contend with his former teammate and present rival, Luis, being traded to his team. This book encapsulates the joys of playing a team sport and unfolds a beautifully tender romance between its two lovable main characters. Highly recommend! Read more

Hard to Be a God

By: Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky
Narrated by: Matt Addis
Length: 8 hours 12 minutes

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are widely known as the greatest Russian writers of science fiction, and their 1964 novel Hard to Be a God is considered one of the greatest of their works.

It tells the story of Don Rumata, who is sent from Earth to the medieval kingdom of Arkanar with instructions to observe and to influence, but never to directly... Read more