Our Editors Select 14 Listens for February

This juicy, astonishing, and culturally significant memoir is one of the best I’ve had the pleasure of gulping down. That it was written by one of my colleagues here at Audible is an intriguing but ultimately incidental detail, and frankly one of the least intriguing things about it. In Quite the Contrary, Yvonne Durant gradually unfurls the mother of all cocktail-party stories—the intimate account of her extraordinary love affair with jazz legend Miles Davis—against the equally compelling trajectory from her Brooklyn childhood to a successful career as one of very few Black women in advertising’s glamorous heyday. Witty, sexy, poignant, and funny, Quite the Contrary lets us into secret spaces of celebrity, bygone New York, and Black culture with an unforgettable voice at its center. Narrator Allyson Johnson is captivating, bringing this priceless perspective on a Black creative icon to life while introducing a new one to the world. —[Kat J.]( a href="https://www.audible.com/blog/author/kat-johnson)

If you're an aspiring musician like me, you'll find yourself wanting to pick up your instrument and start practicing while listening to The Violin Conspiracy. Author Brendan Slocumb, a Nobel Teacher of Distinction for his more than two decades of work in K-12 music education and himself a performing musician, has a deep understanding of music’s ability to guide us toward the truest version of ourselves. In Slocumb's debut novel, Ray, an up-and-coming Black violinist, discovers what defines prestige in the world of classical music—which has long represented the pinnacle (as well as exclusivity) of Western taste—we learn by his side what’s so personal about performance. Brought to life by JD Jackson's fine-tuned narration and with a special note read by Slocumb himself, this listen is music to my ears. —Haley H.

As a lifelong sucker for Armageddon survival stories, it doesn’t take much more than a cool synopsis to turn my head. When I learned that the writer of Pacific Rim was working on a postapocalyptic audio original set in an eternal winter with vampires, I immediately reached for the preorder button. Acclaimed screenwriter Travis Beacham may be a newcomer when it comes to audio, but his chops translate beautifully from the screen to the page. Impact Winter dropped me squarely in its cold, dark reality, and I felt every twist and turn in this epic narrative as if it were happening to me. Leave it to the modern king of monster fighting to take me for a ride! —Seth H.

This delightful novella explores the origins of The Munich Cowboy Cheerleaders and Kathy Murray, the woman who was tasked to turn a disenchanted group of German teens into a team worthy of competition. It's a story that could have inspired the hit TV series Ted Lasso (if Ted were a real-life person and a Black woman tasked to coach a German cheerleading squad). What a gift to have Coach Murray team up with historical fiction master Martha Hall Kelly (of Lilac Girls fame) to bring us this uplifting story of friendship and conviction. I'm still smiling. —Tricia F.

Whether you know him as the 40th mayor of Newark, New Jersey, or as the son of one of the most influential and controversial poets and revolutionaries of the 1960s and ’70s, you probably have heard of Ras Baraka. Told in collaboration with renowned journalist Jelani Cobb, The Book of Baraka combines poetry and prose with the history that helped to shape Baraka into the man he is today. It’s the story of a young Black boy’s coming of age in Newark, but also of how that boy would later shape his city—first as a poet, then an educator, and now, as mayor. As a former resident of Newark myself, I have nothing but praise for Baraka’s accomplishments. But don’t just take it from me. His is a story you definitely don’t want to miss out on, and should be heard from the Mayor himself. So do yourself a favor and listen as soon as possible. —Michael C.

Ali Hazelwood’s debut novel, The Love Hypothesis, was one of my favorite listens last year, so I’m beyond thrilled I have four more chances to obsess over her words in 2022. That’s right: four. Performed by Emma Wilder, Under One Roof kicks off a trio of STEMinist (best word ever? I think so) novellas, launching one/month for the next three months. And the real kicker is that all of them will be available in audio first! Hazelwood’s writing is smart and funny—just like her heroines. In Under One Roof we meet Mara, an environmental engineer, and I can’t wait to listen to her enemies-to-lovers journey—and feel smarter in the process.  —Katie O.

Most of what I know about etiquette (the unwritten rules of how to behave) I picked up from depictions of Victorian girls balancing books on their head—it’s about time I learn from some real experts. The great-great-granddaughter of Emily Post (who literally wrote the book on American manners, Lizzie Post, and the inventor of the word “adulting,” Kelly Williams Brown, team up in this engaging Audible Original podcast to unpack what went wrong in real-world social situations. Although they don’t cover the basics of seating and silverware (I guess that means I can carry on eating pasta with a salad fork), they do explore navigating social gaffes such as how to graciously rescind a large chunk of an erroneous donation to your local church. Now that’s a finishing school in which I want to enroll. —Rachael X.

As a nonfiction nerd, I’m naturally attracted to stories that reveal something deep and true, but that I haven’t necessarily thought about. Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths’s new Algorithms at Work does just that by exploring the unseen rules and principles that guide our daily lives and how they can make everything from waiting in line at a bank to a popular photo sharing app either an easy experience or an interaction that sends us to new heights of frustration. For a potentially dense subject like computer science and the algorithms that essentially program multiple interactions throughout a given day, it’s remarkably relatable and ear opening. —Vanessa H.

Chuck D’s new Words + Music Audible Original will take you on a major nostalgia trip while exploring the power of expression in the face of injustice. Filled with songs from artists who impacted his own music the most, you’ll hear the stories behind legendary tracks as well as the songs themselves, performed by Billie Holiday, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and others. As someone who grew up hearing my parent’s play some of Public Enemy’s greatest hits like "Fight the Power" and "Don’t Believe the Hype," it was fun to hear these stories told by an iconic frontman with one of the best voices in hip-hop. Yes, I’d listen to Chuck D recite the phone book, but this is so much better! —Nicole R.

When Olga Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021, I wondered about her 2014 novel, The Books of Jacob, which wasn’t yet available in audio, or even in English! Instead I read Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, a literary whodunit in which Tokarczuk’s wit and characterizations both shine, even in translation. In the meantime Jennifer Croft was translating The Books of Jacob, and Allan Lewis Rickman and Gilli Messier were narrating it; this month it arrives at Audible (and clocks in at 35+ hours). I can’t wait to brew myself a cup or two of Soderblandning tea (that’s what they serve at the Nobel dinner in Stockholm) and to dive into Tokarczuk’s epic about a messianic religious leader (Muslim, Christian, and a proto-Zionist) in 18th-century Europe. After all, we have at least six months until they anoint a new Nobel laureate. —Christina H.

Alexandria House never disappoints, and in Temper Me—the third and final (sniff) title in her Romey University series—House delivers another irresistibly sexy story set at the fictional HBCU. Vann London has loved Brooklyn Dembélé since he first laid eyes on the beautiful undergrad, but any chance he had of winning her heart was crushed when he chose a life on the road instead of a life with her. A decade later they are reunited, and narrators Jakobi Diem and Adenrele Ojo seductively chart the lovers’ paths back to each other. Listen in on my recent interview with House, where she talks about incorporating the rich HBCU culture in this series, why she likes writing flawed characters, and the healing power of love. —Margaret H.

Born in the latter half of the 1990s, I’m what you might call a “cusp” millennial, a generational designation that feels oddly out of time. I can’t always relate to the experiences of slightly older peers, and yet I often feel ancient and out of touch among Gen Z. So, whether you’re a fellow cusper in need of a history lesson or you’re just seeking a new perspective on a moment in time, Chuck Klosterman’s smart new collection is a must-listen. In his signature style—a near-scholarly analysis of pop culture and society punctuated by moments of sly, self-aware humor, incisive commentary, and probing introspection—Klosterman unpacks everything from Bush and Clinton to Garth Brooks to Biosphere 2, ruminating on the impact of each along the way. Shunning simple rosy retrospection, Klosterman instead offers a fresh, fascinating take on a time oft-reminisced but seldom reckoned with. —Alanna M.

In surveys taken by 7,000 people over five years, Brené Brown and her team found that on average people can identify only three emotions as they are actually feeling them. In her latest book, the best-selling author unpack 87 distinct emotions, gathered into 13 land masses—including such biggies as lonely, jealousy, love, hopelessness, and despair—and backs it up with research. As fans of her popular Ted Talks, books, podcasts, and Netflix lectures series already know, this cartographer of the human experience delivers an actionable guide to healing and making better decisions, especially when it comes to shame and guilt. In her latest, Brown goes beyond her previous works to mine her personal biography, revealing new layers of vulnerability despite all the logic and intense study. So I'm looking forward to hearing her share her battles—she’s a recovered alcoholic, a committed swimmer, a former waitress, a perfectionist from a dysfunctional but high-performing family—all punctuated with her big laugh and Texas twang. —Jerry P.

Is this a true crime podcast? I kept asking myself that as I came to write this review. And the answer is in the title itself: maybe? Each episode of Gabi Conti’s new show introduces you to a young person―mostly, but not all, women―with a shocking story to tell about a toxic date or relationship that nearly went very, very wrong. As the author of Twenty Guys You Date in Your Twenties, and a journalist who also challenged herself to go on 30 dates in one weekend, Conti is uniquely qualified for the subject matter. Even so she brings in an expert in matters legal, traumatic, or psychological to lend an added layer of authority to each episode. This show took me back to my 20s, when every outing with a new potential partner felt exhilarating, fraught, thrilling, and risky. For anyone who has been young and actively dating, it will summon a lot of truths and memories, and for those still in the game, it aims to gives listeners the tools and language to ward off toxic relationships before they get too deep. So is it true crime? Sometimes, but it was also nostalgic, timely, and fascinating, and I could not stop listening. —Emily C.