![Editors Select: October 2019](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/Audible/en_US/images/creative/amazon/CO-934_EditorsSelect_Oct_LandingPageDT_1600x250.jpg)
Memoir
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Wild Game
- My Mother, Her Secret, and Me
- By: Adrienne Brodeur
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Adrienne Brodeur
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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On a hot July night on Cape Cod when Adrienne was 14, her mother, Malabar, woke her at midnight with five simple words that would set the course of both of their lives for years to come: Ben Souther just kissed me. Adrienne instantly became her mother’s confidante and helpmate, blossoming in the sudden light of her attention, and from then on, Malabar came to rely on her daughter to help orchestrate what would become an epic affair with her husband’s closest friend.
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Rich People Behaving Badly
- By Joan on 10-28-19
The one we can’t stop talking about
I wish I could go back in time to scoop up 14-year-old Adrienne Brodeur and tell her everything was going to be okay. In the opening scenes of Wild Game, her mother starts a torrid affair with her husband’s closest friend and enlists her 14-year-old daughter as her main accomplice. The task of arranging ways for her mother to be alone with her lover consumed teenage Adrienne—a toxic arrangement that continued well into her adulthood. Then, in the second half of Wild Game, things get *really* juicy. It’s source material right out of a soap opera, yet Adrienne Brodeur has a writer’s gift for taking something awful and turning it into a thing of beauty. Above all, this is the story of a daughter who hopelessly loves a mother who crosses all boundaries.
Fiction
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Find Me
- A Novel
- By: André Aciman
- Narrated by: Michael Stuhlbarg
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of the best seller Call Me by Your Name revisits its beguiling characters decades after their first meeting. In Find Me, Aciman shows us Elio’s father, Samuel, on a trip from Florence to Rome to visit Elio, who has become a gifted classical pianist. A chance encounter on the train with a beautiful young woman upends Sami’s plans and changes his life forever. Elio soon moves to Paris, where he, too, has a consequential affair, while Oliver, now a New England college professor with a family, finds himself contemplating a return trip across the Atlantic.
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Was hoping for more
- By A. Paduch on 11-10-19
Like catching up with old friends
I won’t lie, when I first heard a sequel to Call Me by Your Name was in the works, I was a little nervous. But I was also excited. Fast forward a couple months, and I’ve already listened twice. Though Aciman’s prose is as beautiful as ever, Michael Stuhlbarg’s performance elevates the story beyond my wildest expectations. Celebrating love in all of its complex forms, Find Me is so much more than a continuation of Oliver’s and Elio’s stories. Plus, the audio version includes a bonus conversation between the author and narrator that I was lucky enough to attend. So if you listen closely, you may just hear me on the laugh track (kidding). But seriously, this story is well worth the hype and I need more people to listen—I’m dying to talk to someone about it.
Business
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The Infinite Game
- By: Simon Sinek
- Narrated by: Simon Sinek
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Finite games, like football or chess, have known players, fixed rules, and a clear endpoint. The winners and losers are easily identified. Infinite games, games with no finish line, like business or politics, or life itself, have players who come and go. The rules of an infinite game are changeable, while infinite games have no defined endpoint. There are no winners or losers - only ahead and behind. The question is, how do we play to succeed in the game we’re in? In this revelatory new audiobook, Simon Sinek offers a framework for leading with an infinite mindset.
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I love Sinek but...
- By Amazon Customer on 11-11-19
An entirely different view of work
Simon Sinek is a magnetic speaker. He boils down complicated business trends into simple language, and presents them in a calm measured manner that makes it both fun to listen to and easy to come to terms with. Infinite Game is the first audiobook of his I’ve listened to and I have to say I really enjoy his narration. His concepts and ideas are pretty far-reaching, and certainly idealistic, but I do think they need to be heard. Attitude, and perspective, is everything in business—even more so when confronting the day in day out grind of making money, and Sinek delivers the big ideas that can help each of us better understand what we are working for. If you are looking for something to challenge routine thinking, and help you adjust your mindset—whether it be towards your work, personal life, or otherwise—this is an excellent place to start.
Fiction
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The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek
- By: Rhett McLaughlin, Link Neal
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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At first, high school freshmen Rex McClendon and Leif Nelson believe what they’ve been told - that local students’ strange demises at Whitewood, a local reformatory, were all tragic accidents. But when the shoot for their low-budget horror masterpiece, PolterDog, goes horribly awry - and their best friend, Alicia Boykins, is sent to Whitewood - Rex and Leif are forced to question everything they know about their unassuming hometown and its cherished school for delinquents.
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Does it hold up beyond the R&L fandom?
- By BrettM on 12-01-19
A smart mystery wrapped in humor
There are some pros and cons to being the comedy editor here at Audible. One con is the "UNSUBSCRIBE" emails I get from coworkers whenever I joke about being old in my newsletters. (Looking at you, Catherine). One pro is that I get to do cool things like fly out to LA to meet and interview "Intertainers" like Rhett & Link about their debut novel. The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek really has it all. It’s funny, mysterious, smart, and filled with 90s references—which is perfect for me because I’m SO OLD. Plus Audible favorite Vikas Adam narrates it, which means that not one second of this listen will be dull. If you don’t know who Rhett & Link are now, well, this is a good introduction. And if you do know their work, expect the unexpected.
Humor
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Dear Girls
- Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice for Living Your Best Life
- By: Ali Wong
- Narrated by: Ali Wong, Justin Hakuta
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In her hit Netflix comedy special Baby Cobra, an eight-month pregnant Ali Wong resonated so strongly that she even became a popular Halloween costume. Wong told the world her remarkably unfiltered thoughts on marriage, sex, Asian culture, working women, and why you never see new mom comics on stage but you sure see plenty of new dads.
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This book is the shit!
- By Erica P. on 10-17-19
I need sparkle, and Ali Wong delivers
Watching Ali Wong’s Netflix specials when I was on maternity leave last year was probably the best thing I could’ve done for my hormone-filled soul. Nobody understood me like Ali, and for months I would quote her—without prompt—in everyday conversation. Apologies in advance, people who know me in real life (looking at you, my fellow editors), because that’s about to start all over again. Dear Girls, written as a series of letters to her daughters, is filled with Ali’s trademark humor, wisdom, and brutal—yet hilarious—honesty.
Drama
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the way she spoke
- By: Isaac Gomez
- Narrated by: Kate del Castillo
- Length: 1 hr and 8 mins
- Original Recording
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Imagine living with a fear so visceral each day that simply walking down the street draws terror to one’s core. That’s the best case scenario for a woman on the streets of Juárez, Mexico. Kate del Castillo (La Reina del Sur) delivers a stunning one-woman performance that transports listeners from a New York stage to the treacherous streets of Juárez, Mexico, where thousands of women have been murdered in an ongoing epidemic of violence.
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Powerful, but it's a pity I don't speak Spanish
- By Jeff on 10-06-19
Just like the playwright and the actress in this story, I have a vague memory of hearing about femicide growing up. Not specifically about the women of Ciudad Juarez, but general acts of cruelty against women: an ex-girlfriend's face ruined with acid, a kidnapped daughter held for ransom, a black eye from "falling down the stairs." If you hear enough anecdotes, they become statistics—numbers rather than flesh-and-blood victims. Isaac Gomez has done a remarkable job in creating a play about bearing witness to these crimes, giving names and faces back to the victims. Kate del Castillo’s performance of this one-woman, multi-character, emotionally gripping play is impressive to say the least. She embodies a whole range of characters who have experienced the danger and violence of Juarez. Listening is an unforgettable experience, and that’s what makes it so great, because this is a story that needs to be told and remembered.
Fiction
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Ghostlove
- By: Dennis Mahoney
- Narrated by: Piper Goodeve, LJ Ganser, Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Original Recording
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I’m an occultist living in a haunted brownstone in upstate New York. The building is a ghostly double-image of itself, like a picture painted brightly over an older, weirder picture. It’s an equinox place, my mother once said, where dark and light things are equally in power. I want to tell you, dear strangers, why I was there and what I found.
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Like reaching out and connecting
- By Tristan Smith on 10-14-19
Haunted house, warm heart
Okay. I'm ready for Halloween now. This oddly dark and sweet story has completely captivated me and set me in the right frame of mind to fully appreciate this witchy, haunted season—the kind of genre-stretching reset I recommend to everyone. Ghostlove is not horror. Sure, there's creepiness—but it's not cringe-worthy. It actually hit a very child-like part of me that still exists but often needs a nudge: the ability to fully and openly suspend disbelief. I say, just go with it. Let yourself fall in love with these ghosts and dead people and lose yourself in the strange hallways and creaky floorboards of your mind. Get swept up in this spellbinding multi-cast performance and let your imagination be recharged.
Science Fiction
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Forward
- Stories of Tomorrow
- By: Veronica Roth, Blake Crouch, Amor Towles, and others
- Narrated by: Evan Rachel Wood, Rosa Salazar, Jason Isaacs, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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For some, it’s the end of the world. For others, it’s just the beginning. With brilliant imagination, today’s most visionary writers point to the future in a collection curated by bestselling author Blake Crouch. These stories range from darkly comic to deeply chilling, but they all look forward. Featuring stories by Andy Weir, Amor Towles, Veronica Roth, N. K. Jemisin, Paul Tremblay, and Blake Crouch; with narration by Evan Rachel Wood, David Harbour, Jason Isaacs, Rosa Salazar, Steven Strait, and Janina Gavankar.
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Very weird ride
- By John W on 02-15-20
This is exactly how I like my techno-anxiety
While I've watched a few Black Mirror episodes over the years, I've generally found them to be too much to binge, and (confession) I have to have my husband test-watch them first to weigh in on whether or not he thinks they will keep me up at night worrying. I'm fascinated by these kinds of near sci-fi stories with dystopian themes, but I struggle to take them in on screen. So I'm LOVING the Forward Collection—it brings the vibe of Black Mirror, but it walks that perfect line that allows me to engage my inner nerd while keeping my inner stress-case at bay. Each story in this collection is served up by big name writer (I was so intrigued to hear the author of Gentleman in Moscow tackle this genre, and N.K. Jemisin, who tends more towards fantasy, may have written the smartest sci-fi story I’ve heard all year!). As a bonus, this collection is performed by an all-star cast including Jason Isaacs and Evan Rachel Wood among others. Happy bingeing!
Horror
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Full Throttle
- Stories
- By: Joe Hill
- Narrated by: Zachary Quinto, Wil Wheaton, Kate Mulgrew, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In this masterful collection of short fiction, Joe Hill dissects timeless human struggles in 13 relentless tales of supernatural suspense, including “In The Tall Grass”, one of two stories cowritten with Stephen King, basis for the terrifying feature film from Netflix.
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A Strong Collection
- By Celeste on 11-05-19
A collection you don’t want to miss!
Christmas must be in October this year because in the spooky spirit, Joe Hill has spun and gifted me with thirteen 13 genius tales of horror that have been audibly amplified by a spectacular cast of performers from Zachary Quinto (*internally screams*) and to another favorite narrator of mine, Neil Gaiman. Joe even pairs up with the king of horror himself, Stephen King, to gift us with the short story “Throttle,” where one truck driver must defend himself against a motorcycle gang gone rogue in the middle of the desert. If that doesn’t entice you enough, Hill includes never-before-published stories, just in time to get you into the Halloween spirit.
Kids & Family
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Camp Red Moon
- By: R. L. Stine
- Narrated by: R. L. Stine, full cast
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Original Recording
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Camp nights or camp frights? Every sleepaway camp promises memories that last a lifetime. But the memories from Camp Red Moon might give you nightmares! The master of the scary story, R.L. Stine, has handpicked a staff of storytelling counselors - Dan Poblocki, Ellen Oh, and Justin Reynolds - to help him tell the creepy campfire stories that swirl around Camp Red Moon.
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Scarier than Goosebumps
- By Nathan on 10-03-19
As a child of the 90s, I owe my spooky sensibility to shows like Are You Afraid of the Dark and books like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark—but few works were more influential on my love of all things creepy than those of R.L. Stine. So I trust no one better to curate this collection of scary stories, all conceived by Stine himself, and written by some of the most exciting names in kids and young adult lit. Yes, Camp Red Moon, may technically be for younger audiences, but the tales within are just as delightful to 30-somethings like me. I enjoyed both the nostalgia factor of the summer camp setting, while appreciating the contemporary, 21st century twist to many of the stories. If you have kids (or nieces and nephews, like I do!) who have shown similar creepy inclinations, might I suggest sitting around a campfire one crisp night this October and listening with the whole family? Or, if you’re a lifelong city kid like me, just dim the lights, fire up a pumpkin-scented candle, and get spooked.
Nonfiction
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Finding Tess
- A Mother’s Search for Answers in a Dopesick America
- By: Beth Macy
- Narrated by: Beth Macy
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Original Recording
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On Christmas Eve, 2017, Tess Henry was found dead in a dumpster in Las Vegas. Tess was a 28-year-old new mother, a former honor roll student, and a high school basketball player from suburban Roanoke, Virginia, a place ravaged by the national opioid crisis. The New York Times best-selling author Beth Macy chronicled Tess and her mom, Patricia, through Tess' harrowing, years-long battle to recover from heroin addiction in her award-winning book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America.
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Exhausting and heartbreaking
- By Sda on 04-08-20
Gutting, gripping, and utterly necessary
With 2.6 million suffering from opioid addiction and 90 opioid–addicted individuals dying each day, it’s not hard to find someone whose life has been touched by the crisis. What is rare is the ability to hear this story told via the tremendously meticulous reporting and intimate storytelling of Beth Macy’s caliber. Finding Tess is the continuation of the work Macy did in her widely acclaimed 2018 work, Dopesick, and features the actual voice (and prophetic words) of its titular character. Haunting sound design and richly reported details propel the world inhabited by Tess, a former honor-roll athlete who, after a routine trip to urgent care for a bought of bronchitis, began a struggle with addiction and homelessness that would dominate the rest of her life. It is gutting, gripping, and utterly necessary listening.
History
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Crusaders
- The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 16 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than 1,000 years, Christians and Muslims lived side by side, sometimes at peace and sometimes at war. When Christian armies seized Jerusalem in 1099, they began the most notorious period of conflict between the two religions. Depending on who you ask, the fall of the holy city was either an inspiring legend or the greatest of horrors. In Crusaders, Dan Jones interrogates the many sides of the larger story, charting a deeply human and avowedly pluralist path through the crusading era.
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Gripping but not tidy
- By Tad Davis on 01-06-20
A cinematic approach to history
Just about two years ago, I asked Dan Jones about his next book. He said, "There have been lots of books about the Crusades….I shall not be trying to redo or rewrite….I want to take it a step further and write a book...in which we follow characters through the Crusades. And they rotate somewhat in the way that George [R.R.] Martin actually has rotated his characters in his fictional work [in]…Westeros." The wait is over, listeners! I’m happy to report Crusaders lives up to its promise, a history title that feels like fiction! Plus, the author's precise but energetic narration adds to the charm.
Thriller
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A Certain Hunger
- By: Chelsea G. Summers
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Original Recording
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Eat Pray Love meets American Psycho in a seductive and sinister debut literary thriller. Food critic Dorothy Daniels indulges in her homicidal urges by murdering her lovers and devouring their organs in this intense, visceral, and lushly told tale of food, sex, power, and the pursuit of a very particular taste set between New York and Italy. Please Note: A Certain Hunger contains adult language and depictions of violence. Discretion is advised.
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Ugh.
- By Kimberly on 02-03-20
A man-eating journey of self-discovery
Based on the promotional pitch for this new Audible Original—"Eat Pray Love meets American Psycho"—A Certain Hunger could have been written just for me. But so loud was the collective gasp in the room when the project was announced, it’s clear a lot of us were hungry for the story of a female cannibal on a self-actualizing voyage of homicidal hedonism. Chelsea G. Summers’s debut novel follows food writer Dorothy Daniels—the epicurean lovechild of Elizabeth Báthory and the vampire Lestat, if they were fluent in New York media and wrote Nabokovian prose—on a lascivious romp from the cocktail bars of Manhattan to the truffle-hiding hills of Italy. Somewhere along the way, she’s landed herself in prison; perhaps it has to do with her (literal) taste in men? Provocative and very funny, A Certain Hunger is narrated by veteran performer Hillary Huber—just the right icing for this bloody, decadent cake.
Fantasy
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Carnival Row: Tangle in the Dark
- By: Stephanie K. Smith
- Narrated by: Karla Crome
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
- Original Recording
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Tourmaline Larou lives an idyllic life of learning by day and partying by night. An aspiring poet, her future promises nothing less than brilliance. Then, Vignette Stonemoss walks through the door, and Tourmaline’s world is upended. As she struggles to understand the effect this stranger has on her, Tourmaline and her fellow fae face a looming threat from the human world. War is on the horizon, and their very existence is at stake. And Tourmaline will discover whether love will save her - or destroy her.
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Lesbian Fae Poetry meanderings
- By Ed Pegg Jr on 10-04-19
If, like me, you’ve binged Amazon’s fantasy series Carnival Row, created by Travis Beacham and René Echevarria, and are itching for more, Tangle in the Dark is a must-listen. This steamy Audible Original is a prequel told through the eyes of Tourmaline Larou, who fans of the show will know as the audacious, brothel-dwelling bff and former lover of fellow faerie Vignette Stonemoss. It’s an enchanting tale of first love unfolding despite class differences, personal growth, and love lost that satisfyingly intersects with pivotal scenes in the streaming series. The story also foreshadows the war to come as the human species seeks to brutally colonize otherworldly beings.
![Valerie B.](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/Audible/en_US/images/creative/TM-178_WildGame_Porthole_Valerie-Berrios_360x360._CB1568228262_.png)
Kids & Family
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House of Teeth
- By: Dan Jolley
- Narrated by: Josh Hurley
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
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There’s more to the swamplands than meets the teeth. In this supernatural tale of magic and mysticism, Henry Lemarchand grew up in Philadelphia knowing very little of his family—his father disappeared when he was young, leaving behind only a strange pouch of animal teeth. When he is sent to the Louisiana bayou to spend the summer with his eccentric uncle and cousin in their decaying ancestral mansion, Henry learns about his family’s supernatural legacy.
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A comment
- By Mark E Higgins on 12-10-19
A city boy in a supernatural swamp
Henry, a troubled 12-year-old boy from Philly, is sent by his mother to the Bayou to reconnect with his deceased father’s family in the hopes that spending more time with his relatives will help him find himself. As it turns out, Henry’s lineage proves to be supernatural: he’s part of a long line of rootcrafters, those who can absorb the powers and memories of anyone (or anything) whose teeth they touch. Eww, right? But this admittedly weird conceit ends up being both functional and fantastical; Henry not only wins the speed of an eagle and the strength of a bear by touching ancient talons and teeth, but also a deeper sense of belonging by connecting with his ancestors’ memories. This is well-told a tale of identity and belonging set in a world entirely unlike any other.