A truth: I don’t always have time to sit down and read. Some days begin before dawn, my sleepy body hurtling toward Boston on the MBTA Commuter Rail, a two-hour trip to my day job. Others start with a walk on the street where I live—a four-mile-long peninsula, one way leading to the only grocery store in town, the other enticing with rocky views of Buzzards Bay. Nights? Weekends? I am usually driving to visit family, to take dogs to the vet, to swim many, many laps at the local YMCA. I’m taken with the idea of curling up on my old green couch with a cup of tea and a stack of hardbacks, but these days it seems I am always moving, never still long enough to do much but sleep between responsibilities.
In the last few years, audiobooks have helped me rekindle my identity as a reader. I can flip between titles based on my headspace, change a book’s playback speed, and queue for upcoming releases that will automatically download once it’s my turn in line. I’m a big fan of the Libby app and a notorious holder of more than ten library cards, which helps when the wait for a title at my local library is months on end. Listening has made me a better writer, too, and has reinforced the value in reading my drafts aloud to untangle adjectives and commas, to find cadence so lines are rounded, metered, whole.
Here are some of the audiobooks I’ve enjoyed recently, from authors and performers whose voices I can’t get out of my head. May they meet you with warmth, wherever you are.
Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho
Narrated by Natalie Naudus
Listened while: walking to see if the osprey had returned for spring
Living in a semi-rural beach town, I can’t help but look to nature as I try to understand how we change alongside the places we occupy. Fiona and Jane was a fantastic accompaniment on my early-morning excursions to a nearby osprey roost: following the friendship of the book’s title characters, the plot charts growing pains of friendship changed by distance, trauma, and betrayal. Ultimately, we can’t control who stays in our lives, but we can hope for their wellness even when they’re beyond the horizon.
The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser
Narrated by CJ Hauser
Listened while: stuck on the Red Line (again)
The T ride from South Station to Kendall/MIT is only supposed to take a few minutes—if the train isn’t delayed, derailed, or on fire. And if you know anything about Boston, you know this happens regularly. Stopped over the Charles River, I listened to CJ Hauser’s memoir in essays while pondering my own relationships, both to my body and to others in my life. I feel like I’m still trying to figure out who I want to be, what makes me happy, how I want to live, and these essays gave me permission to bring my thoughts from my head to my heart.
Jackal by Erin E. Adams
Narrated by Sandra Okuboyejo and William DeMeritt
Listened while: washing dishes after dinner
Our house abuts eleven acres of woods, and at night I can often hear coyotes cackling as they make their great plans. Jackal kept me on my tiptoes, pruny-fingered and afraid to look out the window above the kitchen sink. In this Rust Belt Appalachian homecoming who-done-it, Erin E. Adams weaves suspicion, tension, and social commentary into a tale that will convince you there really are monsters lurking somewhere in the dark.
Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman
Narrated by Bushra Rehman
Listened while: flying to a work conference in Minneapolis
Most of my travel takes place by car, train, or foot, so flying still feels super special. Sans-Internet, for three rare hours of stillness, I flew back to the 1980s and walked through the life of Raiza Mirza, a Pakistani American girl finding independence and coming to terms with her sexuality in Corona, Queens. There is so much tenderness and sensuality in this coming-of-age novel, like a dream I didn’t want to end.
The Boy with a Bird in His Chest by Emme Lund
Narrated by Nicky Endres
Listened while: wandering alone through Lisbon
While queuing to see Bélem Tower or riding in a yellow tram through the Alfama, I kept company with Owen, a gentle but sheltered teen, and Gail, the sassy, back-talking java finch who lives in his chest. I was thinking a lot about my family’s lineage and also about being a queer writer, and I couldn’t have picked better companions. Fantastically speculative and so very gay, The Boy with a Bird in His Chest is a fierce exploration of shame, isolation, and the risks we take in seeking to be both loved and accepted authentically.
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Māhealani Madden
Narrated by T Kira Māhealani Madden
Listened while: swimming laps on Sunday mornings
I’m a lifelong swimmer, and last year I splurged on a pair of waterproof headphones so that I could keep listening to books while logging miles in the pool. Long Live is a book I come back to when I’m chasing my thoughts and not sure how to say difficult things. Give me an empty lane and a few of these essays, and I always end up feeling clearer, more aware, and ready to get back to my own writing.
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Narrated by Marin Ireland and Michael Urie
Listened while: cleaning the garage
I guess I have a thing for quirky animals who aren’t afraid to speak their minds, because Marcellus—a highly intelligent but crotchety octopus living in a seaside aquarium—is one of my favorite characters ever. While I’m busy organizing gas tanks and old fishing gear, Marcellus is planning his great escape and the humans around him are getting schooled in grief, loss, and compassion. I had to keep a hanky at the ready, though I’ll leave it to you to guess whether it was for sweat or for tears.
True Biz by Sara Nović
Narrated by Lisa Flanagan and Kaleo Griffith
Listened while: on a road trip from Massachusetts to Maryland
My sister is hard of hearing and learned to sign as a baby, though my own knowledge of American Sign Language waned as we grew up. As a hearing person listening to a novel set in the rich culture of the Deaf community, I reconnected not only with the language’s grammar but with the sounds of signing—its slaps, snaps, thuds, and grunts. Bringing together familial expectations, disability pride, and civil rights, True Biz simultaneously calls out injustices and calls in advocacy, awareness, and compassion.
Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
Narrated by Mozhan Marno and Jim Meskimen
Listened while: clearing my grandmother’s old horse paths
Did I ever think I could offer sympathy to a fictional murderer? Did I ever think I’d be running through the woods with a lawnmower, cutting down winding paths of brush? That would be no to both, and they happened on the same day. Danya Kukafka had me constantly looking over my shoulder, convinced I was being chased by a serial killer and his victims. She expertly unwinds the process of becoming evil, of succumbing to darkness and accepting that our actions—be they in an attempt to survive or overtake—all have consequences.
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
Narrated by Torian Brackett
Listened while: chasing my dogs through a decommissioned cranberry bog
I try to take my two terrier mixes out for at least one really long walk every week, let me tell you, they can move at a clip. The dark and winding linked stories of If I Survive You—which focuses on the character Trelawny’s quest for stability amid adversity in Miami as the son of Jamaican immigrants—accompanied many of these jaunts and may have been the reason we all logged a few extra steps.
Dolls of Our Lives: Why We Can’t Quit American Girl by Mary Mahoney and Allison Horrocks
Narrated by Mary Mahoney and Allison Horrocks
Listened while: driving to visit my parents in New Jersey
Like many girls growing up in the nineties, my sister and I each had an American Girl Doll. We had to wait until we were ten (you know, so our parents could be sure we weren’t going to draw on their faces or cut their hair), and we could use our allowances to buy handmade clothes for sale at the hardware store down the street. Dolls of Our Lives is a deep-dive into the complexities of this girl-powered world and serves a healthy dose of nostalgia alongside some damn good reporting.
