by Barbara Nevins Taylor
Great summer audiobook listening means great stories narrated by talented actors who lift the words from the page to envelope you in the world of the characters.
Since I began narrating audiobooks a couple of years ago, I’ve become a passionate, yet particular listener. I look for well-written books narrated by actors with voices I can welcome to my ears.
Circe, written by Madeline Miller and narrated by Perdita Weeks, is my favorite audiobook of the past few months. Miller transforms the myth of Circe, the goddess-witch whom you may know from the Odyssey. It becomes the tale of a woman’s self-discovery in extraordinary circumstances. She learns about herself, her powers, her place in the world, her loves, and the fierceness of motherhood.
We begin our journey with Circe, an outlier, an unloved nymph, in the palace of her father Helios. Perdita Weeks gives a flawless, understated performance that will make you ache, hold you on to the edge of your seat, and leave you loving this audiobook. You root for Circe all the way. Well, maybe not when she is evil. But like many of us, she makes mistakes.
After I finished listening to Circe, I looked up what Miller had written before and immediately downloaded The Song of Achilles. Again, I found another example of great audiobook listening. I instantly fell in love with the way Miller upended a story that we may think we know a little, or even a lot, about. The Song of Achilles, narrated perfectly by Frazier Douglas, explores the relationship between Achilles and Petrocolus. They meet as boys and fall in love, but at first have no words to explain or understand the bond that develops between them.
Patroclus, another outlier like Circe, gets sent away from his father’s kingdom and loses the privileges of princedom, but becomes the sworn companion of Achilles. Miller uses Patroclus’ outsider perspective to tell the story of the beautiful, graceful Achilles, who ultimately becomes a war machine. But this is very much a love story about commitment and sacrifice. Again, it also explores the ferocity of motherhood. Thetis, Achilles mother, lives apart from her son, but plays a big role in his life. She tries to guide him to create his legacy, and at every turn urges him to break with Patroclus. Since this is The Song of Achilles, it is also about battles and war, manipulation and hubris, and you won’t stop listening.
The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah and narrated by Julia Whelan, tells a very different and very American coming-of-age story. Hannah, a master storyteller, takes us on wild, often violent and unsettling ride. She starts the story in 1974 with Leni, a young girl, who is wiser than her hippy parents. Her dad Ernt, a Vietnam vet, suffers from serious PSTD and when he inherits a plot of land and a shack from a buddy who died in combat, he takes the family from California to a remote part of Alaska.
Her mom Cora, from a comfortable San Francisco family, is besotted by her handsome, manic husband and blind to his faults. They all work hard to build a life, but their efforts are often undermined by Ernt’s madness. Yet their love for each other and the wild beauty of Alaska keeps them going.
Ultimately, this is Leni’s story as she falls in love, faces terrifying, heart-breaking challenges, and fights to survive. Julia Whelan makes this great audiobook listening.
Force of Nature, an exciting police procedural by Jane Harper, takes us to the outback of Australia with detective Aaron Falk, her hero from The Dry. Stephen Shanahan narrates again and conveys a deep understanding of the conflicted Falk as he struggles with his own emotional turmoil while he tries to find a murderer.
Falk and his partner, Carmen Cooper, work in the financial crimes unit of the Melbourne police, and a source inside a company they are investigating ends up dead. She and five other women had been in a remote area on a kind of outward-bound team-building trip. The story twists and turns and at times left me terrified as Harper took me back and forth between the investigation and an almost moment-by-moment account of what actually happened. You won’t want to stop listening.
Walter Mosley sets his thriller, Down The River Unto the Sea, in Brooklyn and introduces us to Joe “King” Oliver, a former cop turned private detective. Dion Graham, one of the great narrators, brings you into the heart and mind of King Oliver, a smart, sensitive guy set up by police brass on a phony rape charge.
King’s relationships make this a deep, emotionally-layered crime story and King a compelling hero. He worries about his teenage daughter who works part-time in his office. He visits and cares for his grandmother in an assisted-living facility. A criminal he calls on for help becomes a buddy, and a hooker he’s known for long time turns into a different kind of friend.
As King tries to solve a case for a client, he fights off the racist cops who want to see him dead. You may fall in love with King Oliver and worry about his survival, even though a lot of what happens to him seems far-fetched.
Erotica
This won’t suit everyone’s taste. But if you like erotica, this one definitely provides a great audiobook listening experience. Taking Turns, the Turning Series, by JA Huss will keep you listening, wondering, and feeling sexy. Ava Erickson, Sebastian York, Tad Branson and Joe Arden give us a quartet playing a sex game.
Everyone’s rich, pretty or handsome, and an upscale, private sex-club in Denver plays home to the site of the games. The guys are appealing but the woman remains a troubled enigma.
For more great audiobook listening you might want to check out the books we started the year with and you can find them here. Or our favorite books from last summer.
