Podcast Talk Show With Audiobook Reviews

Exploring Kathryn Stockett’s The Calamity Club

https://bit.ly/audiobooksoffer Sign up for Audiobooks.com 30-day free trial and get your first 3 audiobooks free! On this special sponsored episode of Behind the Mic, Kirkus’ Michele Cobb is joined by Amy Metsch, associate publisher and director of audio programming at Spiegel & Grau, to talk about Kathryn Stockett’s highly anticipated new novel, The Calamity Club, narrated by the powerhouse team of January LaVoy and Jenna Lamia. Stockett’s new novel, her first since The Help in 2009, is about female friendship, rising to the occasion in the face of constant adversity, and some of the darker parts of our collective history. Michele and Amy discuss the creation of the audiobook and how Lamia and LaVoy bring to life two distinct narrative voices, 11-year-old Meg and 24-year-old Bertie. Audiobook Discussed: The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett, read by January LaVoy & Jenna Lamia (Spiegel & Grau by Spotify Audiobooks) This episode of Behind the Mic is brought to you by Spiegel & Grau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Three Very Different Roads Through Fiction

2w ago00:21:08Tap to summarize

https://bit.ly/audiobooksoffer Sign up for Audiobooks.com 30-day free trial and get your first 3 audiobooks free! From haunted New Jersey suburbs to melancholy Irish landscapes to the contested wilds of the American West, Alan Minskoff joins host Jo Reed to discuss three sharply different works of fiction in audio. Tom Perrotta’s Ghost Town, narrated by Robert Petkoff, blends grief, adolescence, and the supernatural through Petkoff’s nuanced character work, while Derbhle Crotty and Darragh Shannon bring quiet emotional precision to The News From Dublin, evoking the atmosphere of longing and displacement in Colm Tóibín’s story collection. The conversation closes with Taylor Brown’s Wolvers, read by Ramiz Monsef, whose vivid performance captures the tensions between ranchers, militias, environmentalists, and wolves in the modern West. These audiobooks may share little besides the genre of fiction, but each narrator creates a fully realized world listeners can step into and stay with long after the final chapter. Support for Behind the Mic comes from HarperCollins Focus and HarperCollins Christian Publishing, publishers of some of your favorite audiobooks and authors, including Reba McEntire, Bob Goff, Savannah Guthrie, Max Lucado, Lysa TerKeurst, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Working Lives in Three Audiobooks

2w ago00:29:17Tap to summarize

https://bit.ly/audiobooksoffer Sign up for Audiobooks.com 30-day free trial to get your first 3 audiobooks free! Contributor Stephen Cummings joins host Jo Reed to talk about David Pogue’s Apple: The First 50 Years, which Pogue narrates with the confidence and curiosity of a longtime tech journalist, weaving in archival clips and company lore. They turn to Noam Scheiber’s Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class, where André Santana’s restrained and intelligent narration underscores the frustrations of workers organizing at companies like Starbucks, Amazon, and Apple. Finally, Woody Brown’s Upward Bound employs a strong cast led by T. R. Knight to explore life inside an underfunded adult day program, giving its central character a vivid and deeply affecting inner voice. All three audiobooks look closely at ambition, labor, and the gap between how work is imagined and how it’s lived. Audiobooks Discussed: Apple: The First 50 Years written and read by David Pogue (Simon & Schuster Audio) Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class by Noam Scheiber, read by André Santana (Macmillan Audio) Upward Bound by Woody Brown, read by T.R. Knight, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Alex Edelman, Pete Holmes, Midori Francis, Carlos Miranda, Brandon Flynn, and Nikki M. James (Random House Audio) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Mothers, Memory, and the Search for Self

Apr 2300:24:45Tap to summarize

https://bit.ly/audiobooksoffer Sign up for Audiobooks.com 30-day free trial and get your first 3 audiobooks free! Host Jo Reed talks with contributor Leslie Fine about three audiobooks that circle around questions of identity, family, and belonging. In Kin by Tayari Jones, dual narrators Angel Pean and Ashley J. Hobbs give distinct voices to two lifelong friends shaped by maternal absence as well as the racial and class realities of the 1950s South. Boy From the North Country, written and read by Sam Sussman, blends autofiction and grief as a son returns home to his dying mother, while My Other Heart by Emma Nanami Strenner, narrated by Joy Ozymanski, follows two teenagers navigating questions of heritage, class, and family. Three very different audiobooks, each asking—through story and performance—how we come to understand where we belong. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Three Stories, Many Points of View

Apr 1600:24:17Tap to summarize

https://bit.ly/audiobooksoffer Sign up for Audiobooks.com 30-day free trial and get your first 3 audiobooks free! Host Jo Reed is joined by Michele Cobb to look at three audiobooks that use multiple narrators to tell stories from distinct perspectives. In Joan Silber’s Mercy, a cast of voices traces how an experience reverberates across lives and decades, with narration providing the emotional throughline. Rachel Hawkins’s The Storm leans into suspense and atmosphere, with strong performances sharpening a layered, true-crime-tinged mystery. And in Craig Thomas’s That’s Not How It Happened, four narrators bring clarity and texture to the story of a family and the uneasy overlap between private life and public storytelling. Three very different books, each shaped by shifting perspectives—and in each case, it’s the narration that makes the whole story cohere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hockey, Heat, and Two Very Different Voices

Apr 900:23:30Tap to summarize

https://bit.ly/audiobooksoffer Sign up for Audiobooks.com 30-day free trial and get your first 3 audiobooks free! Host Jo Reed is joined by Kirkus fiction editor Laurie Muchnick for a deep dive into Rachel Reid’s six-book Game Changers series. The basis for the HBO sensation Heated Rivalry, the books are a blend of pro hockey, queer romance, and unapologetic “spice.” The conversation zeroes in on two key audiobooks—Game Changer, read by Tor Thom, and The Long Game, read by Cooper North—highlighting how each narrator shapes character, tone, and emotional depth in very different ways. Along the way, Jo and Laurie consider what these romances promise (yes, a happily-ever-after), what they explore (from homophobia in sports to mental health), and how listening—especially to scenes of intimacy—changes the experience. A lively look at a very hot series—where performance shapes the story as much as the writing, and the chemistry comes through loud and clear. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Lauren Groff: In Her Own Voice

Apr 200:34:18Tap to summarize

https://bit.ly/audiobooksoffer Sign up for Audiobooks.com 30-day free trial and get your first 3 audiobooks free! Lauren Groff’s narration of Brawler brings listeners directly into the cadence and emotional undercurrent of her prose. In this episode of Behind the Mic, she talks with host Jo Reed about building a collection as a series of evolving questions, from the opening story “The Wind” to the final piece “Annunciation,” which, as she puts it, is “shining a light outward” while gesturing back toward what comes before. The conversation also explores how reading her work aloud—both while writing and in the recording studio—sharpens rhythm, shifts meaning, and keeps every sentence in motion. In an interview interspersed with excerpts of the audiobook, Lauren reflects on voice, structure, and the intimacy of hearing a writer tell her own stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Middle-Grade Books in Three Voices

Mar 2600:27:18Tap to summarize

https://bit.ly/audiobooksoffer Sign up for Audiobooks.com 30-day free trial and get your first 3 audiobooks free! Kirkus young readers’ editor Laura Simeon suggests three middle-grade audiobooks that invite listening across generations, beginning with Anna James’s Alice With a Why, where Kristin Atherton’s graceful, finely tuned narration captures both the whimsy and emotional intelligence of this return to Wonderland. Jodi Meadows’ Confessions From the Group Chat offers a sharply observed look at middle-school dynamics, with Eevin Hartsough delivering a natural, conversational performance that makes Virginia’s missteps feel immediate and deeply human. And in Relic Hamilton, Genie Hunter, British author and former Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho narrates his own fast-moving, imaginative adventure with energy and warmth, anchoring its time travel and mythmaking in a voice that feels personal and inviting. These are three engaging middle-grade stories, elevated by narrators who bring clarity, nuance, and a strong sense of voice to every moment. Support for Behind the Mic comes from HarperCollinsFocus and HarperCollinsChristianPublishing, publishers of some of your favorite audiobooks and authors, including Colleen Coble, Mark Harmon, Jennie Allen, Max Lucado, Lysa TerKeurst, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Writers at the Top of Their Game

Mar 1900:21:54Tap to summarize

https://bit.ly/audiobooksoffer Sign up for Audiobooks.com 30-day free trial and get your first 3 audiobooks free! Contributor Alan Minskoff joins host Jo Reed to talk about three notable books—from George Saunders, Xochitl Gonzalez, and Lauren Groff—that offer rich and rewarding listening. They begin with George Saunders’s Vigil, an inventive, full-cast production featuring Judy Greer, Stephen Root, and McLeod Andrews, where a youthful ghost serves as a death doula to an unrepentant oil tycoon. The conversation then turns to Xochitl Gonzalez’s Last Night in Brooklyn, narrated compellingly by Elizabeth Rodriguez, a sharp, observant look at friendship, ambition, and gentrification in mid-2000s Brooklyn. They conclude with Lauren Groff’s Brawler, a collection of emotionally resonant stories read with empathy and thoughtful restraint by the author herself. Together, these audiobooks show how skillful narration—from full casts to author performances—can deepen the emotional and imaginative reach of contemporary fiction. Support for Behind the Mic comes from HarperCollinsFocus and HarperCollinsChristianPublishing, publishers of some of your favorite audiobooks and authors, including Colleen Coble, Mark Harmon, Jennie Allen, Max Lucado, Lysa TerKeurst, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Three Narratives, No Easy Answers

Mar 1200:26:17Tap to summarize

https://bit.ly/audiobooksoffer Sign up for Audiobooks.com 30-day free trial and get your first 3 audiobooks free! Host Jo Reed and contributor Stephen Cummings begin with Escape by Stephen Fischbach, an Earphones Award winner narrated by Julia Whelan, Imani Jade Powers, and Sean Patrick Hopkins; it’s a debut novel that digs into the machinations of reality TV and the costs of reinvention. Next they turn to Paper Cut by Rachel Taff, narrated by Helen Laser, a sharp exploration of true crime culture that follows a former cult member facing renewed scrutiny when a documentarian wants to revisit her past. Finally, they discuss the Earphones-winning Crown City by Naomi Hirahara, narrated by Brian Nishii, a richly observed social history threaded with a mystery as a newly arrived Japanese immigrant navigates 1903 Pasadena. Together, the three audiobooks—and their narrators—offer distinct portraits of pressure, survival, and the long reach of the past. Support for Behind the Mic comes from HarperCollins Focus and HarperCollinsChristianPublishing, publishers of some of your favorite audiobooks and authors, including Colleen Coble, Mark Harmon, Jennie Allen, Max Lucado, Lysa TerKeurst, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Podcast Talk Show With Audiobook Reviews

All episodes

Exploring Kathryn Stockett’s The Calamity Club

Three Very Different Roads Through Fiction

Working Lives in Three Audiobooks

Mothers, Memory, and the Search for Self

Three Stories, Many Points of View

Hockey, Heat, and Two Very Different Voices

Lauren Groff: In Her Own Voice

Middle-Grade Books in Three Voices

Writers at the Top of Their Game

Three Narratives, No Easy Answers