May Edit: Audiobooks We Can’t Forget
Willow and Susie Compare Notes
This is a two-some story!
Me, Susie: I produce audiobooks, a lot of them. I have my little favorites! People know about my big bestsellers, but I wish you knew about the sleepers.
Willow Pennell: I work with Susie on all the reading and listening that comes through our office. I have my pets, too. We’re both, um, highly opinionated. Wanna get an earful?
Wûf
By Kemal Varol (Author), Dayla Rogers (Translator)
I'm listening to this right now! Wûf is an observation of war from a dog's eye view: bystanders caught in the crossfire.
The characters are funny, real— and so canine. Think Watership Down through a street urchin's eyes.NPoetic and profane!
Narration by Fajer Al-Kaisi is stunning, a natural storyteller. —Willow
Producer Notes:
I found this awesome novel because I met “The Center for Middle Eastern Studies,” a publisher who’s changed my reading life. The editors told me the publication of Wûf turned Turkey upside down. Everyone knew the “dog hero” was the symbol of an existential crisis that has torn their world apart. We are so lucky to have this English translation. —Susie
Listen to a sample here.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Wuf-Audiobook/B098KC5XLH
Imperial Intimacies
By Hazel V. Carby
Winner of the British Academy’s Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding 2020; Highly commended for PEN Hessell–Tiltman Prize 2020
“Who are you? Where are you from?” That’s what Hazel Carby grew up hearing every day, the child of Jamaican and Welsh families. Her family of “black Carbys” and “white Carbys” unroll generations of colonialist mayhem and inspiration.
Author Hazel became a towering figure in Black literary criticism— the kind of teacher you’d never forget. We are very lucky she decided to tell her personal story: a life that makes you understand a person— and an Empire.
Hazel narrates this saga, and she has the kind of voice that made me want to beg her to consider voice work for a living. —Willow
Producer Notes:
No one could read this except the author, Hazel. We had to wait, and it was worth it. She brings to life voices that aren’t even alive in the world anymore, and it gave me the shivers. —Susie
Listen to a sample here.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Imperial-Intimacies-Audiobook/B09MJLHLBM
Ecotopia
By Ernest Callenbach
One thing we could all use right now is a little hope. This stone-cold classic of visionary sci-fi lets me imagine a future for humanity and reminded me that a utopia isn’t a naive impossibility. —Not a blueprint for the future, but a reminder to dream. The narration by Timothy Andrés Pabon is exactly as I imagined the writing, when I originally read the book so many years ago. —Willow
Producer’s Note:
I was grateful to Callenbach’s Estate to believe that we could bring Ernest’s “Very Big Idea” to life, to listening. I don’t blame them for having some trepidation! Callenbach invented the term, Ecotopia; he is the reason we even conjure “ecology” we do, its first popular manifestation. If you ever thought, “When Mother Nature kicks our ass, I know what side I’m going to be on”— you understand. —Susie
Listen here.
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Complete-Ecotopia-Audiobook/B09J77G686
The Sea Forager's Guide to the Northern California Coast
By Kirk Lombard
Pull up to the bar next to Kirk Lombard! He tells you not only how and what to forage from the sea, but delicious adventures of his own excursions. This isn't just for Californians or foragers: it's for anyone who likes a good yarn. My husband and I bring up something we’ve learned from The Sea Forager’s Guide at least once a week. —Willow
Producer’s Note:
My “Panny Silver Lining” is this: I got so mad when the public swimming pool closed, I finally squeezed myself into a 3mm wetsuit and discovered: the Pacific Ocean.
I had . . . No idea. How could I have lived in coastal California nearly my whole life and never know the teeming life beyond my sweaty towel on the sand?
Every time I get in, the life of the ocean gives me such a bounty. Kirk’s book came into my life at just the right time, and I knew we had to record it! —Susie
Find it here.
Glitter Up the Dark
By Sasha Geffen
This is sharp, sharp, sharp! Geffen takes familiar histories and reads new life into them. Their analysis of Beatlemania, that the effeteness of their dress and hair opened a queer female gaze that teen girls could both desire— and project themselves onto, is worth the price of admission.
This goes far beyond the idea that rock stars modeled and disseminated androgyny to the masses— it reconsiders audience projection, what they need and see fulfilled in genderqueer performers. —Willow
Producer’s Note:
Sometimes an audiobook project happens because ONE person tells you, “This is incandescent.” My thanks to editor Angelica Lopez-Torres, who has DIAMOND taste, and always puts the right thing in my hands. —Susie
Listen here.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Glitter-Up-the-Dark-Audiobook/B093CFVPQV
What have you been listening to lately, that you wish everyone knew about?