Heya, audiophiles!
It’s part two of the New Audiobooks for August list, so let’s dig right in.
BUT FIRST: Don’t miss your chance to win 16 books recommended on the Recommended podcast! Enter here by August 31st!
As part of Season 2 of our podcast series Annotated, we are giving away 10 of the best books about books of 2017. Go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click the image below:
New Audiobooks for August Part 2 (publisher’s descriptions and/or publication reviews in quotes)
Cherry by Nico Walker; narrated by: Jeremy Bobb; release date: 08-14-18
Cherry is an Amazon Best Book of 2018; Al Woodworth, who reviewed the title says, “While at times bleak, this is a novel of our time, a story about a Midwestern boy who falls in love, enlists in the Army (because school is not for him and what else is he going to do), returns from war and falls prey to the escapes of heroin. An explosively cutting and page-turning debut.”
A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua; narrated by Jennifer Lim; release date: 08-14-18
When Scarlett Chen becomes pregnant with her boss’s child, he’s thrilled. He will finally have the boy he’s always wanted. TO ensure his child has every opportunity, he ships Scarlett off to the United States, far away from her native China. “Holed up with other mothers-to-be in a secret maternity home in Los Angeles…Then a new sonogram of Scarlett’s baby reveals the unexpected.”
Keeper’n Me by Richard Wagamese; narrated by Deneh’Cho Thompson, Sam Bob; release date: 08-14-18
Keeping with the theme if displaced young adults, we have Garnet Raven, who was three years old when he was taken from his home on an Ojibway Indian reserve and placed in a series of foster homes. After he becomes a teenager, he escapes the foster homes at the first opportunity and eventually lands himself in jail. There, someone from his native family sends him a letter.
“The sudden communication from his past spurs him to return to the reserve following his release from jail. Deciding to stay awhile, his life is changed completely as he comes to discover his sense of place, and of self. While on the reserve, Garnet is initiated into the ways of the Ojibway – both ancient and modern – by Keeper, a friend of his grandfather, and last fount of history about his people’s ways.”
A Girl’s Guide to Missiles: Growing Up in America’s Secret Desert by Karen Piper; narrated by Rebecca Lowman; release date: 08-14-18
Like (I’m assuming) many people, I’m simultaneously intrigued and terrified when I think about our missiles and other big, potentially destructive military things. “But people who make missiles and other weapons are regular working people, with domestic routines and everyday dilemmas, and four of them were Karen Piper’s parents, her sister, and – when she needed summer jobs – herself…Her memoir is also a search for the truth of the past and what really brought her parents to China Lake with two young daughters, a story that reaches back to her father’s World War II flights with contraband across Europe. Finally, it recounts the crossroads moment in a young woman’s life when she finally found a way out of a culture of secrets and fear, and out of the desert.”
Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House, written and read by Omarosa Manigault Newman; release date: 08-14-18
“The former Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison in the Trump White House provides a jaw-dropping look into the corruption and controversy of the current administration.”
Okay, okay, okay, okay. If you are aware of Omarosa from before (or honestly, even after) she joined the Trump White House, you probably have some thoughts about her as a person…and possibly her credibility. I have thoughts about those things. But I am also 100% shameless when it comes to feasting my eyes (or ears) on questionably sourced political gossip. Am I going to spend money on this book? I don’t know. Will I eagerly scour the internet for all the juiciest bits? Absolutely.
Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear by Kim Brooks; release date: 08-21-18
I’m not a parent, but if I were, I am 1000% certain I would live every single day in paralyzing fear (as opposed to just every other day, which I do all by myself). Brooks explores this fear in her new book:
“In Small Animals, Brooks asks: Of all the emotions inherent in parenting, is there any more universal or profound than fear? Why have our notions of what it means to be a good parent changed so radically? In what ways do these changes impact the lives of parents, children, and the structure of society at large? And what, in the end, does the rise of fearful parenting tell us about ourselves?”
Like a Fading Shadow by Antonio Muñoz Molina, Camilo A. Ramirez – translator; narrated by Robert Fass; release date: 08-21-18
The year is 1968 and James Earl Ray has just shot Martin Luther King, Jr. For two months he evades authorities, driving to Canada, securing a fake passport, and flying to London, all while relishing the media’s confusion about his location and his image on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Eventually, he lands at the Hotel Portugal in Lisbon, where he anxiously awaits a visa to Angola. But the visa never comes, and for his last 10 days of freedom, Ray walks around Lisbon, paying for his pleasures and rehearsing his fake identities.
Using recently declassified FBI files, Antonio Muñoz Molina reconstructs Ray’s final steps through the Portuguese capital, taking us inside his feverish mind, troubled past, and infamous crime.”
Housegirl by Michael Donkor; narrated by Adjoa Andoh; release date 08-28-18
This book is already getting tons of praise/buzz and I’m personally super excited because the narrator also narrates one of my all-time favorite audiobook, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie.
The website The Millions selected this title as one of their most anticipated books of 2018 and here’s what they said about it, “In this debut novel, Donkor follows three Ghanaian girls: Belinda, the obedient; Mary, the irrepressible; and Amma, the rebel. For her part, Amma has had about enough of the tight-laced life in London that her parents want for her and begins to balk at the strictures of British life. But when she is brought to London to provide a proper in-house example for willful Amma, sensible Belinda begins to experience a cultural dissociation that threatens her sense of self as nothing before ever had.”
Whew, we did it!! Which new August audiobooks are you most excited about getting in your ears? Let me know or just say hi at katie@riotnewmedia.com or on twitter @msmacb.
Until next week,
~Katie