Author: Kendra Winchester

This month, I decided to participate in Jami Attenberg’s #1000WordsOfSummer initiative, which encourages participants to write 1000 words a day over the course of two weeks. She sends out one email a day to encourage writers and often brings on guests to add their two cents about writing. I’ve enjoyed Attenberg’s writing for several years, so I thought now would be the perfect time to pick up her memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You.

Attenberg loosely follows her writing career in the memoir, jumping back and forth in time to add context and to flesh out the people in her life. In her writing, she describes life while trying to find her way as a writer, the many jobs she’s worked, and the places she’s traveled to visit. Throughout the memoir, you can feel a sense of unsettledness, that all this time, Attenberg was just looking for a place to feel the most herself.

Attenberg describes her struggle with who she feels she’s supposed to be as a writer vs who she wants to be. She’s supposed to want to live in New York, working night and day if that’s what it takes to live there. She’s supposed to find a long term partner, to want to travel the world. But she finally realizes she feels the most at home in her little house in New Orleans, just her and her dog.

Xe Sands performs the audiobook with an incredible sense of intimacy. I think memoirs can be some of the most difficult audiobooks to narrate because they are so deeply personal for their authors. But Sands rises to the challenge, beautifully capturing Attenberg’s narrative voice.

Iris and a group of other women create a Facebook group as a place to air out all of their bridesmaid grievances. But as the group grows, Iris finds it harder and harder to keep the group under control. With her sister’s wedding coming up, Iris worries that her online life will spill over to her offline one. Full of the very specific brand of family and wedding chaos, The Bridesmaid Union is sure to delight anyone who loves stories full of drama.

In the summer of 1999, Fe Fe and her friends Precious and Stacia form a trio, friends forever. But when a new girl arrives in the neighborhood, the three friends find their dynamic suddenly changed. As their Chicago neighborhood changes around them, the girls find their friendship changing as well. Years later, Fe Fe returns to the neighborhood and is flooded with memories from that one fateful summer.

Bonnie just wants to live her life alone, sitting in front of her TV watching her favorite show, Three’s Company. But Bonnie’s life is irrevocably changed when she wins the lottery. She decides to move to a house in the mountains where she can recreate the set of Three Company and live out her own dreams by imagining herself in the TV show.

Ibram X. Kendi gives parents and guardians the tools they need to have important conversations with the kids in their lives. Using both research and personal stories from his life, Kendi shares a guide on how to teach kids to be antiracist at different stages of their lives.

Last year, I had the wonderful pleasure of interviewing Kristen Arnett about her second novel With Teeth. Sammie is raising her son Sam with Monika, her wife. But when Sam bites Sammie in the car during a disagreement, Sammie’s entire perception of herself begins to change. Instead of the perfect queer family that she and Monika had always dreamed of, Sammie must come to terms with the fact that her family life might not be as idealic as they imagined. As Sam continues to act out during public outings and at school, Sammie and Monika’s marriage begins to crumble.

Arnett possesses the brilliant ability to capture what it’s like for a lesbian couple to try to parent in a time when there’s so much pressure for lesbian queer parents to act as a “good” example of queer parenting. But Arnett makes a point of illustrating that Sammie and Monika are just as flawed as everyone else. 

Kristen Sieh performs the audiobook with such great vocal characterization of Sammie’s narrative voice as she deals with all of her confusion and anxiety over her son’s behavior. When I listened to the audiobook, I became engrossed in this family’s story. I had no idea what on earth Monika and Sammie could do for their son or how their marriage would turn out. So prepare yourself for a rollercoaster of a family novel.

This Oprah’s Book Club pick will capture your attention from the first few minutes. Kiara and her brother are trying to make ends meet in Oakland, California. Kiara also tries to take care of the boy next door. Through a strange set of circumstances, Kiara ends up in a line of work she never expected. Plus, she’s a key witness in a case against the corrupt local police department.

Nevada is the story of Maria, a trans woman working in a bookstore. She loves her job, but is slowly admitting to herself that she doesn’t love her girlfriend Steph. After Maria and Steph break up, Maria finds herself  traveling to Star City, Nevada. This is a road trip book for a new generation now on audio for the first time.

One night while in New York City’s Chinatown, Lola runs into one ex and then another. What might have been coincidence turns into something a little supernatural as memories begin to swirl about her. This fantastical literary novel is sure to amaze at it tackles ideas around memory, identity, and love.

As a huge fan of Kirsten Chen, I couldn’t be more thrilled that she has a brand new novel. In Counterfeit, we meet Ava, a Chinese American woman whose life feels like it’s crumbling apart. But her college best friend, Winnie Fang, appears on the scene, full of confidence that Ava didn’t know she had. But how did Winnie gain so much confidence and an eye for top-tier fashion?

Malak, Kees, and Jenna feel like it’s them against the world. Taught a certain way to be good Muslim women by their families, they always expected their lives to go a certain way. But as they grow closer to adulthood, they begin to see that their lives are going to be more complicated than they first imagined.

My favorite book club is The Indigenous Reading Circle run by Erin (Lingít Alaskan) and Dani (Ojibwe from Dog Creek First Nation). Last year, they focused on memoirs, but this year, they’re reading short stories and fantasy. Erin and Dani represent Indigenous Nations in both what is considered the United States and Canada, so they feature Native authors from across Turtle Island (North America).

May’s pick was Anoka by Shane Hawk (Cheyenne and Arapaho). Set in Anoka, Minnesota, these short stories feature everything from werewolves to bone collectors. I’m usually not a horror person, but Anoka makes me think that I’ve been picking up the wrong horror stories, because I really enjoyed reading Hawk’s work!

I really appreciated that at the end of the collection, the author listed notes on each of his stories, explaining the inspiration behind them. With one story, he wanted to raise awareness for missing murdered Indigenous women and Two Spirit people, while in another he wanted to discuss the role of intergenerational trauma in Indigenous communities. These notes felt like I was sitting in on an author event, getting a chance to listen to the author answer questions about his stories.

Kyle Bullock performs the audiobook with that perfect balance between suspenseful and sinister. Without overacting, Bullock narrates the most intense parts of stories with great skill, and I often stopped dead in my tracks as he described the most gruesome scenes.

Vincent is deeply hurt when her estranged husband, Cillian, published a book revealing secrets from their marriage. But when Vincent meets a young man named Loup in Paris, they begin an intense affair. When Cillian begins to try to reconcile with Vincent, she realizes she must decide what future she truly wants.

Serene loves fashion, but as the daughter of an ultra famous designer, she has always felt trapped in her mother’s shadow. When her mom is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Serene finds herself running her mom’s business. Lian moved to Serene’s town in California a year ago, but he can’t wait to leave—that is, until he meets Serene.

Eliot seems to have everything together. He has a successful TV writing career and an amazing boyfriend. But beneath the surface, Eliot is struggling with alcohol addiction and can’t seem to stop cheating on his boyfriend. As he tries to get a handle on his life and change his ways, he must confront the deeper struggles of his life as a disabled gay man in a homophobic and ableist society.

Both Sara and Emilie have pasts that haunt them. When they start their love affair, they are everything to each other. But time and time again, they run into complications from lives they thought they left behind. In this queer love story, Sara and Emilie must decide, once and for all, is their relationship worth fighting for?

Theo never wanted a spirit companion, but when his brother Jamie dies, Theo inherits Jamie’s fox spirit, Kai. Now instead of being a normal kid like everyone else, Theo has to deal with Kai, who is also very upset at this change. But when they both discover a journal of Jamie’s, Theo and Kai stop their bickering long enough to wonder what secrets Jamie left behind.

When Jess arrives in Paris, she plans on staying with her brother, Ben, in his very nice apartment. But her brother isn’t there. Instead, Jess meets his eclectic neighbors, who all eye her with suspicion.

The story starts from Jess’s point of view before moving to the different neighbors’ perspectives. They each get their own narrator, making the audiobook feel like a performance of different monologues. I really enjoyed the overall effect, and found myself staying up late to finish the story.

Narrated by Clare Corbett, Daphne Kouma, Julia Winwood, Sope Dirisu, Sofia Zervudachi, and Charlie Anson

Six twenty-somethings are chosen to join a prestigious magic school. Each possesses a unique ability, and they all compliment each other as a whole. They are now a team. The catch? One of them will be cut from the group by the end of the year.

At first, I felt overwhelmed trying to keep the characters straight. But each character has their own narrator, which gives them all a unique feel. Once I got to know them, I was hooked. I had to know what happened next. There are so many twists and turns to this story, so it’s perfect for anyone wanting a fast-paced, character-driven fantasy novel.

Narrated by James Cronin, Siho Ellsmore, Munirih Grace, Andy Ingalls, Caitlin Kelly, Damian Lynch, David Monteith, and Steve West

In this intimate family story, we meet Morgan who was raised by their neurodivergent father, Julian. Morgan’s mom, Zoe, left when Morgan was just a year old. But after a bad break up, Zoe comes back into Julian’s and Morgan’s lives. Morgan is drawn back into Zoe’s chaotic whirlwind of a life and is forced to confront some hard truths about their mom.

Narrated by Sagan Chen

A man wakes up in the wilderness remembering only glimpses of his past life. With only a head wound and a pocket of pills to his name, he wanders around the desolate landscape, trying to figure out who he is and where he came from.

Narrated by Intae Kim

In her follow up to The Idiot, Elif Batuman continues Selin’s story in Either/Or. It’s 1996, and Selin is now a Sophomore at Harvard. Though she’s tried to move on, she can’t understand why her crush, Ivan, would get her a job in Hungary if he wasn’t interested in her. Full of Batuman’s dry wit and brilliant characterization of her protagonist, Either/Or is sure to be just as all-consuming listen as The Idiot.

Narrated by the author

Aside from having on of the best book titles this year, Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster is sure to be one of the most memorable young adult debuts of 2022. Maggie must find an escort to her sister’s quinceañera. But Maggie has three friends/escort prospects that are making her love life a bit more complicated than she’d like.

Narrated by Stacy Gonzalez

Feyi Adekola is trying to move after the love of her life died five years ago. Her new boyfriend is everything she could ever want in a man. But there’s a catch: she can’t help but be deeply attracted to her boyfriend’s father. Feyi must come to decide what kind of person she wants to be and what her life will look like moving forward after tragedy.

Narrated by Bahni Turpin

One day, people start receiving little boxes that inform them how many years they are going to live. This knowledge causes society to change. Some people want to know how long they have, while others refuse to open the box. It invites the question, if you received a box like that, would YOU want to know how long you had to live?

Narrated by Julia Whelan

I have been reading Melissa Febos’s writing for years, but I hadn’t read a full-length book from her until last year. Once I’d finished Girlhood, I went out and bought all of her books immediately. 

When Body Work landed on my doorstep, I ran to Hoopla and checked out the audio. In a delightful collision of the best of both worlds, I annotated the print copy while Melissa Febos read the text.

The book’s essays focus on Febos’s approach to writing memoir. From sex scenes to respecting the privacy of others, she covers a wide range of topics perfect for writers, memoir lovers, or the purely curious. 

Febos writes each essay in her precise style, each word carefully chosen. She has this way of expressing her ideas in a clear way that makes you pause and think on what she’s just said.

Whether you are new to Febos’s work or are a long-time fan, you’ll find something wonderful in this audiobook.

Verónica is the child of Peruvian immigrants and was born with hip dysplasia, a condition requiring many surgeries and lots of physical therapy. Her favorite place is the local mermaid show where women in tails dance beneath the water. When a chance to become one of them comes her way, she decides to go for it. But even if she gets the job, how will she manage it when her parents would definitely disapprove?

Narrated by Frankie Corzo

The day before her 40th birthday, Alice tries to cheer herself up. Her father’s health is deteriorating. If only they had more time. The next day, she wakes up and it’s 1996. She is 16 years old, and her dad is vibrant and healthy. Now armed with the wisdom of hindsight, she sees this incredible time for the important time that it was. Alice must decide if she would change anything now that she has the chance.

Narrated by Marin Ireland

Granted, I would listen to anything Jhumpa Lahiri writes, even if it was a grocery list. But I’m especially excited to read her new book all about writing and translating. She draws from Ovid’s myth of Echo and Narcissus and closely examines Aristotle’s Poetics to talk about writing in a broader sense.

Narrated by Sneha Mathan

The author of the much-acclaimed novel Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead is set to publish her new short story collection, You Have a Friend in 10A. These stories illustrate the incredible range of Shipstead’s talent. With settings in Montana, Paris, an Olympic village, and Romania, listeners travel to new places around the world with each story.

Narrated by Mark Bramhall, Mark Deakins, Ari Fliakos, Kyla Garcia, Rebecca Lowman, Alex McKenna, George Newbern, and Xe Sands

Two sisters from Tibet arrive at a refugee camp in Nepal. The two are haunted by their trip over the Himalayas when they lost their parents. Years later, the sisters are separated. When the daughter of one of the sisters begins to uncover some secrets of her family’s past, she must make a life-changing decision. 

Narrated by Asha Vijayasingham, Shridhar Solanki, and Rishma Malik Scott

Five women meet in New York City to work through their problems. Each woman has a horrible story in their past that sounds very suspiciously like a fairytale. Each of the women is suspicious of the others. Can they really trust each other? In this delightfully dark take on women in fairytales, Adelmann creates a one-of-a-kind story.

Narrated by Lauren Ezzo

As soon as this audiobook hit my audiobook app, I dropped everything to listen to it. From the moment I saw Viola Davis on screen, I was mesmerized by her performance. She quickly became one of my favorite actors. She possesses an incredible ability to get under the skin of her characters, understanding everything that makes them who they are.

Finding Me begins with Davis’s childhood in Rhode Island. She and her family lived in a run down apartment. Economical disadvantage, combined with her father’s violent outbursts and alcoholism, created a very unstable home life for her. She describes the child she was and the determination she had to make something of herself.

When she found acting as a child, she began to blossom. She worked hard to get to college, eventually attending Juilliard. But as a dark-skinned Black woman, Davis chafed against the very white-centered classical training she received. She pushes back against the racist idea that the “proper” way to do things was to focus on white characters and experiences.

When she entered the professional acting world, Davis had an uphill battle pushing back against colorism and feedback that she wasn’t “the right kind of pretty.” But then she gets some hard-earned lucky breaks and ends up on broadway.

Davis is one of the best actors I’ve ever had the privilege to watch, and her performance reflects that. As she describes her early childhood, you can hear the raw emotions in her voice as she tells her story. I hung on every moment.

If you want a preview of what Finding Me is like, Davis sat down with Oprah for a special on Netflix. There, Davis describes some highlights from the book.

Nora has an incredible career as a literary agent, living her best life in New York City. When Libby, her sister who is seven months pregnant, asks her to go on a vacation to small-town North Carolina, Nora reluctantly agrees. But her entire vacation plans are thrown off kilter when she runs into Charlie, her New York nemesis.

I’m a sucker for books about the book industry. But even more, I love grumpy characters in romance novels, and Book Lovers follows two very grumpy people falling in love. Nora constantly resists the trope of the big city girl who falls in love with the small town guy. She just wants to get through this vacation and go home to the city. But Charlie ends up working with her on a book, meaning she has to spend time with one of the men she likes the least. And when she learns he’s actually from this tiny town in North Carolina, well, that’s just perfect isn’t it?

As the listener experiencing every single moment of this novel, yes, it is wonderful. I love watching two city people fall in love in my neck of the woods. The contrast is perfection. And while I’ve listened to a lot of witty banter in romance novels, Julia Whelan performs the dialogue perfectly. I found myself laughing out loud throughout the entire book. I guess that’s just the magic of a great novel finding the perfect narrator.

Narrated by Julia Whelan

A month before her graduation Chloe kisses Shara Wheeler. When Shara vanishes after they kiss, Chloe decides to try to find Shara. But as she investigates, she realizes that she isn’t the only one to kiss Shara. As the mystery unfolds, Chloe finds herself chasing clues into unusual places.

Narrated by Natalie Naudus

It’s the 1920s, and Benjamin and Helen Rask are at the top of their game. He’s a Wall Street tycoon and she’s got the well-known family name. Together, they are taking New York by storm. But a question starts circulating: how did they make their fortune? As rumors start circulating, the Rasks must navigate a high-stakes game of the New York elite.

Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, Jonathan Davis, Mozhan Marnò, and Orlagh Cassidy

Charlie Hall lives in an alternative world where people can manipulate their shadows, creating a sinister underworld. Charlie wants nothing to do with her old life stealing things for the criminal elite, but when she finds herself backed into a corner, Charlie decides to do one last job before she retires for good.

Narrated by Sara Amini

Only Ali Smith could write a quartet with five books, but I’m here for it. While this novel stands apart from the quartet, it still possesses the timely nature of the other four books. Smith’s prose, per usual, is incredible. I love the way her writing just flows in this beautiful way.

Narrated by Natalie Simpson

Look, I will read anything that Jasmine Guillory writes. This time around she’s writing a standalone novel about Isabelle, a Black woman working in publishing determined to make her mark in the industry. So when she hears that one of her boss’s clients is about to miss his manuscript deadline, she decides to go to his house and collect. 

Narrated by Sarah Hollis

Rick Riordan presents Daniel José Older’s latest fantasy novel. It focuses on Mateo Matisse, whose island homeland disappeared. Now he and the other members of his community move to Brooklyn, creating their own neighborhood. Mateo becomes determined to find out why  he had to flee his island, and to take down whoever caused such a horrible disaster in his community.

Narrated by Lee Osorio

The moment I heard Pamela Paul interview Dr. Imani Perry on the New York Times Book Review Podcast, I knew I needed to listen to South to America. This book meanders its way through the South, touching on different locations around the region. Each chapter focuses on a different location, usually a city or general area, and Perry shares some of its history with her readers.

Perry asks her audience to approach the South from a more nuanced point of view, to investigate our preconceived notions, and to examine the things non-Southerners typically assume to be true in American history. Perry’s love for the South comes through in every chapter. She centers and celebrates Black Southern culture while also making the point that for the South to make positive change, white Southerners need to be prepared to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

As a Black woman with Southern roots, Perry’s journey through the South is deeply personal to her and she brings her readers along for the ride. Perry is an excellent tour guide, unafraid to confront the South’s obvious racist history as well as the more complex American narratives that proclaim the South as the root of all of the country’s ills.

As a long-time South Carolina resident, I recognized the ebb and flow of Perry’s audiobook narration. Her sentences and paragraphs blend together to create rhythm reminiscent of many Southern accents, and her approach to different topics feels more like an even paced meander through her subjects, not a precise rush to get to her points. You can hear the dialect in her voice, the way she says place names, and turns of phrases she uses. It all drips with the South in the most wonderful way.

Narrated by the Author

Viola Davis is one of my favorite actors, so when I heard she had a memoir and that she narrates the audiobook, I immediately put it on my “drop everything and listen” TBR. This memoir covers Davis’s childhood in Rhode Island and her introduction to acting. If you want a long trailer of sorts, be sure to check out the special on Netflix where Oprah interviews Viola Davis about the memoir.

Narrated by the Author

From the moment I heard about it, I knew I had to read Anjali Enjeti’s essay collection Southbound. But while the print edition came out in 2021,  it wasn’t released as an audiobook until April of this year. In Southbound, Enjeti shares her experience growing up in the deep south as a South Asian girl during the 80s and 90s. She performs the audiobook herself.

Narrated by the Author

In Kaikeyi, Vaishnavi Patel retells the queen’s story from the Indian epic the Ramayana. Kaikeyi grows up as a princess, but she feels stifled. She searches for new ways to gain her independence, and she finds it in magic. In her Instagram stories, Roshani Chokshi says that this was the book she was always looking for as a kid. Now it’s here!

Narrated by Soneela Nankani

Merit feels that her entire existence is focused around her husband and her two kids. While she loves them, she wants to carve a space out for herself. So she goes back to work at an architecture firm and meets Jane. The two women immediately hit it off, and Merit begins to feel her love life quickly becoming… complicated.

Narrated by Marin Ireland

Zia finds a magical dictionary. After her world seems to be changing way too fast, Zia decides to start erasing words out of the dictionary. But the results aren’t exactly what she was looking for. Full of the complex feelings that come when a tween’s world seems out of their control, Zia Erases the World is a heartwarming story of kids learning how to change and how to adjust to the changes around you.

Narrated by Cassandra Morris