4 audiobooks to pick up this fall
Not a fan of reading? Fret not. Just plug these on for size!
Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler (Read by Kirsten Potter) Tyler takes on The Taming of the Shrew as part of the Hogarth Shakespeare Project, which asks contemporary novelists to retell one of the Bard’s plays. There are few sparks between Kate and her modern Petruchio, now Pyotr, although there are some clever moments and, in typical Tyler fashion, the small details are revealing and funny. Potter manages the sharp-tongued dialogue with panache, but her Russian accent is heavy-handed. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer (Read by Paul Boehmer) Hammer, a journalist with serious credentials, combines an exciting and well-researched adventure story with the history of Mali to tell the tale of Abdel Kader Haidara, a courageous man who saves over 350,000 precious manuscripts from the elements, marauders, and fundamentalists, often at great personal risk. Narrator Boehmer’s Arabic accents and pronunciation sound authentic and his deep voice and commanding manner work well in narrating this dramatic first-person account. 32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line by Veronica Chambers and Éric Ripert (Read by Peter Ganim) Celebrity chef Ripert chronicles an unhappy childhood and his early years in the food industry in a partial memoir that stops with his arrival in America in his early 20s. While repetitive (a full memoir might have been better than two instalments), especially regarding his abusive stepfather, Ripert is candid and humorous about kitchen mishaps and those who helped him along the way. Narrator Ganim’s French accent is flawless. Love, Loss, and What We Ate by Padma Lakshmi (Read by the author) Padma Lakshmi, a model, actress, cookbook author, and star of Top Chef, details her early life in India and America, her career, and health issues. The result is an unevenly written memoir that doesn’t necessarily leave you thinking highly of her choices. Lakshmi, however, excels at slipping in and out of various accents and sounds so comfortable behind the mike that she could be chatting with a friend.
— The Christian Science Monitor