On audio, Margaret Atwood's new collection of short pieces is a mixed bag, both texts and performances. Many of these entries are less stories than witty finger exercises. Examples: Atwood has a conversation with a post-body George Orwell. Hypatia of Alexandria dryly describes being murdered by a misogynist mob with clam shells. A man comes to realize his wife has the soul of a snail. A teenage girl believes her mother is a witch. Most of the professional performances, particularly Linda Lavin's and Bahni Turpin's, are crisply effective. Less successfully, Atwood performs most of the elegiac Tig and Nell stories herself, including the title story. Psychologically shrewd though she is, her Canadian inflections distract, and some will miss the smooth polish of the trained actors.
Pub Date: 2023
Duration: 8 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9780593666586
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
American colleges are favorable locales for ghastly event and hair-tearing circumstance. There is, for instance, a good deal of pleasure to be had out of professor and past-prodigy Grady Tripp's awful life, as portrayed by Michael Chabon in WONDER BOYS. There is a certain amount of slapstick here, but it's balanced by Chabon's superb portrait of a gale-force mid-life crisis, a soul-destroying albatross of an unfinished novel and the mind-numbing inconsequence of writers' conferences. David Colacci sounds a little starved for oxygen in his reading, but that's not exactly out of keeping with Grady Tripp's personal gestalt.
Pub Date:
Duration: N/A
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
As a group of men bring their own emotional baggage to their football-obsessed reunion, R.C. Bray delivers his usual solid narration. He shifts his tones slightly but enough to put the listener in the motel with the men, revealing their foibles as the story progresses. The narrator's role in this book is a descriptive one, and Bray is a good guide. His narration becomes extra important because this is a rare instance when there almost isn't a protagonist. The author's well-written story--which alternates between serious and laugh-out-loud funny--uses quarterback Joe Theismann's 1985 injury, a broken leg, as a McGuffin.
Pub Date:
Duration: 5 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781681680057
Publisher: HighBridge Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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