Experienced narrators of South Asian descent come together to create vivid listening. In a near apocalyptic Kolkata, India, two families battle for survival without fully understanding how each family's decisions impact the other. The varied voices work together to mimic life in a crowded, strained city. The narrators' pacing and tonal changes guide the listener through the ups and downs of the tumultuous week of the story. Leela Tapryal, Sid Sagar, Rajib Bhattacharya, Soneela Nankani, Reena Dutt, Shawn K. Jain, and Mayuri Bhandari weave mounting conflicts between Ma and Boomba as they both try to flee Kolkata before it collapses under the weight of a food shortage and a mounting climate crisis. The ensemble cast expertly shapes an urgent, shifting story.
Pub Date: 2025
Duration: 7 hrs
DD ISBN: 9798217174430
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: N/A
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: N/A
Duration: 5 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781681680057
Publisher: HighBridge Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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