Ben Bailey Smith and Hattie Ladbury's exemplary performances engage the listener from the start of Hornby's latest audiobook, set in the UK during the pending Brexit vote. Lucy, a white woman in her 40s, is going through a difficult separation. She starts a relationship with Joseph, a Black man two decades her junior, who agrees to babysit for her children. While this premise suggests a story merely about generational and racial misunderstandings, Hornby imbues the empathetic characters with depth while weaving in issues relating to politics, race, class, and education. Smith's performance focuses on Joseph's youthful impulsiveness; Ladbury's performance captures the contemplative older woman who connects with Joseph but also considers the implications beyond their immediate intimate relationship.
Pub Date: 2020
Duration: 8 hrs
DD ISBN: 9780593288597
Publisher: Penguin 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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