The first draw to this collection is a cyclops who is developing his dating profile (aided by THE cheeriest saleswoman), but stay to survey all of AWAYLAND. Hear the tale of a woman who is trying to have a baby with a friend (it was "a better escape" than being a chef on "fake Mars") and the one of the dying lover who is determined to have her hand grafted onto her boyfriend's. The "gratitude" shown by the animal mummies is hilarious, and cheekily voiced in a British accent. The listener may prefer some tales over others, but the voices for each are good matches, like the wiser-than-his-years teenage boy who is working at a Turkish resort. A grieving mother is voiced gravely, with anxiety and pain. The terrain is strange, the themes are many, and the narrations are smooth guides.
Pub Date: 2018
Duration: 5 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780525528401
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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