Five excellent voice pros--three women and two men--join the famed soprano Renée Fleming to perform this fascinating deep dive into the power of music. The six voices alternatively narrate whole chapters, each of them sounding in perfect harmony with their subject matter and the positive energy of the people working in this field. Artists, therapists, educators, and music researchers wrote the essays that were collected by Fleming. The writers as a group are uniformly eloquent and persuasive as they explain music's connection to various aspects of human functioning. They offer substantial reasons for healthcare gatekeepers to promote the use of music for healing physical and mental health maladies, and for making everyone more curious about what music can do for the experience of living.
Pub Date: April 9, 2024
Duration: 22 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9780593789728
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Feiler’s heartfelt performance emphasizes his message that rituals are key to forging community.
Feiler is interested in how we use rituals to connect with others in an age in which fewer people than ever are baptized, get married, or are eventually buried. He casts a wide net: filing down teeth for coming-of-age ceremonies, divorce parties, placenta burials, gender reveals, and more. Feiler isn’t a professional narrator, but his authenticity and gentle humor are clearly apparent in his voice, which lends the whole endeavor the feeling of a memoir. That seems appropriate, given that Feiler travels the world participating in Vegas weddings and Nordic cold plunges and develops his own new rituals with his family to celebrate beating cancer.
Feiler’s heartfelt performance emphasizes his message that rituals are key to forging community.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
Duration: 11 hrs, 27 mins
DD ISBN: 9798217336692
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
A resonant, gut-wrenching memoir that may inspire listeners to hit a dusty trail of their own.
Kessler, prolific author of nonfiction, intrepidly narrates this immersive memoir of her 500-mile pilgrimage on the Camino Francés after the devastating loss of both her husband and her daughter in the same year. Kessler’s tone is clear, even during the more heartbreaking chapters that revolve around her husband’s cancer and daughter’s drug use. Her tale, which toggles between the depths of grief and musings on consumerism or finding “uncomplicated joy in a Spanish tortilla,” exhibits the kind of harmonious braiding that makes a memoir soar. At the end of some longer sentences, Kessler’s delivery frays with a slight tiredness, but that lends to the big-picture experience of what is, indeed, a really long walk.
A resonant, gut-wrenching memoir that may inspire listeners to hit a dusty trail of their own.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
Duration: 8 hrs, 42 mins
DD ISBN: 9781668654361
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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