Narrator Aunjanue Ellis takes the listener on a cultural journey as she delivers this collection of short stories by the iconic Harlem Renaissance writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. Both her humorous and serious tones and her use of Southern dialect show the breadth and depth of Hurston's cultural insights. These stories speak of love and survival in the African-American community. Ellis plays with Hurston's language and becomes members of the community as she delivers dialogue. She is the screechy grandmother; the spirited, rambunctious adolescent; and the melodramatic lover. Ellis's razor tongue shows up at the right times as she plays the dozens of secondary characters who make listeners feel like they are in the neighborhood witnessing a verbal brawl. When she delivers narrative, her steady pace gives each story drive as it moves to the next one.
Pub Date: March 17, 2020
Duration: 9 hrs
DD ISBN: 9780062915832
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
A series of terrifying accounts of the macabre is brought to life through David Ledoux's splendid reading. Ledoux offers a straightforward approach, making Hill's startling tales as believable as they are frightening. As narrator, Ledoux understands these stories—be it the dazzlingly imaginative "Pop Art" or the tense "Best New Horror," in which the central character is a horror editor who finds himself entrapped in one of his stories. Hill is a master at creating a high-tension atmosphere that never ceases to pay off with a scare. This innate ability is perfectly realized by Ledoux, who knows precisely when to increase his tone and pitch, or let his voice accelerate to increase the stakes. Dark, brooding, and realistic, Ledoux's performance is underplayed where it could go over the top.
Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2007
Duration: 12 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9780061554667
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Ottessa Moshfegh, author of several audiobooks, one of which she narrates, steps in to deliver this new production of the late Leonard Cohen's early fiction, written in the 1950s. The 16 short stories and a novella are a snapshot of the period and the artist's development of his voice. Cohen focuses on themes of violence, deeply intimate sex, rejection, the betrayals of old age, and more violence. Moshfegh's voice may be unexpected, given Cohen's many first-person male characters, but, curiously, it works. Moshfegh meets the moments of sexual intimacy, and of shocking violence, straight on, conveying a reverence for these early works.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
Duration: 7 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9781696609784
Publisher: HighBridge Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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