Behind the Mic With Kirkus Reviews

Poets Hala Alyan, Joy Sullivan, and Kate Baer perform this special edition of Mary Oliver’s UPSTREAM, with each narrator performing a different section of the audiobook. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss the joy of listening to each poet narrate Oliver’s collection of essays. Listening helps to make clear Oliver’s intense love for the natural world and the ways that her obsess...

Listeners living with an autoimmune disease will feel heard, understood, and defended, perhaps for the first time, as they hear this short work from Imani Perry. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss this audiobook that gets to the core of what it’s like to live with a chronic condition, told in Princeton professor Imani Perry’s own voice and words. It's hard to imagine someone ot...

Kevin R. Free delivers a dazzling performance of Brandon Taylor’s new novel. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss this story of contemporary artists living in Iowa City. Poets, writers, and musicians sit around at parties, in bars, and cafés, discussing what it means to be an artist. Their social lives are deliciously messy as they fall in and out of love. Free’s narration moves...

Narrator Nicholas Boulton joins host Jo Reed to talk about being named a 2023 Golden Voice. Nicholas is an accomplished actor on stage and screen and in audio, with more than 100 audiobooks to his name. He’s celebrated for the pure quality of his voice, his facility for character, and an unerring instinct for storytelling. Jo Reed spoke with Nicholas in 2021 at the launch of our Audiobook Break po...

Nicholas Boulton’s narration of A.J. Lancaster’s audiobook—part fantasy, part murder, part romance—is all pleasure. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss the fun of listening to this audiobook from a 2023 Golden Voice narrator, Nicholas Boulton. When botanical scholar Marius encounters a murdered colleague in his greenhouse, the enthralling fae, Prince Rakken, is there to investigate....

Actor and singer Sheryl Lee Ralph narrates her memoir and self-help guide with drama and feeling. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss this audiobook, which is full of delicious anecdotes about Sheryl Lee Ralph’s life in the theater and music business, along with personal reflections on how to succeed and maintain one’s integrity. Ralph’s narration brings her full-throttle vocal range...

Mary Louise Kelly, anchor of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” delivers a captivating narration of her audiobook about the challenging life of a working parent. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss how this audiobook is best heard in Mary Louise’s own voice, with her journalistic yet emotional delivery. Her warm, empathetic voice; personable delivery; and experienced pacing engage listen...

Helen Laser gives a mesmerizing performance in this poignant novel and biting satire. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss Helen’s skill at enlivening June Hayward, a struggling white author who steals her Asian friend Athena’s manuscript when she dies. Laser captures June’s rise to fame on the success of this novel and her subsequent descent into guilt and delusions amid accusations...

Golden Voice narrator Marin Ireland excels at depicting the insular, privileged world of the Stockton family in this debut audiobook. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss this tale of a Brooklyn Heights family that made their money in real estate, and how Marin’s narration makes listeners feel for each of these characters. She gracefully takes listeners into an exclusive milieu of pri...

AudioFile is celebrating the 2023 Golden Voice Narrators, our stars of the audiobook universe who have superb performance skills and are keenly attuned to each author whose work they narrate. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten are honoring Nicholas Boulton, a new Golden Voice narrator who has narrated more than 100 audiobooks, ranging from 19th-century classics to science fiction, history,...

Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten are honoring AudioFile’s 2023 Golden Voice narrators — the stars of the audiobook universe. These narrators have made significant contributions to the audiobook art form. Today Jo and Robin are celebrating Marin Ireland, a skilled narrator who loves to disappear into the stories she narrates, moving seamlessly among the characters and making each distinct...

Golden Voice narrators are the stars of the audiobook universe. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten are announcing the 2023 Golden Voice narrators, an accolade that honors those who have made significant contributions to the audiobook art form and celebrates the iconic skills they bring to their performances. Today Jo and Robin are celebrating Kevin R. Free, who has narrated more than 450 a...

The late Morrie Schwartz was the subject of the popular book and movie TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE by Mitch Albom. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss Steven Weber’s narration of Schwartz’s posthumously edited guide to aging. Weber sounds seamlessly connected to the author’s timeless wisdom and altruistic spirit. With moving personal stories and observations, Morrie invites listeners to ag...

Narrator Adam Lazarre-White draws listeners into the new thought-provoking crime novel from S.A. Cosby. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss this story of Titus Crowne, the first Black sheriff in a small Virginia county. As listeners enter Titus’s world, he is faced with a shooter at a high school, a neo-Confederate group on the march, and a serial killer terrifying the town. This is...

Narrator Eric Mok makes Martha Wells’s wonderfully inventive and diverse fantasy eminently accessible. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss the fun of exploring a fantasy world written by Wells, well known for her MURDERBOT series. Here, Kaiisteron, a demon prince of the underearth with the power to possess other bodies, wakes up imprisoned and confused. When he and his dear friend,...

Avi Roque gives a spirited and deeply emotional performance of Jonny Garza Villa’s queer love story. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss this rich and lively audiobook for teens. Nonbinary Mexican American teen Ander is taking a gap year before college, focusing on their art and painting murals across San Antonio. When they fall in love with their family taqueria’s newest employee,...

Dion Graham is a master of nonfiction narration, and he perfectly complements the flow of Matthew Desmond’s treatise on poverty in America, and how to end it. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss this devastatingly clear and expertly narrated audiobook. Desmond is a professor of Sociology at Princeton and well known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning EVICTED. Here he describes the depth...

Poet and author Kwame Alexander joins Behind the Mic host Jo Reed to talk about his new memoir for an adult audience, WHY FATHERS CRY AT NIGHT. Alexander is the author of many award-winning audiobooks for young listeners, including THE DOOR OF NO RETURN, AN AMERICAN STORY, and LIGHT FOR THE WORLD TO SEE. He’s a familiar voice on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” and a Disney+ series based on his book THE C...

Magic flows as Joniece Abbott-Pratt brings to life Angie Thomas’s thrilling first fantasy novel. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss Thomas’s new middle-grade series perfect for family road trips and young fantasy readers. Nic Blake has just turned twelve, and while she gets a pretty amazing gift (her own hellhound puppy!), her dad refuses to start teaching her to use her magical a...

Narrator Julia Whelan’s nuanced performance complements Emily Henry’s newest heartfelt romance. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss this delicious summer romance that is full of all that listeners have come to love in Henry’s audiobooks. Every year Harriet and her friends vacation together at a cottage in Maine. Now the couples are moving onto big life decisions—but not Harriet and...

Vanessa Johansson’s thoughtful delivery makes Martin Riker’s novel come alive. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss this clever novel with a feminist economist named Abigail at its center. Having been turned down for tenure, Abigail spends a sleepless night prepping for a speech and examining her life and career and analyzing what went wrong. She’s joined by an imaginary John Maynard...

Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss J. Ryan Stradal’s audiobook and Aspen Vincent’s convincing narration of the all-Minnesota cast. Vincent has a crystalline tone, evocative style, and satisfying storytelling voice. The four generations of women who shape the plot are each given a unique sound, and all are portrayed in the honey-glow of this mostly historical novel. The plot follows...

Narrator DeLanna Studi accomplishes an impressive feat in narrating Margaret Verble’s historical novel, set in the 1950s. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss this feat of narration told from the point of view of a nine year old girl. Studi’s depiction of Kit Crockett resonates as she captures the tone and often breathless cadence of the bright child. Kit’s Cherokee mother dies, and...

Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss the latest mysterious audiobook available on our Audiobook Break podcast. Mark Meadows captures the lighthearted sarcasm, subtle humor, and brilliance of the thief Arsène Lupin. In this collection of nine engrossing short stories by Maurice Leblanc, listeners meet the gentlemanly burglar whose powers of deduction rival those of Sherlock Holmes—and...

Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss this sprawling contemporary novel by Jess Row and how the cast narrates it brilliantly. Jim Meskimen takes the pivotal role of the narrator in this dazzling audiobook with a thoughtful tone. Robin Miles captures the angsty brilliance of matriarch Naomi, while Jason Culp portrays her estranged husband with eloquent restraint. The children in this M...