Behind the Mic With Kirkus Reviews

Tune in as host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten celebrate 1,000 episodes of Behind the Mic! Listen to hear why we decided to create a podcast to recommend the best audiobooks to listeners. Jo and Robin also share thoughts and highlights from favorite author and narrator interviews from over the years. Find thousands of audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com Today’s episode is spo...

Kate Robinson, daughter of the late Sir Ken Robinson, narrates this concise version of their strategy to revolutionize education. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss Robinson’s vision to unlock creative energy and human potential. Kate speaks precisely in a standard English accent, but despite the academic nature of the topic, her admiration for her father and her confidence in thei...

In a warm voice filled with wonder, poet Kevin Young reads his ode to finding peace and belonging in nature. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss the special gift of sharing an audiobook with children. Kevin Young is a celebrated poet, the New Yorker’s poetry editor, and now director of the National Museum of African American Culture in Washington, DC. In this story, Emile is a young...

A gifted mimic and clever narrator, Rupert Degas brings Orwell’s classic satire vividly to life. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Alan Minskoff discuss Degas’s marvelous narration. What stays with the listener is his ability to endow Orwell’s animal characters with their own distinct sounds and accents — their individuality elevates the narration. This witty and engaging send-up of authorita...

A quartet of narrators excels in delivering Gish Jen’s linked stories, which chronicle the years since Nixon’s 1972 visit to China. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Alan Minskoff discuss how each narrator inhabits their characters well, bringing the interwoven stories to life for listeners. Their deliveries of these immersive and clever works match just the right voices, cadences, and tones...

Cynthia Farrell’s crisp voice suits Megan Kate Nelson’s fascinating history of Yellowstone, the world’s first national park. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss Farrell’s intelligent narration of this history of the Reconstruction era. It is told through three central figures: the financier Jay Cooke, the geologist Ferdinand Hayes, and the courageous Sitting Bull, who led his Lakota...

Former ambassador and long-term Foreign Service officer Marie Yovanovitch narrates with a clear purpose and a sure sense of pacing and timing. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Alan Minskoff discuss Yovanovitch’s narration of her memoir on her 33 year career in the foreign service. He explains that it acts as a kind of primer for recent history, with a focus on Russia and Ukraine. Both author...

The performance of Jennifer Egan’s new novel is exceptional. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Alan Minskoff discuss this unusual and absorbing audiobook full of interwoven stories. Michael Boatman narrates the opening chapter, capturing the interior life of the enigmatic Bix Boughton who invents a world-altering technology central to the plot. The time-traveling chapters reprise some of the...

Narrators Kimberly Farr and Cassandra Campbell perform most of Kim Fay’s epistolary novel, and they couldn’t be better. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Sandi Henschel discuss this story filled with friendship, love, and deep emotions. Imogen’s column in Seattle’s NORTHWEST HOME & LIFE inspires Joan in L.A. to send a fan letter and a packet of saffron from her travels. Their correspondence g...

Lee Kravetz’s fictional account of Sylvia Plath and her circle of confessional poets is wonderfully performed. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Sandi Henschel discuss a story of three notebooks containing handwritten notes of Plath’s THE BELL JAR. Points of view shift between Estee, curator of a contemporary auction house; Boston Rhodes, Slyvia’s literary rival; and Ruth Barnhouse, Plath’s p...

Narrator Patricia R. Floyd’s honeyed voice offers exactly the right warmth for this family saga about siblings with secrets and the powerful woman who raised them. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Sandi Henschel discuss ReShonda Tate Billingsley’s novel of a family’s estrangement. Something more sinister than the usual family resentments are at play, and Mama Pearly’s sudden illness forces M...

A superb cast of narrators animates Peng Shepherd’s exciting tale of friendships and betrayals, a cartographer’s cabal, maps, murder, and towns that may not be there. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Sandi Henschel discuss this thrilling literary and cartographic mystery. Emily Woo Zeller narrates as the main character, Nell, a cartographer who discovers what appears to be a worthless map am...

This wonderful audiobook is a special treat for those who know and love actor, writer, and director Harvey Fierstein. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Sandi Henschel discuss his narration, his distinctive voice, and his singular perspective. Fierstein’s writing is frequently poetic, always awake and aware, smoothly blending with the coarser street speech of his childhood. His wit is without...

When she was only four, actor and comedian Molly Shannon lost her mother and baby sister in a tragic auto accident that would change her life forever. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss the powerful, natural narration Shannon brings to her memoir right from the start. Shannon describes her father’s unique approach to parenting, her career path in acting and comedy, and the creation...

Narrator Marnye Young inhabits J.C. Bidone’s twisted thriller with flawless pacing and a compassionate tone. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss this tense coming-of-age listen. Alexa leaves the claustrophobic care of her parents to take a job and move to New York City. But something’s wrong, and there’s an ominous feeling suggested by Young’s performance that deepens when Alexa is r...

Actor Valerie Bertinelli gives an affecting narration of her heartfelt memoir about love, family, grief, and food. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss the impact of hearing Bertinelli sharing her story on audio. Bertinelli reveals her relationships to food, to her son, and to her late ex-husband, Eddie Van Halen. She is a delightful storyteller as she shares anecdotes about her telev...

Journalist Florence Williams intertwines journal entries, conversations with experts and friends, therapy sessions, and nature sounds to provide an honest and intriguing description of the phenomenon of heartbreak. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss the many approaches Williams took to heal from the physical and psychological impacts of her marriage ending after 25 years. Williams e...

Narrators Marin Ireland and Karissa Vacker dazzle as they deliver this twisted domestic thriller from literary duo Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb talk about the fantastic narrations that make the thriller even better on audio. Ireland expertly embodies Avery, a razor-sharp therapist who has lost her license for her unconventional methods. Vacker’s lay...

Celebrated Australian author and narrator Morris Gleitzman spoke with host Jo Reed for today’s bonus episode of Behind the Mic. The Australian Children’s Laureate from 2018-2019 is perhaps best known for his series of books that begins with ONCE, which concluded last year with the heartfelt ALWAYS. Listen to the conversation to gain insights into his moving, humorous, and hopeful books for young l...

Nile Bullock captures the goofy energy of Justin A. Reynolds’s hilarious middle-grade audiobook. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss the charming Eddie, a 12-year-old who tells listeners all about his perfect plan to escape his chores this summer—and how it goes horribly wrong. Listeners will be laughing as he describes the horrors of laundry (and basements), the sadness of being l...

Amanda Alcántara’s vivacious narration embodies the sarcastic voice of 12-year-old Pilar Ramirez in an audiobook that blends the poetry of images and the music of language. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss the fun of listening to Julian Randall’s middle-grade debut packed full of adventure. Pilar dreams of finding her missing cousin, who disappeared as a teen in the Dominican Re...

A stellar trio of narrators delivers the alternating viewpoints in Sabaa Tahir’s contemporary young adult novel. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss this moving story from the author of the EMBER IN THE ASHES series. Narrator Kamran R. Khan portrays Salahudin, whose vulnerability and poet’s soul shine as he tries to handle his father’s drinking and family debts—and his own tangled...

Narrator Grace Rolek draws listeners into Traci Chee’s Japanese-inspired fantasy for teens packed with spirits, adventures, and danger. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss the fun and thrills of this audiobook. Otori Miuko has never lived up to her father’s expectations, or those of the restrictive patriarchal society of Awara. Rolek captures Miuko’s spirited voice and longing for...

Kristen DiMercurio gives a spirited performance of Ashley Herring Blake’s funny, sexy, and heartwarming queer rom-com. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss this story of coming back to a dreaded hometown, and finding love—while also causing a fair amount of chaos. Photographer Delilah Green fled her hometown as soon as she could, desperate to escape both her stepsister Astrid and pa...

Rosalyn Landor is a prolific and accomplished narrator with an astounding scope—but she is perhaps best known for her narration of historical fiction and historical romance. Rosalyn sat down with host Jo Reed to discuss narrating Julia Quinn’s beloved BRIDGERTONS series, now in its second season on Netflix, and she speaks about “catching the flavor” of each story to find the right narrative voice....