Behind the Mic With Kirkus Reviews

AudioFile’s Robin Whitten and host Jo Reed talk about a revelatory new work about older people and Western medicine. Don’t skip on! You too will be old one day, and you likely have friends and family who are older now. Eliza Foss offers a masterful narration of the audiobook, giving voice to Aronson’s humane and engaging reflection on what she has learned during her decades as a gerontologist and...

This 2020 Audie Finalist is told in the voices of the women interviewed. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten talk about the feeling of genuine interaction that personalizes the audiobook format. For those looking for something new in inspirational listening, this audiobook is a creative experiment worth exploring. Two hundred women from many backgrounds were asked the same five questions. I...

Hear host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb share details about the winning audiobook in this Audie Awards category. Hearing directly from the author can increase the emotional impact of an audiobook, whether it’s compelling fiction or a memoir that you just can’t put down. Hear a sound clip from this year’s winner as we wrap up our week of Audie Awards coverage with Michele and Jo. The finalis...

Autobiographies and memoirs are a favorite genre in audiobooks, and the subject matter in this category can be wide ranging. Hear host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss the impressive finalists and the winner who took home the 2020 Audie Award home in the Autobiography/Memoir category. Listen in for a clip from the winning audiobook, too. The finalists for the 2020 Audie Awards in Autob...

We’re celebrating the 25th annual Audie Award winners all week with host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb. Today they’re featuring the winner of the Best Male Narrator category, which was surely a tough choice for the Audies judges among so many skilled performances. Listen for their reveal of the winner, and hear a clip of the winning audiobook. The finalists for the 2020 Audie Awards Best Ma...

AudioFile’s Michele Cobb and host Jo Reed discuss the biggest night in the audiobook world, the Audie Awards. Last night was the 25th annual celebration of audiobook excellence. Tune in today as we reveal the winner of the Best Female Narrator award, a category that includes some of the best narrators in the industry, recognized for their excellent work on compelling audiobooks. The finalists for...

Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb talk about the 2020 Audie Awards, one of the biggest events of the year in the audiobook world. Tonight, March 2, is the 25th annual Audie Awards gala, where the big winners will be announced. Today Jo and Michele are discussing the finalists in the Audiobook of the Year category, titles with high-quality content and production values that are recognized a...

Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Jonathan Smith discuss this deliciously grisly full-cast recording that captures the campy horror of EC Comics’ 1950s stories. The cast features Phil Proctor, Denise Poirier, and an outstanding performance by Kevin Grevioux as the Vault Keeper, whose rumbling voice and wicked laugh nearly steals the show. A multilayered soundscape including creepy period music and care...

Listeners get a sense of 19-year-old Sally Miyake’s curiosity and intuition about the world in a new mystery for children from NPR’s Scott Simon. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Jonathan Smith discuss Lauren Fortgang’s skill at bringing the residents and staff of Sunnyside Plaza to life. The author draws on his own experiences working in a group home for adults with developmental disabilities. Sally...

Narrator Jefferson Mays is the perfect partner in suspending disbelief for this latest entry in the Pendergast mystery series. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Jonathan Smith discuss Mays’s dry, cultured elocution that so perfectly captures Pendergast’s personality. Pendergast and his new partner, Agent Coldmoon, are trying to discover why there are scores of amputated feet washing up on the shores of...

Dion Graham offers an amazing performance of P.I. Leonid McGill’s descent into a tangled web of secrets and deceit, gunmen and assassins. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Jonathan Smith discuss why Walter Mosley and Dion Graham are a must-listen combination. “Catfish” Worry, a 94-year-old black blues musician, asks Leonid to deliver a letter to a seemingly white billionaire’s daughter before her weddi...

Holter Graham provides a stellar narration for Joseph Finder’s latest audiobook. AudioFile’s Jonathan Smith tells host Jo Reed about Graham’s skill with a colorful cast and a twisting storyline. Private Investigator Nick Heller infiltrates a powerful family hiding a sinister secret. At the funeral for an army buddy who suffered from opiate addiction, Nick is approached by a whistleblower suggestin...

Author Nic Stone and narrator Dion Graham make a powerful team. Stone’s newest audiobook CLEAN GETAWAY came out this winter, and it’s another Earphones Award winner narrated by Dion Graham. We thought this was the perfect time to revisit our conversation with the author and narrator duo. Host Jo Reed spoke with both Stone and Graham when their audiobook, DEAR MARTIN, first released.  Bringing an a...

Listeners won’t look at the discarded things around them in the same way after hearing this poetry collection on audio. Naomi Shihab Nye shares her experience as a self-appointed trash collector, and she narrates with a warm voice and a storyteller’s cadence. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly share their thoughts on Nye’s appealing and engaging narration style, which makes her clever and...

Narrator Nancy Wu’s arch, knowing tone sets the stage for a family saga steeped in drama and danger. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss Tiffany Tsao’s compelling literary audiobook that turns the thriller genre on its head. Listeners discover at the beginning of the audiobook that Estella has murdered 300 people by poisoning the shark fin soup at her grandfather’s birthday party....

AudioFile Golden Voice Edoardo Ballerini narrates Isabel Allende’s lyrical prose with a sensitive and heartfelt narration. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly share their thoughts on Allende’s new work of historical fiction, set during the Spanish Civil War. Franco’s Fascists have overthrown the government, and the people of Barcelona are forced to flee. Allende traces the story of the Dal...

Narrating alternating chapters, Michael Crouch and Tiya Sircar are just as appealing as the pair of Georgia teenagers they portray. AudioFile’s Emily Connelly tells host Jo Reed all the many reasons she loved listening to the new YA audiobook co-authored by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed. Jamie and Maya are roped into canvassing for a state senate candidate, and both have their reasons for being...

In a story that shifts through time, Ramón de Ocampo is a welcome guide, and his narration is as lush and mesmerizing as the prose itself. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly talk about Paul Yoon’s historical novel that begins in Laos in 1969, and shows three very different paths taken by teenagers caught up in the bombing of the country by the United States. Alisak, Pranny, and Noi have f...

A crowd-pleasing short story collection about love from young adult author David Levithan. AudioFile’s Michele Cobb tells host Jo Reed what she loved about this audiobook that includes representation from several points across the LGBTQIA spectrum. David Levithan narrates autobiographical stories, while an ensemble casts brings stories about new and favorite characters at quiz bowls, in a youth ch...

Superlative writing and research and stellar narration make this a powerful listening experience. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb share their thoughts on Ann Napolitano’s new fiction audiobook about a plane crash with just one survivor. Narrator Cassandra Campbell keeps the many characters and frequent time-shifts in focus. As Adler family is flying to L.A., listeners become acquainted w...

Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss Eoin Colfer’s latest fantasy—and it’s something completely different. Narrator Johnny Heller’s pitch-perfect timing and thoughtful characterizations make the action and humor pop in this very adult contemporary fantasy. The setting is the Louisiana bayou, and the characters include the last of the dragons, an opportunistic teenager, and a dirty con...

Listeners are in capable hands as Ada Calhoun persuasively lists the social and personal considerations that plague women from their twenties onward. AudioFile’s Michele Cobb tells host Jo Reed how she connected with this audiobook on contemporary American women’s angst and malaise. Calhoun interviewed more than 200 women while she was writing this book, and listening to the audiobook makes us fee...

Follow Anna Wiener’s journey from the elitist world of publishing to the intense world of startups in this new memoir. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb talk about Wiener’s heady journey from book nerd to tech entrepreneur, delivered with an easy narration style by Suehyla El-Attar. She is energetic, funny, and swift while sharing Wiener’s clear and insightful perspectives on the tech bro...

Cynthia Farrell’s narration gives the listener a delicious sense of having been transplanted to Havana, a treat you couldn’t get from the page alone. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss a new intricately plotted mystery from Teresa Dovalpage. Juan, a Cuban construction worker who fled by raft 20 years earlier, has returned to Havana for the first time. He seeks out old friends and e...

Take a voyage with Doctor Dolittle in a new recording of three classic stories. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten talk about the fun of listening to audiobooks with children, especially one with such an endearing, excitable, and eccentric naturalist. Narrator James Langton embodies the exuberant fun and charm of these stories without overdoing the voicing of the talkative animals. Dolittl...