Kevin Brockmeier has 6 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 12 narrators, with an average listener rating of 3.9★ across 9 ratings. The most-rated is The Brief History of the Dead.
The Brief History of the Dead
Summary
Award-winning author Kevin Brockmeier delivers a spellbinding, supernatural tale of love, memories, and human connection. All residents of the City have recently died, and they will remain in the City only as long as someone still living on Earth remembers them. On Earth, however, the population has been devastated by a terrible pandemic. Laura Byrd, isolated at an Antarctic research station, may be the only person to have survived the pandemic. But she's running out of time and supplies, and her memories are fading. Brilliant in concept and execution, The Brief History of the Dead is a spectacular achievement that lingers in the mind long after the final word.
©2006 Kevin Brockmeier (P)2006 Recorded Books, LLC
Selected Shorts: A Touch of Magic
Summary
By turns funny, moving, romantic and surreal, and filled with unexpected twists and turns, each of the tales on this lineup has a magical element. Andrew Lam's "The Palmist", performed by James Naughton. A chance encounter on a bus between a fortune-teller and a teenage boy. Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt", performed by Stephen Colbert. A room which can take you anywhere in the world - sometimes with dangerous consequences W. W. Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw", performed by John Lithgow. A wonderful ghost story about a trinket with terrible powers. Saki's "The Occasional Garden", performed by Daniel Gerroll. If you can't grow a garden; poof! - you can rent one. Donald Barthelme's "The Balloon", performed by Maria Tucci. There's something suddenly in the sky in midtown Manhattan.... Kevin Brockmeier's "The Year of Silence", performed by Anthony Rapp. What if everything went quiet? Jonathan Safran Foer's "The Sixth Borough", performed by Jerry Zaks. Yes, New York had a Sixth Borough, but it drifted away.... Aimee Bender's "Drunken Mimi", performed by Bernadette Quigley. A romance between a mermaid and an imp. Haruki Murakami's "The Little Green Monster", performed by Dana Ivey. A piece of Murakami magic: Is this a monster I see before me? T. C. Boyle's "Swept Away", performed by René Auberjonois. This story's weather forecast: Very windy and very funny.
©2009 Symphony Space (P)2009 Symphony Space
The Illumination
Summary
Author Kevin Brockmeier counts the O. Henry Prize among the many accolades his speculative fiction has earned. In The Illumination he offers “an inspiring take on suffering and the often fleeting nature of connection” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). When physical pain suddenly manifests itself as shining light, the wounded nature of humanity is revealed.
©2011 Kevin Brockmeier (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC
A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip
Summary
A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip follows 12-year-old Kevin Brockmeier over the course of a single school year as he sets out in search of himself: Losing old friends and gaining new ones, happening into his first kiss, writing plays and stories, dressing as Dolly Parton for Halloween, booby-trapping his lunch to deter a thief. With the same deep feeling and oddly dreamlike precision that are the hallmarks of his fiction, Brockmeier now explores the dream of his own past, recovering the person he used to be, the friends he had, the hopes he nurtured, the doubts he hid, the secrets he kept, the books he read - everything that was once his life.
©2014 Kevin Brockmeier (P)2014 Dreamscape Media, LLC
These Hands
Summary
"Caroline is watchful and sincere, shy yet earnest. She seldom speaks, and when she does her lips scarcely part, so that sometimes Lewis must listen closely to distinguish her voice from the cycling of her breath. Her eyes are a miracle - a startled blue with frail green spikes bound by a ring of black - and he is certain that if he could draw his reflection from them, he would discover there a face neither foreign nor lost. Caroline sleeps face down, her knees curled to her chest: she sleeps often and with no sheets or blankets. Her hair is brown, her skin pale. Her smile is vibrant but brief, like a bubble that lasts only as long as the air is still. She is eighteen months old."Kevin Brockmeier draws the listener in with poetic prose that paints a picture of beauty and purity, and becomes a part of a love story that tests the boundaries of morality without ever quite crossing them. Lewis Winters, a thirty-four year-old writer of fairy tales, recounts his short-lived relationship with Caroline Mitchell, and the anguish of having to let go without getting to say good-bye.
©2001 Kevin Brockmeier (P)2001 Random House, Inc.
The Ghost Variations
Summary
Ghost stories tap into our most primal emotions as they encourage us to confront the timeless question: What comes after death? Here, in tales that are by turn scary, funny, philosophic, and touching, you’ll find that question sharpened, split, reconsidered - and met with a multitude of answers. A spirit who is fated to spend eternity reliving the exact moment she lost her chance at love, ghostly trees that haunt the occupant of a wooden house, specters that snatch anyone who steps into the shadows, and parakeets that serve as mouthpieces for the dead: These are just a few of the characters in this extraordinary compendium of 100 ghost stories. Kevin Brockmeier’s fiction has always explored the space between the fantastical and the everyday with profundity and poignancy. As in his previous books, The Ghost Variations discovers new ways of looking at who we are and what matters to us, exploring how mysterious, sad, strange, and comical it is to be alive - or, as it happens, not to be.
©2020 Kevin Brockmeier (P)2020 Random House Audio