Ari Graynor has narrated 7 audiobooks on Listento.it by 5 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.9★ across 161 ratings. The most-rated is Mrs. Everything.
Mrs. Everything
Summary
In this instant New York Times best seller and “multigenerational narrative that’s nothing short of brilliant” (People), two sisters’ lives from the 1950s to the present are explored as they struggle to find their places - and be true to themselves - in a rapidly evolving world from number one New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Weiner. Jo and Bethie Kaufman were born into a world full of promise. Growing up in 1950s Detroit, they live in a perfect “Dick and Jane” house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life. But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies. As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and women’s lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture and is up for anything (except settling down). Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, nor has a life that feels authentic or brings her joy. Is it too late for the women to finally stake a claim on happily ever after? In “her most sprawling and intensely personal novel to date” (Entertainment Weekly), Jennifer Weiner tells a “simply unputdownable” (Good Housekeeping) story of two sisters who, with their different dreams and different paths, offer answers to the question: How should a woman be in the world?
©2019 Jennifer Weiner (P)2019 Simon & Schuster
Queen Victoria: Twenty-Four Days That Changed Her Life
Summary
"Worsley gives us Victoria in all her infinite variety - queen and mother, matriach and minx. I loved it." (Daisy Goodwin, author of The American Heiress, The Fortune Hunter, and Victoria: A Novel) This program includes an introduction read by the author, as well as a bonus interview exclusive to the audiobook. The story of the queen who defied convention and defined an era. Perhaps one of the best known of the English monarchs, Queen Victoria forever shaped a chapter of English history, bequeathing her name to the Victorian age. In Queen Victoria, Lucy Worsley introduces this iconic woman in a new light. Going beyond an exploration of the queen merely as a monarch, Worsley considers Victoria as a woman leading a truly extraordinary life in a unique time period. The audiobook is structured around the various roles that Victoria inhabited - a daughter raised to wield power, a loving but tempestuous wife, a controlling mother, and a cunning widow - all while wearing the royal crown. Far from a protofeminist, Queen Victoria was socially conservative and never supported women’s rights. And yet, Victoria thwarted the strict rules of womanhood that defined the era to which she gave her name. She was passionate, selfish, and moody, boldly defying the will of politicians who sought to control her and emotionally controlling her family for decades. How did the woman who defined Victorian womanhood also manage to defy its conventions? Drawing from the vast collection of Victoria’s correspondence and the rich documentation of her life, Worsley recreates 24 of the most important days in Victoria's life, including her parents' wedding day, the day she met Albert, her own wedding day, the birth of her first child, a Windsor Christmas, the death of Prince Albert, and many more. Each day gives a glimpse into the identity of this powerful, difficult queen as a wife and widow, mother and matriarch, and above all, a woman of her time.
©2018 Lucy Worsley (P)2018 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Dear Current Occupant
Summary
Dear Current Occupant is a creative nonfiction memoir about home and belonging set in the 80s and 90s of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Using a variety of forms including letters, essays, and poems, Knight reflects on her childhood through a series of letters addressed to all of the current occupants now living in the 20 different houses she moved in and out of with her mother and brother. From blurry and fragmented non-chronological memories of trying to fit in with her own family as the only mixed East Indian/Black child to crystal clear recollections of parental drug use, Knight draws a vivid portrait of memory that still longs for a place and a home. Peering through windows and doors into intimate, remembered spaces now occupied by strangers, Knight writes to them in order to deconstruct her own past. From the rubble of memory, she then builds a real place in order to bring herself back home.
©2018 Chelene Knight (P)2018 Book*hug
Curse of the Spellmans
Summary
They're baaaaack. Their first caper, The Spellman Files, was a New York Times best seller and earned comparisons to the books of Carl Hiaasen and Janet Evanovich. Now the Spellmans, a highly functioning yet supremely dysfunctional family of private investigators, return in a sidesplittingly funny story of suspicion, surveillance, and surprise. When Izzy Spellman, PI, is arrested for the fourth time in three months, she writes it off as a job hazard. She's been (obsessively) keeping surveillance on a suspicious next door neighbor (suspect's name: John Brown), convinced he's up to no good - even if her parents (the management at Spellman Investigations) are not. When the (displeased) management refuses to bail Izzy out, it is Morty, Izzy's octogenarian lawyer, who comes to her rescue. But before he can build a defense, he has to know the facts. Over weak coffee and diner sandwiches, Izzy unveils the whole truth and nothing but the truth - as only she, a 30-year-old licensed professional, can. When not compiling Suspicious Behavior Reports on all her family members, staking out her neighbor, or trying to keep her sister, Rae, from stalking her "best friend", Inspector Henry Stone, Izzy has been busy attempting to apprehend the copycat vandal whose attacks on Mrs. Chandler's holiday lawn tableaux perfectly and eerily match a series of crimes from 1991-92, when Izzy and her best friend, Petra, happened to be at their most rebellious and delinquent. As Curse of the Spellmans unfolds, it's clear that Morty may be on retainer, but Izzy is still very much on the case...er, cases...her own and that of every other Spellman family member. (Re)meet the Spellmans, a family in which eavesdropping is a mandatory skill, locks are meant to be picked, past missteps are never forgotten, and blackmail is the preferred form of negotiation - all in the name of unconditional love.
©2008 Spellman Enterprises, Inc. (P)2008 Simon and Schuster Inc.
The Spellman Files
Summary
Isabel Spellman's life consists of 24-hour surveillance, routine investigations into her acquaintances, and listening devices planted in her deadbolt-locked room. For a 28-year-old in a family composed almost entirely of private investigators or former cops, the tools of the trade turn typical family dysfunction into commonplace espionage. Aptly described as Nancy Drew meets Dirty Harry, Isabel has always lived in the shadow of David, her "perfect" younger brother, a lawyer. Her younger sister, 14-year-old Rae, is addicted to "recreational surveillance" and anything with obscene amounts of sugar, and can be found, when the going gets tough, drowning her sorrows in a soda at Isabel's favorite bar. Rae's namesake, Uncle Ray, routinely disappears on benders the family dubs "Lost Weekends". When their parents hire Rae to follow Isabel in order to ascertain the identity of a suspected new boyfriend, Isabel snaps and quits the business. That's easier said than done, though, with wiretapping and coercion part of the family dynamic. Her parents make her a deal: solve one last case, the Snow case, and her employment contract with Spellman Inc. will be declared null and void. The kicker: the Snow case is decades old, ice cold, and more twisted than a pretzel. Isabel throws herself headlong into what she thinks is the most crucial case of her life. And then her sister Rae disappears, and "crucial" takes on a whole new meaning. The Spellman Files is a hilarious and at times suspenseful novel about a modern family with a highly unique way of loving, living, and making a living - often times in harmony.
©2007 Spellman Enterprises Inc. All rights reserved (P)2007 Simon and Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
Revenge of the Spellmans
Summary
Private investigator Isabel Spellman is back on the case and back on the couch - in court-ordered therapy after getting a little too close to her previous subject. As the book opens, Izzy is on hiatus from Spellman Inc. But when her boss, Milo, cuts her bartending hours and introduces her to a "friend" looking for a private eye, Izzy reluctantly finds herself with a new client. She assures herself that the case -- a suspicious husband who wants his wife tailed -- will be short and sweet, and will involve nothing more than the most boring of PI rituals: surveillance. But with each passing hour, Izzy finds herself with more questions than hard evidence. Meanwhile, Spellmania continues. Izzy's brother, David, the family's most upright member, has adopted an uncharacteristically unkempt appearance and attitude toward work, life, and Izzy. And their wayward youngest sister, Rae, a historic academic underachiever, aces the PSATs and subsequently offends her study partner and object of obsession, Detective Henry Stone, to the point of excommunication. The only unsurprising behavior comes from her parents, whose visits to Milo's bar amount to thinly veiled surveillance and artful attempts (read: blackmail) at getting Izzy to return to the Spellman Inc. fold. As the case of the wayward wife continues to vex her, Izzy's personal life -- and mental health -- seem to be disintegrating. Facing a housing crisis, she can't sleep, she can't remember where she parked her car, and, despite her shrinks' persistence, she can't seem to break through in her appointments. She certainly can't explain why she forgets dates with her lawyer's grandson, or fails to interpret the come-ons issued in an Irish brogue by Milo's new bartender. Nor can she explain exactly how she feels about Detective Henry Stone and his plans to move in with his new Assistant DA girlfriend... Filled with the signature side-splitting Spellman antics.
©2009 Lisa Lutz (P)2009 Simon and Schuster
The Money Shot
Summary
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and for aging Hollywood stars Karen and Steve that means agreeing to a shocking contractual clause. On the eve of a "climactic" day of shooting, they finally tell their significant others what's to come. Starring (in alphabetical order): Ari Graynor as Missy Eric McCormack as Steve Amber Tamblyn as Bev Jennifer Westfeldt as Karen Written and directed by Neil LaBute and recorded before an audience. Sound effects artist: Jeff Gardner Production manager: Rick V. Moreno Associate producer: Anna Lyse Erikson Recording engineer, sound designer, mixer, and editor: Mark Holden for The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood
©2014 Neil LaBute (P)2016 L.A. Theatre Works