Chris Chalk has narrated 3 audiobooks on Listento.it by 6 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 120 ratings. The most-rated is Sing, Unburied, Sing.
Sing, Unburied, Sing
Summary
WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD for FICTION Finalist for the Kirkus Prize Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal Publishers Weekly Top 10 of 2017 "The heart of Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing is story - the yearning for a narrative to help us understand ourselves, the pain of the gaps we'll never fill, the truths that are failed by words and must be translated through ritual and song...Ward's writing throbs with life, grief, and love, and this book is the kind that makes you ache to return to it." (Buzzfeed) In Jesmyn Ward's first novel since her National Book Award-winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural 21st-century America. An intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing, Unburied, Sing journeys through Mississippi's past and present, examining the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power - and limitations - of family bonds. Jojo is 13 years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesn't lack in fathers to study, chief among them his black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent white father, Michael, who is being released from prison; his absent white grandfather, Big Joseph, who won't acknowledge his existence; and the memories of his dead uncle, Given, who died as a teenager. His mother, Leonie, is an inconsistent presence in his and his toddler sister's lives. She is an imperfect mother in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is black, and her children's father is white. She wants to be a better mother but can't put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. Simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she's high, Leonie is embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances. When the children's father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the state penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another 13-year-old boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He, too, has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love. Rich with Ward's distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic new work and an unforgettable family story. A 2018 RUSA “Listen-Alike” for LINCOLN IN THE BARDO
©2017 Jesmyn Ward (P)2017 Simon & Schuster Audio
The Trial of the Chicago 7: The Official Transcript
Summary
The classic account of one of the most infamous and entertaining trials in recent American history comes thrillingly to life in this multi-voiced presentation of the courtroom transcripts that inspired the Aaron Sorkin film, featuring a full cast of acclaimed narrators led by J.K. Simmons, Jeff Daniels, Chris Jackson, John Hawkes, Chris Chalk, Luke Kirby, Corey Stoll, Norbert Leo Butz, and George Newbern. In the fall of 1969, eight prominent anti-Vietnam War activists were put on trial for conspiring to riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. One of the eight, Black Panther cofounder Bobby Seale, was literally bound and gagged in court by order of the judge, Julius Hoffman, and his case was separated from that of the others. The activists, who included Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Tom Hayden, and their attorneys, William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass, insisted that the First Amendment was on trial. Their witnesses were a virtual who’s who of the 1960s counterculture: Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Arlo Guthrie, Judy Collins, Norman Mailer, among them. The defendants constantly interrupted to protest what they felt were unfair rulings by the judge. The trial became a circus, all the while receiving intense media coverage. The convictions that resulted were subsequently overturned on appeal, but the trial remained a political and cultural touchstone, a mirror of the deep divisions in the country. The Trial of the Chicago 7 consists of the highlights from trial testimony with a brief epilogue describing what later happened to the principal figures. The courtroom’s electrifying proceedings are recreated by an ensemble of acclaimed narrators giving voice to the trial’s unforgettable cast of characters. This dynamic audio program brilliantly captures the urgency and unpredictability of the courtroom setting, taking listeners back to a turning point in our nation’s history, the outsize personalities at the center of the struggle, and their powerful words that still resonate today. The cast also includes Michael Boatman, Jay O. Sanders, Holter Graham, Jonathan Todd Ross, Corey Brill, Gibson Frazier, Pete Simonelli, Vikas Adam, Angelo Di Loreto, Lisa Flanagan, Kathe Mazur, and Jacques Roy. The book’s coauthor Mark L. Levine reads his Preface, and film director Aaron Sorkin reads his Foreword.
©1970, 2020 Mark L. Levine, George C. McNamee, and Daniel L. Greenberg Foreword ©2020 Aaron Sorkin. The complete trial transcript in the case of United States vs. Dellinger, et al., is in the public domain. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
Look Both Ways
Summary
One of AudioFile’s Best Audiobooks of 2019! From National Book Award finalist and New York Times best-selling author Jason Reynolds comes a genre-defying new novel that serves as an homage to sharing the stories we all hold within ourselves.
©2019 Jason Reynolds (P)2019 Simon & Schuster Audio