Kirby Heyborne has narrated 393 audiobooks on Listento.it by 298 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 4,643 ratings. The most-rated is Gone Girl.
The Hotel New Hampshire
Summary
The New York Times best-selling saga of a most unusual family from the award-winning author of The World According to Garp. “The first of my father’s illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels.” So says John Berry, son of a hapless dreamer, brother to a cadre of eccentric siblings, and chronicler of the lives lived, the loves experienced, the deaths met, and the myriad strange and wonderful times encountered by the family Berry. Hoteliers, pet-bear owners, friends of Freud (the animal trainer and vaudevillian, that is), and playthings of mad fate, they “dream on” in a funny, sad, outrageous, and moving novel by the remarkable author of A Prayer for Owen Meany and Last Night in Twisted River.
©1981 John Irving (P)2019 Penguin Audio
The Death of Chaos
Summary
Lerris has settled into being a woodworker and building a life with Krystal. But this newfound peace is endangered when both Candar and Recluce come under the threat of invasion from the Empire of Hamor. Despite the imminent possibility of destruction, the lands of Candar will not unite and Recluce will not heed the peril. Lerris is faced with the challenge of becoming the greatest wizard of all time - or seeing his whole world destroyed.
©1995 L.E. Modesitt (P)2014 Tantor
I Am Not a Serial Killer
Summary
Dan Wells's debut audiobook, I Am Not a Serial Killer, is the first installment in a trilogy that will keep you awake and then haunt your dreams. John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it. He's spent his life doing his best not to live up to his potential. He's obsessed with serial killers, but really doesn't want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he's written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation. Dead bodies are normal to John. He likes them, actually. They don't demand or expect the empathy he's unable to offer. Perhaps that's what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there's something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat - and to appreciate what that difference means. Now, for the first time, John has to confront a danger outside himself, a threat he can't control, a menace to everything and everyone he would love, if only he could. "The beauty of the prose, mixed with the depth of characterization, gives the haunting, first-person narrative a human touch. regardless of your age or your genre preferences, you will find this story both profound and enthralling.” (Brandon Sanderson, New York Times best-selling author) “Brilliant! full of unforgettable characters, creepy thrills, and dangerous twists you won’t see coming.” (Jonathan Maberry, New York Times best-selling author)
©2009 Dan Wells (P)2018 Macmillan Audio
Black Swan Green
Summary
By the New York Times best-selling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Selected by Time as One of the Ten Best Books of the Year A New York Times Notable Book Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post Book World, The Christian Science Monitor, Rocky Mountain News, and Kirkus Reviews A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist Winner of the ALA Alex Award Finalist for the Costa Novel Award From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new. Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for 13-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in dying Cold War England, 1982. But the 13 chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissinger-esque realpolitik enacted in boys' games on a frozen lake; of "nightcreeping" through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason's search to replace his dead grandfather's irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher's recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons. Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell's subtlest and most effective achievement to date. Praise for Black Swan Green “[David Mitchell has created] one of the most endearing, smart, and funny young narrators ever to rise up from the pages of a novel.... The always fresh and brilliant writing will carry readers back to their own childhoods.... This enchanting novel makes us remember exactly what it was like.” (The Boston Globe) “[David Mitchell is a] prodigiously daring and imaginative young writer.... As in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Herman Melville, one feels the roof of the narrative lifted off and oneself in thrall.” (Time)
©2006 David Mitchell (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Mr. Monster
Summary
I killed a demon. I don't know if it was really technically a demon, but I do know that it was some kind of monster, with fangs and claws and the whole bit, and he killed a lot of people. So I killed him. I think it was the right thing to do. At least the killing stopped. Well, it stopped for a while. In I Am Not a Serial Killer, John Wayne Cleaver saved his town from a murderer even more appalling than the serial killers he obsessively studies, using his own repressed homicidal proclivities to even the odds. But it turns out even demons have friends, and the disappearance of one has brought another to Clayton County. Soon there are new victims for John to work on at the mortuary, and a new mystery to solve. But this time something's different. John has tasted death, and the dark nature he used as a weapon - the terrifying persona he calls "Mr. Monster" - might now be using him. No one in Clayton is safe unless John can vanquish two nightmarish adversaries: the unknown demon he must hunt, and the inner demon he can never escape.
©2010 Dan Wells (P)2018 Macmillan Audio
I Don't Want to Kill You
Summary
Dan Wells introduced listeners to John Wayne Cleaver in the chilling audiobooks I Am Not a Serial Killer and Mr. Monster. In I Don't Want to Kill You, Cleaver faces his toughest challenge yet. John Wayne Cleaver has called a demon - literally called it on the phone - and challenged it to a fight. He's faced two monsters already, barely escaping with his life, and now he's done running; he's taking the fight to them. As he wades through the town's darkest secrets, searching for any sign of who the demon might be, one thing becomes all too clear: in a game of cat and mouse with a supernatural killer, you are always the mouse. In I Am Not a Serial Killer, we watched a budding sociopath break every rule he had to save his town from evil. In Mr. Monster, we held our breath as he fought madly with himself, struggling to stay in control. Now, John Wayne Cleaver has mastered his twisted talents and embraced his role as a killer of killers. I Don't Want to Kill You brings his story to a thundering climax of suspicion, mayhem, and death. It's time to punish the guilty. And in a town full of secrets, everyone is guilty of something.
©2011 Dan Wells (P)2018 Macmillan Audio
The You I've Never Known
Summary
How do you live your life if your past is based on a lie? A new novel in both verse and prose from number-one New York Times best-selling author Ellen Hopkins. For as long as she can remember, it's been just Ariel and Dad. Ariel's mom disappeared when she was a baby. Dad says home is wherever the two of them are, but Ariel is now 17, and after years of new apartments, new schools, and new faces, all she wants is to put down some roots. Complicating things are Monica and Gabe, both of whom have stirred a different kind of desire. Maya's a teenager who's run from an abusive mother right into the arms of an older man she thinks she can trust. But now she's isolated, with a baby on the way, and life's getting more complicated than Maya ever could have imagined. Ariel and Maya's lives collide unexpectedly when Ariel's mother shows up out of the blue with wild accusations: Ariel wasn't abandoned. Her father kidnapped her 14 years ago. What is Ariel supposed to believe? Is it possible Dad's woven her entire history into a tapestry of lies? How can she choose between the mother she's been taught to mistrust and the father who has taken care of her all these years? In best-selling author Ellen Hopkins' deft hands, Ariel's emotionally charged journey to find out the truth of who she really is balances beautifully with Maya's story of loss and redemption. This is a memorable portrait of two young women trying to make sense of their lives and coming face to face with themselves - for both the last and the very first time.
©2017 Ellen Hopkins (P)2017 Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century
Summary
One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent - but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people. From original pieces by up-and-coming authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma, to blog posts, manifestos, eulogies, Congressional testimonies, and beyond: This anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites listeners to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love.
©2020 Alice Wong (P)2020 Random House Audio
The Gone-Away World
Summary
A wildly entertaining debut novel, introducing a bold new voice that combines antic humor (think Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut) with a stunning futuristic vision (á la A Clockwork Orange and 1984, with a little Mad Max thrown in) to give us an electrifyingly original tale of love, friendship, and the apocalypse. There couldn't be a fire along the Jorgmund Pipe. It was the last thing the world needed. But there it was, burning bright on national television. The Pipe was what kept the Livable Zone safe from the bandits, monsters, and nightmares the Go-Away War had left in its wake. The fire was a very big problem. Enter Gonzo Lubitsch and his friends, the Haulage & HazMat Emergency Civil Freebooting Company, a team of master troubleshooters who roll into action when things get particularly hot. They helped build the Pipe. Now they have to preserve it - and save humanity yet again. But this job is not all it seems. It will touch more closely on Gonzo's life - and that of his best friend - than either of them can imagine. And it will decide the fate of the Gone-Away World. Equal parts raucous adventure, comic odyssey, geek nirvana, and ultra-cool epic, The Gone-Away World is a story of - among other things - love, pirates, mimes, greed, and ninjas. But it is also the story of a world, not unlike our own, in desperate need of heroes - however unlikely they may seem.
©2008 Nick Harkaway (P)2008 Random House, Inc.
Boo
Summary
Boo is the highly anticipated debut novel from one of the most incomparable voices in Canadian literature: Bang Crunch author Neil Smith. Oliver Dalrymple, nicknamed Boo because of his pale complexion and staticky hair, is an outcast at his Illinois middle school - more interested in biology and chemistry than the friendship of other kids. But after a tragic accident, Boo wakes up to find himself in a very strange sort of heaven: a town populated by only 13-year-old Americans. While he desperately wants to apply the scientific method to find out how this heaven works (broken glass grows back; flashlights glow without batteries; garbage chutes plummet to nowhere), he's confronted by the greatest mystery of all - his peers. With the help of his classmate, Johnny, who was killed at the same time, Boo begins to figure out what exactly happened to them (and who they really were back in America) through this story about growing up, staying young, and the never-ending heartbreak of being 13.
©2015 Neil Smith (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
The Quantum Series, Books 1 - 3
Summary
Forget everything you know about reality. The quantum world doesn't play by those rules. Daniel Rice is a government science investigator whose specialty is solving seemingly intractable problems through scientific inquiry. But Daniel's intellectual strength is sorely tested by the bizarre realities he finds in the quantum world. Extra dimensions of space trap the unwary, probability replaces cause and effect, and time isn't what anyone imagined. The other side of the mirror is a place full of dangers, but it's also somewhere a dedicated scientist can uncover secrets that connect humans with something greater.
©2017, 2018, 2019 Douglas Phillips (P)2020 Tantor
Story Thieves
Summary
This "clever opener likely to leave readers breathless both with laughter and anticipation" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) is the first in the New York Times best-selling series from the author of the Half Upon a Time trilogy. Life is boring when you live in the real world instead of starring in your own book series. Owen knows that better than anyone, what with the real world's homework and chores. But everything changes the day Owen sees the impossible happen - his classmate Bethany climbs out of a book in the library. It turns out Bethany's half fictional and has been searching every book she can find for her missing father, a fictional character. Bethany can't let anyone else learn her secret, so Owen makes her a deal: All she has to do is take him into a book in Owen's favorite Kiel Gnomenfoot series, and he'll never say a word. Besides, visiting the book might help Bethany find her father.... ...Or it might just destroy the Kiel Gnomenfoot series, reveal Bethany's secret to the entire world, and force Owen to live out Kiel Gnomenfoot's final (very final) adventure.
©2016 James Riley (P)2016 Simon & Schuster
You Are an Ironman
Summary
As he did so masterfully in his New York Times best seller The Gatekeepers, Jacques Steinberg creates a compelling portrait of people obsessed with reaching a life-defining goal. In this instance, the target is an Ironman triathlon---a 2.4-mile open-water swim followed by a 112-mile bike ride, then finally a 26-mile marathon run, all of which must be completed in no more than 17 hours. Steinberg focuses not on the professional who live off the prize money and sponsorships, but on a handful of triathletes who regard the sport as a hobby. Vividly capturing the grueling preparation, the suspense of completing each event of the triathlon, and the spectacular feats of human endurance, Steinberg plumbs the physical and emotional toll as well as the psychological payoff of the participants of the Ford Ironman Arizona 2009. His You Are an Ironman is both a riveting sports narrative and a fascinating, behind-the-scenes study of what makes these athletes keep going.
©2011 Jacques Steinberg (P)2011 Tantor
Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger
Summary
Picking up where Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth leaves off, Kristin Masterwood and her boyfriend up the ante - by going into her attic to re-enact scenes described in Christopher Dollanganger's journal. Jealousy, tragedy, survival, and revenge - the discovery of Christopher's diary in the ruins of Foxworth Hall brings new secrets of the Dollanganger family to light and obsesses a new generation. With Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind both now major Lifetime TV events, the first new Dollanganger stories in nearly 30 years is a timely look at the events in the attic - from teenage Christopher's point of view. Christopher Dollanganger was 14 when he and his younger siblings - Cathy and the twins, Cory and Carrie - were locked away in the attic of Foxworth Hall, prisoners of their mother's greedy inheritance scheme. For three long years he kept hope alive for the sake of the others. But the shocking truth about how their ordeal affected him was always kept hidden - until now. Seventeen-year-old Kristin Masterwood is thrilled when her father's construction company is hired to inspect the Foxworth property for a prospective buyer. The once grand Southern mansion still sparks legends and half-truths about the four innocent Dollanganger children, even all these decades later. Foxworth holds a special fascination for Kristin, who was too young when her mother died to learn much about her distant blood tie to the notorious family. Accompanying her dad to the "forbidden territory", they find a leather-bound book, its yellowed pages filled with the neat script of Christopher Dollanganger himself. Her father grows increasingly uneasy about her reading it, but as she devours the teen's story page by page, his shattering account of temptation, heartache, courage, and betrayal overtakes Kristin's every thought. And soon her obsession with the doomed boy crosses a dangerous line....
©2015 Vanda General Partnership. All rights reserved. (P)2015 Simon and Schuster
Wind/Pinball
Summary
In the spring of 1978, a young Haruki Murakami sat down at his kitchen table and began to write. The result: two remarkable short novels - Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 - that launched the career of one of the most acclaimed authors of our time. These powerful, at times surreal, works about two young men coming of age - the unnamed narrator and his friend the Rat - are stories of loneliness, obsession, and eroticism. They bear all the hallmarks of Murakami's later books and form the first two-thirds, with A Wild Sheep Chase, of the Trilogy of the Rat. Widely available in English for the first time ever, newly translated, and featuring a new introduction by Murakami himself, Wind/Pinball gives us a fascinating insight into a great writer's beginnings.
©2015 Haruki Murakami (P)2015 Random House Audio
The Child Thief
Summary
In the vein of Gregory Maguire’s bestselling works, the award-winning artist Brom takes us on a haunting look at the true world of Peter Pan, in his first full-length novel. From modern day New York to the dying land of Faerie, The Child Thief reveals the world of Peter Pan through the eyes of an insecure runaway who is seduced by Peter’s charm. But any dreams of a fairy wonderland are quickly replaced by the reality of life and death survival as Peter’s recruits are forced into a lethal battle in which the line between good and evil is blurred.
©2010 Brom (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers
The Promise of a Pencil
Summary
Adam Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was just 16 years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. But while traveling as a college student, he met a young boy begging on the streets of India. When Braun asked the boy what he wanted most in the world, he simply answered, "A pencil." This small request became the inspiration for Pencils of Promise, the organization Braun would leave a prestigious job at Bain & Company to start with just $25 at the age of 24. Using his unique "for-purpose" approach, he helped redefine the space in which business, philanthropy, and social media intersect. And a mere five years later, Pencils of Promise has now built more than 200 schools around the world, proving that anyone can create a movement that matters. The Promise of a Pencil chronicles Braun’s journey through more than 50 countries to find his calling, as each chapter explains the steps that every person can take to ignite their own passion and potential. His trailblazing story takes listeners behind the scenes with business moguls and village chiefs, world-famous celebrities and hometown heroes. Driven by compelling stories and shareable insights, this is a vivid and inspiring book that will give listeners the tools to unlock their own extraordinary journey of self-discovery. If you have ever wanted a more purpose-driven life, if you have ever felt like you could become more than your current circumstances allow, it’s time to ask yourself, "What do I want most in the world?" And through the lessons shared in this book, turn those ideas into reality.
©2014 Colleen Hoover (P)2014 Simon & Schuster
The Magic Engineer
Summary
The chronicles of the magical island of Recluce continue as young Dorrin, fascinated by forbidden science, goes into exile in the lands of Chaos, where he unwillingly invents devices of war to save his land from the evil Chaos wizards.
©1994 L. E. Modesitt (P)2013 Tantor
Chasing Sunsets
Summary
From number-one New York Times best-selling author Karen Kingsbury comes the second novel in a brand-new series about divine intervention and second chances - the dramatic story of a woman desperate to find deeper meaning in her life. Mary Catherine grew up in a comfortable life despite an array of health issues, including a congenital heart condition (which she quietly obsesses over). She loves her parents, who are quite wealthy, but the lifestyle never appealed to her. Instead she pursues meaning through an abundance of charity work, always giving away a part of herself in service of others. After her project with a local youth center comes to an end, Mary Catherine decides to travel to Uganda on a mission to meet the two children she sponsors - and to find out if her donations are actually helping. Accompanied by Tyler, Sami, and Marcus Dillinger, Mary Catherine arrives in Africa only to find a makeshift orphanage with 17 children and no one to care for them. They return home with heavy hearts, and Mary Catherine knows there is more work to be done. Intent on returning to Africa, Mary Catherine quits her job and leaves a budding romance behind to fulfill her desire to help others. Inspirational and moving, Chasing Sunsets is the story of one woman's deep longings of the soul and the sacrifices she's willing to make in search of healing.
©2015 Karen Kingsbury (P)2015 Simon & Schuster
The Only Rule Is It Has to Work
Summary
It's the ultimate in fantasy baseball: You get to pick the roster, set the lineup, and decide on strategies - with real players, in a real ballpark, in a real playoff race. That's what baseball analysts Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller got to do when an independent minor-league team in California, the Sonoma Stompers, offered them the chance to run its baseball operations according to the most advanced statistics. We tag along as Lindbergh and Miller apply their number-crunching insights to all aspects of assembling and running a team, following one cardinal rule for judging each innovation they try: It has to work. We meet colorful figures like general manager Theo Fightmaster and boundary-breakers like the first openly gay player in professional baseball. Even José Canseco makes a cameo appearance. Will their knowledge of numbers help Lindbergh and Miller bring the Stompers a championship, or will they fall on their faces? Will the team have a competitive advantage or is the sport's folk wisdom true after all? Will the players attract the attention of big-league scouts, or are they on a fast track to oblivion?
©2016 Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller (P)2016 Tantor