Maggie Hoffman has narrated 5 audiobooks on Listento.it by 5 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 145 ratings. The most-rated is The Immortalists.
The Immortalists
Summary
A Best Book of the Year: Washington Post, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Real Simple, Marie Claire, New York Public Library, LibraryReads, The Skimm, LitHub, Lit Reactor Instant New York Times best seller “A captivating family saga.” (The New York Times Book Review) “This literary family saga is perfect for fans of Celeste Ng and Donna Tartt.” (People Magazine, Book of the Week) If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children - four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness - sneak out to hear their fortunes. The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality. A sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.
©2017 Chloe Benjamin (P)2017 Penguin Audio
Lila: A Novel
Summary
A new American classic from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gilead and Housekeeping. Marilynne Robinson, one of the greatest novelists of our time, returns to the town of Gilead in an unforgettable story of a girlhood lived on the fringes of society in fear, awe, and wonder. Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church - the only available shelter from the rain - and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the life that preceded her newfound security. Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood. Together they crafted a life on the run, living hand to mouth with nothing but their sisterly bond and a ragged blade to protect them. Despite bouts of petty violence and moments of desperation, their shared life was laced with moments of joy and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to reconcile the life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle Christian worldview of her husband which paradoxically judges those she loves. Revisiting the beloved characters and setting of Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead and Home, a National Book Award finalist, Lila is a moving expression of the mysteries of existence that is destined to become an American classic.
©2014 Marilynne Robinson (P)2014 Macmillan Audio
Belladonna
Summary
The Eater of the World continues to spread its dark influence across the realm of Ephemera, corrupting people's souls with doubts and fears. Only Glorianna Belladonna possesses the ability to thwart the Eater's plans. But she has been branded a rogue, and must stand alone against the encroaching entity. But she is not alone. In dreams, a call has traveled throughout Ephemera - "Heart's hope lies within Belladonna" - and reached Michael, a man with mysterious powers of his own. It awakens a fierce hunger within him to find the dark-haired sorceress he's dreamt of - a beautiful woman named Belladonna. Together, they may be Ephemera's only hope.
©2008 Anne Bishop (P)2009 Penguin
Shotgun Lovesongs
Summary
Welcome to Little Wing. It’s a place like hundreds of others, nothing special, really. But for four friends—all born and raised in this small Wisconsin town—it is home. And now they are men, coming into their own, or struggling to do so. One of them never left, still working the family farm that has been tilled for generations. But others felt the need to move on, with varying degrees of success. One trades commodities, another took to the rodeo circuit, and one of them even hit it big as a rock star. And then there’s Beth, a woman who has meant something special in each of their lives. Now all four are brought together for a wedding. Little Wing seems even smaller than before. While lifelong bonds are still strong, there are stresses—between the friends, between husbands and wives. There will be heartbreak, but there will also be hope, healing, even heroism as these memorable people learn the true meaning of adult friendship and love. Seldom has the American heartland been so richly and accurately portrayed. Though the town may have changed, the one thing that hasn’t is the beauty of the Wisconsin farmland, the lure of which, in Nickolas Butler’s hands, emerges as a vibrant character in the story. Shotgun Lovesongs is that rare work of fiction that evokes a specific time and place yet movingly describes the universal human condition. It is, in short, a truly remarkable audiobook—a novel that once listened to will never be forgotten.
©2014 Nickolas Butler (P)2013 Macmillan Audio
Truth and Consequences
Summary
In December 2008, the world watched as master financier Bernard L. Madoff was taken away from his posh Manhattan apartment in handcuffs, accused of swindling thousands of innocent victims - including friends and family - out of billions of dollars in the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Madoff went to jail; he will spend the rest of his life there. But what happened to his devoted wife and sons? The people closest to him, the public reasoned, must have known the truth behind his astounding success. Had they been tricked, too? With unprecedented access to the surviving family members - wife Ruth, son Andrew, and his fiancée Catherine Hooper - journalist Laurie Sandell reveals the personal details behind the headlines. How did Andrew and Mark, the sons who'd spent their lives believing in and building their own families around their father's business, first learn of the massive deception? How does a wife, who had adored her husband since they were teenagers, begin to understand the ramifications of his actions? The Madoffs were a tight-knit - even claustrophobic - clan, sticking together through marriages, divorces, and illnesses. But the pressures of enduring the massive scandal pushed them to their breaking points, most of all son Mark, whose suicide is one of the many tragedies in the wake of the scandal. Muzzled by lawyers, vilified by the media, and roundly condemned by the public, the Madoffs have chosen to keep their silence - until now. Ultimately, theirs is one of the most riveting stories of our time: a modern-day Greek tragedy about money, power, lies, family, truth and consequences.
©2011 Laurie Sandell (P)2011 Hachette