Robin Miles has narrated 243 audiobooks on Listento.it by 228 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.3★ across 10,356 ratings. The most-rated is The Power of Vulnerability.
Let's Play Dead
Summary
The new exhibit at the Philadelphia children's museum, Let's Play, isn't meant to be shocking - but when one of the installers is zapped with a fatal electrical charge, it's up to Nell to put her detective skills on display.
©2011 Sheila Connolly (P)2014 Audible Inc.
The Galaxy Game
Summary
Karen Lord is one of today's most brilliant young talents. Her science fiction, like that of predecessors Ursula K. Le Guin and China Miéville, combines star-spanning plots, deeply felt characters, and incisive social commentary. With The Galaxy Game, Lord presents a gripping adventure that showcases her dazzling imagination as never before. On the verge of adulthood, Rafi attends the Lyceum, a school for the psionically gifted. Rafi possesses mental abilities that might benefit people... or control them. Some wish to help Rafi wield his powers responsibly; others see him as a threat to be contained. Rafi's only freedom at the Lyceum is Wallrunning: a game of speed and agility played on vast vertical surfaces riddled with variable gravity fields. Serendipity and Ntenman are also students at the Lyceum, but unlike Rafi, they come from communities where such abilities are valued. Serendipity finds the Lyceum as much a prison as a school, and she yearns for a meaningful life beyond its gates. Ntenman, with his quick tongue, quicker mind, and a willingness to bend if not break the rules, has no problem fitting in. But he too has his reasons for wanting to escape. Now the three friends are about to experience a moment of violent change as seething tensions between rival star-faring civilizations come to a head. For Serendipity, it will challenge her ideas of community and self. For Ntenman, it will open new opportunities and new dangers. And for Rafi, given a chance to train with some of the best Wallrunners in the galaxy, it will lead to the discovery that there is more to Wallrunning than he ever suspected... and more to himself than he ever dreamed.
©2015 Karen Lord (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
The Obamas
Summary
Award-winning reporter Jodi Kantor takes listeners deep inside the White House in an "insightful and evocative" portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama (Chicago Tribune) that will surprise even listeners who thought they knew the two icons. When Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, he also won a long-running debate with his wife Michelle. Contrary to her fears, politics now seemed like a worthwhile, even noble pursuit. Together they planned a White House life that would be as normal and sane as possible. Then they moved in. In The Obamas, Jodi Kantor takes us deep inside the White House as they try to grapple with their new roles, change the country, raise children, maintain friendships, and figure out what it means to be the first black president and first lady. The Obamas is filled with riveting detail and insight into their partnership, emotions and personalities, and written with a keen eye for the ironies of public life.
©2012 Jodi Kantor (P)2012 Hachette Audio
The Whispers
Summary
A middle-grade debut that's a heartrending coming-of-age tale, perfect for fans of Bridge to Terabithia and Counting by 7s. Eleven-year-old Riley believes in the whispers, magical fairies that will grant you wishes if you leave them tributes. Riley has a lot of wishes. He wishes bullies at school would stop picking on him. He wishes Dylan, his eighth-grade crush, liked him, and Riley wishes he would stop wetting the bed. But most of all, Riley wishes for his mom to come back home. She disappeared a few months ago, and Riley is determined to crack the case. He even meets with a detective, Frank, to go over his witness statement time and time again. Frustrated with the lack of progress in the investigation, Riley decides to take matters into his own hands. So he goes on a camping trip with his friend Gary to find the whispers and ask them to bring his mom back home. But Riley doesn't realize the trip will shake the foundation of everything he believes in forever.
©2019 Greg Howard (P)2019 Listening Library
The Best Presidential Writing
Summary
A sweeping, groundbreaking, and comprehensive treasury of the most essential presidential writings, featuring a richly varied mix of the beloved and the little-known, from stirring speeches and shrewd remarks to behind-the-scenes drafts and unpublished autobiographies. From the early years of our nation’s history, when George Washington wrote his humble yet powerful Farewell Address, to our current age, when Barack Obama delivered his moving speech on the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, America’s presidents have upheld a tradition of exceptional writing. Now, for the first time, the greatest presidential writings in history are united in one monumental treasury: the very best campaign orations, early autobiographies, presidential speeches, post-presidential reflections, and much more. Here, we see not only the words that shaped our nation, like Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Infamy speech, but also the words of young politicians claiming their place in our history, including excerpts from Woodrow Wilson’s Congressional Government and Obama’s career-making convention speech, and the words of mature leaders reflecting on their legacies, including John Adams' autobiography and Harry S. Truman’s Memoirs. We even see hidden sides of the presidents that the public rarely glimpses: noted outdoorsman Teddy Roosevelt’s great passion for literature or sunny Ronald Reagan’s piercing childhood memories of escorting home his alcoholic father. Encompassing notable favorites like Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address as well as lesser-known texts like Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia and James Polk’s candid White House diary, The Best Presidential Writing showcases America’s presidents as thinkers, citizens, and leaders. More than simply a curation of essential presidential writings, this unique collection presents the story of America itself, told by its highest leaders. What is America? Who is America for? What will America become? Since our nation’s founding, different presidents have offered different answers. In their writings, we see frontiers expand, ideals transform, and novel ideas take root. Even the most famous speeches find new meanings or fresh connections when read in this sweeping context, making The Best Presidential Writing a trove full of insight and an essential historical document.
©2020 Craig Fehrman. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
New Orleans Noir
Summary
Beneath the glitter of Mardi Gras lies the sleaze of Bourbon Street; under the celestial sounds of JazzFest, the nightmare screams of a city once at war within its neighborhoods, but after Hurricane Katrina, seemingly at war with nature and the rest of the country as well. New Orleans is a third world country in itself, a Latin, African, European (and often amoral) culture trapped in a Puritan nation. It's everyone's seamy underside, the city where respectable citizens go to get drunk, puke in the gutter, dance on tabletops, and go home with strangers, all without guilt. It's the metropolitan equivalent of eating standing up - if it happened in New Orleans, it doesn't count. The city was always the home of the lovable rogue, the poison magnolia, the bent politico, the sociopathic street thug, and, especially, the heartless con artist - but in post-Katrina times it struggles against... well, the same old problems, just writ large and with a new breed of carpetbagger thrown in. Combine all that with a brilliant literary tradition and you have New Orleans Noir, a sparkling collection of tales exploring the city's wasted, gutted neighborhoods, its outwardly gleaming "sliver by the river," its still-raunchy French Quarter, and other hoods so far from the Quarter they might as well be on another continent. It also looks back into the past, from that recent innocent time known in contemporary New Orleans as "pre-K," to the mid-nineteenth century, the other time the city was mostly swampland. The complete list of narrators includes: Allyson Johnson, Vikas Adam, Kevin T. Collins, Tom Stechschulte, Robin Miles, Jennifer Van Dyck, Johnny Heller, Lisa Renee Pitts, William Dufris, Kevin Free, Nick Sullivan, Therese Plummer, Mirron Willis, J. W. Wilburn, Lauren Fortgang, Raquel Lozano, Andy Caploe, and Aiello.
©2007 Akashic Books (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Ghost Summer
Summary
Whether weaving family life and history into dark fiction or writing speculative Afrofuturism, American Book Award winner and Essence best-selling author Tananarive Due’s work is both riveting and enlightening. In her debut collection of short fiction, Due takes us to Gracetown, a small Florida town that has both literal and figurative ghost; into future scenarios that seem all too real; and provides empathetic portraits of those whose lives are touched by otherness. Featuring an award-winning novella and 15 stories, Ghost Summer: Stories is sure to both haunt and delight.
©2015 Tananarive Due (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
Visible Empire
Summary
From a writer who "deserves the attention of anyone in search of today's best fiction" (Washington Post) comes an epic novel - based on true events - of wealth, race, grief, and love, charting one sweltering summer in Atlanta that left no one unchanged. It's a humid summer day when the phones begin to ring: Disaster has struck. Air France Flight 007, which had been chartered to ferry home more than 100 of Atlanta's cultural leaders following a luxurious arts-oriented tour of Europe, crashed shortly after takeoff in Paris. In one fell swoop, most of the city's wealthiest residents perished. Left behind were children, spouses, lovers, friends, and a city on the cusp of great change: the civil rights movement was at its peak; the hedonism of the '60s was at its doorstep. In Hannah Pittard's dazzling and most ambitious novel yet, she gives us the journeys of those who must now rebuild this place and their lives. Mayor Ivan Allen is tasked with the job of keeping the city moving forward. Nineteen-year-old Piedmont Dobbs, who had been denied admission to an integrated school, senses a moment of opportunity. Robert, a newspaper editor, must decide if he can reconnect with his beloved but estranged wife, Lily, who has learned that her wealthy parents left her penniless. Visible Empire is the story of a single sweltering summer and of the promise and hope that remains in the wake of crisis. It's the story of a husband and wife - Robert and Lily - who don't truly come to understand each other and their love until their city's chaos drives them to clarity.
©2018 Hannah Pittard (P)2018 Recorded Books
Amelia Bedelia Gets the Picture
Summary
Amelia Bedelia has been loved by readers for more than 50 years. And it turns out that her childhood is full of silly mix-ups, too! In this funny I Can Read story, Amelia Bedelia gets ready to smile for the camera on school picture day. This Level 1 I Can Read series featuring Amelia Bedelia as a child proves that a picture is worth a thousand words and will inspire newly independent book lovers to laugh and expand their vocabularies. Whether shared at home or in a classroom, the short sentences, familiar words, and simple concepts of Level One books support success for children eager to start enjoying books on their own. The Amelia Bedelia books have sold more than 35 million copies since we first met the iconic character in 1963!
©2019 Herman Parish (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
Bride of a Stranger
Summary
Claire is too innocent to suspect that her marriage is a cruel farce, believing instead that the dangerous accidents that keep appearing in her path are just that - accidents. She wedded Justin Leroux suddenly and silently. He was the tall dark stranger of her girlhood dreams, and had finally come to take her away. She returns with him to Sans Songe, the Leroux family plantation in Louisiana. A near-fatal accident on the road to the plantation does not bode well for her future there.
©1999 Patricia Maxwell (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
Book of the Little Axe
Summary
In Trinidad, in 1796, teenage Rosa Rendon quietly but purposefully rebels against typical female roles and behavior. Bright, competitive, and opinionated, Rosa sees no reason she should learn to cook and keep house - it is obvious her talents lie in running the farm she expects to be her birthright, despite her two older siblings. But as her homeland goes from Spanish to British rule, it becomes increasingly unclear whether its free black property owners - Rosa's family among them - will be allowed to keep their assets, their land, and ultimately, their freedom. By 1830, Rosa is living among the Crow Nation in Bighorn, Wyoming, with her husband, Edward Rose and family. Her son Victor has reached the age where he should seek his vision and become a man. But his path is blocked by secrets Rosa has kept hidden from him. So Rosa sets out to take him on a journey to where his story began and, in turn, retraces her own roots, those of a girl who forged her own way from the middle of the ocean to the grassy hills of a faraway land.
©2020 Lauren Francis-Sharma (P)2020 Tantor
Folly Beach
Summary
Experience the wild beauty and sultry magic of New York Times best-selling author Dorothea Benton Frank's Carolina Lowcountry - where the pull of family is as powerful as the ocean tides and love can strike faster than lightening in summer.... Folly Beach is the land of Cate Cooper's childhood, the place where all the ghosts of her past roam freely. Cate never thought she'd wind up in a tiny cottage on this breathtakingly lovely strip of coast. But circumstances have changed, leaving Cate homeless, broke, and unmoored. Yet Folly Beach holds more than just memories. Once upon a time another woman found unexpected bliss and comfort within its welcoming arms. An artist, writer, and colleague of the revered George Gershwin, Dorothy Heyward enjoyed the greatest moments of her life at Folly with her beloved husband, DuBose. And though the Heywards are long gone, their passion and spirit lingers in every mango sunset and gentle ocean breeze. And for Cate, Folly, too, holds the promise of unexpected fulfillment. Folly Beach doesn't just hold the girl she once was... it also holds the promise of the woman she's always wanted - and is finally ready - to become. Filled with irresistible charm, saucy wit, and lush atmosphere, Folly Beach is vintage Dorothea Benton Frank.
©2011 Dorothea Benton Frank (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers
Haiti Noir
Summary
Award-winning author Edwidge Danticat edits this collection of stories that puts a noir twist on the Haitian experience. From kidnappings gone wrong to deadly sibling rivalries, Haiti Noir features some of the Caribbean nation’s leading voices, including Gary Victor, Evelyne Trouillot, Kettly Mars, and Patrick Sylvain.
©2011 Akashic Books (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC
Swing
Summary
Recess. A swing set. An argument. A resolution! Michael Hall’s transformative Swing is a celebration of friendship, joy, and kindness. Listeners of all ages will look forward to hearing how four unlikely friends navigate their differences. A surprising and standout story from the acclaimed and best-selling creator of Red: A Crayon’s Story and Perfect Square. It’s recess! Four letters (O, V, E, and L) race to the playground to claim the swings. In the recess banter and bullying, one letter is told it’s too round, one is from the wrong end of the alphabet, and one is a vowel and therefore not welcome. What does it take to save the day? Kindness...and a heavenly and joyful swing. And what do the letters - friends now because of their shared experience - spell when they finally come back to Earth? LOVE. A story about sharing, acceptance, and kindness, this transcendent story will keep listeners guessing while also introducing the letters of the alphabet. Swing is for anyone who loves to hop on a swing and fly to the sky.
©2020 Michael Hall (P)2020 Greenwillow Books
Notes from a Black Woman's Diary
Summary
A recommended book of 2019 from: Vanity Fair Vogue The Huffington Post A stunning multi-cast audio collection of fiction, diary entries, screenplays, and scripts by the brilliant African American artist and filmmaker, featuring the voices of Nina Collins, Mari, Bahni Turpin, Adenrele Ojo, January LaVoy, and Robin Miles. Relatively unknown during her life, the artist, filmmaker, and writer Kathleen Collins emerged on the literary scene in 2016 with the posthumous publication of the short-story collection Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? Said Zadie Smith, "To be this good and yet to be ignored is shameful, but her rediscovery is a great piece of luck for us." That rediscovery continues in Notes from a Black Woman’s Diary, which spans genres to reveal the breadth and depth of the late author’s talent. The compilation is anchored by more of Collins’ short stories, which, striking and powerful in their brevity, reveal the ways in which relationships are both formed and come undone. Also collected here is the work Collins wrote for the screen and stage: the screenplay of her film Losing Ground, in which a professor discovers that the student film she’s agreed to act in has uncomfortable parallels to her own life; and the script for The Brothers, a play about the potent effects of sexism and racism on a mid-century middle-class black family. And finally, it is in Collins’ raw and prescient diaries that her nascent ideas about race, gender, marriage, and motherhood first play out on the page. Kathleen Collins’ writing brings to life vibrant characters whose quotidian concerns powerfully illuminate the particular joys, challenges, and heartbreaks rendered by the African American experience. By turns empowering, exuberant, sexy, and poignant, Notes from a Black Woman’s Diary is a brilliant compendium of an inimitable talent and a rich portrait of a writer hard at work.
©2019 Kathleen Collins (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers
The Decameron Project
Summary
A stunning collection of short stories originally commissioned by The New York Times Magazine as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, from 29 authors including Margaret Atwood, Tommy Orange, Edwidge Danticat, this year's National Book Award winner Charles Yu, and more. When reality is surreal, only fiction can make sense of it. In 1353, Giovanni Boccaccio wrote The Decameron: 100 nested tales told by a group of young men and women passing the time at a villa outside Florence while waiting out the gruesome Black Death, a plague that killed more than 25 million people. Some of the stories are silly, some are bawdy, some are like fables. In March 2020, the editors of The New York Times Magazine created The Decameron Project, an anthology with a simple, time-spanning goal: to gather a collection of stories written as our current pandemic first swept the globe. How might new fiction from some of the finest writers working today help us memorialize and understand the unimaginable? And what could be learned about how this crisis will affect the art of fiction? These 29 new stories, from authors including Margaret Atwood, Tommy Orange, Edwidge Danticat, Charles Yu, Rachel Kusher, Colm Toibin, and David Mitchell vary widely in texture and tone. Their work will be remembered as a historical tribute to a time and place unlike any other in our lifetimes, and will offer perspective and solace to the listener now and in a future where COVID-19 is, hopefully, just a memory. Table of Contents: “Preface” by Caitlin Roper “Introduction” by Rivka Galchen “Recognition” by Victor LaValle “A Blue Sky Like This” by Mona Awad “The Walk” by Kamila Shamsie “Tales from the LA River” by Colm Tóibín “Clinical Notes” by Liz Moore “The Team” by Tommy Orange “The Rock” by Leila Slimani “Impatient Griselda” by Margaret Atwood “Under the Magnolia” by Yiyun Li “Outside” by Etgar Keret “Keepsakes” by Andrew O’Hagan “The Girl with the Big Red Suitcase” by Rachel Kushner “The Morningside” by Téa Obreht “Screen Time” by Alejandro Zambra “How We Used to Play” by Dinaw Mengestu “Line 19 Woodstock/Glisan” by Karen Russell “If Wishes was Horses” by David Mitchell “Systems” by Charles Yu “The Perfect Travel Buddy” by Paolo Giordano “An Obliging Robber” by Mia Cuoto “Sleep” by Uzodinma Iweala “Prudent Girls” by Rivers Solomon “That Time at My Brother’s Wedding” by Laila Lalami “A Time of Death, the Death of Time” by Julián Fuks “The Cellar” by Dina Nayeli “Origin Story” by Matthew Baker “To the Wall” by Esi Edugyan “Barcelona: Open City” by John Wray “One Thing” by Edwidge Danticat
©2020 The New York Times. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
Her Father's Fugitive Throne
Summary
The shadow of the Beast stalks Meluscia's every move. The prophetess' dire warning looms as Meluscia fights to attain the throne. All the while, the dark Master of the Star Portal threatens to slay her and her band of prophets, bringing the world of Hearth into chaos. Torn from the world he knows, Aven is held captive aboard a ship of ruthless mercenaries. Winter's vision of the horrible creature becomes reality for Aven, and he must face the monsters of his past and present - for there is nowhere to run.
©2018 Brandon Barr (P)2019 Podium Publishing
Stealing Freedom
Summary
Inspired by a true story, here is the riveting novel of a young slave girl's harrowing escape to freedom on the Underground Railroad. The moment Ann Maria Weems was born, her freedom was stolen from her. Like her family and the other slaves on the farm, Ann works from sunup to sundown and obeys the orders of her master. Then one day, Ann's family - the only joy she knows - is gone. Just 12 years old, Ann is overcome by grief, struggling to get through each day. And her only hope of stealing back her freedom and finding her family lies in a perilous journey: the Underground Railroad.
©1998 Elisa Carbone (P)2011 Audio Bookshelf
More: International Edition
Summary
Winner of the Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for his novel The Polished Hoe, Austin Clarke is among Canada's most celebrated authors. More follows Barbados native and Toronto resident Idora Morrison, who cannot muster the desire to rise one morning. Her husband has left her, her son has chosen gang life, and societal prejudices have slowly chipped away at her resolve. "At the height of his literary power, Clarke boldly challenges, and transforms, Canadian sense and sensibility." (Globe & Mail)
©2009 Austin Clarke (P)2020 Recorded Books, Inc.
METAtropolis: Green Space
Summary
Audie Award Finalist, Original Work, 2014 Audible’s Audie Award-winning and Hugo Award-nominated vision of the not-too-distant future returns! As METAtropolis: Green Space moves into the 22nd Century, human social evolution is heading in new directions after the Green Crash and the subsequent Green Renaissance. Nearly everyone who cares to participate in the wired world has become part of the "Internet of things", a virtual environment mapped across all aspects of the natural experience. At the same time, the serious back-to-the-land types have embraced a full-on paleo lifestyle, including genetically engineering themselves and their offspring. At the same time, a back-to-space movement is seeking the moon, a green Mars, and even the stars, with the eventual goal of leaving a pristine and undisturbed Earth behind. METAtropolis: Green Space is the creation of Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominee Jay Lake; Hugo Award winning writers Seanan McGuire, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Elizabeth Bear; New York Times best-selling author Tobias S. Buckell; Aurora Award winner Karl Schroeder; and critically-acclaimed author Ken Scholes.
©2013 Joseph E. Lake, Jr., Elizabeth Bear, Karl Schroeder, Seanan McGuire, Tobias S. Buckell, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ken Scholes (P)2013 Audible Inc.