Ron Butler has narrated 146 audiobooks on Listento.it by 132 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.2★ across 3,035 ratings. The most-rated is Kingdom of Ash.
The Gay Agenda
Summary
A joyful celebration of the LGBTQ+ community’s development, history, and culture Compiled and designed by queer power couple Ashley Molesso and Chessie Needham, founders of the popular Brooklyn stationery company Ash + Chess, The Gay Agenda is an inviting and entertaining guide that pays tribute to the LGBTQ+ community. Filled with engaging descriptions, interesting facts, and helpful features - such as historical queer icons and events and LGBTQ+ acronym definitions - this fabulous compendium illuminates the transformation of the community, highlighting its struggles, achievements, landmarks, and contributions. It also salutes iconic members of the LGBTQ+ community - the celebrities, politicians, entrepreneurs, and ordinary citizens who have made a notable impact on gay life and society itself. The Gay Agenda is a nostalgic look back for older generations, an archive for younger people, and a helpful introduction for those interested in learning more about the community and its contributions. From James Baldwin and Emma Goldman to Marsha P. Johnson and Jodie Foster; the Pink Triangle and the Rainbow Flag to Stonewall and the AIDS crisis; Matthew Shepard and Pulse Nightclub to sodomy laws and Obergefell; drag and transitioning to The L Word and the Kinsey Scale, Freddie Mercury and Ellen Degeneres to Laverne Cox and David Bowie, this magnificent digest is a keepsake honoring all LGBTQ+, and the ongoing fight to gain - and maintain - equality for all. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Ashley Molesso, Chessie Needham (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 2
Summary
The second volume of a new best-of-the-year science fiction short story anthology edited by Hugo Award-winning editor Neil Clarke. First contact with a mysterious race of aliens reveals an unusual request; a family's pet dog comes to grips with the newly bestowed gift of human-like intelligence; a poet, in danger and alone on a distant world, makes unlikely allies; hundreds of years in the future, a famous hermit lives in the sea above the now-underwater Harvard University; former friends navigate unsteady peace between human refugees and the technologically superior race that saved them; in a future where human life can be infinitely extended through cybertronic rebirth, one woman declines immortality. For decades, science fiction has compelled us to imagine futures both inspiring and cautionary. Whether it's a warning message from a survey ship, a harrowing journey to a new world, or the adventures of well-meaning AI, science fiction inspires the imagination and delivers a lens through which we can view ourselves and the world around us. With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Two, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 27 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2016. Table of contents: "The Visitor from Taured" by Ian R. MacLeod (Asimov's, September 2016) "Extraction Request" by Rich Larson (Clarkesworld, January 2016) "A Good Home" by Karin Lowachee (Lightspeed, June 2016) "Prodigal" by Gord Sellar (Analog, December 2016) "Ten Days" by Nina Allan (Now We Are Ten, edited by Ian Whates) "Terminal" by Lavie Tidhar (Tor.com, April 2016) "Panic City" by Madeline Ashby (CyberWorld, edited by Jason Heller and Joshua Viola) "Last Gods" by Sam J. Miller (Drowned Worlds, edited by Jonathana Strahan) "HigherWorks" by Gregory Norman Bossert (Asimov's, December 2016) "A Strange Loop" by T.R. Napper (Interzone, January/February 2016) "Night Journey of the Dragon-Horse" by Xia Jia (Invisible Planets, edited by Ken Liu) "Pearl" by Aliette de Bodard (The Starlit Wood, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe) "The Metal Demimonde" by Nick Wolven (Analog, June 2016) "The Iron Tactician" by Alastair Reynolds (Newcon Press) "The Mighty Slinger" by Tobias S. Buckell and Karen Lord (Bridging Infinity, edited by Jonathana Strahan) "They All Have One Breath" by Karl Bunker (Asimov's, December 2016) "Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea" by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed, February 2016) "And Then, One Day, the Air was Full of Voices" by Margaret Ronald (Clarkesworld, June 2016) "The Three Lives of Sonata James" by Lettie Prell (Tor.com, October 2016) "The Charge and the Storm" by An Owomoyela (Asimov's, February 2016) "Parables of Infinity" by Robert Reed (Bridging Infinity, edited by Jonathana Strahan) "Ten Poems for the Mossums, One for the Man" by Suzanne Palmer (Asimov's, July 2016) "You Make Pattaya" by Rich Larson (Interzone, November/December 2016) "Number Nine Moon" by Alex Irvine (F&SF, January/February 2016) "Things with Beards" by Sam J. Miller (Clarkesworld, June 2016) "Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit-Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts" by Ken Liu (Drowned Worlds, edited by Jonathana Strahan) "Touring with the Alien" by Carolyn Ives Gilman (Clarkesworld, April 2016)
©2017 Neil Clarke (P)2020 Recorded Books
The Limits of the World
Summary
The Chandaria family - emigrants from the Indian enclave of Nairobi - have managed to flourish in America. Premchand, the father, is a doctor who has worked doggedly to grow his practice and give his family security; his wife, Urmila, runs a business importing artisanal Kenyan crafts; and their son, Sunil, after quitting the pre-med track, has gotten accepted to a PhD program in philosophy at Harvard. But the parents have kept a very important secret from Sunil: his cousin, Bimal, is actually his older brother. And when this previously hidden history is revealed by an unforeseen accident, and the entire family is forced to return to Nairobi, Sunil reveals his own well-kept, explosive secret: his Jewish-American girlfriend, who has accompanied him to Kenya, is, in fact, already his wife. Spanning four generations and three continents, The Limits of the World illuminates the vast mosaic of cultural divisions and ethical considerations that shape the ways in which we judge one another's actions. A dazzling debut novel - written with rare empathy and insight - it is a powerful depiction of how we prevent ourselves, unwittingly and otherwise, from understanding the people we are closest to.
©2019 Jennifer Acker (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Bennetts' Wedding
Summary
It’s been 15 years. and now those Bennett girls are all grown up, finished with college and ready to take on the world in their new careers. Close as ever, Kennedy, Victoria, Monica, and Sebrina decide not to return to Georgia, but to move north to St. Paul, Minnesota. They have plans to succeed at all of their goals. Falling in love isn’t on the agenda. In The Bennetts’ Wedding, Kennedy and Victoria discover that when it’s your time, you can’t hide from love.
©2020 Brenda Jackson (P)2020 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited
Class Act
Summary
New York Times best-selling author Jerry Craft returns with a companion book to New Kid, winner of the 2020 Newbery Medal, the Coretta Scott King Author Award, and the Kirkus Prize. The audiobook was a 2020 Audie Awards Finalist for Middle Grade and named an Audible Best Audiobook of the Year. This time, it’s Jordan’s friend Drew who takes center stage in another laugh-out-loud funny, powerful, and important story about being one of the few kids of color in a prestigious private school. Eighth-grader Drew Ellis is no stranger to the saying “You have to work twice as hard to be just as good”. His grandmother has reminded him his entire life. But what if he works 10 times as hard and still isn’t afforded the same opportunities that his privileged classmates at the Riverdale Academy Day School take for granted? To make matters worse, Drew begins to feel as if his good friend Liam might be one of those privileged kids. He wants to pretend like everything is fine, but it's hard not to withdraw, and even their mutual friend Jordan doesn't know how to keep the group together. As the pressures mount, will Drew find a way to bridge the divide so he and his friends can truly accept each other? And most important, will he finally be able to accept himself? This original full-cast audio adaptation of the graphic novel is performed by Jesus Del Orden, Nile Bullock, Guy Lockard, Robin Miles, Peyton Lusk, Marc Thompson, Rebecca Soler, Dan Bittner, January LaVoy, Phoebe Strole, Jordan Cobb, Ron Butler, A.J Beckles, Miles J. Harvey, Kim Mai Guest, Kyla Garcia, and Soneela Nankani. New Kid, the first graphic novel to win the Newbery Medal, is now joined by Jerry Craft's powerful Class Act.
©2020 Jerry Craft (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
Atlanta Noir
Summary
Atlanta itself is a crime scene. After all, Georgia was founded as a de facto penal colony, and in 1864, Sherman burned the city to the ground. We might argue about whether the arson was the crime or the response to the crime, but this is indisputable: Atlanta is a city sewn from the ashes, and everything that grows here is at once fertilized and corrupted by the past. These stories do not necessarily conform to the traditional expectations of noir. However, they all share the quality of exposing the rot underneath the scent of magnolia and pine. Noir, in my opinion, is more a question of tone than content. The moral universe of the story is as significant as the physical space. Noir is a realm where the good guys seldom win; perhaps they hardly exist at all. Few bad deeds go unrewarded, and good intentions are not the road to hell but are hell itself. Welcome to Atlanta Noir. Come sit on the veranda or the terrace of a high-rise condo. Pour yourself a glass of sweet tea, and fortify it with a slug of bourbon. Put your feet up. Enjoy these stories, and watch your back. Contains mature themes.
©2017 Akashic Books (P)2018 Tantor