Staci Snell has narrated 17 audiobooks on Listento.it by 18 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 22 ratings. The most-rated is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Summary
Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award, Fiction, 2008 Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuku: the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim. Diaz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience – and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss. A true literary triumph, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao confirms Junot Diaz as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time. Also includes the bestselling short story collection Drown.
©2007 Junot Diaz (P)2007 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. and Books on Tape
The Summer Kitchen
Summary
From the author of A Month of Summer, an inspiring new novel in the Blue Sky Hill series about one woman's effect on a struggling Dallas neighborhood. With her adopted son missing and the rest of her family increasingly estranged, Sandra Kaye Darden is drawn to the little pink house where her Uncle Poppy once provided security. What begins for Sandra as a simple painting project, meant to prepare the house for sale, becomes a secret venture that eventually changes everything. Cass Blue is having trouble keeping food on the table since she ditched foster care. When Sandra Kaye shows up with lunch one day, Cass has no way of knowing that the meeting will lead to the creation of a place of refuge that could reunite a divided community. In this moving story of second chances, two unlikely allies realize their ability to make a difference...and the power of what becomes known as the Summer Kitchen to nourish the soul.
©2009, 20118 Lisa Wingate (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Unraveled
Summary
As a 12-year-old girl, Maria Housden's vision of a happy future included everything that society expects girls to yearn for: a home, a husband, and, of course, children. Life had other plans. Unraveled is Housden's riveting and thoughtful story of how, after the death of her young daughter, she found the courage to break away from her role as a wife and stay-at-home mom and strike out on her own in search of a more fulfilling life. Leaving her three surviving children in the primary custody of her husband, Housden faced down the disbelief of friends and family and began a journey that would ultimately lead her not only to the truth about herself, but also to a deeper and more loving connection with her children. Housden writes about the emotional reckoning that led to her decision and the ways in which she has become the best mother she can be while no longer living with her children full-time. With fierce honesty and the same gift for poignantly beautiful writing that she demonstrated in the best-selling Hannah's Gift, Housden makes a valuable contribution to our collective conversation about mothering, marriage, and the assumptions we make about the way life is supposed to be. Unraveled is the remarkable story of one woman's choice not to live every girl's dream...and instead to find her own.
©2005 Maria Housden (P)2005 Books on Tape, Inc.
For Laci
Summary
Laci Rocha Peterson, eight months pregnant, was last seen by her sister, Amy, in the late afternoon of December 23, 2002. She spoke to her mother, Sharon Rocha, at 8:30 p.m. that night. This would be the last time anyone from her immediate family ever spoke to her. A search began which lasted an agonizing four months. Sadly, Laci Peterson and her son Conner were found dead on the shores of San Francisco Bay on April 18, 2003. Her husband, Scott, was eventually arrested and charged with the murder of Laci and Connor. After a sensational, media-saturated trial, Peterson was found guilty of capital murder and was sentenced to death on March 16, 2005. This book deals with the story in three separate sections: first, Sharon describes the ordinary, loving life her daughter led, including fond memories of her childhood and adolescence. Second, it covers her marriage, disappearance, the community's moving search for her, and her and Connor's eventual recovery from San Francisco Bay. Third, it tells the story of the trial in detail not before revealed. Sharon will also talk about victim's rights, a subject on which she now campaigns regularly.
©2005 Sharon Rocha (P)2006 Books on Tape
Blown
Summary
Former CIA analyst Francine Mathews has created “one of the toughest female secret agents we’ve seen in a long time.”* Using her firsthand expertise of international espionage, Mathews offers another brilliantly realized suspense novel so intense, so authentic, it lethally blurs the line between fact and fiction. In Blown, Caroline Carmichael returns in a white-hot tale of terror on the streets of Washington, where one woman must gamble her life to save her country. As thousands of runners line up for the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C., no one suspects that in a matter of hours the event will become a race between life and death. CIA analyst Caroline Carmichael is about to tender her resignation, when the first reports of a terrorist attack pour in - and she instantly recognizes the hand of an enemy she’s battled for years: the 30 April Organization. The neo-Nazi group is alive and well and operating in the United States, assassinating top officials and abducting a vulnerable child from the front ranks of a state funeral. When Caroline’s husband, Eric, is arrested in Germany as a 30 April operative, Caroline has no choice but to take to the streets - and target the evil herself. Eric has worked as a “legend” for years - a false identity so perfect, the CIA believes he’s dead - and gone deep undercover within the terrorist group Caroline is determined to destroy. Now his cover’s been blown, and Eric’s intimate knowledge of 30 April’s plans makes him a target for both sides: the killers he’s betrayed, and the American government he’s sworn to protect. Torn between a desire to save her husband and her duty to save her country, Caroline is drawn back into a treacherous labyrinth where trusting others is as good as suicide. For the enemy this time wears a familiar face: that of an American patriot, waving his flag alongside his gun. To stem disaster, Caroline has only one choice: to betray everyone in which she believes - or everyone she loves. For an agent without cover - an agent who’s blown - is worse than betrayed: she’s as good as dead. *USA Today
©2005 Francine Mathews (P)2005 Books on Tape, Inc.
Dreaming of Her
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, Pamela Colloff's "Dreaming of Her" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. On March 31, 1995, South Texas came to a standstill as the shocking news spread that the hugely popular Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla Perez had been shot and killed in Corpus Christi. She was a girl from the barrio whose voice won her a Grammy, sold millions of albums, and turned her into a sensation unlike any other. When she was murdered, Selena seemed to take with her the aspirations of fans across the globe. Fifteen years later, in this exclusive oral history, her family, bandmates, and friends recall the life and devastating death of a star who still mesmerizes us all.
©2013 Pamela Colloff (P)2018 Random House Audio
True Crime from Texas Monthly
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, the following articles spotlighting true crime are now available in a bundle as an audio download: "The Cheerleader Murder Plot" by Mimi Swartz, read by Pam Dougherty "The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob" by Skip Hollandsworth, read by Bruce DuBose "A Kiss Before Dying" by Pamela Colloff, read by Staci Snell and Karissa Vacker "The Talented Mr. Khater" by Francesca Mari, read by Mallorie Rodak "Just Desserts" by Katy Vine, read by Lydia Mackay "The Cheerleader Murder Plot" by Mimi Swartz features a woman who went to extreme, murderous lengths to ensure her daughter's spot on the cheerleading squad. "The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob" by Skip Hollandsworth profiles the mysterious Peggy Jo Tallas who, disguised as a man, robbed banks and confounded police for years. "A Kiss Before Dying" by Pamela Colloff revisits the case of Betty Williams, a high school student who begged her ex to kill her. "The Talented Mr. Khater" by Francesca Mari investigates the ongoing exploits of international con artist and psychopath Youssef Khater. "Just Desserts" by Katy Vine is the story of a man who turned "keeping up with the Joneses" into the perfect crime.
©2018 Texas Monthly (P)2018 Random House Audio
Willow Run
Summary
Meggie Dillon's life has been turned upside down by World War II. Her older brother Eddie enlisted and was shipped off to fight in Europe. And people say that anywhere else Grandpa would be turned in because he's German, and people might think he's a spy. Is it true? Could Grandpa be taken away? Meggie's father has announced that they must help the war effort and move to Willow Run, Michigan, where he'll work nights in a factory building important war planes that will help fight the enemy in Europe. Willow Run will be the greatest adventure ever, Meggie thinks. There she meets Patches and Harlan, other kids like her whose parents have come here to do their part in the war. And there she faces questions about courage, and what it takes to go into battle, like Eddie, and how to keep hope alive on the home front.
©2005 Patricia Reilly Giff (P)2005 Random House, Inc. Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group
The Innocent Man, Part Two
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, Pamela Colloff's "The Innocent Man, Part Two" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. Picking up where Part One of "The Innocent Man" left off, Pamela Colloff dives into what Michael Morton went through in the 25 years he was wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of his wife. Lawyers convinced of Michael's innocence sought appeal after appeal and were blocked repeatedly by a court system reluctant to admit their errors. Michael meanwhile dealt with the torments of prison, matched only by the torment of slowly losing hope of ever reconciling with his son. What began with the tragedy of losing his wife and what could have led to bitter vindication became the story of man seeking nothing more than the truth and a chance to start over.
©2018 Pamela Colloff (P)2018 Random House Audio
The Innocent Man, Part One
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, Pamela Colloff's "The Innocent Man, Part One" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. In 1986, in northwest Austin, Texas, Michael Morton came home from work to discover that his wife had been brutally murdered in their bed, with their son in the next room. In less than six months, he would be convicted of murdering her and sentenced to life in prison. In this detailed investigative piece of true crime journalism, Pamela Coloff picks apart how an innocent man was charged on insubstantial physical evidence and immature scientific evidence. In exploring Morton's story, Colloff examines the full cast of characters that made up the case. A portrait of a misunderstood marriage, a sheriff who played by his own rules, a district attorney eager to make a name for himself, and a close-knit community quick with judgement come together to create a nightmare that wouldn't end.
©2018 Pamela Colloff (P)2018 Random House Audio
The Long Goodbye
Summary
Ronald Reagan’s daughter writes with a moving openness about losing her father to Alzheimer’s disease. The simplicity with which she reveals the intensity, the rush, the flow of her feelings encompasses all the surprises and complexities that ambush us when death gradually, unstoppably invades life. In The Long Goodbye, Patti Davis describes losing her father to Alzheimer’s disease, saying goodbye in stages, helpless against the onslaught of a disease that steals what is most precious - a person’s memory. “Alzheimer’s,” she writes, “snips away at the threads, a slow unraveling, a steady retreat; as a witness all you can do is watch, cry, and whisper a soft stream of goodbyes.” She writes of needing to be reunited at 42 with her mother (“she had wept as much as I over our long, embittered war”), of regaining what they had spent decades demolishing; a truce was necessary to bring together a splintered family, a few weeks before her father released his letter telling the country and the world of his illness...The author delves into her memories to touch her father again, to hear his voice, to keep alive the years she had with him. She writes as if past and present were coming together, of her memories as a child, holding her father’s hand, and as a young woman whose hand is being given away in marriage by her father...of her father teaching her to ride a bicycle, of the moment when he let her go and she went off on her own...of his teaching her the difference between a hawk and a buzzard...of the family summer vacations at a rented beach house - each of them tan, her father looking like the athlete he was, with a swimmer’s broad shoulders and lean torso.... She writes of how her father never resisted solitude, in fact was born for it, of that strange reserve that made people reach for him....She recalls him sitting at his desk, writing, staring out the window...and she writes about the toll of the disease itself, the look in her father’s eyes, and her efforts to reel him back to her. Moving...honest...an illuminating portrait of grief, of a man, a disease, and a woman and her father.
©2004 Patti Davis (P)2004 Books on Tape
A Kiss Before Dying
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, Pamela Colloff's "A Kiss Before Dying" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. Few stories feel as classic as a well-told ghost story, the kind that makes your hair stand on end or sends chills down your spine even years after its alleged happening. Almost as classic are those stories that take place in high school, starring the jocks, the cheerleaders, and the outsiders; nostalgic for a time that almost certainly never was and yet remains a stalwart of American storytelling. Pamela Colloff's "A Kiss Before Dying" is both kinds of story and what's more, it's all true. Betty Williams was an outsider at a time when conformity was king: Texas in the 1960s. Mack Herring was the quintessential football player, handsome and well-liked by the sweater set-wearing girls Betty scoffed at. When their unlikely relationship came to an end and Betty's life began to spiral, she asked for death and Mack was more than happy to oblige. The resulting trial of Betty Williams' murder would shock no one familiar with the resolutions of today's rape cases. In "A Kiss Before Dying," Pamela Colloff weaves together a story that's part true crime, part high school classic, that feels at once contemporary as it does of another time.
©2006 Pamela Colloff (P)2018 Random House Audio
A Handbook to Luck
Summary
It is the late 1960s. We meet three children: Enrique Florit, from Cuba, living in southern California with his flamboyant magician father; Marta Claros, getting by in the slums of San Salvador and forced to leave school to help support her family, her beloved older brother having already left home; and Leila Rezvani, a well-to-do surgeon's daughter in Tehran, her mother concerned only with appearances, her father an often foolishly vocal opponent of the Shah. As we follow them across the next 20 years, we see chance draw Leila and Marta into Enrique's life; Leila and Enrique loving and losing each other, with Marta the means to renewed hope for Enrique; and, throughout, "good luck or bad tilting life one way or another" for all of them. With its cast of vividly drawn characters, its graceful movement through time, and its subtle revelation of the essential hopes and doubts of ordinary people whose lives are made extraordinary by circumstance, A Handbook to Luck is Cristina García's most beautiful, elegiac, and deeply emotional novel yet.
©2007 Cristina Garcia (P)2007 Books on Tape
Demon Rumm
Summary
It was the publicity stunt from hell as far as Kirsten Rumm was concerned. She may have been writing the book about her late husband, aeronautical daredevil Demon Rumm, but she didn't see the need to play host to the arrogant bad-boy actor starring in the film version's title role. Still, for the good of the project, Kirsten agreed to share her beachfront home with the impossibly sexy screen idol. Any other woman would do anything to be in her sandals, but Kirsten wasn't falling for Rylan North, even if he did play his role of male lead to perfection. His down-home charm, his gentleness and virile charisma, might be seducing her in every sense of the word, but he was an actor, after all. Seducing an audience was his job. Rylan could have any woman he wanted. So why was he so desperately pretending to want her? From the moment he saw her, Rylan North knew that Kirsten Rumm was the woman he'd been waiting all his life to cast as the star in his real-life love story. What did it matter if he was every woman's fantasy if he couldn't get Kirsten to so much as glance his way? He'd caught the look of past hurt behind her sky-blue eyes, a dark secret that shadowed the sparkle. Rylan was determined to find out what tragedy held this passionate woman back from a second chance at love even if it cost him his reputation, his career, and his life. But first he'd have to get Kirsten to act on her instincts...and to trust the flesh-and-blood man behind the fantasy.
©2004 Sandra Brown (P)2004 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a divison of Random House, Inc.
Eleven
Summary
Who is Sam, and what do his strange dreams mean? The shock of icy water as a boat crashes onto rocks feels real; so does the castle high above him that is almost hidden in the mists. And what about the number 11 woven into all those dreams? The papers Sam finds in the locked box in the attic may hold the answers - if only he could read them. But to Sam, words are like spiders flexing their thin legs as they move across the page. Words are impossible. It's wood that Sam understands, wood that he loves to shape and to build with. Caroline, the new girl, who bursts into Sam's classroom one day and warns him that she's not there to stay, helps build a castle with him, and reads those papers. Together they set out to discover who Sam really is and where he belongs.
©2008 Patricia Reilly Giff (P)2008 Random House, Inc.
A Whole New Light
Summary
Cyn McCall knew she could always count on her late husband's friend and business partner, Worth Lansing. He could make her laugh and forget her problems. She could tease him about his many romantic entanglements. The last thing Cyn expected was to find herself longing for a man who could never settle down.
©1989 Sandra Brown (P)2007 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Texas Business and Culture from Texas Monthly
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, the following articles highlighting Texas business and culture are now available in a bundle as an audio download: "The Slow Life and Fast Death of DJ Screw" by Michael Hall, read by Matt Bull "Dreaming of Her" by Pamela Colloff, read by Staci Snell "He Ain't Going Nowhere" by John Spong, read by Bruce DuBose "A Home of Last Resort" by Sonia Smith, read by Mallorie Rodak "The Shelf Life of John Mackey" by Tom Foster, read by Matt Bull "The Slow Life and Fast Death of DJ Screw" by Michael Hall is the layered story of one of the most influential cultural figures in Texas - a generous godfather to a generation of rappers, an entrepreneur of Houston's mean streets, and the master of a scene fueled by codeine cough syrup and hip-hop beats. "Dreaming of Her" by Pamela Colloff is the exclusive oral history of Selena Quintanilla Perez, as recalled by her closest family and friends. "He Ain't Going Nowhere" by John Spong profiles Guy Clark, the godfather of Nashville songwriters. "A Home of Last Resort" by Sonia Smith reports on a doomsday community for the rich under construction in Ector, Texas. "The Shelf Life of John Mackey" by Tom Foster is the exclusive story that led up to the momentous decision for Whole Foods to sell itself to Amazon.
©2018 Michael Hall, Pamela Colloff, John Spong, Sonia Smith, Tom Foster (P)2018 Random House Audio