Best Audiobooks of 2011

It's that special time of year when we are required to come up with a list of the year's best books.  There were some fantastic audio titles this year, combining perfect narration with gripping stories.  If you haven't heard these, we highly recommend them, whether or not they're the sort of audiobook you'd normally listen to.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Part memoir, part humourous essays, all wonderful.  Tina Fey relates key moments of humiliation in her life and shows you exactly why 30 Rock is as funny as it is.

Life by Keith Richards

You wouldn't think that a guy who claims to have only slept a couple of days a week for years would still be able to pump out 20 discs worth of a life story, but he does!  Everything is Richards' life is so bizarre and improbably that it's compelling, even if you're not the biggest Stones fan.

At Home by Bill Bryson

Bryson excels at relating history in a way that makes you care.  In At Home, he uses his house as a jumping off point to discuss the origin of all kinds of domestic things, including windows, spices, and home surgery (that one, thankfully, remains in the past).

A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin

Martin's fans had waited for this one for years, but it also brought in a massive new audience (along with the TV version of A Game of Thrones).  Don't jump into the series with this fifth book (do start at the beginning, though!), and beware the cliffhanger ending.

The Reversal by Michael Connelly

Connelly's Harry Bosch series can do no wrong, and many fans said The Reversal was the best entry yet.  Bosch and his half-brother are both working to keep a convicted child molester behind bars--you won't be able to stop listening.

Room by Emma Donoghue

For the more literary among us, try Room.  Even though it's about a child and his mother kept prisoner in a room, the writing and narration make it gripping.  It's rare for an author to let you into the character's head the way Donoghue does with Jack, and fans of The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-time shouldn't miss it.

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

Follett is best known for his medieval Pillars of the Earth series, but has now moved on to the 20th century, crafting a saga of five families as they move through World War I.  Thrilling enough for thriller fans, and with enough detail to please history buffs, Fall of Giants has proved to be one of the most popular audiobooks this year.

Listening vs. reading

Ever wonder whether there's a difference in how the brain processes audiobooks versus paper books?  As it turns out, the brain actually creates images better when being read to than when reading from a book.  This will probably come as no surprise to anyone who has listened while staring into space, envisioning the action of the audiobook.  PsychCentral has collected links to the research proving this in a great article:

"What this research revealed perhaps argues for the superiority of the audio book: Reading interferes with imagery.
When you think about it, this makes sense because (as the researchers explain) reading and imagining both require visual representation. It appears that when the visual bits of our brain are busy taking in the written word, there’s less of them available for creating an image of the content."

Click here for the rest of the article--it's definitely worth it! 

Death Comes to Pemberley = "incomparably perfect"

PD James's new audiobook, Death Comes to Pemberley, has just gotten possibly the most positive book review we've ever seen over at USA Today:

"Countless authors writing in a plethora of genres have tried to re-create Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but James' new novel is incomparably perfect. . . Now 91, she's released this magnificent novel. We can only hope for a sequel. We wish P.D. James all the time in the world."

We already have a lot of PD James fans around here, but it sounds like this one should make many more!


Click here for the rest of the review.


Or click here for the audiobook.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

The New York Times has just rated Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow one of the 10 best books of 2011, and it's been getting a lot of positive buzz in the stores as well.  Kahneman delves into human thought processes, particularly how we make snap decisions versus reasoned, logical conclusions.  We could quote the New York Times telling you how important and memorable the book is, but instead here's what they say about why experiences that end unpleasantly are remembered as worse than those that are consistently unpleasant:

"As with colonoscopies, so too with life. It is the remembering self that calls the shots, not the experiencing self."
 
Click here for the rest of the review.

Or click here for the audiobook.

The Drop by Michael Connelly

Fans of the long-running Harry Bosch series will be happy to hear there's a new installment out: The Drop.  This time Harry is closing in on retirement when he gets pulled into two cases, a suicide and a cold case.  CNN interviews Michael Connelly about the new audiobook:


"CNN: What was the spark behind your latest book?
Connelly: Actually, there were a couple different sparks. The book has two parallel stories going through it. One I call the political story. In a turnabout, Harry ends up more or less working for a guy who's been his nemesis in other books. That was an idea suggested to me by a cop a long time ago, and I've been holding on to it, carrying it around with me, waiting for the right time to write that story."

Click here for the rest of the interview.

Click here for the audiobook, or here for more Michael Connelly titles.

Fiction New Releases

Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston

In Jurassic Park, he created a terrifying new world. Now, in Micro, Michael Crichton reveals a universe too small to see and too dangerous to ignore.  In a locked Honolulu office building, three men are found dead with no sign of struggle except for the ultrafine, razor-sharp cuts covering their bodies. The only clue left behind is a tiny bladed robot, nearly invisible to the human eye.  [read more]

Inheritance by Christopher Paolini

Not so very long ago, Eragon - Shadeslayer, Dragon Rider - was nothing more than a poor farm boy, and his dragon, Saphira, only a blue stone in the forest. Now the fate of an entire civilization rests on their shoulders.  Long months of training and battle have brought victories and hope, but they have also brought heartbreaking loss. And still, the real battle lies ahead: they must confront Galbatorix.  [read more]

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

It’s the early 1980s—the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever. In the cafés on College Hill, the wised-up kids are inhaling Derrida and listening to Talking Heads. But Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English major, is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels.  [read more]

Kill Alex Cross by James Patterson

The president's son and daughter are abducted, and Detective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene. But someone very high-up is using the FBI, Secret Service, and CIA to keep him off the case and in the dark.  A deadly contagion in the water supply cripples half of the capital, and Alex discovers that someone may be about to unleash the most devastating attack the United States has ever experienced.  [read more]

V is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton

A woman with a murky past who kills herself--or was it murder? A spoiled kid awash in gambling debt who thinks he can beat the system. A lovely woman whose life is about to splinter into a thousand fragments. A professional shoplifting ring working for the Mob, racking up millions from stolen goods. A wandering husband, rich and ruthless. A dirty cop so entrenched on the force he is immune to exposure.  [read more]

The Night Eternal by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan

It’s been two years since the vampiric virus was unleashed in The Strain and the entire world now lies on the brink of annihilation. There has been a mass extermination of humans orchestrated by the Master - an ancient vampire possessed of unparalleled powers. The future of humankind lies in the hands of a ragtag band of freedom fighters - Dr. Eph Goodweather, Dr. Nora Martinez, Vasiliy Fet, and Mr. Quinlan, the half-breed offspring of the Master who is bent on revenge.  [read more]

The Next Always by Nora Roberts

The historic hotel in Boonsboro has endured war and peace, the changing of hands, and even rumored hauntings. Now it’s getting a major face-lift from the Montgomery brothers and their eccentric mother. As the architect in the family, Beckett’s social life consists mostly of talking shop over pizza and beer. But there’s another project he’s got his eye on: the girl he’s been waiting to kiss since he was sixteen.  [read more]

Non Fiction New Releases

That Used to Be Us by Thomas Friedman

America has a huge problem. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends, and it is failing to meet them. In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign policy thinkers, analyze those challenges - globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and its pattern of energy consumption - and spell out what we need to do now to rediscover America and rise to this moment.  [read more]

Midas Touch by Donald Trump & Robert Kiyosaki

What makes some business owners wildly successful? What separates the entrepreneurs who build businesses from ones who just seem to create more work for themselves? How, exactly do the world’s most prominent business builders seem to hit home run after home run? The answer: They have the Midas Touch.  [read more]

Great by Choice by Jim Collins & Morten T. Hansen

The new question: Ten years after the worldwide best seller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns to ask: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? In Great by Choice, Collins and his colleague, Morten T. Hansen, enumerate the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times.  The new study: Great by Choice distinguishes itself from Collins’s prior work by its focus on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today.  [read more]

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

The guru to the gurus at last shares his knowledge with the rest of us. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's seminal studies in behavioral psychology, behavioral economics, and happiness studies have influenced numerous other authors, including Steven Pinker and Malcolm Gladwell. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman at last offers his own, first book for the general public. It is a lucid and enlightening summary of his life's work. It will change the way you think about thinking.  [read more]

War of the Worldviews by Deepak Chopra & Leonard Mlodonow

Two bestselling authors first met in a televised Caltech debate on “the future of God,” one an articulate advocate for spirituality, the other a prominent physicist. This remarkable book is the product of that serendipitous encounter and the contentious - but respectful - clash of worldviews that grew along with their friendship. In War of the Worldviews these two great thinkers battle over the cosmos, evolution and life, the human brain, and God, probing the fundamental questions that define the human experience.  [read more]

Now You See It by Cathy Davidson

Using cutting-edge research on the brain, Davidson shows how the phenomenon of "attention blindness" shapes our lives, and how it has led to one of the greatest problems of our historical moment: Although we blog, tweet, and text as if by instinct, far too many of us still toil in schools and workplaces designed for the last century, not the one we live in. To change this, we must ask ourselves critical questions: How can we redesign our schools to prepare our kids for the challenges they'll face as adults?  [read more]

Civilization by Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson's last audiobook, The Ascent of Money, was such a smash hit that we're expecting good things of his new one.  Civilization: The West and the Rest is out this week and should be a great listen for history buffs.  From the New York Times review:

"What keeps the reader pushing on through “Civilization” is the author’s knack for making long-ago events as vivid and visceral as the evening news, for weaving anecdotes and small telling details together with a wide-angled retrospective vision. "

Click here for the rest of the review.

Or click here for the audiobook.

Non Fiction New Releases

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries.  [read more]

The Time of Our Lives by Tom Brokaw

Tom Brokaw, known and beloved for his landmark work in American journalism and for the New York Times bestsellers The Greatest Generation and Boom!, now turns his attention to the challenges that face America in the new millennium, to offer reflections on how we can restore America’s greatness. “What happened to the America I thought I knew?” Brokaw writes.  [read more]

Back to Work by Bill Clinton

President Bill Clinton gives us his views on the challenges facing the United States today and why government matters--presenting his ideas on restoring economic growth, job creation, financial responsibility, resolving the mortgage crisis, and pursuing a strategy to get us "back in the future business."  [read more]

Here Comes Trouble by Michael Moore

Michael Moore-Oscar-winning filmmaker, bestselling author, the nation's unofficial provocateur laureate-is back, this time taking on an entirely new role, that of his own meta-Forest Gump. Breaking the autobiographical mode, he presents twenty-four far-ranging, irreverent, and stranger-than-fiction vignettes from his own early life.  [read more]

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck–impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence “Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I’ll shut up about it?”  [read more]

Fiction New Releases

The Litigators by John Grisham

The partners at Finley & Figg--all two of them--often refer to themselves as "a boutique law firm." Boutique, as in chic, selective, and prosperous. They are, of course, none of these things. What they are is a two-bit operation always in search of their big break, ambulance chasers who've been in the trenches much too long making way too little.  [read more]

Aleph by Paulo Coelho

In his most personal novel to date, internationally best-selling author Paulo Coelho returns with a remarkable journey of self-discovery. Like the main character in his much-beloved "The Alchemist, " Paulo is facing a grave crisis of faith. As he seeks a path of spiritual renewal and growth, he decides to begin again: to travel, to experiment, to reconnect with people and the landscapes around him.  [read more]

The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks

In the spring of 1984, high school students Amanda Collier and Dawson Cole fell deeply, irrevocably in love. Though they were from opposite sides of the tracks, their love for one another seemed to defy the realities of life in the small town of Oriental, North Carolina. But as the summer of their senior year came to a close, unforeseen events would tear the young couple apart, setting them on radically divergent paths.  [read more]

Lethal by Sandra Brown

When her four year old daughter informs her a sick man is in their yard, Honor Gillette rushes out to help him. But that "sick" man turns out to be Lee Coburn, the man accused of murdering seven people the night before. Dangerous, desperate, and armed, he promises Honor that she and her daughter won't be hurt as long as she does everything he asks. She has no choice but to accept him at his word.  [read more]

The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks

In the spring of 1984, high school students Amanda Collier and Dawson Cole fell deeply, irrevocably in love. Though they were from opposite sides of the tracks, their love for one another seemed to defy the realities of life in the small town of Oriental, North Carolina. But as the summer of their senior year came to a close, unforeseen events would tear the young couple apart, setting them on radically divergent paths.  [read more]

Robert Ludlum's The Ares Decision by Kyle Mills

A COVERT-ONE novel by Kyle Mills

With U.S. intelligence agencies wracked by internal power struggles and paralyzed by bureaucracy, the President was forced to establish his own clandestine group-Covert-One. It is only activated as a last resort, when the threat is on a global scale and time is running out.  [read more]

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley
It’s Christmastime, and the precocious Flavia de Luce—an eleven-year-old sleuth with a passion for chemistry and a penchant for crime-solving—is tucked away in her laboratory, whipping up a concoction to ensnare Saint Nick. But she is soon distracted when a film crew arrives at Buckshaw, the de Luces’ decaying English estate, to shoot a movie starring the famed Phyllis Wyvern.  [read more]

Time travel with Stephen King

If you ever thought about what would happen if you could travel back in time and stop a pivotal event, Stephen King's new audiobook 11/23/63 is the audiobook for you.  In a bit of a departure from his normal horror fare, King writes about a teacher who gets sent back in time and becomes obsessed with preventing the Kennedy assassination.  The New York Times approves:

"The pages of '11/22/63' fly by, filled with immediacy, pathos and suspense. It takes great brazenness to go anywhere near this subject matter. But it takes great skill to make this story even remotely credible. Mr. King makes it all look easy, which is surely his book’s fanciest trick."

Click here for the rest of the review.

Click here for the audiobook.

Ellen Degeneres and audio - a perfect combination

To end the week on a lighter note, check out Ellen Degeneres's new audiobook, Seriously. . .I'm Kidding.  It's perfect for fun weekend plans or for holiday gifts for just about anyone (if you're shopping this early!).  Here's an excerpt from Today Books that ought to make you want to listen to the rest:

"Perhaps you might like to hear about some of the highlights that have occurred throughout my life and career, but it’s hard to know what highlights you would find exciting versus the highlights I think are exciting. For example, a few years ago I called my credit card company and got a late fee reversed that quite honestly I didn’t think they’d reverse."

Click here for the rest of the excerpt.

Or click here for the audiobook.

Blue Nights by Joan Didion

Joan Didion's Blue Nights is not the audiobook to listen to if you're already feeling down.  Picking up where The Year of Magical Thinking left off, Didion explores her daughter's death and her own struggle with grief.  The Wall Street Journal provides a good reason to listen to it:

"Yet, with her poignant descriptions of a much-loved little girl who grew up to be a troubled but still cherished woman, Ms. Didion has created something luminous amid her self-recrimination and sorrow. It's her final gift to her daughter—one that only she could give."

Click here for the rest of the review.
Or click here for the audiobook.

Non Fiction New Releases

How to Win Friends & Influence People in the Digital Age by Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie could never have predicted the trajectory that new media would take, and the ways that the simple television screen would be adapted into computers and handheld communication devices. He didn't know the term "social media" and Facebook was something not even dreamed of in Buck Rogers cartoons. And yet his lessons remain relevant for everyone who communicates online today.  [read more]

The Secrets of the FBI by Ronald Kessler

The Secrets of the FBI, by New York Times best-selling author Ronald Kessler, reveals the FBI's most closely guarded secrets and the secrets of celebrities, politicians, and movie stars uncovered by agents during their investigations.  Based on inside access, the book presents revelations about the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, the recent Russian spy swap, Marilyn Monroe's death, Vince Foster's suicide, and J. Edgar Hoover's sexual orientation.  [read more]

The 3rd Alternative by Stephen Covey

The 3rd Alternative introduces a breakthrough approach to conflict resolution and creative problem solving. One of Time magazine’s 25 most influential Americans, Dr. Stephen R. Covey has helped millions transform their lives. In The 3rd Alternative, Covey turns his formidable insight to a powerful new way to resolve professional and personal difficulties and create solutions to great challenges in organizations and society.  [read more]

Willpower by Ray Baum

For years, our concept of the self and well-being has been dominated by the notion of self-esteem, while the old fashioned value of willpower has been disparaged by psychologists who argued that we’re largely driven by unconscious forces beyond our control. In Willpower Baumeister and Tierney turn this misinformation on its head to reveal self-control as arguably the single most powerful indicator of success.  [read more]

Fiction New Releases

The Affair by Lee Child

Everything starts somewhere.... For elite military cop Jack Reacher, that somewhere was Carter Crossing, Mississippi, way back in 1997. A lonely railroad track. A crime scene. A coverup.  A young woman is dead, and solid evidence points to a soldier at a nearby military base. But that soldier has powerful friends in Washington.  Reacher is ordered undercover - to find out everything he can, to control the local police, and then to vanish.  [read more]

Feast Day of Fools by James Lee Burke

Celebrated crime master and two-time Edgar Award winner James Lee Burke returns with a gorgeously crafted, brutally resonant chronicle of violence along the Texas-Mexico border.  Sheriff Hackberry Holland patrols a small Southwest Texas border town, meting out punishment and delivering justice in his small square of this magnificent but lawless land.  [read more]

The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory

Descended from Melusina, the river goddess, Jacquetta always has had the gift of second sight. As a child visiting her uncle, she met his prisoner, Joan of Arc, and saw her own power reflected in the young woman accused of witchcraft. They share the mystery of the tarot card of the wheel of fortune before Joan is taken to a horrific death at the hands of the English rulers of France. Jacquetta understands the danger for a woman who dares to dream.  [read more]

The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje

In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the “cat’s table” - as far from the Captain’s Table as can be - with a ragtag group of “insignificant” adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another, bursting all over the place like freed mercury.  [read more]

Interview with Nora Roberts

No romance author is more popular around here than Nora Roberts, so we were excited to see this great interview with her at USA Today's Happy Ever After blog.  Did you know she owns an inn?  Or that she's second only to Oprah in charitable donations amongst celebrities? 

Click here for the rest.

Click here for Nora Roberts audiobooks.

Sample of the new Walking Dead audiobook

For those of you who follow the TV series The Walking Dead (or the original comic books), here's a link to a sample of the new audiobook version.  It should be perfect Halloween listening.

Click here for "Exclusive Audiobook Excerpt: 'The Walking Dead - Rise of the Governor'"

Free samples of Stephen King's newest audiobook

For all you Stephen King fans out there, here's a link to free samples of his upcoming audiobook, 11/22/63, which will be about the assassination of JFK:

Click here for the details.

Wilbur Smith, still popular after all these years

Once in awhile, an author's popularity slowly and unexpectedly creeps up on us.  They may have been writing for years, but suddenly everyone is interested.  Wilbur Smith is one of the authors of the moment in our stores, and he's excellent for people who like a good thriller along the lines of Clive Cussler.  Check out his newest audiobook if you haven't yet: Those in Peril. 

Not convinced?  Here's what Milo's Rambles has to say:

"The narrative is astonishingly fresh and grabs you from the start. I found the flow interesting – on the edge action scenes, realistic scenarios and fluidity that will leave you breathless counteract Smith’s steady scene building prose – unquestionably masterful, why on earth had I left it so long between novels?"

Click here for the rest of the review..

Click here for the audiobook.

Also new this week: is Richard Dawkins mellowing?

Richard Dawkins is not known for his delicate approach in persuading people that atheism is the way to go, but his new audiobook looks decidedly less abrasive.  The Magic of Reality, out this week, explains the many cool things that scientists agree definitely exist in the world.  It probably still won't please the devout, but that's probably not his goal in any case.  The Washington Post has an interview with Dawkins with a surprising revelation:

"Despite his criticism of superstitions, he allows, with a chuckle, 'I’m only human. Intellectually I don’t believe in ghosts, but I might be reluctant to spend the night in a haunted house, being there alone in the middle of the night.'"

Click here for the rest of the interview, or click here for the audiobook.