Soneela Nankani narrates Farah Heron’s delightful contemporary romance with her whole heart, drawing listeners in with her enthusiasm. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss her skill at embodying the main character, Reena Manji, who has a job she doesn’t love and anxieties about her meddling Indian Muslim family. When she bumps into her new across-the-hall neighbor Nadim Remtulla, she’s initially intrigued by his British accent and easy charm--and then appalled when she learns her parents have arranged their marriage! Nankani takes listeners on an emotional rollercoaster ride as Reena and Nadim navigate their growing attraction, a fake engagement scheme, a Canadian reality-TV cooking contest, and explosive family secrets. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Hachette Audio. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com Observe the birth of Henry James with The Spoils of Poynton, performed by Juliet Stevenson. "Juliet Stevenson's love of reading aloud is obvious to anyone lucky enough to hear her." (AudioFile) On April 15, join a live talk with celebrated narrators of David Copperfield — Martin Jarvis, Simon Vance, Derek Perkins, and Nicholas Boulton each talk about how they approach the memorable characters of Charles Dickens’s DAVID COPPERFIELD. Register for the live talk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Behind the Mic with AudioFile Magazine

ACCIDENTALLY ENGAGED by Farah Heron, read by Soneela Nankani

AudioFile’s Emily Connelly and host Jo Reed discuss Angeline Boulley’s stunning debut and Isabella Star LaBlanc’s powerful narration. Set on state and tribal lands in Michigan, the story of Daunis, who has grown up between two cultures, is told with heartfelt compassion. While Daunis is an unenrolled tribal member, she has strong connections to her community and has chosen to stay home and take classes at the local community college to be near family. When tragedy strikes, she is suddenly caught up in an FBI investigation into a new form of meth tearing through her town. LaBlanc’s compelling narration, including skilled pronunciations of words in the Anishinaabe language, combined with the riveting plot truly makes this a young adult audiobook not to miss. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Macmillan Audio. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com In April, 1963, Winston Churchill was the first foreign national to receive honorary United States citizenship. An elegantly written tribute to the man and his place in history can be heard in Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat; “Roy McMillan’s reading glows with the same infectious passion for the subject as Jan Morris’s own.” (The Observer). On April 15, join a live talk with celebrated narrators of David Copperfield — Martin Jarvis, Simon Vance, Derek Perkins, and Nicholas Boulton each talk about how they approach the memorable characters of Charles Dickens’s DAVID COPPERFIELD. Register for the live talk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

FIREKEEPER'S DAUGHTER by Angeline Boulley, read by Isabella Star LaBlanc

Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss A.E. Ali’s sweet and comforting picture book, which Almarie Guerra narrates with a warm voice, perfect for young listeners. On Musa’s first day of kindergarten, his welcoming teacher, Ms. Gupta, promises the class that they will all become friends. Sweet-voiced Musa is worried, but Ms. Gupta provides a fun topic for the class—what is everyone’s favorite day of the year? Musa is surprised and delighted to find that the other children all have their own favorite days, and each enjoys getting a turn in the spotlight sharing their favorites, including Edi al-Fitr, Rosh Hashanah, Las Posadas, and Pi Day. It makes for a comforting listen for children, especially in this tumultuous school year. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Recorded Books. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award, narrator David Rintoul sweeps listeners into historian Alistair Moffat's tapestry of memoir, journalism, and religious history in To the Island of Tides: A Journey to Lindisfarne. “…a perfect blend of narrator, author, production team, and unique subject.” (AudioFile) On April 15, join a live talk with celebrated narrators of David Copperfield — Martin Jarvis, Simon Vance, Derek Perkins, and Nicholas Boulton each talk about how they approach the memorable characters of Charles Dickens’s DAVID COPPERFIELD. Register for the live talk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OUR FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR by A.E. Ali, read by Almarie Guerra

Xe Sands narrates with a quiet tension that suits the slow creep of Sarah Gailey’s sci-fi domestic thriller. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly talk about Sands’s skill with delivering all of the slowly building suspense in a smooth first-person narration. Evelyn Caldwell is an accomplished scientist in the field of cloning human adults, although her victories feel bittersweet. Her husband, Nathan, is having an affair, but the sweet-voiced Martine isn’t just another woman--Nathan has used Evelyn’s own research techniques to create a domestic and illegal clone of Evelyn herself. It makes for a satisfying, if disturbing audiobook. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Macmillan Audio Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com Galileo was convicted of heresy for holding the belief that the Earth revolves around the sun: Younger listeners learn more about scientists and their impactful discoveries in the Junior Classics series Great Scientists and their Discoveries by David Angus, his companion volume to Great Inventors and their Inventions from Naxos AudioBooks. “Clare Corbett and Benjamin Soames narrate conversationally, making the information vibrant.” (AudioFile) On April 15, join a live talk with celebrated narrators of David Copperfield — Martin Jarvis, Simon Vance, Derek Perkins, and Nicholas Boulton each talk about how they approach the memorable characters of Charles Dickens’s DAVID COPPERFIELD. Register for the live talk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THE ECHO WIFE by Sarah Gailey, read by Xe Sands

Karen Cass vividly reads this captivating audiobook from Anthony M. Amore. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss this true story of a 1970s aristocrat turned revolutionary. Wealthy Rose Dugdale, who begins as a conservative debutante who attends Oxford and earns a Ph.D in Economics, transforms into a radical supporter of the IRA She not only becomes a political revolutionary but masterminds a world-class art theft, including a Vermeer. Cass situates the listener with her apt English and Irish accents. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Brilliance Audio. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com Earphones Award Winner Bill Homewood talks to Raymond Bisha about the story of King Arthur and Thomas Malory’s much-loved reinterpretation Le Morte d’Arthur at Naxos AudioBooks Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THE WOMAN WHO STOLE VERMEER by Anthony M. Amore, read by Karen Cass

Narrator Kathe Mazur carefully crafts the diverse characters in this entertaining novel. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss Mazur’s talented narration of Carol Edgarian’s VERA, a riveting story set in 1906 after the San Francisco earthquake. Mazur’s rendition of whip-smart 15-year-old Vera captures her ability to see all sides of people, good and bad. Listeners will vividly imagine turn-of-the-century San Francisco, replete with scoundrels and kindly prostitutes. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Simon & Schuster Audio. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com April is the month that birds migrate north to settle down for the summer. Revive in yourself that old spring feeling, the passion for wild nature, with W.H. Hudson’s Birds in Town and Village, read with an easy, relaxed tone by Neville Jason: which Goodreads called “It is unfailingly charming…” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

VERA by Carol Edgarian, read by Kathe Mazur

Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss David Sadzin’s performance of this classic 1912 novel which is described as evocative, even poetic. James Weldon Johnson tells the unnamed man’s story in the first person, and Sadzin re-creates the character’s intimate and intelligent tone and catches the cadence of his self-conscious yet assured voice. Race, race relations, and the complex story of passing for white provide the sociological underpinnings of this short but compelling audiobook. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Brilliance Audio. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com April 2021 marks the 25th annual celebration of poets and poetry with National Poetry Month. Nicholas Farrell delivers an inspiring work of imagination from the William Wordsworth autobiography in verse, The Prelude: according to our reviewer at AudioFile The Prelude “ is an essential listen for anyone interested in the roots of Romanticism.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EX-COLORED MAN by James Weldon Johnson, read by David Sadzin

Performed with grace and care, Daniel Henning’s outstanding narration of this fine biography reveals, warts and all, the larger-than-life James Beard. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss John Birdsall’s biography of the renowned chef who is considered the dean of American cookery. Henning narrates with intelligence at a good pace, and gives the elegant prose its due. It’s an audiobook filled with luscious descriptions of places, meals, and people, and the author deftly handles the essential truth of Beard’s life: He rose to fame as a closeted gay man in homophobic postwar America. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by HighBridge Audio. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com After a fifteen hundred year break, the first Olympics of the modern era took place on April 6, 1896 in Athens. A History of the Olympics is a unique audiobook, our review at AudioFile said: “Barry Davis announces the history in an enjoyable, breezy manner.” Written by sports journalist John Goodbody, with a fascinating personal documentary featuring one of Britain’s leading Olympians, Sebastian Coe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THE MAN WHO ATE TOO MUCH by John Birdsall, read by Daniel Henning

Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss how this audiobook absorbs the listener from its prologue to its end. Narrator Rebecca Lowman presents the many complex characters with just the right pace and carefully acts the various voices. Lowman particularly illuminates the character of Hazel Saltwater, an introspective, damaged seer whose life is indelibly marked by events that take place on the night of February 6 during the Blizzard of ‘78. Jack Livings’s novel has mystery, mayhem, and sci-fi, flashing forward and back as it revels in the lost world of late 1970s Manhattan. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Brilliance Audio. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States, Booker T. Washington is remembered today. Hear his 1908 Atlanta Exposition Address in the Naxos AudioBooks production, Voices of Black America, now on Spotify. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THE BLIZZARD PARTY by Jack Livings, read by Rebecca Lowman

Narrators Cassandra Campbell, Tom Taylorson, and Rachel Jacobs channel each member of the close-knit Senter family. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss Meredith Hall’s audiobook, told with stunning performances that put listeners in the heart of the family before, during, and after a tragedy that changes the family forever. Set in the years spanning 1933 to the 1960s on a family farm in Maine and told in individual monologues, this beautiful, haunting story, performed with sensitivity, is best enjoyed on audio. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com Lew Wallace's Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ could be said to be the first American blockbuster. Jeff Harding’s vivid reading combines all the best elements of popular classic, epic and action story against a background of authoritative historical detail. Celebrate this Easter season with a “heart-of-the-book” production from Naxos AudioBooks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

BENEFICENCE by Meredith Hall, read by Cassandra Campbell, Tom Taylorson, Rachel Jacobs

Jan Morris’s piquant, irreverent daily diary about life as a nonagenarian in the 21st century is brought to vibrant life by narrator Jennifer M. Dixon. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss the late Morris’s observations on everything from world politics to neighborhood birds, aging, and family. Dixon is skilled at mirroring the author’s humor and essential kindness, encouraging us to savor her wisdom and honor her “equilibriumist” approach to life. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com April is SCOTTISH-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH. Some of our most iconic American literature, including The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and The Raven, are credited to tartan proud Scottish Americans. Adam Sims performs examples of early American fiction from Washington Irving and Edgar Allen Poe’s only complete novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, at naxosaudiobooks.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THINKING AGAIN by Jan Morris, read by Jennifer M. Dixon

Kathe Mazur narrates Walter Isaacson’s clear and well-researched biography of Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna. She, along with colleagues, advanced biochemistry by employing CRISPR technology to improve and simplify genetic engineering—ultimately leading to a safe and effective COVID vaccine. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss this audiobook that explores Doudna’s scientific achievements and the broader contexts. Mazur’s personable delivery and measured pace help listeners access the science and connect to Doudna’s research. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Simon & Schuster Audio. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com Today's episode of Behind the Mic is brought to you by Oasis Audio, publisher of The Real Hergé, the true story of the inspiration behind cultural phenomenon Tintin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THE CODE BREAKER by Walter Isaacson, read by Kathe Mazur, Walter Isaacson

This is an extraordinary audiobook about four extraordinary women who were war correspondents—the three women who are the subject of Becker’s book, as well as the author herself. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss Lisa Flanagan’s skill with her pitch-perfect narration in this account of trailblazing women. Flanagan moves from the harrowing action on the battlefields of Vietnam to the high-society backgrounds of the future journalists. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Hachette Audio. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com Support comes from Oasis Audio, publisher of The Last Queen. Simon Vance narrates a revelatory new biography of Queen Elizabeth and the royal Windsor family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

YOU DON'T BELONG HERE by Elizabeth Becker, read by Lisa Flanagan

Narrator Orlagh Cassidy returns to transport listeners back to bomb-shattered London of 1941. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss this long-running series, which has followed Maisie Dobbs from her time as a WWI nurse to her role working with the Special Operations Executive. Jacqueline Winspear’s attention to the details of time, place, and speech, paired with Cassidy’s spot-on performance, make for an engaging and authentic listening experience. In the 16th in the series, Maisie is investigating a murder, and she finds herself in a complex situation involving British and French intelligence agents. She struggles between her duty to serve her country and her dedication to her child. A deeply moving listening experience. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website. Published by Harper Audio. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com Support for our podcast comes from Oasis Audio, publisher of Frankenstein, a breathtaking Audie-nominated full-cast performance of the stage adaptation by A.S. Peterson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THE CONSEQUENCES OF FEAR by Jacqueline Winspear, read by Orlagh Cassidy

In our final look at the 2021 Audie Awards, host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb talk about some of the funniest audiobooks in the Audies competition--the nominees for the Humor award. It’s a category where comedians shine, full of audiobooks that will make you laugh out loud. The finalists for the 2021 Audie Awards Humor audiobooks are: THE NEW ONE by Mike Birbiglia, J. Hope Stein, read by Mike Birbiglia, J. Hope Stein, published by Hachette Audio NOTHING LIKE I IMAGINED by Mindy Kaling, read by Mindy Kaling, published by Brilliance Audio SMALL DOSES by Amanda Seales, read by Amanda Seales, published by Audible, Inc. SURRENDER, WHITE PEOPLE! by D.L. Hughley, Doug Moe, read by D.L. Hughley, published by Harper Audio A VERY PUNCHABLE FACE by Colin Jost, read by Colin Jost, published by Random House Audio WOW, NO THANK YOU. by Samantha Irby, read by Samantha Irby, published by Random House Audio Congratulations to this year’s winner, A VERY PUNCHABLE FACE written and narrated by Colin Jost. Hear a clip from the winner and more about the audiobook in today’s episode. Find a full list of 2021 Audie Award finalists and winners at theaudies.com Support for our podcast comes from Oasis Audio, publisher of Frankenstein, a breathtaking Audie-nominated full-cast performance of the stage adaptation by A.S. Peterson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Humor: 2021 Audie Awards

Find your next great audiobook on our podcast, Behind the Mic with AudioFile Magazine. Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile Editors recommend the best in audiobook listening. All in 6 minutes or less. It’s short, sweet, and just what your ears need. Got a bit more time? Listen to the bonus episode featuring conversations with the best voices in the audiobook industry.

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Behind the Mic with AudioFile Magazine

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