AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Now, y'all know we love a good book roundup. But we're going to switch gears right now and do an audiobook roundup with none other than Kendra Winchester. She's a contributing editor for Book Riot and a connoisseur of audio books. Welcome back to the program, Kendra.
KENDRA WINCHESTER: Oh, happy to be back. Thanks for having me.
RASCOE: So, you know, you could have the best written book on the planet, but it can be a real snoozeville if it's not read out loud well. Tell us about your first pick. What makes it a great audiobook?
WINCHESTER: Well, one of the picks today is one of the buzziest books of the year, and that is "James" by Percival Everett, and that's performed by Dominic Hoffman. "James" is a reimagining of the character Jim from Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn." And Percival Everett's James, as a character - he gets a much bigger backstory. And one of the reasons why I think this makes for a great audiobook is because James and the other enslaved Black people around him use dialect as a form of protection. And you can hear the code switching that James does throughout the book. And with Dominic Hoffman performing it, it's just a phenomenal listen.
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DOMINIC HOFFMAN: (Reading) You're walking down the street, and you see that Mrs. Holiday's kitchen is on fire. She's standing in her yard, her back to her house, unaware. How do you tell her? Fire. Fire, January said. Direct, and that's almost correct, I said. The youngest of them, lean and tall 5-year-old Rachel said, lordy, missum. Looky there. Perfect, I said. Why is that correct? Lizzie raised her hand. Because we must let the whites be the ones who named the trouble. And why is that, I asked. February said, because they need to know everything before us, because they need to name everything. Good.
RASCOE: I understand that learning how to say the right thing to survive is a theme in another one of your picks. Tell us about "Gay The Pray Away."
WINCHESTER: So "Gay The Pray Away" is written and read by Natalie Naudus. She is an audiobook narrator. And when I heard she had her debut young-adult novel coming out, I knew I had to listen because she's such a great performer. And this story is about Valerie Danners, who's in a cult.
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NATALIE NAUDUS: (Reading) I am always lying. I'm lying right now with my face during this prayer meeting. Mom prays long and loud, and I keep my face still, calm, blank through years of practice. Make the right shape, I tell myself. Look devout, draw your brows down, look like you are concentrating. You can do this, Valerie.
WINCHESTER: She's a teenager. She's homeschooled. Every piece of clothing has to be approved by her dad. She can only listen to certain kinds of music, and she really has no other community other than her church and her family. But one day, she's in the library, and she finds a novel where two girls fall in love, and there is just something she recognizes in herself in that story. And then a new girl shows up at church, and sparks fly, and we have this romance bloom between them.
RASCOE: You have an audiobook suggestion for people who like historical fiction, family dramas and a little mystery all in one. This book is "The Warm Hands Of Ghosts" by Katherine Arden. Why is this such a good listen?
WINCHESTER: Well, one, I love the performers, like, Michael Crouch and January LaVoy. But also, I love historical fiction with, like, a dose of horror in it. And this story is set during World War I. And we have Laura, who is a nurse, who has just returned from the front. She was wounded. And she receives a box of her brother's effects, and at first, she thinks he's died on the front over in Europe. But there's a note in there, and he may still be alive. And we get chapters from Freddie's perspective, her brother, and he ends up in a battle in the trenches. He ends up in a pillbox, and he's trapped in there with an enemy soldier.
MICHAEL CROUCH: (Reading) He remembered running like an animal - dead bodies, gray uniforms, the roar of the explosion. Dickinson, a bloody froth at his lips. No. Was that earlier? And now, himself in darkness, buried. Dead and buried, wasn't that the phrase? The shell must have collapsed the pillbox somehow or flipped it or killed him outright. He was trapped.
WINCHESTER: And we are sitting on the edge of our seats wondering what on earth happened to him.
RASCOE: Yeah, that sounds like a good mystery and some horror in there, so I like that a lot. That's Kendra Winchester, contributing editor of Book Riot. Thank you so much for bringing us this audiobook roundup. This is getting me excited about these books.
WINCHESTER: Of course, anytime. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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