Podcast Talk Show With Audiobook Reviews

Host Jo Reed talks with contributor Leslie Fine about three audiobooks that circle around questions of identity, family, and belonging. In Kin by Tayari Jones, dual narrators Angel Pean and Ashley J. Hobbs give distinct

voices to two lifelong friends... more

Host Jo Reed is joined by Michele Cobb to look at three audiobooks that use multiple narrators to tell stories from distinct perspectives. In Joan Silber’s Mercy, a cast of voices traces how an experience reverberates across lives and decades, with n... more

Host Jo Reed is joined by Kirkus fiction editor Laurie Muchnick for a deep dive into Rachel Reid’s six-book Game Changers series. The basis for the HBO sensation Heated Rivalry, the books are a blend of pro hockey, queer romance, and unapologetic “sp... more

Lauren Groff’s narration of Brawler brings listeners directly into the cadence and emotional undercurrent of her prose. In this episode of Behind the Mic, she talks with host Jo Reed about building a collection as a series of evolving questions, from... more

Kirkus young readers’ editor Laura Simeon suggests three

middle-grade audiobooks that invite listening across generations, beginning with Anna James’s Alice With a Why, where Kristin Atherton’s graceful, finely tuned narration captures both the whims... more

Contributor Alan Minskoff joins host Jo Reed to talk about three notable books—from George Saunders, Xochitl Gonzalez, and Lauren Groff—that offer rich and rewarding listening. They begin with George Saunders’s Vigil, an inventive, full-cast producti... more

Host Jo Reed and contributor Stephen Cummings begin with Escape by Stephen Fischbach, an Earphones Award winner narrated by Julia Whelan, Imani Jade Powers, and Sean Patrick Hopkins; it’s a debut novel that digs into the machinations of reality TV an... more

Host Jo Reed and contributor Alex Ritchie dive into three striking audiobooks, beginning with Half His Age, Jennette McCurdy’s

unsettling and sharply observed debut novel, narrated by the author in a style that mirrors its protagonist’s fragile brava... more