42+ hours of slump-free, Russian-lit bliss
I have definitely had my share of listening slumps, but I’m not sure there’s any excuse when ✨new✨ Dostoyevsky productions exist! I added this exquisite bicentennial edition of The Brothers Karamazov to my library last May, but only recently started it—and since then, I’ve been making allll the time I need to finish. This lauded Pavear/Volokhonsky translation, flawlessly performed by The Crown’s Ben Miles, delivers “the musical whole” (The New York Times) of the Russian original. From its urgent philosophical and psychological questions, to the allegorical and multifaceted brothers, to the literary peak of the Grand Inquisitor episode, this 42-hour production is rejuvenating my love of not just this towering novel but literature in general, one enthralling minute at a time.

Sparked me into a spiral of listening
I started Spark of the Everflame to shake off a listening slump and, three stories later, I’m not only cured, I’m spiraling in the best way. Author Penn Cole created a world layered with magic, betrayal, and political tension, and Diem Bellator is the kind of heroine who immediately won me over. Amanda Dolan’s captivating performance adds to the magic of this story, and pulled me deeper into Diem’s journey as she finds out truths about herself while searching for her missing mother. After listening to the rest of The Kindred Curse Saga, and falling in love with absolutely everything about it—including it’s delicious slow burn between Diem and Luther—I’ve officially joined the ranks of listeners counting down the days until book four in the series.

This captured just about every corner of my imagination
When I'm in a listening slump, I crave something that is both mind-bending and super satisfying, and Lexicon is 100 percent both. It features a secret government organization of "poets"—hyper-intelligent, data-crunching agents—who deal in persuasion and have the almost superhuman ability to disarm someone with a few choice vocalizations. The dual narration keeps the plot moving at a breakneck speed, and hearing the mantra-like otherworldly words employed by the agents drew me closer to the cleverness of Barry's premise. With Lexicon, he's demonstrating what book lovers everywhere already know—mastery of language is its own type of superpower.

An engrossing, realist’s take on modern love
If I’m being honest, Nicola Dinan’s most recent novel, Disappoint Me, got me listening again because it felt so much like listening to my smart queer friends’ raw, confessional voice notes as they dryly dissected their detailed (mis)adventures in modern, millennial dating. As protagonist Max, a trans woman, swipes her way to a date with a heteronormative guy, her marked cynicism gives way to something like hope. Through Max’s sharp, cutting wit, what proves to be a compulsive story unfolds, one which confronts the realities of sex, love, friendship, and the makings of genuine connection.

Hail Reaper! 🐺⛓️‍💥
Years ago, I found myself in an unshakable listening rut. No matter how talented the narrator or engaging the story, it felt like nothing was quite grabbing my attention enough to get over the hurdle and resist the temptation to press pause. Enter Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series, a saga that renewed my appetite for audiobooks and sent me on a listening streak like no other. Set within a dystopian hierarchy in which a cast of unforgettable ragtag heroes fight for intergalactic liberation, the epic of Darrow O’Lykos, Reaper of Mars, is as propulsive as it is emotionally resonant. While the first book is a masterpiece in its own right, it was the second installment, Golden Son, that yanked me out of my listening slump, tossing me headfirst into a sci-fi-fantasy world unlike any other and hooking me with a whiplash-inducing, gut-punch of an ending that left me scrambling to queue up the next book. If you’re in a listening slump yourself, I dare you to dive into Brown’s universe and emerge without a new audio obsession.

Captured my attention faster than hearing: “SHARK!”

On the surface, Careless People is author-narrator Sarah Wynn-Williams’ first-hand account of her time working at Facebook as their Director of Global Public Policy and the catastrophic effects of immature decision making by Silicon Valley startup executives. Go deeper, and you’ll find a nostalgic exploration of the promises of technology on the World Wide Web, a psychological reckoning of intention meeting reality, and the grim side of 2010s “lean in” culture that convinced at least one working woman to push past her mental, physical, and emotional boundaries in the naive pursuit of trying to do good from inside the system. Part corporate tell-all, part cautionary tale about unchecked ambition, this memoir was exactly what I needed to jump back into my library. Once you start, you won’t want to stop listening.

Wickedly funny and worth the binge (and cringe)
It may seem perverse that the Patrick Melrose novels—known for their dark, sometimes brutal subject matter, including abuse and sexual assault—got me on a listening tear again. But it’s the truth—because St. Aubyn’s prose is so wonderfully delicious and full of startling insights and turns of phrase. Don’t be scared away: These books are funny! Especially with Alex Jennings bringing so much British ironic wit to all the voices. I’d watched the TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch, so I thought I knew what to expect from this semi-autobiographical pentalogy so I didn’t need to bother listening. I was never so happy to be proven wrong. Having 27 hours of Jennings in my ears was a delight, so much so that I returned to bookmarked sections and listened on repeat to scribble thoughts in my journal and laugh out loud all over again.

Jane Jackson felt like a friend
This romance surprised me with the slow, yet relentless, way it wedged itself into my heart and gave me Feelings with a capital “F.” Our heroine Jane Jackson is stalled in her career. She grew up on TV as the dorky comic relief of a hit kids show, an identity she’s desperate to shed as she establishes herself as a movie studio exec—but artsy cinematographer Dan Finnegan is unwittingly foiling her plans. Jane’s latest project is make-or-break, and she and Dan are thrust together to convince the world’s biggest recording artist to record a song for the film. It’s a Love Story effortlessly melds my favorite tropes: enemies-to-lovers, second-chance, and forced-proximity. But author Annabel Monaghan goes deeper to examine identity, the complexities of family, and how early traumas can shape us—as well as the value in second (and third and fourth and fifth) impressions. The story made me ache with nostalgia for the East Coast summers of my past, and with an amazing performance by Hilary Huber, it’s unquestionably one of my favorite romances of the year.