Behind the Mic With Kirkus Reviews

From haunted New Jersey suburbs to melancholy Irish landscapes to the contested wilds of the American West, Alan Minskoff joins host Jo Reed to discuss three sharply different works of fiction in audio. Tom Perrotta’s Ghost Town, narrated by Robert Petkoff, blends grief, adolescence, and the supernatural through Petkoff’s nuanced character work, while Derbhle Crotty and Darragh Shannon bring quiet emotional precision to The News From Dublin, evoking the atmosphere of longing and displacement in Colm Tóibín’s story collection. The conversation closes with Taylor Brown’s Wolvers, read by Ramiz Monsef, whose vivid performance captures the tensions between ranchers, militias, environmentalists, and wolves in the modern West. These audiobooks may share little besides the genre of fiction, but each narrator creates a fully realized world listeners can step into and stay with long after the final chapter.

 

Audiobooks Discussed:

Ghost Town by Tom Perrotta, read by Robert Petkoff
(Simon & Schuster Audio)

The News From Dublin: Stories by Colm Tóibín, read by Derbhle Crotty and
Darragh Shannon (Simon & Schuster Audio)

Wolvers by Taylor Brown, read by Ramiz Monsef (Recorded Books Inc.)

 

Support for Behind the Mic comes from HarperCollins Focus and HarperCollins Christian Publishing, publishers of some of your favorite audiobooks and authors,
including Reba McEntire, Bob Goff, Savannah Guthrie, Max Lucado, Lysa
TerKeurst, and many more.

 

 

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Three women tell deeply personal stories in audiobooks that gain even more force through performance. Michele Cobb joins host Jo Reed to discuss A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot, who discovered that her husband had drugged her and arranged to have dozens of men assault her over the course of many years. The book recounts her life, the trial, and the reckoning that followed, all narrated by Emma Thompson with remarkable restraint and empathy. Next comes a discussion of The End of My Life Is Killing Me by Annabelle Gurwitch, read by the author with warmth, comic timing, and mischievous candor as she navigates stage 4 lung cancer and divorce. Finally, they discuss You With the Sad Eyes, written and read by actor Christina Applegate, who reflects on childhood trauma, fame, cancer, and living with multiple sclerosis; her unguarded narration—complete with journal entries, cracked laughter, and tearful moments—gives the book unusual emotional immediacy.  These memoirs don’t offer neat resolutions, but they do reveal the special intimacy that happens when difficult stories are spoken aloud.

 

Audiobooks Discussed:

A Hymn to Life: Shame Has To Change Sides by Gisèle Pelicot with Judith Perrignon; translated by Natasha Lehrer and Ruth Diver; read by Emma Thompson (Penguin Random House Audio)

 

The End of My Life is Killing Me: The Unexpected Joys of a Cancer Slacker by Annabelle Gurwitch, read by the author and Andie MacDowell (Zibby Books)

 

You With the Sad Eyes: A Memoir written and read by Christina Applegate (Hachette Audio)

 

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Contributor Stephen Cummings joins host Jo Reed to talk about David Pogue’s Apple: The First 50 Years, which Pogue narrates with the confidence and curiosity of a longtime tech journalist, weaving in archival
clips and company lore. They turn to Noam Scheiber’s Mutiny: The Rise and
Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class, where André Santana’s restrained and intelligent narration underscores the frustrations of workers organizing at companies like Starbucks, Amazon, and Apple. Finally, Woody Brown’s Upward Bound employs a strong cast led by T. R. Knight to explore life inside an underfunded adult day program, giving its central character a vivid and deeply affecting inner voice. All three audiobooks look closely at ambition, labor, and the gap between how work is imagined and how it’s lived.

Audiobooks Discussed:

Apple: The First 50 Years written and read by David Pogue (Simon & Schuster Audio)

 

Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class by Noam Scheiber,  read by André Santana (Macmillan Audio)

 

Upward Bound  by Woody Brown, read by T.R. Knight, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Alex Edelman, Pete Holmes, Midori Francis, Carlos Miranda, Brandon Flynn, and Nikki M. James (Random House Audio)

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On this special sponsored episode of Behind the Mic, Kirkus’
Michele Cobb is joined by Amy Metsch, associate publisher and director of audio programming at Spiegel & Grau, to talk about Kathryn Stockett’s highly anticipated new novel, The Calamity Club, narrated by the powerhouse team of January LaVoy and Jenna Lamia. Stockett’s new novel, her first since The Help in 2009, is about female friendship, rising to the occasion in the face of constant adversity, and some of the darker parts of our collective history. Michele and Amy discuss the creation of the audiobook and how Lamia and LaVoy bring to life two distinct narrative voices, 11-year-old Meg and 24-year-old Bertie.

 

Audiobook Discussed:

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett, read by January LaVoy & Jenna Lamia (Spiegel & Grau by Spotify Audiobooks)

 

This episode of Behind the Mic is brought to you by Spiegel &
Grau

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Host Jo Reed is joined by contributor Alex Richey to explore three horror audiobooks that favor atmosphere and interiority over jump scares. We begin with The Beheading Game by Rebecca Lehmann, where Florence Howard’s finely tuned vocal shifts capture Anne Boleyn’s intellect and fury in an intimate, reflective alternate history. We then turn to The Body by Bethany C. Morrow, with Nesta Cooper delivering a grounded, emotionally precise performance that deepens the novel’s psychological unease. The episode closes with Mother Is Watching by Karma Brown, as Karissa Vacker navigates a tightly controlled world of surveillance and a deeply unsettling mystery, moving seamlessly among characters as the tension gradually tightens.

 

Audiobooks Discussed:

 

The Beheading Game by Rebecca Lehmann, read by Florence
Howard (Random House Audio)

 

The Body by Bethany C. Morrow, read by Nesta Cooper
(Macmillan Audio)

 

Mother Is Watching by Karma Brown, read by Karissa Vacker
(Penguin Audio)

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