“My pick for 2024 has got to be A New Night by R.I. Polsgrove. What I thought was so captivating about the audio for this one, aside from the narrator being a bit of a ham, kind of overacting on a lot of points — okay, it’s me. I was the one who narrated this title! This is, I believe, my 10th audiobook that I've narrated through ACX, and I've also been a video game and commercial voice actor for about 14 years, in addition to working at Audible. What I also loved about this particular title was the fact that I got to work really closely with another Audible employee, John Bernstein. We worked together on the music for this one, so in chapter 21 or 22, you'll hear a little bit of our collaboration together.”

“My book of the year is a book by James Baldwin called Giovanni's Room. It’s a new production. Formerly there was another production, different narrator, but what was really exciting was that this September, this book and others [by Baldwin] were reproduced with new narrators, new forewords, new background information. I loved the book in particular because it helped communicate and show the dynamics of love, romantic love in particular and all of its complexities, and gave me insight to understand my own journey with romance and love. It’s my best of the year also because I recommend it the most. Though the story is serious at times, it doesn’t become overwhelming because I was so engaged with wanting to learn the lives of the characters that even during the more sobering, serious parts, I didn’t want to put it down.”

“My pick for best audiobook of the year is The Parlour Wife by Foluso Agbaje. A moment that stood out for me was a line about death. Having just experienced a death in my life, it really resonated with me, as read by narrator Precious Mustapha. It reads: The worst part about death was how life forced you to move on. Flowing onwards like a river, propelling you forward, not caring about the bumps you had to endure along the way. She suddenly felt like she was sitting in an open barn with no walls, exposed to the storm that was brewing around her. It was the day after he had been pronounced missing, presumed dead, and here she was already planning how to live without him. Kehinde saw her dreams floating away on a tide of despair, suddenly further from her grasp than they had ever been. She gulped for air, wondering if her chest would ever feel light again.”

“While the entirety of the spatial Dolby Atmos adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 was an immersive and engaging experience, I found the enduring ending, in which Winston finds his independent thought fully extinguished by the totalitarian tactics of state media, the Ministry of Love and Big Brother, to be especially haunting. Andrew Garfield's performance, the chilling original score and the background audio world-building fully submerged me in a terrifyingly brutal and, unfortunately, increasingly familiar landscape of propaganda and oppression. 10 out of 10. Will listen again.”

“In the podcast The Safe Man by Michael Connelly and Terrill Lee Lankford, there are two characters in this scene and one of them is voiced by Titus Welliver, who usually does Bosch. In this story, it’s hilarious because he’s playing a horror author, a bestselling Stephen King type of author, and Jack Quaid is the safe man, which literally means he’s been hired to open up this safe in the floor. I was really enjoying just their rapport and their voices and the story setup, listening along, nothing to see here, and all of a sudden in the smoke from the drill, this menacing old man face appears, and Jack Quaid says to Titus Welliver, ‘Did you see that?’ And Titus Welliver says, ‘See what?’ And I realized: This is not the usual Michael Connelly story. I encourage everyone to listen to it. It gets pretty supernatural.”

“My favourite listen of the year was You’re Embarrassing Yourself by Desiree Akhavan. Desiree is a queer Iranian filmmaker, and this is her memoir. I loved this listen because she narrates the memoir herself, and it’s very raw and pushes the boundaries of most memoirs that I have read. She goes a step further, and it’s almost hard to listen to sometimes because she’s so honest. I think the fact that she was able to narrate this herself was a really brave choice. I think it's a memoir that everyone should listen to.”

“My favourite listen of 2024 was Knife by Salman Rushdie. It’s the story of how Rushdie was attacked in Chautauqua, New York, when giving a lecture, and then grappling with the aftereffects. I have a personal connection to the Chautauqua Institution — my wife and I were married there, so I was very intrigued and went into it not knowing what to expect. What I found was Rushdie’s meditations on The Satanic Verses and how publishing that book came to haunt his life for decades. Just when he had reached a feeling of security, the attack came. It’s incredibly tragic, but open and honest in the way he speaks about the attack and the effects the recovery had on him and his family, obviously physically but emotionally and mentally as well. In particular, I found moving the way that he thinks about his attacker, in order to take back whatever power he has left over the situation, by not giving the results of the attack or the person who perpetrated them any life in his mind, knowing that it is something that he’s going to be forever changed by. Listening to him narrate was intimate and moving — you’re listening to him work through all of his emotions, all of his thoughts, his anger, his sadness, his concern for his family, and the idea that he ultimately was attacked for his art and for something that defines so much of who he is. It’s equal parts heartbreaking and empowering, and absolutely one of the best memoirs of the year.”

“In Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake, Sadie Smith is a dog walker from Priest Valley, California. Or at least that’s what she says as her questionable espionage takes us to the caves, springs and landscapes of the Dordogne in rural southwest France. Sadie is meant to infiltrate a commune of eco-anarchists headed by Bruno Lacombe to provoke them into committing an act of terror, but finds herself cozying up to the leader’s radical theories. In this Booker-shortlisted, anti-spy, anti-realist novel, author-narrator Rachel Kushner is at home exploring a wide palette of ideas across palaeoanthropology, sociology and ecology just as she is describing the limestone crags and rough forests of southern France.”