Are there things on your summer bucket list that you haven’t quite gotten around to yet? Have you yet to sip an Aperol spritz in your backyard, or did you forget about the herb seed packets you were supposed to plant before the summer season? Well, we can’t help with all of those things (though the ingredients for the Aperol spritz should be pretty easy to come by), but we can make sure that you don’t miss the latest releases on audio.
Summer may be coming to a close, but these new releases are still fresh.
Though Frances Mayes is known for her travels, she has always sought a sense of home wherever she goes. In A Place in the World, Mayes reflects on the idea of home, from the earliest imprint of four walls to the startling discoveries of feeling the strange ease of homes abroad, friends’ homes, and even momentary homes that spark desires for other lives.
Phoebe Walsh has always been obsessed with true crime. She’s even analyzing the genre in her dissertation. She’s also low-key convinced that her new neighbor, Sam Dennings, is a serial killer. It’s not long before Phoebe realizes that Sam might be something much scarier—a genuinely nice guy.
When personal scandal forces her to leave Paris, Frances, a young British graduate student, travels to southern France one summer to volunteer on a farm. Almost as soon as she arrives, she is pulled into a relationship with the farm’s enigmatic owner, Paul, a well-traveled older artist. Paul is a deeply human novel that holds a mirror up to many of the issues that people confront today.
Tang Yitian has been living in America for almost a decade when he receives an urgent phone call from his mother: his father has disappeared from the family’s rural village in China. Yitian struggles to navigate China’s impenetrable bureaucracy and his mother’s evasiveness. Spanning the late 1970s to 1990s and moving effortlessly between rural provinces and big cities, A Map for the Missing is a deeply felt examination of family and forgiveness, and the meaning of home.
Nona Willis Aronowitz’s assumptions of what “sexual liberation” meant were suddenly up for debate, and she asked herself: What, exactly, do I want? And are my sexual and romantic desires even possible amid the horrors and bribes of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy? Bad Sex is Nona’s own journey to sexual satisfaction and romantic happiness, which not only lays bare the triumphs and flaws of contemporary feminism but also shines a light on universal questions of desire.
Anna lives a simple but comfortable childhood in a close-knit neighborhood. When her father gets a new job outside the city, Anna’s mother is suddenly adrift, and the darkness lurking inside her ignites. Alternating between Anna’s childhood and her twenties, when she receives a shattering call about her mother, Mother in the Dark asks whether we can ever return home when the idea of home is fraught with instability.
Sneha’s moved for an entry-level job that is the key that unlocks every door. She makes a new friend named Tig and begins dating women. But before long, painful secrets rear their heads. Sneha struggles to be truly close and open with anybody, even as her friendships deepen, and she throws herself into romance. All This Could Be Different is a portrait of young people forging love and community amidst struggle, and the story of one immigrant’s journey to make her home in the world.