What We’re Listening To: Justina’s November Picks
By Justina Vasquez
Hello! My name is Justina, and I am working as the Marketing and Social intern at PRH Audio this fall.
I started listening to audiobooks while working in a bookstore a few years ago. I needed a way to consume a ton of our inventory quickly while (a) being a slow reader and (b) being a full-time English Lit student with a ton of books and papers to read already. My gateway audiobook was The Lincoln Highway. I was lured by Amor Towles (who I had tried to read before) and quickly hooked by the amazing cast of narrators and Towles’ great pacing.
Since then, I have only picked up print copies of books for coursework. By contrast, I have spent the entirety of some days bingeing an audiobook while playing solitaire, cooking and doing chores, or just staring at a wall or the ceiling from my couch. I also cross-stich while listening sometimes, which may slow down the progress on my backlog of projects, but is great for my to-be-read list .
I wanted to share some calmer things I’ve enjoyed listening to lately. Because couldn’t we all use more days contentedly hanging out with a great story in our ears?
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
This novel is the epitome of calm. Even the length of the audiobook is undramatic at less than four hours. The narrator seems to be sharing many whispered secrets as she observes and meditates on people and objects amid the long list of ordinary things she does and places she goes—all with only the slightest story arc. She isn’t aimless, she’s just present: in her thoughts, in her interactions with old and new friends and partners, in her senses of taste and touch and smell. It feels like quietly walking in a vibrant park with someone and noticing things together.
Whereabouts was translated by the author from Italian to English, and I loved hearing the audiobook’s narrator, Susan Vinciotti Bonito, pronounce and elaborate on some untranslatable words and ideas. It was a joy to experience small details with the story’s unnamed narrator and get lost for a short time in the world Lahiri and Vinciotti Bonito built.
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
I really enjoy social commentaries, especially those that stretch and test how I’ve been thinking about something. The ones that make me less stubborn. Last year, I wrote a first draft of a master’s thesis about how nationality, gender, race, and place around the globe were shaped by a major historical event last century. At the same time that I was considering giving up on that project (awkward laugh), I listened to How to Be an Antiracist. I big-head-nodded all the way through.
I also pulled out a scalpel and those cool-looking magnifying headsets that surgeons wear and examined some cancerous ideas I still had lingering about race, religion, sexuality, gender, and class—and the places where they overlap. Because Kendi’s story is a coming-of-age narrative with plenty of anecdotes sharing his failures and realizations, I felt like he was going through an extractive process alongside me. Maybe “calm” is just the cousin of a good word to describe listening to this audiobook. It was sobering, affirming, and empowering.
Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashely Herring Blake
Iris and Stevie are playing in a modernized queer retelling of a Shakespeare play, and from the fact that they’re also acting as if they’re in a relationship to their headstrong friends and toxic exes, there is a lot of drama of all kinds. But Iris is the steadfast to Stevie’s anxious, and Stevie is the cool and patient to Iris’s get-to-the-point attitude. And while this might not seem like the calmest listen, something about the way friends play the role of family in this book feels cozy and reassuring. It was nice to hear both women navigate their friendships and young adulthood, while figuring out what they mean to each other.
Slow Burn by Baby Rose & BADBADNOTGOOD
If I’m not listening to an audiobook, then there’s likely a song stuck in my head. I’m someone who can play one song on repeat for a day or two and not get tired of hearing it. A few tracks on Slow Burn are like that for me: “Caroline” and “One Last Dance.” I love Baby Rose’s voice. I’ve seen her in concert, and I feel a lot of North Carolina and Fayetteville pride for her (and for J. Cole, who she’s worked with). It’s easy to be a fan when her music sets me at such ease. A few chapters of Whereabouts coupled with some meditative Baby Rose listening is a great evening for me.
Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay
Of all the content on this list, Higher Learning is certainly the least calm. A better choice might have been The Ezra Klein Show. His voice is objectively perfect. I really like the attention to detail he gives to American and global politics, and he does it all with such a soothing voice!
All of that said, Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay are very funny and smart about cultural and political issues, particularly as they relate to the Black community. Their political takes give me a reality check a lot of the time, which is perfect when I’m between fiction audiobooks. Other times the two clue me in on cultural moments I’ve missed in the news cycle without any added drama, largely thanks to Rachel’s breezy disposition. Ah, there we go! I circled us back to calm after all.
