Get Your Free Audiobook
-
Luster
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, African American
People who bought this also bought...
-
Memorial
- Written by: Bryan Washington
- Narrated by: Bryan Washington, Kotabe Akie
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson's a Black day care teacher, and they've been together for a few years - good years - but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. There's the sex, sure and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other. But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye.
-
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
- Written by: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman,
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times best-selling author of Lincoln in the Bardo, a literary masterclass on how to become both a better writer and reader, on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about how to live. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders guides the listener through seven classic Russian short stories he's been teaching for 20 years as a professor in the prestigious Syracuse University graduate MFA creative writing program.
-
Snow
- Written by: John Banville
- Narrated by: Stanley Townsend
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the discovery of the body of a well-loved parish priest at Ballyglass House - the Co Wexford family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family - Detective Inspector St John Strafford is called in from Dublin to investigate. Facing obstruction from all angles, Strafford is determined to identify the murderer. But, as the snow continues to fall over this ever expanding mystery, the people of Ballyglass are equally determined to keep their secrets.
-
The Searcher
- Written by: Tana French
- Length: Not Yet Known
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a remote Irish village would be the perfect escape. After 25 years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But then a local kid comes looking for his help. His brother has gone missing and no one, least of all the police, seems to care. Cal wants nothing to do with any kind of investigation, but somehow he can't make himself walk away.
-
Night Boat to Tangier
- Written by: Kevin Barry
- Narrated by: Kevin Barry
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's late one night at the Spanish port of Algeciras, and two fading Irish gangsters are waiting on the boat from Tangier. A lover has been lost, a daughter has gone missing, their world has come asunder - can it be put together again? Night Boat to Tangier is a novel drenched in sex and death and narcotics, in sudden violence and old magic, but it is obsessed, above all, with the mysteries of love. A tragicomic masterwork from a multi-award-winning writer, Night Boat to Tangier is both mordant and hilarious, lyrical yet laden with menace.
-
-
I found the story unbearably boring
- By Divya on 05-01-20
-
Death in Her Hands
- Written by: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Anne Marie Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While on her daily walk with her dog in the nearby woods, our protagonist comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground with stones. Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. Shaky even on her best days, she is also alone and new to this area, having moved here from her long-time home after the death of her husband, and now deeply alarmed. Her brooding about the note grows quickly into a full-blown obsession as she explores multiple theories about who Magda was and how she met her fate.
-
Memorial
- Written by: Bryan Washington
- Narrated by: Bryan Washington, Kotabe Akie
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson's a Black day care teacher, and they've been together for a few years - good years - but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. There's the sex, sure and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other. But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye.
-
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
- Written by: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman,
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times best-selling author of Lincoln in the Bardo, a literary masterclass on how to become both a better writer and reader, on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about how to live. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders guides the listener through seven classic Russian short stories he's been teaching for 20 years as a professor in the prestigious Syracuse University graduate MFA creative writing program.
-
Snow
- Written by: John Banville
- Narrated by: Stanley Townsend
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the discovery of the body of a well-loved parish priest at Ballyglass House - the Co Wexford family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family - Detective Inspector St John Strafford is called in from Dublin to investigate. Facing obstruction from all angles, Strafford is determined to identify the murderer. But, as the snow continues to fall over this ever expanding mystery, the people of Ballyglass are equally determined to keep their secrets.
-
The Searcher
- Written by: Tana French
- Length: Not Yet Known
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a remote Irish village would be the perfect escape. After 25 years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But then a local kid comes looking for his help. His brother has gone missing and no one, least of all the police, seems to care. Cal wants nothing to do with any kind of investigation, but somehow he can't make himself walk away.
-
Night Boat to Tangier
- Written by: Kevin Barry
- Narrated by: Kevin Barry
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's late one night at the Spanish port of Algeciras, and two fading Irish gangsters are waiting on the boat from Tangier. A lover has been lost, a daughter has gone missing, their world has come asunder - can it be put together again? Night Boat to Tangier is a novel drenched in sex and death and narcotics, in sudden violence and old magic, but it is obsessed, above all, with the mysteries of love. A tragicomic masterwork from a multi-award-winning writer, Night Boat to Tangier is both mordant and hilarious, lyrical yet laden with menace.
-
-
I found the story unbearably boring
- By Divya on 05-01-20
-
Death in Her Hands
- Written by: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Anne Marie Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While on her daily walk with her dog in the nearby woods, our protagonist comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground with stones. Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. Shaky even on her best days, she is also alone and new to this area, having moved here from her long-time home after the death of her husband, and now deeply alarmed. Her brooding about the note grows quickly into a full-blown obsession as she explores multiple theories about who Magda was and how she met her fate.
-
Weather
- Written by: Jenny Offill
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 3 hrs and 46 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practise her other calling: as an unofficial shrink. For years, she has supported her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but then her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. Sylvia has become famous for her prescient podcast, 'Hell and High Water', and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives: from left-wingers worried about climate change and right wingers worried about the decline of western civilization.
-
Writers & Lovers
- Written by: Lily King
- Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Casey has ended up back in Massachusetts after a devastating love affair. Her one constant is the novel she has been writing for six years, but at 31 she is in debt and directionless, and feels too old to be that way - it’s strange, not be the youngest kind of adult anymore. Suddenly Casey finds herself at the point of a love triangle, torn between two very different relationships that promise two very different futures.
-
If I Had Your Face
- Written by: Frances Cha
- Narrated by: Frances Cha, Sue Jean Kim, Ruthie Ann Miles,
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If I Had Your Face plunges us into the mesmerising world of contemporary Seoul - a place where extreme plastic surgery is as routine as getting a haircut, where women compete for spots in secret 'room salons' to entertain wealthy businessmen after hours, where K-Pop stars are the object of all-consuming obsession and ruthless social hierarchies dictate your every move. Navigating this cutthroat city are four young women balancing on the razor edge of survival.
-
-
The best book I’ve read on Audible
- By shristiagarwal on 12-02-21
-
Self Care
- A Novel
- Written by: Leigh Stein
- Narrated by: Kristen DiMercurio, Karissa Vacker, Nicole Lewis
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maren Gelb is on a company-imposed digital detox. She tweeted something terrible about the president's daughter, and as the COO of Richual, "the most inclusive online community platform for women to cultivate the practice of self-care and change the world by changing ourselves", it's a PR nightmare.
-
Zikora
- A Short Story
- Written by: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Narrated by: Adepero Oduye
- Length: 1 hr and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Zikora, a DC lawyer from Nigeria, tells her equally high-powered lover that she’s pregnant, he abandons her. But it’s Zikora’s demanding, self-possessed mother, in town for the birth, who makes Zikora feel like a lonely little girl all over again. Stunned by the speed with which her ideal life fell apart, she turns to reflecting on her mother’s painful past and struggle for dignity. Preparing for motherhood, Zikora begins to see more clearly what her own mother wants for her, for her new baby, and for herself.
-
-
A great short story
- By M Guru on 24-02-21
-
The Devil and the Dark Water
- Written by: Stuart Turton
- Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world’s greatest detective, is being transported from the Dutch East Indies to Amsterdam, where he is facing trial and execution for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent, while also on board are Sara Wessel, a noble woman with a secret, and her husband, the governor general of Batavia.
-
Mexican Gothic
- Written by: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When glamorous socialite Noemí Taboada receives a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin begging to be rescued from a mysterious doom, it's clear something is desperately amiss. Catalina has always had a flair for the dramatic, but her claims that her husband is poisoning her and her visions of restless ghosts seem remarkable, even for her. Noemí's chic gowns and perfect lipstick are more suited to cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing, but she immediately heads to High Place, a remote mansion in the Mexican countryside, determined to discover what is so affecting her cousin.
-
-
Wow!
- By A K. on 15-11-20
-
A Good Marriage
- Written by: Kimberly McCreight
- Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman, Karissa Vacker, George Newbern
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When young lawyer Lizzie gets a call for help from an old friend accused of murdering his wife, she reluctantly says yes. Zach is the chief suspect in his wife, Amanda’s, murder but there’s no way he could be guilty – is there? The further Lizzie dives into the glossy world of Brooklyn’s Park Slope, the more she realises that things don’t add up. Zach doesn’t know the most basic details of his wife’s past, and Amanda’s friends barely know he exists.
-
Long Bright River
- Written by: Liz Moore
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mickey Fitzpatrick has been patrolling the 24th District for years. She knows most of the working women by name. She knows what desperation looks like and what people will do when they need a fix. She’s become used to finding overdose victims: their numbers are growing every year. But every time she sees someone sprawled out, slumped over, cold to the touch, she has to pray it’s not her sister, Kacey.
-
Strangers and Cousins
- A Novel
- Written by: Leah Hager Cohen
- Narrated by: Leah Hager Cohen
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the seemingly idyllic town of Rundle Junction, Bennie and Walter are preparing to host the wedding of their eldest daughter, Clem. A marriage ceremony at their beloved, rambling home should be the happiest of occasions, but Walter and Bennie have a secret. A new community has moved to Rundle Junction, threatening the social order and forcing Bennie and Walter to confront uncomfortable truths about the lengths they would go to to maintain harmony.
-
The Days of Abandonment
- Written by: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An IndiBound best seller, The Days of Abandonment shocked and captivated its Italian public when first published. It is the gripping story of a woman's descent into devastating emptiness after being abandoned by her husband, with two young children to care for. When she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.
-
-
A good read
- By Sameer on 14-10-19
-
The Crow Trap
- Written by: Ann Cleeves
- Narrated by: Janine Birkett
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three very different women come together at isolated Baikie’s Cottage on the North Pennines to complete an environmental survey. Rachael, the team leader, is still reeling after a double betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Anne, a botanist, sees the survey as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace, a strange, uncommunicative young woman hiding plenty of her own secrets.
Publisher's Summary
The Sunday Times best seller.
Edie is just trying to survive. She’s messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office, she is sleeping with all the wrong men and she has failed at the only thing that meant anything to her: painting.
No one seems to care that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing with her life beyond looking for her next hook-up. And then she meets Eric, a white, middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn’t have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair.
As if navigating the constantly shifting landscape of sexual and racial politics as a young black woman wasn’t already hard enough, with nowhere else left to go, Edie finds herself falling head-first into Eric’s home and family.
Razor sharp, provocatively unstoppable and surprisingly tender, Luster by Raven Leilani is a painfully funny debut about what it means to be young now.
Critic Reviews
"A taut, sharp, funny book about being young now. It’s brutal - and brilliant." (Zadie Smith, author of Swing Time)
"Remarkable, the most delicious novel I’ve read." (Candice Carty-Williams, author of Queenie)
"Ridiculously good [...] I will follow this author anywhere she wants to take me." (Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties)
What listeners say about Luster
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- papapownall
- 31-01-21
Rampant and pithy
This debut novel by Raven Leilani has been heavily hyped. It tells the story of a young black women called Edie who loves disco music and enters a strange relationship with an older married white man, with the permission of his wife. At times darkly comedic and at times excruciatingly cringeworthy, this is full on stuff with no holding back. Subjects such as race and class are tackled head on, but the strength of this story is the insight it gives into the complex lives of the characters who are believable and compelling. It is rampant and pithy stuff and I loved it.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- jojo
- 07-02-21
A gutting staggering debut.
Leilani's perceptive acuity and linguistic exactitude dissects as she creates, each scene rich with revelation.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- K. J. Noyes
- 30-01-21
Unsettling, convincing, shocking
Hard to pin down, a very modernistic-feeling tale.
Edie. Office worker. Twenty-three. No qualms about sleeping with men, pandering to their whims, searching for something that clicks. With dreams of focusing on her art.
This is her story, a relatively brief account of the months after she meets a man twice her age, married but openly so. We see a very honest Edie describe and live through the early stages of getting to know Eric, before she unexpectedly becomes more entangled with his family.
Leilani gives us a slightly dark peek at the contemporary world of young women, single and unafraid, open to new experiences and searching for that direction that offers them future happiness. And an escape from boredom and mundanity.
The characters aren't wholly likeable, I found it difficult to watch Edie acquiescing to the demands of various men, not exactly submissively but not from a position of power either.
Such an unusual spin on the theme of affairs, of entanglements and wives and marriages. It's a story set in our time, of our time. Eric pales in comparison to his wife as a character of interest - how she interacts with Edie is much more interesting in my opinion.
This isn't a long book, it's a fairly slow story where a lot is thought and explored. It might make readers uncomfortable but it did feel like a hidden story from the world we inhabit that is probably going on under our noses. Is this really what life for the young is?
I don't know how I feel about that. Is it a freer life? A more joyless one?
It makes a wonderful audiobook, the intense closeness of some of the scenes narrated for us by Edie as we listen along, the first person immediacy only increasing some of the dark tension. It is an uncomplicated Audible choice, one with a straight structure that won't confuse.
This will repeat on you, Edie and her life, her choices, the strange situation she finds herself in. One for discussion and consideration.
With thanks to Nudge Books for providing a sample Audible copy.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Beetle
- 25-02-21
Awful
I’ve never taken this long to finish a book before. It’s one of the worst novels I’ve ever read. A real poor me book. Nauseatingly self pitying and sooooo bloody boring.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Robert Buchan
- 11-02-21
Millennial moan
What a waste of PR build up. Just a whining and completely unlovable and irredeemable character. Millenial, woke, pretentious virtual signalling of the worst kind.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 03-02-21
truly outstanding
the way raven uses words is so captivating you are taken on a beautiful journey. having now finished the book I feel empty!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MJH
- 28-01-21
Interesting little snapshot of a life
I enjoyed this book. It was different. I liked the way it didn't turn out the way I might have expected. Good to read a new style of writing.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- E. A. Watson
- 27-01-21
So freaking gd
This novel is unbelievably fine. If you described the situation it would sound kinky or implausible, but it is neither. It’s got to win prizes, if this was yet a world of prize juries that can value the idea of a story of a love quadrant centred on a messy black girl’s self-clarification through her affair with a weak and fading white man who conserves things, taken over gradually by her involvement with his mechano-morph medic wife and their dissatisfied adopted black daughter. She is surprisingly compliant to misuse and also kicks back in unexpected ways but never fools herself, and so is able to move from being a shocking character in an office anecdote to literally shaping the people in her world.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anthony Collins
- 25-01-21
wonderful young black female voice
I could be picky about some plot events, but why bother, when the writing is just so honest and witty and beautiful. I had a couple of laught out loud moments, but many more wow moments at the brilliant observations and revelations. Young female writers are really kicking arse these days.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- miss
- 30-01-21
Wonderful
I loved everything about this book. The author’s use of language was casual, but simultaneously delicious. The narration was so easy to listen to. Terrific!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Giulia
- 02-02-21
Delicious
Some inconsistencies with audio but such a gorgeously written story. Despite unlikable protagonist, I could not get enough.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 31-01-21
loved this book and performance
Wow! This story will stay with me for a long time. Beautiful story and narration. I couldn't put it down. It brought up a lot of emotion.