The Bright List

Top Five Audiobooks You've Never Heard Of

In every bestseller list, there's something missing: the undetected genius, the motherlode.

Here's our first in a series of "the best audiobooks you've never heard." —Great writing, bravura performances.

Check them out and tell us your next nomination!

 

His Own Where, by June Jordan

This is a Brooklyn heartbeat, a performance, a poem, a song.

Imagine you bought tickets to a one-woman show by Sapphire.  She holds you in the palm of her hand and there is a standing ovation afterward. A stunning coming of age story by one of America's greatest poets and journalists, June Jordan.

“This June Jordan treasure is a rare piece of fiction from one of America's most vital poets and political essayists—a tender story of young love in the face of generational opposition, a modern-day Romeo and Juliet that sings and sways.”—Walter Mosley

 

Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry, by Clark Terry

Clark Terry is a natural raconteur.  He's also one of the greatest jazz musicians and trumpeters who ever lived.

This is a man who takes joy in language— you can hear his pleasure in every turn of phrase. In his hands, the ages of Swing and Bebop come to life; every influential jazz musician is here, plus outrageous supporting characters.

The era-changing music is improvised, and good times are had, but at the same time the musicians confronted the Jim Crow South each day of their lives. Terry relates the contrast of being revered and reviled at the same time in a way you won't forget.

Bill Quinn does a bang-up job narrating. His admiration for Terry comes across in every line.

 

Confessions of a Raving Unconfined Nut, by Paul Krassner

Krassner is the Zelig of the Counter-Culture, and boy, can he tell a story. Paul was everywhere that mattered in counter-culture of the second half of the 20th century— and is a comedian par excellence.

Protégé of Lenny Bruce? Check. Co-founder of the Yippies and devout member of Kesey's Merry Pranksters? Of course. Krassner founded and edited The Realist, which is the foundation for every skeptical and comic, underground journal that followed it. —And where would abortion rights be without risk-takers like Paul? His involvement in early feminist and sexual liberation movement is unlike any other.

The opening childhood scene is spellbinding, ridiculous and transcendent: Krassner, a tiny young violin prodigy playing his debut at Carnegie Hall, realizes his existence— he wakes up— playing a Vivaldi concerto as his leg starts to itch and the audience cracks up at his vexation. 

Confessions is brought alive by the performance of David Letwin. His timing and nuance are first-rate.

 

The Road to Ruins, by Ian Graham

I love this story; it's so incongrous. Ian Graham was raised to do nothing in particular except live the life of a wealthy playboy.

He starts out from his privileged boyhood, fascinated with machines of all types, with a grandmother who could intimidate Maggie Smith's Dowager-countess, and a touching correspondence with family friend Rudyard Kipling.

Ian idles his way through his twenties until he finds himself driving his ancient Rolls Royce across the U.S. and into Mexico. An interest— and then devotion— to Mayan archeology grips him, and Graham becomes the world's leading Mayanist. It's a wonderful history told with good humored self-deprecation and rare insouciance.

Narrator John Mawson inhabits the role of Graham.

 

Music from the True Vine: Mike Seeger's Life & Musical Journey, by Bill C. Malone

There are few Americans who aren't aware of Pete Seeger, folk music and activist legend. His entire family is legendary, and the brother who has escaped most of the attention is Mike, founder of the The New Lost City Ramblers and the cornerstone of the mid-20th-century folk revival.

If you love American roots music, you're already leaning in— we've all wanted to know this remarkable man's biography. I was raised on these "old records" and almost feel like Mike Seeger taught me how to sing, alongside my mother and father. 

Bill C. Malone, Seeger's astute biographer comes from Southern working class culture, and a dedication to music history and fine writing that puts you right in the center of the hootenanny. 

Narrator Joe Geoffrey nails it like John Henry!

--Willow Pennell and Susie Bright

Susie Interviews Len Barot, the Lesbian Super-Power of Bold Strokes Books

 

Len Barot, the publisher and author/founder of Bold Stroke Books, is probably the most influential powerhouse in lesbian romance publishing since Barbara Grier and Donna McBride of Naiad Press. BSB has over 550 active titles at present, and Len herself has written... forty-two of them! Who is this super-power? 

It's no exaggeration  to say BSB has revolutionized the world of lesbian romantic intrigue. If you're a fan of a whip-smart, relentless lesbian heroine, you are no doubt holding one of Len's books in your hands.

I first met Len in my role as Audible editor. Every time I picked up a gay bestseller, it seemed to be one hers, or an author she'd cultivated! "Radclyffe" is Len's first pen name— "L.L. Raand" is her second, which she uses for her new paranormal series.

Audible has nine BSB romances in the Audible store as of today, and romance fans would be happy if I could produce a new one every day; they're so popular.

Imagine my surprise, when I asked Len how she started her writing career, and she told me the first half of her life... she'd been a surgeon, a plastic surgeon. 

 

How did you make the transition from plastic surgeon to bestselling author and publisher?

 

My lifelong desire from the time I was a preteen was to be a doctor. The idea of being an author was nowhere on my horizon.

Paul Farmer on Audio⎯ Resist the Impoverishment of Aspiration!

To Repair the World: Paul Farmer Speaks to the Next Generation,

by Paul Farmer, Jonathan Weigel (editor), and President Bill Clinton (forward)

 

To Repair the World is a collection of calls-to-action Paul Farmer has delivered to medical schools around the country. 

Farmer's speeches were designed to inspire the next generation of doctors and health care activists— but they will put a fire under anyone's pants.

In his words, "Resist the impoverishment of aspiration."

The man has remarkable rhetorical gifts, but the power of Farmer's speech comes from the compassion and empathy he’s gained from his experience working in communities without adequate health care. 

In the introduction, President Bill Clinton writes of learning about Paul Farmer in a New Yorker profile and calling his daughter Chelsea to ask if she knew of him.

Duh, Dad.

Chelsea told her father that Farmer is "our generation's Albert Schweizer." Good comparison. Schweizer's "reverence for life" translates into Farmer's assertion that health care should be seen as a human right— that all deserve care.

Farmer has an evidence-based conviction: poverty and disease are solvable problems. Faced with a mountain of incalcitrance, you don't grab a pick ax and start chipping away— you invent a new way to bring it all down.

Narrated by  David Ledoux, (Farmer) and Joe Barrett (Bill Clinton) and Kevin T. Collins.

--Willow Pennell

Lisa McKenzie: Capturing Adolescence Like a Photograph

Stop That Girl, by Elizabeth McKenzie

Elizabeth McKenzie has written one of those rare books that seems to capture adolescence like a photograph.  

Stop that Girl gets it all right; outsized action that rings true, gnarled family relationships that are at once damaging and fortifying, and emotional showdowns both ridiculous and cathartic.

Ann Ransom, the narrator, is a classic child heroine. Brave, sarcastic, and just a bit precocious. She's driven to please her family members even when those around her have competing demands and takes on the role of confidant and caregiver from an early age.

Like anyone who's found themselves in this situation, she does her best to cope, but it's not always what the adult world would expect-- Running off with her new baby sister in a crowded airport to get away from the arguing adults, for example.

Ann's family moves around throughout her life looking for a place where they feel they belong, and California becomes an unstated character in the book. The oil fields, the swimming pools and cul-de-sacs. I felt the presence of my home sate on every page.

Narrated by Elizabeth Evans who does adolescent and young adults with tenderness and an iron core. See: Mermaids and Jesus Land: A Memoir.

-- Willow Pennell

Up and Down California— William Brewer's Cult Classic, on Audio!

Up and Down California, in 1860-1864, The Journal of William H. Brewer, Foreword by William Bright

“Like a trip in a time machine--intimate, vivid, and full of adventure and discoveries.” 

--Tom Steinstra, San Francisco Chronicle

In 1860, William Henry Brewer joined a team in the very first geological survey of California.

A recent and very young widower, impressionable William wrote letters home, back East, to his brother-- this is his extraordinary diary. Brewer's stories let us look at California in a way that is virtually erased from modern-day eyes. 

William's letters are both touching and full of jaw-dropping description, telling of the virgin beauty of the land, the original (and soon to be annihilated) Native culture and relationships he formed, and the beginning of the revolution that would transform California forever. 

A primary document like this is priceless and entertaining primary history. It's the kind of story families treasure from generation to generation, saying, “You have to hear about this.”  No son or daughter of the West should live without reading this once.

Note: Susie Bright's father, Bill Bright, edited the new edition and wrote the recent foreword, endearing himself to the Brewer cult… and believe me, there is one.

Superbly narrated by Tom Stechschulte. You may know him from Cormac Mcarthy's The Road and No Country for Old Men

--Willow Pennell

 

One Woman’s Tub of Cottage Cheese Is Another Woman’s Maxed-Out Master Card.

Appetites: Why Women Want, by Caroline Knapp

“(Knapp) illuminates the ways in which cultural taboos about women who desire create vulnerability to disorders of appetite including food and alcohol addictions, compulsive shopping and promiscuous sex. In this expansive view, ‘one woman’s tub of cottage cheese is another woman’s maxed-out Master Card.’”

--Barbara Mackoff

Some things to know about Caroline Knapp:

She was the daughter of the noted psychiatrist Peter H. Knapp;  she was a successful reporter for the Boston Phoenix; and she wrote a bestselling book about being a high functioning alcoholic called, Drinking: A Love Story. She died in 2002 of lung cancer before this book was published.

These influences make Appetites truly compelling. Knapp’s questions; why women want, and how do women identify and demand their wants, have psychological grounding. She uses her reporting skills on herself and the broader culture to try and answer some of these questions. 

The eating disorder theme in this book is an obvious draw, but Knapp makes pointed discussion of the relationship between women, food, and desire; how stunted desires can express themselves in all kinds of ways, from sex-addiction to compulsive shopping.

The lovely foreword by Knapp’s friend, reporter Gail Caldwell, was so intoxicating and affecting, I got lost in it. I forgot it was the introduction.

Narrated by Gabra Zackman, a veteran narrator who has narrated many stories from  The Best American Erotica 2006 (Unabridged Selections), and Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Sex Industry

--Willow Pennell and Aretha Bright

The Original Detective— & Master Thief— Who Inspired Sherlock Holmes

Memoirs of Vidocq: Master of Crime, by Francis Eugene Vidoq, translated by Edwin Gile

It’s hard to believe this hasn’t been on audio before.

Get ready for a revelation: Vidocq was an 18th century master thief, who so bedeviled the French police that they eventually begged him to become their Master Detective, turning the tables on crime. He founded the  Sûreté Nationale as well as creating the FIRST private detective agency, He is indeed  the Father of modern criminology!

Arthur Conan Doyle said that Vidocq directly inspired him to write his Sherlock Holmes series. 

Vidocq's memoir, literally, is the first police procedural novel-- and it’s still mesmerizing.

Like Sherlock Holmes, Vidocq had no special technology or advanced science to solve his crimes or set criminal traps-- only his wits and knowledge of the criminal mind.  

Like Holmes, he was, perhaps, a sociopath. He had no interests except in The Game.  

Mystery aficionados will FLIP when they find out who Vidocq was, and that his memoir is available.

Narrated by John Mawson who did such a magnificent job reading The Road to Ruins, a favorite of ours.

--Susie Bright

Uncensored History of an Observant “Bad Guy”-- James Carr's Prison Memoir

BAD: The Autobiography of James Carr, by James Carr

James Carr may not have been the world’s most famous criminal, but he wrote one of the most memorable prison memoirs of the Boomer generation. 

Incarcerated and “working” during the 50s-60s, Carr came up in the Prison system during the time of Attica, the Panthers, and race riots--that up-ended even his cloistered community. 

Remarkable, unsparing, uncensored history of an observant “bad guy” whose collaborating writer on the outside really know how to make it click. 

The narrative is downright harrowing, and it's chilling when, in the introduction, Isaac Cronin points out that little has changed in the California prison system, except that there is no longer very much of a prison reform movement.

BAD is  still referred to by those who make a study of prison memoirs.

Narrated by JD Jackson who did great work on The Marines of Montford Point: America’s First Black Marines.

--Susie Bright

William Burroughs' Favorite Book—The Original Hobo Narrative

You Can’t Win, By Jack Black

This is the real deal: the original Depression-era train-hopper hobo narrative. It’s so poignant and beautifully written, it never went out of print.

Jack Black's clean, uncluttered prose— and complete lack of self pity— make it easy to feel present in the book to this day.

When William S. Burroughs came along, years after this book was published, he wrote it was “the best book I ever read.” His intro to this edition You Can’t Win helped it become the cult classic of a new generation. You can really see Black’s influence on the Beats.

You Can't Win is one of the best memoirs I’ve read: freight-hopping, a brotherhood of thieves, drugs, prison—and, profoundly, librarians.

—Rip-roaring introduction by Burroughs, included!

You Can't Win has been made into a movie starring Boardwalk Empire's Michael Pitt  and is due out this year. Listen to the audiobook now; the film will be an interesting comparison.

Narrated by Bernard Setaro Clark who outright inhabits the part.

--Susie Bright

Everything You Ever Wanted to Gnosis—The Spiritual Traditions of the West

Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to Western Inner Traditions, by Richard Smoley and Jay Kinney

“The editors of Gnosis magazine present a fascinating primer on Western religious traditions.

"Since the early 20th century, seekers in America ‘were seized with a passion for the lore of mystic Asia... Meanwhile, Western traditions seemed to slip out of vogue, especially in the recent realm of New Age spiritualism.

"Smoley and Kinney break down the fundamental differences between Eastern and Western traditions, extracting the best of the West for today's seekers.”

-- Gail Hudson

Even if you aren't a seeker, this is a fascinating introduction to neglected traditions and history in Western culture. 

This discussion of  Western spiritual traditions is objective, piercing, and sympathetic.

Smoley and Kinney write clearly and with subtle, dry humor about serious and complicated issues surrounding spirituality in a way that a non-academic can understand. It's like listening in on a long conversation between two thoughtful masters in their field, over lunch.

Narrated by Ethan Sawyer who gave an astonishing performance on our own Double Life: A Love Story from Broadway to Hollywood.

--Willow Pennell and Aretha Bright