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Behind the Mic With Kirkus Reviews

Behind the Mic With Kirkus Reviews

By: Kirkus Audiobook Reviews
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Summary

 Kirkus Audiobook Reviews Find your next great audiobook on Behind the Mic with Kirkus Reviews. Every Thursday, host Jo Reed and her guests discuss what they’ve been listening to and recommend the very best audiobooks. It’s the perfect way to keep up with new releases and hear about the ones you may have missed. Launched by AudioFile magazine in 2018, Behind the Mic now has its home at Kirkus Reviews, the most trusted voice in book discovery for more than 90 years. Visit us at kirkusreviews.com. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts.Kirkus Reviews 2026 Art Entertainment & Performing Arts Literary History & Criticism
Episodes
  • Toni Morrison in Three Dimensions

    Toni Morrison in Three Dimensions
    Apr 30 2026
    Contributor Kendra Winchester joins host Jo Reed to discuss three audiobooks that each spotlight a different side of Toni Morrison. In Language as Liberation, narrator Bahni Turpin guides listeners through Morrison’s own lectures, bringing an immediacy to her literary analysis of the American canon. Toni at Random, read with clarity and momentum by Deanna Anthony, highlights Morrison’s role in championing major Black writers as an editor at Random House. And January LaVoy’s reading of On Morrison carries Namwali Serpell’s close readings of the novels, making Morrison’s work feel newly alive. Three books, three authors, three narrations—each one sharpening a different view of Morrison’s lasting impact. Audiobooks Discussed: Language as Liberation: Reflections on the American Canon by Toni Morrison, read by Bahni Turpin (Random House Audio) Toni at Random: An Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship by Dana A. Williams, read by Deanna Anthony (Harper Audio) On Morrison by Namwali Serpell, read by January LaVoy (Random House Audio) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    27 mins
  • Mothers, Memory, and the Search for Self

    Mothers, Memory, and the Search for Self
    Apr 23 2026
    Host Jo Reed talks with contributor Leslie Fine about three audiobooks that circle around questions of identity, family, and belonging. In Kin by Tayari Jones, dual narrators Angel Pean and Ashley J. Hobbs give distinct voices to two lifelong friends shaped by maternal absence as well as the racial and class realities of the 1950s South. Boy From the North Country, written and read by Sam Sussman, blends autofiction and grief as a son returns home to his dying mother, while My Other Heart by Emma Nanami Strenner, narrated by Joy Ozymanski, follows two teenagers navigating questions of heritage, class, and family. Three very different audiobooks, each asking—through story and performance—how we come to understand where we belong. Audiobooks Discussed: Kin by Tayari Jones, read by Angel Pean and Ashley J. Hobbs (Random House Audio) Boy From the North Country written and read by Sam Sussman (Penguin Audio) My Other Heart by Emma Nanami Strenner, read by Joy Osmanski (Penguin Audio) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    25 mins
  • Three Stories, Many Points of View

    Three Stories, Many Points of View
    Apr 16 2026
    Host Jo Reed is joined by Michele Cobb to look at three audiobooks that use multiple narrators to tell stories from distinct perspectives. In Joan Silber’s Mercy, a cast of voices traces how an experience reverberates across lives and decades, with narration providing the emotional throughline. Rachel Hawkins’s The Storm leans into suspense and atmosphere, with strong performances sharpening a layered, true-crime-tinged mystery. And in Craig Thomas’s That’s Not How It Happened, four narrators bring clarity and texture to the story of a family and the uneasy overlap between private life and public storytelling. Three very different books, each shaped by shifting perspectives—and in each case, it’s the narration that makes the whole story cohere. Audiobooks Discussed: Mercy by Joan Silber, read by L.J. Ganser, Nan McNamara, Christina Moore, Alyssa Bresnahan, Helen Laser & Nick Walther (Recorded Books Inc.) The Storm by Rachel Hawkins, read by Stephanie Németh-Parker, Alex Knox, Cathi Colas, Dan Bittner, Jane Oppenheimer, Patti Murin, and Petrea Burchard (Macmillan Audio) That’s Not How It Happened by Craig Thomas, read by Marli Watson, Cobie Smulders, Josh Radnor, and Kevin Iannucci (Harlequin Audio) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    24 mins
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