Great audiobooks by/about women?
April 9, 2017 12:58 AM   Subscribe

Help me spend my last two Audible credits on something not by white dudes. Snowflakes inside.

Pretty much what it says on top. I have two Audible credits burning a hole in my pocket and I'd like to diversify my listening a little bit. Some things that might help narrow down recommendations:

- I really, really hate dystopias. I want to be depressed, I'll read the news.
- I like non-fiction (Mary Roach is amazing), fantasy, romance, and some sci-fi.
- I have almost 0 patience for Serious Literature, or just about anything by cis straight white dudes.
- I also speak fluent French, so. Bonus points for any recs en français.

What I'm looking for: books by/about women, with a cast of strong, well-written female characters, and at least SOME diversity. #OwnVoices are better than not, as are female narrators.
posted by Tamanna to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (19 answers total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
I don't know if this counts as Serious Literature for your purposes, but the Juliet Stevenson audiobook of Middlemarch is one of my favourite things and it's pretty female-centric (woman author; woman narrator; a rich cast of fascinating women characters; plus George Eliot's generally proto-feminist take on life and on the relationships between men and women). In terms of non-fiction, Juliet Stevenson also does a great sardonic reading of Virginia Woolf's Room of One's Own, which is both by a woman and very much about women.
posted by Aravis76 at 1:20 AM on April 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


Cse Cooney narrates the audio version of her fantasy short story collection, Bone Swans
posted by azalea_chant at 1:47 AM on April 9, 2017


Octavia Butler! IMO some of the best speculative fiction/fantasy written. Many of her books are available on Audible. The Parable series is dystopic, so probably avoid those. I'd start with Kindred or Wild Seed.
posted by borsboom at 2:18 AM on April 9, 2017 [6 favorites]


Have you read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks?


How about Weapons of Math Destruction?
posted by CMcG at 3:40 AM on April 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


Turner House by Angela Fluornoy is mostly realistic, recent, and optimistic. It's about a large family in Detroit dealing with middle age without their strong willed parents leading everyone. A ghost plays a part too. Adenrele Ojo did a great job narrating it.
posted by mattamatic at 3:46 AM on April 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Great audiobooks by women I have enjoyed:


Nonfiction:
-redefining realness - Janet mock (my top pick for you based on what you said - it's so good!)
-the art of memoir - Mary Karr
-my beloved world - Sonia sotomayor
-shrill - notes from a loud woman by lindy west
-spinster - Kate bollick

Fiction:
-the book of unknown Americans - Christina henriquez
-the glorious heresises by Lisa mcinerny
-broken monsters by Laura buries
-the warmest December - Bernice McFadden
-another Brooklyn and brown girl dreaming - both by Jacqueline Woodson
-if you haven't listened to the handmaids tale my Margaret Atwood as read by Claire Danes - it's a treat! (Oops, just saw your note about dystopian books. Still tho!)

(Sorry for what I'm sure are copious spelling and formatting issues - on mobile)
posted by nuclear_soup at 4:10 AM on April 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


Since Mary Karr was mentioned, The Liar's Club & Lit.
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:34 AM on April 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Audible has got The Color Purple read by Alice Walker herself and it's a masterpiece of performance as well as writing. (The beginning is really depressing but it's set in a rural black community in the 1910s so I don't know if that counts as a dystopia because it really existed).

Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, also read by the author, is a collection of essays about plants and ecosystems viewed through the lens of both modern science and Native American traditional stories, and the author's synthesis of the two.
posted by Jon_Evil at 5:37 AM on April 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


How do you feel about Sarah Vowell? American history, so plenty of white dudes, but also humor. I liked Assassination Vacation and The Wordy Shipmates.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:48 AM on April 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


Inspired by the Octavia Butler suggestion: Urusula K LeGuin writes science fiction and fantasy and she's incredible.
posted by bunderful at 7:18 AM on April 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Currently reading Lab Girl written & read by Hope Jahren. Reflections on a scientist's life, including mundane & important details such as personal and lab funding, sexism, and family history as well as beautifully described scientific insights in delicious bites.
posted by Jesse the K at 7:33 AM on April 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


Privilege of the Sword, by Ellen Kushner. A "fantasy of manners". Tons of fun. The narration is, I'm not sure the word, semi-dramatized? In that a few major characters have their own voice actors. I ended up loving this book so much. Ignore the "Neil Gaiman presents" part audible slaps on there, he had nothing to do with the book itself. Also, ignore that it's the middle in a series.

Also the Audible of N. K. Jemision's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was quite good.
posted by mark k at 9:06 AM on April 9, 2017


Prodigal Summer
posted by BoscosMom at 10:08 AM on April 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


The Ghost Bride by Yang-Sze Choo. The audiobook is read by the author - she has a lovely voice and accent. I'd say it counts as both fantasy and romance.
posted by Kriesa at 10:24 AM on April 9, 2017


Absolutely seconding Lab Girl. Also, never heard the audiobook of this but The Elegance of the Hedgehog was pretty pleasant - a French female "door keeper" meets a rich 12 year old girl and they become friends.
posted by benadryl at 1:23 PM on April 9, 2017


One of the best audiobooks I listened to last year was Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones. It's not dystopian except in the respect that it takes place just before, during, and after Katrina. Also, it's not nonfiction but my experience listening to it was that it is an example of fiction that is so well written that it gives you truth in a deeper way than nonfiction could. The reader is so good that I immediately searched for more that she's read.
posted by janey47 at 2:06 PM on April 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Hidden Figures is the book that the movie is based on. Complements Mary Roach's "Packing for Mars" quite well, though drier and not as funny.
posted by kjs4 at 7:03 PM on April 9, 2017


Furiously Happy - by Jenny Lawson, read by her too.
posted by Neekee at 7:23 PM on April 9, 2017


Response by poster: So I wound up getting Spinster, Redefining Realness, and (after returning the Stephen Fry recording of Sherlock Holmes because a certain actor with an inordinately complicated name has put me so thoroughly off it) The Privilege of the Sword. Thanks for the recs, everyone!
posted by Tamanna at 3:48 AM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


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