Adult Fiction
The Best That You Can Do.
By Amina Gautier. Read by LaNecia Edmonds.
2024. 6.5hr. HighBridge, DD (9781696614344).
Listeners will fall in love with Gautier’s fourth award-winning short story collection and winner of the 2023 Soft Skull-Kimbilio Publishing Prize. Five thought-provoking chapters include a robust arrangement of short stories, set in New York City and Philadelphia, of the African and Latinx diasporic experience that incorporate moments of truth with concise, lyrical, and philosophical artistry. The audio will appeal to short story fans exploring relatable historical fiction that focuses on multiracial families and relationships, individualism, cultural assimilation, racism, and reconciliation from the POV of women and children. Edmonds, unaccompanied, narrates the complete package of 57 short stories perfectly. She accurately captures the essence of the prose, the Spanish dialects, and the concern, determination, desire, and realization of vivid personalities. Gautier, a native of Brooklyn, salutes the city of New York using the phrase the best that you can do from “Arthur’s Theme,” the 1981 Oscar-winning song from Arthur. For some adults, the narratives specifying actual events and entertainment of the past four decades will be nostalgic. —Vanessa Denby
Cahokia Jazz.
By Francis Spufford. Read by Andy Ingalls.
2024. 15.5hr. Simon & Schuster Audio, DD (9781797167923).
Joe Barrow, the large and laconic protagonist of this new alternative history Jazz Age whodunit, is the best new character to appear in ages. Turned to police work by an old Army buddy after his stint in the Great War, Joe is ambivalent to his new (2007) and, especially, Ursula K. Le Guin readers, but hopefully many more will pick up this fascinating book. —
