J. Baars

Kafka on the Shore

• UNABRIDGED (19 hrs and 8 mins)
• By Haruki Murakami
• Narrated By Sean Barrett, Oliver Le Sueur
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Kafka on the Shore follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at 15, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down.

Among Others

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 39 mins)
• By Jo Walton
• Narrated By Katherine Kellgren
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Startling, unusual, and yet irresistably readable, Among Others is at once the compelling story of a young woman struggling to escape a troubled childhood, a brilliant diary of first encounters with the great novels of modern fantasy and SF, and a spellbinding tale of escape from ancient enchantment.

Cyteen

• UNABRIDGED (36 hrs and 52 mins)
• By C. J. Cherryh
• Narrated By Gabra Zackman, Jonathan Davis

The saga of two young friends trapped in an endless nightmare of suspicion and surveillance, of cyber-programmed servants and a ruling class with century-long lives – and the enigmatic woman who dominates them all.

1Q84

• UNABRIDGED (46 hrs and 50 mins)
• By Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin (translator), Philip Gabriel (translator)
• Narrated By Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett

The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....

The Hunger Games

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 14 mins)
• By Suzanne Collins
• Narrated By Carolyn McCormick
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don't live to see the morning? In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by 12 outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

The Heroes

• UNABRIDGED (23 hrs and 10 mins)
• By Joe Abercrombie
• Narrated By Steven Pacey

They say Black Dow's killed more men than winter, and clawed his way to the throne of the North up a hill of skulls. The King of the Union, ever a jealous neighbour, is not about to stand smiling by while he claws his way any higher. The orders have been given and the armies are toiling through the northern mud. Thousands of men are converging on a forgotten ring of stones, on a worthless hill, in an unimportant valley, and they've brought a lot of sharpened metal with them.

The Ice Limit

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 48 mins)
• By Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
• Narrated By Scott Brick
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The largest known meteorite has been discovered, entombed in the earth for millions of years on a frigid, desolate island off the southern tip of Chile. At four thousand tons, this treasure seems impossible to move. New York billionaire Palmer Lloyd is determined to have this incredible find for his new museum. Stocking a cargo ship with the finest scientists and engineers, he builds a flawless expedition. But from the first approach to the meteorite, people begin to die....

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

• UNABRIDGED (21 hrs and 10 mins)
• By Karl Marlantes
• Narrated By Bronson Pinchot
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Why we think it’s a great listen: A performance so poignant, we gave Bronson Pinchot (yes, Balki from Perfect Strangers) our inaugural Narrator of the Year award.... In the monsoon season of 1968-69 at a fire support base called Matterhorn, located in the remote mountains of Vietnam, a young and ambitious Marine lieutenant wants to command a company to further his civilian political ambitions. But two people stand in his way.

The Man from Beijing

• UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 29 mins)
• By Henning Mankell
• Narrated By Rosalyn Landor
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

January 2006. In the Swedish hamlet of Hesjvallen, nineteen people have been massacred. The only clue is a red ribbon found at the scene. Judge Birgitta Roslin has particular reason to be shocked: Her grandparents, the Andrns, are among the victims, and Birgitta soon learns that an Andrn family in Nevada has also been murdered. She then discovers the 19th-century diary of an Andrn ancestora gang master on the American transcontinental railwaythat describes brutal treatment of Chinese slave workers.

A Gate at the Stairs

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 3 mins)
• By Lorrie Moore
• Narrated By Mia Barron

In her dazzling new novel--her first in more than a decade--Moore turns her eye on the anxiety and disconnection of post-9/11 America, on the insidiousness of racism, the blind-sidedness of war, and the recklessness thrust on others in the name of love.