My son, Griff, loves audiobooks as much as I do, and we often go on long walks where we each listen to a different audiobook. It feels like the most you can expect from a teenager, to be so close that you can touch them, walking side by side, while they explore a world inside their own head. I have listened to books based on his recommendations, and vice versa, and here are five that we both love. —Kevin Wilson, author of Run for the Hills
This is the best audiobook of all time, and I cannot imagine that ever changing. Donna Tartt embodies Mattie Ross with such perfection that I could listen to this book every single day of my life and not get tired of it.
This is one of Griff's favorites, a hilarious and touching book about childhood. When I read it to Griff, it made me cry, which delighted him to no end, and so we switched to the audiobook version, which is wonderful.
Sometimes a book with two narrators can be jarring to me, but Marin Ireland (in my opinion the best audiobook narrator out there) and Michael Urie are so perfect together, and it's such a pleasure to hear the octopus Marcellus's distinct voice in the narration.
Griff has become obsessed with Warhammer 40K in high school, and I resisted because I could not make sense of the lore, but I realized how often I've asked him to read a book I've loved and he's always done it, so I tried and now have read more than 20 of these strange grimdark stories. This is my favorite, one of the most diverse and gripping novels in the world of 40K.
This funny and yet emotionally complicated story about a lonely man who accidentally adopts a dog was one of the first books that Griff and I enjoyed with equal intensity. What more can you ask for from a book but to make you feel closer to the people that you love?
Writer, teacher, a big audiobook fan, Kevin Wilson is known and appreciated for his quirky sense of humor.
