Every week, the Audible Editors send a newsletter that puts the cultural conversation into an audiobookish context.
This is the Weekly Sound Off—sign up here to take it to your inbox.

MARCH 1, 2019

Hello and happy March! We woke up to snow in Newark (to quote editor Courtney, “oh hi, umpteenth snow day of the season” 😑) but we’re still doing a happy dance in our clunky boots because spring is almost here! We are clearly not Marie Kondo, because we’re ready for some spring cleaning. But this year, another writer is inspiring our home décor dreams…

Philip Roth’s New York apartment is up for sale.

The late author’s Manhattan condo hit the market for $3.2 million. The great novelist and Newark hometown hero furnished the space with multiple desks (including a trendsetting standing desk situation), oodles of books, a well-worn Eames chair, and his Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral. Since we don’t have $3M to spare, we’ll take James Atlas’s word on the interiors—he was Roth’s close friend for decades and lived on the very same block. His new Audible Original, Remembering Roth, is an intimate and intellectual tribute to Roth.

Real peace requires everyone’s voice.

The US, the Afghan government, and the Taliban have been trying to talk peace, which is a good thing. But a key group that’s not being heard is women. This oversight is being called out in a letter signed by more than 600 Afghan women, public figures such as Margaret Atwood, Arundhati Roy, and Gloria Steinem as well as many international civil society organizations. They say it’s “#Time4RealPeace.” After 17 years of war, and given the profound suffering the Taliban has unleashed on women in particular, it’s a no-brainer that woman need to be at this table if lasting peace is to be achieved. In a difficult negotiation, this part is simple. As we kick off Women’s History Month, what better time to Listen to Women?

Speaking of voices…this one gives us *all* the feels.

Prepare to fall in love with Darth Vader’s son—and no, we’re not talking about Mr. Skywalker. Flynn Earl Jones is a burgeoning narrator with two recent sci-fi books under his belt, but things are about to *heat* up. It was recently announced that Jones will perform Heartthrob, the conclusion to Ahren Sanders’ Bennett Brothers trilogy. Talk about good vocal genes. Now please excuse us while go add Jones’ books to our listening queue.

We love a good space selfie.

Having just returned from what is surely the selfie capital of the world (Doha, in case you were wondering), editor Emily was charmed by this cool story about Japanese spacecraft JAXA sending home a selfie after landing on the asteroid Ryugu (it’s like taking a picture with a statue but way cooler!). She was also amazed to see there’s already quite a canon about this pictorial phenomenon. In Selfie, Will Storr takes a Ronson-esque tour of the history of self-obsession, and in The Selfie Generation, author Teri Schnaubelt investigates how our online personas are changing our psychology. Our best advice to JAXA is you do you.

This was our kind of awards show news.

As nerds whose hearts are split 50-50 between art and tech, we always appreciate a good intersection of the two. Which is why we were especially gratified when “James Baldwin” became the top trending Google search on Sunday night right after Regina King won her Oscar for If Beale Street Could Talk. Baldwin is an in-house favorite—from his classic Notes of a Native Son to his tender Giovanni’s Room to his searing The Fire Next Time—and it was treat to see him pique the public’s curiosity by way of a search query spike.

One war ends as another rages on.

It’s always bittersweet to reach the end of a series, and probably never more so than with one that harkens to a real-life scourge with seemingly no end. And so it is as Don Winslow concludes his drug war-hinged Cartel trilogy with The Border. The final installment of this epically scaled, thought-provoking, and deeply researched crime saga finds DEA agent Art Keller wrapping up his decades-long hunt for Sinaloan cartel boss Adan Barrera. The au courant story, narrated by the incomparable Ray Porter, is sure to stay with you thanks to its devastating look at the economic and social impact of the drug cartels on Mexico, and an all-too-human story about the people caught up in it all.

And we’re snow glad a disaster was averted.

Back to our snowy reality—in editor Courtney’s native Pacific Northwest, even a solitary snowflake would precipitate (pun intended!) declarations of #snowmageddon. But this winter has been downright Midwestern for those living in the upper-left corner. Which may explain why a train was stranded in rural Oregon for nearly two days due to a foot of snow in a region unequipped to handle that kind of wintry walloping. The eventual rescue was certainly a relief to the 183 passengers on board, and we’re certainly relieved to hear no Into Thin Air-level tragedies ensued.
Till next week!
—the audible editors

Audiobooks in This Edition

Remembering Roth Audiobook By James Atlas cover art
We Are Afghan Women Audiobook By George W. Bush Institute cover art
I Am Yours Audiobook By Reema Zaman cover art
Frozen Earth Audiobook By Jasper T. Scott cover art
Hotshot Audiobook By Ahren Sanders cover art
Sakina's Restaurant Audiobook By Aasif Mandvi cover art