APRIL 5, 2019

We made it to April, guys! Here in Newark, temps are rising, spring has arrived, and even the most gullible among us survived the annual prankfest that is April Fool’s. We basically had a permanent side-eye on Monday, which is why we totally misjudged this first story…but luckily, we weren’t alone.

If it bleeds it leads.

Many people assumed it was impossible that the feted “Impossible Burger” (a veggie burger allegedly so similar to real meat that it bleeds) would ever be offered up by a fast food purveyor, so when on April 1st Burger King announced the Impossible Whopper, it seemed like yet another corporate prank. But now it appears BK was serving up some sly irony. What better day to kick the tires off our cultural assumptions about the future of food? In the effort to parse fact from fiction, more people than ever have been researching the “clean meat” movement. For a quick primer, editor Emily (and resident team vegetarian) recommends this listen from Paul Shapiro, with a forward from Sapiens author and general expert on the human trajectory, Yuval Noah Harari.

Throne for a loop.

Game of Thrones fans are a liiiiiittle antsy for the final season of the HBO series to start airing next week, but fortunately the network gave them something to do in the meantime. HBO hid six iron thrones in remote areas around the world, which turned up in Brazil, Canada, Spain, the UK, and the US. The final giant knife chair was just discovered in the Arctic Circle (!) by Josefine Wallenå, who upon her arrival was crowned by a man dressed as a member of the Night’s Watch. We have questions!!! How long was he waiting there?? And how much did he get paid?! It wasn’t Jon Snow—aka actor Kit Harington—but we hear he’s been up to other things, like performing in Sam Shepard’s classic play, True West, for Audible.

Talk about running your own race.

With two half marathons under her belt, editor Abby still barely thinks of herself as a runner but she’s fascinated by those who enter things like the Barkley Marathon, arguably the craziest race in the world. It’s a grueling ultramarathon of about 100 miles in the Tennessee hills that needs to be completed in 60 hours. Only 15 people have finished it since it started in 1986 and no one finished this year’s race this past weekend. But listens like Relentless Forward Progress and Hal Koerner’s Field Guide to Ultrarunning allow Abby to daydream that one day, with enough preparation, she too could perform such a superhuman feat. She’s just going to start small with a Tough Mudder 5K next month and go from there.

Finding common ground.

Susan Cain liberated so many introverts with Quiet, which let us know that we are fine the way we are, even in a world that seems to only praise extroverts. But that doesn’t mean differences between the two approaches to life don’t remain. As Cain found out in a conversation with Lori Gottlieb, a psychotherapist and author of Maybe You Should Talk With Someone, the differences can extend into therapy sessions. Introverts’ natural tendency to turn inward can be a curse or a blessing. But the fact remains that people across all spectrums go to therapy for the same variety of issues, attempting to make their lives better. And what’s more unifying than that?

Autism stories we love to hear.

Thanks to our colleagues’ “A Spectrum of Expression” collection, our libraries are newly teeming with listens that deepen our understanding of neurodiversity. Launched to coincide with Autism Awareness Month (or, as YA author Marieke Nijkamp suggests, Autism Acceptance Month), it includes listening recommendations across a range of genres, including a nonfiction deep-dive into greater knowledge about autism and its many offshoots; a Young Adult selection that looks at autism through the eyes of a dutiful sibling, and a steamy romance from the perspective of a protagonist with Aspergers. A broad, beautiful spectrum, indeed.

AI adventures in babysitting.

In the Illuminae Files, Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff created a formidable villain in AIDAN—an AI super system who begins to develop human emotions. So when it came time to assign a name to her new baby monitor, Kaufman decided that AIDAN was the only logical choice. We’re mildly terrified, but this commitment to her characters just makes us love Kaufman more.

We know what we’re doing this weekend.

Pet Sematary—Stephen King’s scariest novel EVER (fight us)—hits the big screen in a new film adaptation. We are living in a golden age of horror, so there’s no better time to bring back Jud, Church, Zelda, and the whole creepy gang…even though editor Kat swears the 1989 film scarred her quite enough, thankyouverymuch. Still, it’ll be tough to beat the fear factor of the original novel—especially when narrated by our favorite fictional sociopath, Michael C. Hall. But check out this exclusive look at John Lithgow as Jud Crandall and see if you’re brave enough to make the age-old book vs. movie call for yourself.
Till Next Week!
—the audible editors

Audiobooks in This Edition

Clean Meat Audiobook By Paul Shapiro, Yuval Noah Harari - foreword cover art
A Game of Thrones Audiobook By George R.R. Martin cover art
True West Audiobook By Sam Shepard cover art
Relentless Forward Progress Audiobook By Bryon Powell cover art
Hal Koerner's Field Guide to Ultrarunning Audiobook By Hal Koerner, Adam W. Chase - contributor, Scott Jurek - foreword cover
Sapiens Audiobook By Yuval Noah Harari cover art