For the past several years, downloadable audiobooks has been the fastest-growing category in the book world, regularly expanding at double-digit rates. In the first half of this year, for example, downloadable audio sales rose 35.4%, according to Association of American Publishers figures. Last year, audio sales grew 28.8%, and in the last five years, they've jumped 146.2%.

For a long time, indie booksellers haven't been able to take full advantage of this hot book category, but now programs like libro.fm and Hummingbird Digital Media make it easy for indies to offer downloadable audiobooks to the many book lovers who are listening to audiobooks.

In order to help booksellers learn more about audiobooks, Shelf Awareness is teaming up with AudioFile, which since 1992 has been the premiere company offering audiobook reviews, narrator and author interviews, awards and more. Beginning with this issue, we'll run a monthly column from AudioFile--the first, which appears below, highlights the outstanding audio versions of some popular books.

At the same time, we're continuing to run the libro.fm monthly bestseller list. October's most popular audio titles also appear below. Happy listening!

WH Smith, the British book retailer with many stores in travel locations and downtowns, is the company that came close to buying Barnes & Noble early this year, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing "people familiar with the situation." The newspaper said that B&N declined comment and WH Smith didn't answer requests for comment.

The potential purchase was made public in late August, in the lawsuit filed against B&N by Demos Parneros, who was abruptly fired as B&N's CEO July 2. In the suit, he didn't name the potential buyer, saying that it withdrew its offer in June after due diligence.

In its response and counterclaims to Parneros's suit filed late last month, B&N in essence confirmed that there was a buyer, blaming Parneros for the collapse of the deal. He denied those charges, saying he was fully supportive of the sale of the company.

In October, B&N said it has received "expressions of interest from multiple parties" about buying the company, including one from chairman Len Riggio. It set up a special committee that is evaluating the offers. Riggio has said he will abide by the decision of the committee.

Many people in the industry had speculated that the mystery buyer earlier in the year could have been Indigo, Follett or Elliott Advisors, the hedge fund that owns Waterstones.

A WH Smith acquisition of B&N would have marked a return for the company to the U.S. (it had American shops, mostly in airports, from 1985 to 2003).

WH Smith's 1,400 shops, which are primarily at airports, train stations, downtowns, highway stops and hospitals, sell books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, entertainment and travel products and some food. Most of the stores are in the U.K., although it has operations in some 27 other countries, mostly in airports, but not in the U.S. At various times, WH Smith owned the U.K. bookseller Waterstone's and U.K. publisher Hodder Headline. In its fiscal year ended in August, WH Smith had sales of £1.262 billion (about $1.65 billion).

WH Smith is expanding into the U.S. without B&N. Last week, it announced that for $198 million, it is buying InMotion, which has 114 stores in 43 airports in the U.S. that sell "digital accessories" such as headphones and earbuds, travel accessories, mobile power, portable speakers and cameras. The company described the acquisition as providing it with "a scalable platform to launch the WH Smith airport format into the U.S." At the same time, the company said the move will allow it "to grow the digital accessories format in key markets outside of North America where WH Smith is present."

B&N has some 620 bookstores, all in the U.S., although in the 1990s, it explored expansion into Canada and the U.K. In the fiscal year ended April 28, it had sales of $3.7 billion, more than double WH Smith's sales.

Renaissance Books at Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport

The Bookshop in Milwaukee, Wis., which opened in 2012 in the Grand Avenue mall, has closed in order to relocate to a roughly 5,000-square-foot space in the Southridge Mall in Greendale, Wis., the Journal Sentinel reported.

The store will reopen under the name Renaissance Bookshop and carry new and used titles--previously, the store carried only used books. Its new space in the Southridge Mall once belonged to a Toys R Us, and the move has come after the Grand Avenue mall's owners began construction to turn that mall into a mix of apartments, offices and retail.

Robert John, The Bookshop's owner, also owns Renaissance Books, which currently has a branch in Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport. For decades, Renaissance Books also had a huge store in downtown Milwaukee, in a five-story building that had once been a furniture warehouse. That branch was closed in 2011 after the city declared the building "unfit for occupancy."

John told the Journal Sentinel that he expects the new Renaissance Bookshop to open soon.

Angela Redden became the owner of Reading Rock Books, Dickson, Tenn., in September, though she "had actually been managing the bookstore on her own since previous owner, Laura Hill, relocated to Texas on June 1," the Tennessean reported, adding that "before the move, Redden shadowed and absorbed all the information she could on how to run a bookstore and expressed her gratitude to Hill for being so helpful throughout the entire process."

Redden had never owned a bookstore before, but she was prepared to hit the ground running in her community: "It means so much to own a piece of my hometown, and I'm excited to be part of the business world in Dickson County.

Because she is also Dickson County Imagination Library program coordinator, she has ideas for the future of Reading Rock Books and its impact in the community. The Tennessean wrote that Redden "envisions it being a place where readers and writers can connect with each other and has already been able to bring four authors into the store for events that have done just that. She'd also like to allow the bookstore to be a small event place, allowing children to host their birthday parties at, with their favorite book as the theme." She also plans to remodel the building.

Redden expressed her gratitude to the Dickson County community for being so welcoming to her as a new business owner: "Reading is powerful and a building block for life. I want to bring that spark to the community, and once I have done that, I will feel like I've fulfilled my purpose."

The mayor of Beaver Dam, Wis., put out the call last winter for an independent bookstore, and BrocheAroe Fabian has answered, moving to the city from North Carolina a month ago "with the goal of opening her own brick-and-mortar bookstore within a few years," the Daily Citizen reported. Last summer, Fabian started River Dog Book Company and plans to have a bookmobile in place by next spring.

"I always wanted to open my own store," she said. "I've had plans both on paper and in the back of my head for years. I was just waiting for the right opportunity."

After visiting the city and met with Mayor Becky Glewen and others, she decided to make the move. "I'm not any stranger to the Midwest," she said. "I really love a lot of the Midwestern culture and environment. I'm a really outdoorsy person and so many things about Wisconsin made sense when I found out about this.”

Fabian has built "a virtual book club with hundreds of members from around the country," the Daily Citizen wrote. "Now the website will transform into a bookmobile and highlight the community and programming aspects of a bookstore. Fabian said there are so many possibilities, like hosting writing classes, book fairs, working with the library to bring in authors and more."

"That way, I get to meet the community," she said. "I get to meet the wider community of Dodge County and of south-central and southeastern Wisconsin and slowly work with the mayor, the downtown revitalization plan, Downtown Beaver Dam Inc., everyone involved in revitalizing the downtown to find the right brick-and-mortar space and make sure that it is happening in a way that fits both the community and my resources."

Jin Yong, "a literary giant of the Chinese-speaking world whose fantastical epic novels inspired countless film, television and video game adaptations and were read by generations of ethnic Chinese," died October 30 in Hong Kong, the New York Times reported. He was 94. Jin Yong "was one of the most widely read 20th-century writers in the Chinese language. The panoramic breadth and depth of the fictional universes he created have been compared to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and have been studied as a topic known as 'Jinology.' "

John Christopher Hamm, an associate professor of Asian languages and literature at the University of Washington, said Jin Yong took a "marginal, even disreputable, form of popular fiction and made it both a vehicle for serious literary expression and something that appealed to Chinese readers around the globe."

Translated into many languages, his books have sold tens of millions of copies.

"Reading his novels opened our vision," said Liu Jianmei, a professor of contemporary Chinese literature at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "His way of thinking was so different from what was being cultivated in mainland China at the time. He helped us think beyond right and wrong, good and bad."

A Hero Born, the first installment of Jin Yong's popular trilogy Legends of the Condor Heroes, was translated into English and published this year by MacLehose Press. The Times also noted that readers of the original Chinese versions include Alibaba chairman Jack Ma, "who at one point gave employees nicknames drawn from characters in the novels."

Last week at the Goethe-Institut in New York City, journalist Renata Adler, translator Damion Searls, and critic Liesl Schillinger celebrated the launch of the first full English-language translation of German writer Uwe Johnson's Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl (New York Review Books) with a reading and panel discussion about New York in the 1960s, politics then and now, and the challenges of translating an 1,800-page novel. The celebration marked the opening of a month-long installation and film series entitled "Riverside Drive Revisited: Uwe Johnson's New York," which brings to life New York in the 1960s, when Johnson lived there. The installation features newspaper headlines that accompany the main character of Anniversaries through her daily life in November 1967; digital images from the Uwe Johnson Archive in Rostock, Germany; a map of important places in the novel; and a reading room with books by Johnson and books that inspired Johnson. The film series will begin with the screening of the adaptation of Anniversaries, directed by Margarethe von Trotta, and continue with screenings of other films that depict New York during the 1960s and '70s.
Photo: Daniel Albanese

At Oblong Books

Social media was awash with "I voted" posts yesterday, but some booksellers were also using a more traditional form of communication to inspire their customers to cast ballots--the sidewalk sandwich board.

"Vote," Sundog Books, Seaside, Fla., posted on Facebook with a pic of its chalkboard, which featured a quotation from Thomas Jefferson: "We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate."

The sidewalk sandwich board at Run for Cover Bookstore and Café, San Diego, Calif., showcased Roald Dahl's advice: "Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world."

Indiebound tweeted a photo of the chalkboard in front of Oblong Books & Music, Rhinebeck, N.Y., which quoted Barack Obama: "There's no such thing as a vote that doesn’t matter."

"Your vote is your voice," East City Bookshop, Washington, D.C., advised.

And a kids'-eye view came from Element of Fun Books & Toys, Rochester, N.Y.: "Vote!"

Congratulations to Amherst Books, Amherst, Mass., which is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a party this Friday, November 9, according to the Massachusetts Daily Collegian. At the event, the new and used bookstore will reveal its new logo and Norton Juster, author of The Phantom Tollbooth, will appear. Amherst Books will offer a 15% discount on Friday and other deals throughout the weekend.

The store was founded in 2003 by Nat Herold and Mark Wootton, both longtime booksellers. Herold now owns the store with Shannon Ramsey, who became a co-owner last year when Wootton retired.

Despite strong competition from online booksellers and text suppliers, the store continues to be a place to discover books and connect with other readers. Ramsey told the newspaper she imagines Amherst Books as "a place where people can come and feel comfortable exploring ideas, talking with one another, connecting with good books and doing it in a place that's unfettered by corporate notions of what needs to sell."

Herold added: "One of the most pleasurable things about working in a bookstore is when somebody asks you for a recommendation and you have to try and scope out the person, what they like.... If you recommend a book, and they buy it and they come back later and tell you it was a great book, it's really about getting a book to a reader."

Laura Ferguson has joined Open Road Integrated Media as senior v-p of business development. She formerly managed new business development at Time Inc. (now Meredith) and has earlier worked at Simon & Schuster and Abrams.

Stiff: Stories by Steve Hughes (Wayne State University Press)

Tomorrow:
NPR's 1A: Irene Butter, author of Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope, My True Story (White River Press, $20, 9781935052708).

Steve Harvey: William Shatner, co-author of Live Long And...: What I Learned Along the Way (Thomas Dunne, $26.99, 9781250166692).

The View: April Ryan, author of Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House (Rowman & Littlefield, $24.95, 9781538113363).

Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, author of Bold & Brave: Ten Heroes Who Won Women the Right to Vote (Knopf, $18.99, 9780525579014).

CNN's Tonight: Rick Wilson, author of Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever (Free Press, $27, 9781982103125).

James Wolk (Tell Me a Story) has been cast in a major recurring role on Watchmen, HBO's upcoming drama series from Damon Lindelof based on the iconic limited comic series Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Deadline reported, adding: "As usual, the producers and HBO are keeping mum on the role but I hear Wolk plays a junior senator from Oklahoma."

He joins a cast that includes Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Andrew Howard, Tom Mison, Frances Fisher, Jacob Ming-Trent, Sara Vickers and Dylan Schombing. Scheduled for a 2019 premiere, Watchmen is produced for HBO by White Rabbit in association with Warner Bros. Television.

John James won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize for his manuscript, The Milk Hours. The prize honors "the legacy of one of the most original and accomplished poets to debut in recent years, and to reward outstanding emerging poets for years to come." It was created by Milkweed Editions in partnership with Riva Ariella Ritvo-Slifka and the Alan B. Slifka Foundation. Chambers will receive $10,000 and publication by Milkweed in June 2019.

The winner was chosen by poet and judge Henri Cole, who said: "The poetry of the earth is intensely alive in the poems of John James. In this luminous first book, there are poems of a son and a young father. Many of the best inhabit a tormented Kentucky landscape where there is a field with horses, a house and a barn, a flooding river, a cemetery where a parent lies, and bees or flies hovering. Out of the sorrowful fragments of personal history, John James has a created a book of unusual intelligence and beauty."

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Nominations have been released for the 2019 Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals Carnegie (for an outstanding book for children and young people) and Kate Greenaway (illustration for children and young people) medals. The longlist will be announced February 18, the shortlist March 18 and the winners June 17.

Several external bodies, including BookTrust, CLPE, Commonword, IBBY, Inclusive Minds, National Literacy Trust and RNIB, were invited to nominate books along with CILIP members as part of a group of changes made following a diversity review, the Bookseller reported. CILIP also expanded the judging panel of librarians, organized diversity training and launched a new prize voted for by children and young adults.

In the first of a regular monthly column from our friends at AudioFile magazine, we look at some popular fall book titles with outstanding audio editions.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, read by Bahni Turpin (HarperCollins/Blackstone, unabridged)
Whether you've seen the recent film yet or not, listeners should not miss one of the greatest audiobook performances of the last few years--for which Bahni Turpin received the Best Female Narrator Audie Award. Turpin's portrayals of all the characters are rich and deep, environments are evocatively described.

Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin, read by Beau Bridges, David Morse, Jay O. Sanders and Richard Thomas (Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged)
In this work on presidential leadership profiling Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, four narrators are used for each president. They break a lengthy book into smaller, almost self-contained segments. In addition, each narrator adds vocal character to the profiles. They don't try to sound like the presidents, but their individual tones add to the experience--a rough Midwestern edge for Lincoln, a more refined tone for FDR. And Goodwin narrates an introduction and conclusion.

Lethal White: Cormoran Strike, Book 4 by Robert Galbraith, read by Robert Glenister (Hachette Audio, unabridged)
As with Jim Dale's almost incredibly inventive performance of the Harry Potter novels, Robert Glenister has peopled Strike's world with a huge cast that is convincing, horrifying, and funny. Here, as Strike and his partner, Robin, sort out the murder of Britain's awful culture minister, Jasper Chiswell (pronounced "chisel"), the many greedy, snobbish, cruel faces of evil are human, but the plot and performance are pure magic. (Reminder: Robert Galbraith is the pen name that author J.K. Rowling uses for the Cormoran Strike series.)

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, read by Cassandra Campbell (Penguin Random House Audio, unabridged)
Cassandra Campbell uses a variety of accents for the mix of classes and regions in this story about Kya, a girl abandoned by her family in the isolated marshes of North Carolina who comes of age with little social contact in the 1950s and '60s. She also provides the same realistic detail that nature writer Delia Owens provides for the marsh.

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin, read by Maggie Hoffman (Penguin Random House Audio, unabridged)
Maggie Hoffman narrates this thought-provoking story about the four Gold siblings with a straightforward delivery. Her recounting of many of the cultural landmarks of the '60s in San Francisco and New York City's Lower East Side will resonate with listeners.

Fear by Bob Woodward, read by Robert Petkoff (Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged)
With the steely, measured delivery of a seasoned newscaster, Robert Petkoff narrates an audiobook that lives up to its title. Woodward and Petkoff humanize key members of the White House, including embittered Chief of Staff John Kelly, erratic former Chief of Staff Steve Bannon, occasional voice of reason Ivanka Trump, and a host of others.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson, read by the author (Blackstone, unabridged)
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, delivers his study of space and time clearly and engagingly to listeners. His well-known narrative skills are used to full effect, explaining concepts such as the big bang, quarks, dark matter and unseeable light. Though most of the material goes down smoothly, a few nuggets may require hitting the rewind button. Tyson's ability to simplify and connect with audiences work perfectly in the audiobook version.

Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations by John McCain and Mark Salter, read by Beau Bridges (Simon & Schuster Audio, unabridged)
The late Senator John McCain delivers the introduction and conclusion of his memoir, giving this audiobook archival significance. While his voice sounds tired and well worn, it does create an accurate sensibility of a man battling a deadly form of brain cancer, the same type that ultimately took Senator Ted Kennedy's life. Beau Bridges narrates the balance of this memoir, capturing the tone and timbre of McCain's vocal qualities while injecting a dose of boyish charm.

photo: Shimon

Lindsay Wong holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in Literary Nonfiction from Columbia University. Her debut memoir, The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug-Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family, was published by Arsenal Pulp Press (November 1, 2018). She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

On your nightstand now:

Little Fish by Casey Plett. I was in the same MFA program as Casey and just finished reading her gorgeous and devastatingly sad novel. She makes writing raw, emotional characters look like Olympic-level figure skating; it's all so effortlessly choreographed.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I would have to say Princess Frownsalot by John Bianchi. I remember thinking that it was so absurd and wonderful to be able to obtain a smile implant, especially from a cat. Being a cranky, pissed-off child, grown-ups were always telling me to smile, and I'd be like, "What's the point? I can just get a smile implant when I have money."

Your top five authors:

David Sedaris, Yiyun Li, Karen Russell, J.K. Rowling, George Saunders. They are storytellers, magical octopuses, who can multitask by balancing charm, humor, nuance, metaphor, narrative structure, voice and emotion, all at the same time, in one book. It's exhilarating but also depressing. Because when I read, I am also competing and trying to see if I can write it better.

Book you've faked reading:

The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I just couldn't get through Tolkien's heavy-on-the-description prose. Also, the entire reading curriculum at Columbia. I wanted to just write my thesis instead of reading 30+ books per semester. I remember deliberately not reading Proust and James Joyce and Henry James and then writing all my papers based on quickie SparkNotes summaries. The professor was surprisingly agreeable when I told him, and he said: "That's fine, but your workshop submissions better be amazing."

Book you're an evangelist for:

Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees. Lerner just understands what inspires and compels writers to haul themselves out of bed and not-to-give-a-shit about anything except the writing--she's funny and brilliant, too.

Book you've bought for the cover:

How Did You Get This Number? by Sloane Crosley. There was this gigantic grizzly bear on the cover, and at that time, I was fascinated by bears. I have had five casual run-ins with bears in my parents' mountainous suburb in Vancouver, and my friend keeps saying that one day I am going to get mauled to death. And I was like, no, this is a sign that I am going to have several close calls with death and danger and I'll most likely survive. I saw the cover at Chapters Indigo, and bought the book because of the roaring bear. I'm a fan of Crosley as well. Anyway, it was 90% cover and 10% author.

Book you hid from your parents:

Evelyn Lau's Diary of a Street Kid. My dad had read about her in the newspapers and thought she was a horrible influence: rebellious Chinese teenage girl, runaway, prostitute and, worst of all, aspiring writer. My dad thought Lau had written pornography, so I wrapped the book in a wad of toilet paper and stuffed it in my tampon drawer.

Book that changed your life:

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. I did not know memoir could be both funny and terribly sad. I thought literary memoir had to take itself seriously, so I was really struggling when I first started writing my own memoir. Eggers's take on family tragedy is distinctly entertaining, and in this way, it completely changed my perspective. Reading Eggers felt like it was suddenly okay to laugh at the terror and sadness that were happening in my own life.

Favorite line from a book:

"I haven't the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out." At 16, I remember reading this line from David Sedaris's essay collection Naked, and thinking: Yes! Oh my god. I'm going to try to change everyone, starting with my parents. Then I'll move onto my siblings, followed by the entire extended family. You'll be sorry once I'm through with you.

Five books you'll never part with:

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Which character you most relate to:

I think I relate to Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games. Not pre-Hunger Games when she sacrifices herself for her sister, but launching a first book, especially a memoir, really feels a lot like being in the actual Hunger Games, where there's always some gigantic unforeseen hurdle. It's actually quite scary.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. I love anything by Dr. Seuss, but the notion of eating green ham still makes me laugh out loud. I'd just love to rediscover the wonderful weirdness of trying to read these rhymes as a child again.

Genre you wish you could write:

If I knew how to write genre fantasy, I would. My absolute favorites include the Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman, the Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix and the Half-Bad trilogy by Sally Green.

In her first book for children, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Off the Sidelines) shares the history of women's suffrage in the United States, along with the narratives of 10 individuals who fought for equal voting rights. Opening with the story of her own family, Gillibrand explains that her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother taught her to "be bold," "fight for what [she] believe[s] in" and "be brave to forge a new path." Gillibrand's idols learned these philosophies from women who came before them, heroes who continue to inspire her every day.

Gillibrand introduces readers to Susan B. Anthony, who "tried to vote for president and was arrested!" But after her death, when the 19th Amendment was passed, it became known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. Gillibrand acquaints her audience with Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, women born into slavery who both went on to join the voting rights movement, and Alice Paul, who helped organize the first national parade for women's suffrage. Also included is Jovita Idár, a teacher, journalist and founder of the League of Mexican Women, who fought for women's rights and education and believed "educate a woman and you educate a family."

Maira Kalman's (Thomas Jefferson: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Everything) vivid, striking paintings accompany each woman's story, the full-page portraits emphasizing the pioneers' forceful presences in the country's history. Her powerful brushstrokes and eye-catching colors fittingly mirror the actions and spirits of her subjects.

The heroes Gillibrand highlights in Bold & Brave are a diverse group whose efforts span more than 70 years, from 1848 and the first voting rights convention to 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified. She explains how these courageous women galvanized her during the Women's March in 2017, when she told the pink-hat-wearing crowd, "We want to be counted. We want to be heard. We are going to fight for what we believe in, and we are not turning back." She also provides a list of other women who have shaped and continue to shape the nation, such as Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin, the first woman of color to graduate from the Washington College of Law.

Admiration and respect emanate from the pages of Bold & Brave. Gillibrand covers some women who may already be familiar to her audience as well as some who are more obscure but equally worthy of recognition. This reminder of valiant women from U.S. history is inspiring and sure to promote interest in voting at an early age. And in a representative democracy, one is never too young to embrace a healthy respect and appreciation for voting. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

Shelf Talker: Senator Kristin Gillibrand tells 10 stories of women who shaped the United States through their efforts in the women's suffrage movement.

The bestselling Libro.fm audiobooks at independent bookstore locations during October:

Fiction

1. The Witch Elm by Tana French (Penguin Random House Audio)
2. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Penguin Random House Audio)
3. Transcription by Kate Atkinson (Hachette Audio)
4. Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor (Hachette Audio)
5. Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (Robert Galbraith)
6. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (Penguin Random House Audio)
7. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Penguin Random House Audio)
8. Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins)
9. Less by Andrew Sean Greer (Hachette Audio)
10. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (Penguin Random House Audio)

Nonfiction

1. Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover (Penguin Random House Audio)
2. Calypso by David Sedaris (Hachette Audio)
3. These Truths by Jill Lepore (Recorded Books)
4. Fear by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster Audio)
5. Dare to Lead by Brené Brown (Penguin Random House Audio)
6. The Greatest Love Story Ever Told by Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman (Penguin Random House Audio)
7. The Library Book by Susan Orlean (Simon & Schuster Audio)
8. Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister (Simon & Schuster Audio)
9. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (HarperCollins)
10. All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung (HighBridge)