When we sold my father's house last summer, I drove from New Jersey to Michigan to clear it out. For most of that 12-hour drive, Tom Hanks was my companion as he narrated Ann Patchett's wonderful The Dutch House (Harper Audio) as Danny. The intimacy of his voice almost made me believe he was sitting in the passenger seat, telling the story of his family home, and how the enormity of it drove off his mother and attracted a new stepmother, causing a rift between himself and his father and bringing him closer to his sister. It never occurred to me when I selected this audiobook from Libro.fm that this was the story of various people's relationship to a house. It was cathartic.
James Lapine's Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created Sunday in the Park with George(Recorded Books) describes life in another sort of house, the theater. The audiobook version, narrated by Adam Grupper (as Lapine), features a cameo by longtime Sondheim actor Len Cariou, doing an extraordinary channeling of the cadence and timbre of the composer/lyricist's voice. Listeners hear about the inception of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sunday in the Park with George and the process of collaboration that brought it to fruition, along with melodic lines from the score.
Last month, when I drove back to Michigan to see my family, I wanted humor. It has been a long year. So I took Samantha Irby with me. She narrates her own Wow, No Thank You (Random House Audio) with all the intonation and feeling and wry delivery you could possibly desire; you can't read her words the same way after hearing her voice. Her description of what it takes to prepare for an evening out acquires a whole new meaning in light of the pandemic. --Jennifer M. Brown, senior editor, Shelf Awareness
