Mol Minds ‘The Children’ for Macmillan
Actress Gretchen Mol, known for her roles in such films as Rounders and the HBO TV series Boardwalk Empire, has recorded The Children (Macmillan Audio, May) by Ann Leary, author of the bestselling novel The Good House. Leary’s latest features a dysfunctional blended family who gather at their late patriarch’s impressive lake house during the lead-up to the youngest sibling’s wedding. Mol gives voice to reclusive sister/stepsister Charlotte, a 29-year-old who lives at the lake house year-round and hides her secret life as a famous figure on the
Internet. Leary will tour in support of the title, which launches May 24, and will make various stops on the East Coast throughout the month of June, including several appearances in her home state of Connecticut and at the Nantucket Book Festival, June 16–19.
Bouncing Back from ‘The Bachelor’ on Audio
Andi Dorfman, who was a contestant on ABC’s The Bachelor and subsequently the star of a season of The Bachelorette, shares her experience of looking for love on reality shows—and reveals some behind-the-scenes anecdotes—in her audiobook It’s Not Okay: Turning Heartbreak into Happily Never After (Random House Audio, May 17). She also offers insight on what went wrong in the failed relationship and engagement that came out of The Bachelorette and provides some tongue-in-cheek advice that she has said she hopes will help other people who are going through a breakup.
Tantor Delivers Absorbing Debut Memoir
A freak accident during a pickup basketball game near the end of his junior year at Harvard left Howard Axelrod blinded in his right eye. After the incident, he left school and retreated alone to a house in the Vermont woods, where he lived with no computer, cell phone, or TV for two years. He narrates his story of how he learned what it really means to see, and how to see himself and the world in new ways in the Tantor Audio edition of his memoir, The Point of Vanishing (Beacon, 2015), due out June 7. Axelrod teaches at the GrubStreet creative writing center in Boston.
Alexie’s ‘Thunder’ Rolls with Hachette
National Book Award–winning author Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian) teamed up with his son David to record Alexie’s first picture book, Thunder Boy Jr., for Hachette Audio, on sale May 10. The story features a boy who’d rather have his very own unique name than share an unusual one with his father. The print book is illustrated by Caldecott Honor–winner Yuyi Morales, and selected images from it appear in the audiobook’s PDF.
Random House Serves Up Huang’s ‘Double Cup Love’
A man of many professions—corporate lawyer, stand-up comic, clothing designer—Eddie Huang focused on food when he opened popular New York City restaurant Baohaus and later became a Cooking Channel personality. But many people know his name from his 2013 memoir, Fresh off the Boat, about growing up as the son of Taiwanese immigrants, which inspired the ABC TV sitcom of the same name. Huang recently stepped into the studio for Random House Audio to read his new memoir, Double Cup Love: On the Trail of Family, Food, and Broken Hearts in China chronicling his trip to China with his two brothers, on a mission to discover things about himself, his family, and his food.
Weiner and Audible Are “Mad” for ‘Lunch Poems’
Matthew Weiner, creator of the lauded AMC TV show Mad Men, set at an ad agency in 1960s New York, has frequently expressed his appreciation of the poet Frank O’Hara (1926–1966). Weiner cites O’Hara’s work as a huge influence on his approach to Mad Men and even featured lead character Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm) reading aloud from one of O’Hara’s books (Meditations in an Emergency). In what audio publisher Audible calls an “extremely fitting” turn of events, Weiner was in the studio this month to record O’Hara’s collection Lunch Poems, set for a June 7 release.
