When Amazon Prime Day comes around, the company is always great at offering deals on its own services, and Audible is one such offering that it's worth waiting for Prime Day before picking up.
Alongside all the Prime Day deals on right now, you can currently get three months of Audible for free if you're a Prime member – way more than the usual 30-day trial that the platform usually offers.
If you didn't know, Audible is a subscription service for audiobooks, and it's arguably the biggest service of its kind out there. With Audible, you can stream unlimited audiobooks, and also download and keep one per month for free (which you get to hold onto, even after your subscription has ended).
So it's a great service for fans of stories, but with an impressively huge library on offer, the choice can sometimes be quite overwhelming. That's why I (a literature graduate) have picked five different books that you might want to check out as part of your first listen, and they're all favorites that I'd recommend.
First things first – you'll need to get that deal!
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UK
Five books to consider
1. Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer (non-fiction, 7 hours)
Jon Krakauer has many fantastic non-fiction books on Audible, including Into Thin Air and Under The Banner of Heaven (recently adapted into a TV show of the same name), but Into The Wild has more of a profile thanks to its film adaptation.
The book tells the story of Christopher McCandless, who in 1992 ran away from his cushy life to wander around the backcountry of the USA. Six months later, he was found dead in Alaska.
Into The Wild (the book) is fantastic not just in how it explores McCandless' story, but in how it explores his motives, with lots of references to Krakauer's own stories and those of other people who have also run to nature (for better or worse). It's a fascinating exploration of the human psyche.
2. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (fiction, 10 hours)
Is Goon Squad a novel, or a series of short stories? I'm not totally sure, but I think that's what I like about it - you get out of this book whatever you put into it.
It's about a disparate cast of characters, with each chapter or short story focusing on select people in it; in different times and spaces around the world and across decades.
I really enjoyed reading this, gradually piecing together the lives and times of a group of interesting people as their stories are drip-fed through a number of different perspectives. I don't imagine it's for everyone, but it might be for you.
3. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (non-fiction, 9 hours)
Fans of Martin Scorcese will be interested in this book as it's the basis for his next movie, but I'd recommend it for another reason - it's just a really interesting read listen.
Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of a spate of murders in the Osage Nation in Oklahoma in the 1920s, kicked off by the oil found on protected land by First Nations people. The story explores the horrible treatment of these people only a hundred years ago, as well as the birth of the FBI.
This isn't my favorite David Grann book, as I'd recommend The Lost City of Z over this, but this story is arguably the more relevant (and, as I said, Scorcese fans will like it).
4. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (fiction, 12 hours)
I don't read as much science fiction or fantasy as I should (or as much as I watch or play), but I wanted to include this one because of its grounded attitude to global change.
Parable of the Sower depicts a 21st-century of crisis, based largely on the water and housing crises of real-life California, and it follows a young woman as she becomes a prophet for her community.
Apparently movie studio A24 is working to adapt this into a film, but you should check out this story regardless. It's an interesting and politically-relevant take on the busy dystopian novel genre.
5. On Trails by Robert Moor (non-fiction, 10.5 hours)
This is what I'm currently reading, but even though I'm only halfway through, I've already been recommending it left, right and center.
On Trails is, as the name suggests, about trails - the paths that animals and humans make. It's a wide-spanning look at how and why animals create them, mixed with lots of observations and accounts from its globe-trotting author.
This book really makes you think about the world we live in, and the way we (and animals) interact with it, and I'm finding it fascinating so far. Hopefully, you will as well.
