Genre round-up — the best new audio books

The comedian Hannah Gadsby began her stand-up career in 2006 after winning Australia’s Raw Comedy competition — hitherto, her art history degree had led to a succession of odd jobs that, she confides, meant she was “very gifted at mopping around boxes”. But little more than a decade later, Gadsby was captivating audiences with her show Nanette, which was filmed as a Netflix special. Both hilarious and harrowing, Nanette ranged over the bigotry and homophobia directed towards the LGBTQ community in Tasmania, where Gadsby grew up, the sexual violence implicit in many celebrated artworks, and the nature of power and complicity in performance comedy.

In Ten Steps to Nanette (WF Howes, 13 hr 47 min), Gadsby expands on many of these thoughts, and also takes the listener more deeply into her own brain. Diagnosed with ADHD and autism as an adult, she is both acutely aware of the complexities and challenges of her neurological life and resistant to being defined by it.

The result, delivered in Gadsby’s trademark deadpan style, at times defiant, at others confidential, quizzical and even conspiratorial, is compelling. She cannot speak for everyone on “the atypical brain train”, she reminds the listener when talking about how neurodivergent identities are often greeted, but she has little time for those who refuse to grapple with the idea of brains different from their own: “The real problem is that too many people have been conditioned to believe that ADHD is a nonsense disease that is not so much over-diagnosed but entirely under-existing.” She describes shuttling between selective mutism, when experiencing sensory overload, and “chatterbox gear”, when performing; although there is a great deal else in this memoir, I found her clear and calm explanations both moving and genuinely illuminating.

In fiction, fans of Anne Tyler will be delighted by the audio version of her new novel, French Braid (Penguin Audio, 9 hr 4 min). It is read by the highly experienced Kimberly Farr, whose career has encompassed Broadway, the New York Shakespeare Festival and The 1940’s Radio Hour, as well as narration of works by Elizabeth Strout, Joan Didion and Curtis Sittenfeld. Here, Farr calls on her skills to switch between the members of the Garrett family from the end of the 1950s to the middle of lockdown, creating a composite portrait of both a single group of people and the changing contours of American society.

What makes Tyler’s work particularly suitable for listening are the subtle shifts and adjustments that each character makes as they navigate their inner life — their discontents and desires, their frustrations and foibles — and their existence as part of a larger group. Small incidents become magnified and distorted over time, personality traits are either exaggerated or absorbed to the point where they cease to be noticeable, schisms gradually resolve or are tacitly tolerated.

As the novel’s title suggests, all of this blends together in such a way as to make differentiating between separate strands impossible — Tyler’s discrete sections demonstrating that, while a family consists of individuals, those individuals are intractably dependent on one another. And as the story progresses towards the recent turbulence of the pandemic, French Braid becomes even more acute. Strikingly well captured are Farr’s portrayals of mater and paterfamilias desperately trying to create, and preserve, their own little bits of space.

For pure escapism, pop yourself on the Eurostar with Lucy Foley’s The Paris Apartment (HarperCollins, 12 hr 25 min), a sort of Gallic Rear Window heavy on immaculate women in perfectly tied scarves, scornful cries of “putain!” and an all-seeing, acidly judgmental concierge. If you’ve previously enjoyed Foley’s mysteries The Hunting Party and The Guest List, you’ll recognise her penchant for collections of misfits and miscreants let loose in a rarefied and claustrophobic setting — this time, an exclusive apartment building in Paris, where down-on-her-luck Jess has come on an unexpected visit to stay with her half-brother Ben. Instead of Ben, Jess finds only a cat with bloodied paws, and a whole host of closed doors, behind which lurk residents who must, surely, know more than they’re letting on.

No fewer than six narrators piece together this whodunnit — Clare Corbett, Daphne Kouma, Julia Winwood, Sope Dirisu, Sofia Zervudachi and Charlie Anson taking turns to build up the atmosphere and tension — and while listeners will need a certain tolerance for hammy accents and thumping melodrama, I found this the absolute ticket for suspenseful pleasure.

And finally, a note for your diaries: the end of April sees the release of 40 brand-new recordings of the late Terry Pratchett’s beloved “Discworld” novels, with narrators including Andy Serkis, Indira Varma, Sian Clifford and Peter Serafinowicz, and a bonus appearance from Bill Nighy, who reads Pratchett’s own footnotes. Marking 50 years since the publication of Pratchett’s first book, the series includes specially composed music from James Hannigan and runs to over 420 hours of audio — enough to keep even the most enthusiastic of listeners occupied until Christmas.

Join our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Café