Soundtrack your holiday with our favourite audiobooks and podcasts
Make your commute the most productive part of your day with a podcast that will entertain and inspire…
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
Read by Alex McKenna
One of the most buzzed-about books of 2016, Sweetbitter is a tale of indulgence and infatuation set in a fictional restaurant based on iconic New York City eatery (and former workplace of author Stephanie Danler) Union Square Café. It’s essentially The Devil Wears Prada for the hospitality industry. If you haven’t read it in print yet, pour yourself a glass of rosé and press play.
Rich and Pretty by Rumaan Alam
Read by Julie McKay
An exploration of an all-too familiar female friendship narrative, Rich and Pretty chronicles two childhood besties who find that they have increasingly little in common as adults. “It’s a relatable subject if you’ve ever found a rote check-in with your BFF a little grating without really knowing why,” wrote one reviewer. Chances are you’ll be direct dialing that BFF by the end of the reading, though.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Read by Jeremy Irons
Humbert Humbert takes on an extra level of creepiness in this recording of Lolita narrated by Jeremy Irons – who went from playing the verbose villain in the 1992 film to voicing Scar in The Lion King. If Humbert’s obsession with 14-year-old “nymphet” Dolores isn’t enough to get your skin crawling, try convincing your brain that he didn’t also kill Mufasa.
Slouching towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
Read by Diane Keaton
First published in 1968 against a backdrop of social upheaval and intergenerational conflict, Joan Didion’s celebrated book of essays encapsulates, through a series of vignettes, the author’s experience of Californian counterculture in the late-1960s. It is brought to life by Diane Keaton’s narration.
The PanDolly Podcast
What makes a basic bitch? Do hipsters watch The Hills in an ironic way? How many G&T’s are too many on a long-haul flight? British style writers Pandora Sykes and Dolly Alderton bring you the answers to these questions and more.
Listen in if: You’re out of Pardon My French episodes, or you’d rather take your failsafe podcast formula with a different, cool accent.
Pardon My French
Featuring blogger, writer and all-round embodiment of Parisian chic Garance Doré conversing candidly with everyone from Isabel Marant to Rose Byrne about everything from pets to plastic surgery, Pardon My French takes a failsafe podcast formula and adds a really cool accent.
Listen in if: Like us, you’re a Francophile a few Euros short of your Paris dream.
Who? Weekly
Created by staffers of pop-culture websites Jezebel and Vulture, Who? Weekly is a tabloid gossip parody in podcast form. It promises to teach you “everything you need to know about the celebrities you don’t”.
Listen in if: You know your Kim from your Khloe, but you don’t keep up with the Kardashians enough to distinguish Scott Disick from Jonathan Cheban.
Accused
The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s investigation into a so-called open-and-shut case of murder forms the basis of Accused, the latest standout in the wildly popular true-crime podcast category.
Listen in if: You’ve been waiting for something to live up to Serial ever since its disappointing second season.
