New this week:
WHEN TO JUMP: IF THE JOB YOU HAVE ISN’T THE LIFE YOU WANT By Michael Lewis. Read by the author and various contributors. (Macmillan Audio.) Sheryl Sandberg narrates the foreword to this first manifesto of the growing community of “jumpers,” people who are leaving behind unsatisfying careers to chase after their true passions. THE LARGESSE OF THE SEA MAIDEN By Denis Johnson. Read by Nick Offerman, Michael Shannon, Dermot Mulroney, Will Patton and Liev Schreiber. (Random House Audio.) Five short stories are read by five noteworthy actors in a tribute to the enduring influence of this writer’s work in all its darkness and sublimity, before his death last year at age 67. BETTY BEFORE X By Ilyasah Shabazz with Renée Watson. Read by the author. (Macmillan Audio.) In a book intended for young audiences, the daughter of Malcolm X fictionalizes her mother’s young life and the story of her attempt to overcome a difficult upbringing and a 1940s America riven with racial tension. TOGETHER WE RISE: BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE PROTEST HEARD AROUND THE WORLD By the Women’s March Organizers and Condé Nast. Read by Ashley Judd, Melanie L. Campbell, Cindi Leive et al. (HarperAudio.) In a series of essays that have only grown in relevance, some of the most vociferous advocates of last year’s women’s march offer an urgent call to arms for gender equality today. SPIN By Neil Fishman and Harvey Edelman. Read by Jim Dale et al. (HarperAudio.) Two Broadway songwriters deliver the first original audiobook musical, based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin.”
& Noteworthy
In which we ask colleagues at The Times what they’re reading now.
“We don’t know as much about affluent people as we think we do. Caricatures abound, but the socioeconomically lucky don’t often offer themselves up for study. That all changed with Rachel Sherman’s UNEASY STREET. Nominally a sociologist, Sherman has written what is really a psychological study, and I’ve found myself returning to it frequently to remind myself of uncomfortable questions that lurk just below the surface of the lives of people who have much more than average. For instance, every consumer choice is its own expression of values. So what do our biggest ones say about what we stand for? How do impressionable children view them? And why are so many of us so eager to embrace social class labels with the word ‘middle’ in them when we’re nowhere near the median? The voyeurism here is minimal; the judgment nearly nonexistent. But with each reading, I’m a little more unsettled, in the best possible way.”
— Ron Lieber, “Your Money” columnist
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