<p>Aaron is a big reader of literary short stories but prefers works of nonfiction when it comes to audiobooks—mostly true crime and biographies about famous dead people. Also, he’s never eaten a raspberry and at this point he never plans to.

AUDIBLE EDITOR

Aaron Schwartz

Aaron is a big reader of literary short stories but prefers works of nonfiction when it comes to audiobooks—mostly true crime and biographies about famous dead people. Also, he’s never eaten a raspberry and at this point he never plans to.

Aaron's Recent Reviews

Product List
  • The Water Dancer (Oprah’s Book Club) Audiobook By Ta-Nehisi Coates cover art

    • The Water Dancer (Oprah’s Book Club)

    • A Novel
    • By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
    • Narrated by: Joe Morton
    • Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
    • Release date: 09-24-19
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 13,898 ratings
    • Eloquent, thoughtful, and brutally honest
    • Since writing Between the World and Me—the 2015 National Book Award winner and quite possibly my favorite audiobook of all time—Ta-Nehisi Coates has become a leading figure on news panels and publications because of his eloquence, thoughtfulness, and brutal honesty on race in America. The Water Dancer is Coates’s first published work of fiction and one of the most anticipated releases this fall—and rightfully so. Set in the antebellum era, this work of historical fiction meets magical realism will stick with you long after you’ve finished listening. And there really couldn’t be a better narrator for this story than Joe Morton. If you needed any further evidence to prove that Ta-Nehisi Coates is one the strongest and most important voices out there right now, then here it is.
  • The Nickel Boys (Winner 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Audiobook By Colson Whitehead cover art

    • The Nickel Boys (Winner 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

    • A Novel
    • By: Colson Whitehead
    • Narrated by: JD Jackson, Colson Whitehead
    • Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
    • Release date: 07-16-19
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 8,067 ratings
    • He’s done it again
    • Nobody does historical fiction like Colson Whitehead. His Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Underground Railroad knocked us all out in 2016 and I’m pretty sure The Nickel Boys is on that same trajectory. Based on a real reformatory school and set in the last years of Jim Crow, this story focuses on Elwood Curtis, a young black man trying to survive the horrors that go on within the grounds of The Nickel Academy—an institution more akin to a torturous prison than the academic institution it’s been advertised as. What keeps him going? The words of his hero, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a belief that it will get better. The Nickel Boys is a beautiful and devastating story that gives a voice to the boys who were abused and killed at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys all those years ago.
  • On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Audiobook By Ocean Vuong cover art

    • On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

    • A Novel
    • By: Ocean Vuong
    • Narrated by: Ocean Vuong
    • Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
    • Release date: 06-04-19
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,413 ratings
    • The most powerful listen of the year so far
    • I don’t even really know where to begin in describing how much I loved this one. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is Ocean Vuong’s debut novel, and to call it anything short of "stunning" would be an understatement. Vuong is a master of language, and it's obvious when listening to this how much thought and care went into crafting every sentence of this story. This novel, written as a letter from a son to his mother, will break your heart, and there’s no way around it. And since the author himself narrates, you get to experience the enthralling atmosphere that is his voice. I feel confident that when we look back on our favorite listens of the year, this will be a top contender.
  • Heads Will Roll Audiobook By Kate McKinnon, Emily Lynne cover art

    • Heads Will Roll

    • By: Kate McKinnon, Emily Lynne
    • Narrated by: Kate McKinnon, Emily Lynne, Tim Gunn, Meryl Streep, Peter Dinklage, full cast
    • Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
    • Release date: 05-02-19
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 17,451 ratings
    • Hold on to your head
    • Heads Will Roll is an Audible Original from Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon and her co-creator/co-star (and real-life sister) Emily Lynne. Produced by Broadway Video, this is not an audiobook—it’s a 10-episode, star-studded, audio comedy that features performances from a truly all-star cast. In McKinnon’s words, "I always wanted to do something about a Maleficent-style evil queen, who’s having a little bit of a crisis of conscience or wondering if she really wants to be in charge or not.
  • On Drinking Audiobook By Charles Bukowski cover art

    • On Drinking

    • By: Charles Bukowski
    • Narrated by: Roger Wayne
    • Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
    • Release date: 02-12-19
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 140 ratings
    • The miseries and pleasures of drinking
    • When I first got heavy into literature, Bukowski was my guy. Like a lot of eighteen-to twenty-year-old young men, I felt this kind of kinship with him. He was a wildcard who didn’t give a f*** how you felt about him and wrote about drinking and women and god like some sort of prophet for the wayward—and who isn’t a little wayward at that age? Having grown up a little, some of his work I once admired hasn’t aged well with me and I don’t think of him the way I used to. That said, On Drinking is loaded with all that’s good about his work. This audiobook of essays and poems from the late and great dirty old man reminded me of what I loved about his writing. It’s sharp, angry, unapologetic, and, most of all, vulnerable. This was a quick listen that I think I needed—like saying “Hi” to an old friend.
  • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Audiobook By James Joyce cover art

    • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    • By: James Joyce
    • Narrated by: Colin Farrell
    • Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
    • Release date: 01-22-19
    • Language: English
    • 4 out of 5 stars 1,707 ratings
    • Refurbishing a classic
    • Oh man, this was good. I’ve always been intimidated by Joyce’s work. They say that at the time Ulysses was written, Joyce detailed the city of Dublin so well that if it had been destroyed, it could’ve been rebuilt using the descriptions in the story. That takes a lot of words and a lot of attention that I don’t have. But Portrait of the Artist is a much more digestible listen for those of you looking to hop on the James Joyce express with me. This new production, performed by Colin Farrell, is a timeless Bildungsroman that still holds true to the human experience more than 100 years since its first publication. Now there isn’t much I can say about this story that hasn’t been said already since 1916, but I can tell you this: Colin Farrell’s narration takes this classic story to new heights.
  • Congratulations, Who Are You Again? Audiobook By Harrison Scott Key cover art

    • Congratulations, Who Are You Again?

    • A Memoir
    • By: Harrison Scott Key
    • Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
    • Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
    • Release date: 11-06-18
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 83 ratings
    • The bomb inside of you
    • My relationship to my dreams has always been a weird one. There's a certain amount of confidence (and possibly some delusion?) in thinking I can do something BIG that I know I don't have in my day-to-day life. Dreams are also not static, and often take on different shapes as life changes. That was something I didn't really expect to happen to me, but it did, and that's the part of this memoir I related to most. Congratulations, Who Are You Again? is right up my alley—it's filled with self-deprecating humor, honesty, and meditations on a lifetime pursuit of what could be and all of the failures along the way. If you've ever wanted to do or be something that felt bigger than yourself, then this is a listen for you.
  • American Prison Audiobook By Shane Bauer cover art

    • American Prison

    • A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment
    • By: Shane Bauer
    • Narrated by: James Fouhey, Shane Bauer
    • Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
    • Release date: 09-18-18
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,044 ratings
    • The business of punishment
    • Shane Bauer, an award-winning investigative journalist who famously spent two years imprisoned in Iran, got a job as a corrections officer in a privately owned prison for an investigation, and it took four months before he was figured out (even though the most basic background check would’ve outed him immediately). That is just a small example of the kind of oversight and bad work Shane describes in this book. Over the course of his stint hiding in plain sight as a prison guard, Bauer witnessed the true ugliness of the for-profit business of privately owned and operated prisons. Along with detailing his experience there, he also explores the horrible, but sadly true, history of these institutions in our country that began as a new "legal" form of slavery after the Civil War and, the author argues, still function the same way. American Prison won’t leave you feeling great and hopeful about our country’s institutions, but it’s a listen that’s worth your attention.
  • Baby, You're Gonna Be Mine Audiobook By Kevin Wilson cover art

    • Baby, You're Gonna Be Mine

    • Stories
    • By: Kevin Wilson
    • Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne, Johanna Parker
    • Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
    • Release date: 08-07-18
    • Language: English
    • 3.5 out of 5 stars 54 ratings
    • Baby, you’re gonna like these stories
    • I’m just going to jump headfirst into my thesis here: Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine will be one the best short story collections you will listen to this year. Kevin Wilson has written a completely bizarre, dark, and funny book with a lot of heart. The characters in each story are complicated, flawed people at their worst just trying to do their best, and for me, that’s literary candy. Wilson doesn’t shy away from the ugly and, within one scene, will show you the good, the bad, and the straight up weird parts of our social programming. Before this, I had never read or listened to anything by Wilson before, but I’ll tell you what: If Perfect Little World and The Family Fang are as good as this, count me in.
  • A Terrible Country Audiobook By Keith Gessen cover art

    • A Terrible Country

    • A Novel
    • By: Keith Gessen
    • Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
    • Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
    • Release date: 07-10-18
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 432 ratings
    • Come for the story, stay for the narration
    • The first thing that caught my attention about this book was the quote from George Saunders on the cover. If he refers to your work as "a cause for celebration," you can bet on the fact that I’m going to give it a listen. It turns out he was right (of course). There’s a lot to like about this story—not the least of which being the timeliness of the subject matter and the deadpan humor delivered by our protagonist, a wayward 33-year-old returning to his birth country to care for his grandmother. But what made this story work for me was the narration. Ari Fliakos, a favorite narrator here at Audible, brings Gessen's writing alive with his seamless transitions between American and Russian accents throughout the story. He nails every single beat in the dialogue and for that alone, this is a credit-worthy title.
  • Call Me American Audiobook By Abdi Nor Iftin cover art

    • Call Me American

    • A Memoir
    • By: Abdi Nor Iftin
    • Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi, Abdi Nor Iftin
    • Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
    • Release date: 06-19-18
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 431 ratings
    • A story of our time
    • “The American Dream” is an elusive concept that we all have our own definition of. For Abdi Nor Iftin, his American Dream was just that—a dream of one day being an American. Iftin grew up in Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia, and was drawn to American culture from an early age. The only problem was that his celebration of the West in a city overrun by a radical Islamist group could have had fatal consequences. Call Me American is a timely and important memoir about his life in Mogadishu and how he is now achieving his dream of being an American. There isn’t a hidden political agenda here. There’s just a true story about a man who wanted a better life, and regardless of what side of the aisle you stand on, I think we can all understand that.
  • Robin Audiobook By Dave Itzkoff cover art

    • Robin

    • By: Dave Itzkoff
    • Narrated by: Fred Berman
    • Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
    • Release date: 05-15-18
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 2,799 ratings
    • A legend remembered
    • Last fall, I caught a few minutes of Aladdin on TV. Probably like everyone else my age, it was my first introduction to Robin Williams. I loved that movie a ton when I was a child and wore out the tape on that VHS, but now I finally fully appreciate how remarkable and unique a performance it was. Along with all his work on stage and screen, Robin also had a special place here at Audible as the first person to have their own original talk show on our platform. He’s remembered at this company as family—a sentiment that, according to stories in this biography, seems to be shared amongst everyone who knew him. Detailing his successes and mistakes, both personal and professional, Itzkoff’s Robin is a beautiful and sympathetic illustration of a complicated man who changed comedy and entertainment forever.
  • Moby Dick Audiobook By Herman Melville cover art

    • Moby Dick

    • By: Herman Melville
    • Narrated by: Anthony Heald
    • Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
    • Release date: 12-29-02
    • Language: English
    • 4 out of 5 stars 1,859 ratings
    • A classic for good reason
    • Moby Dick is one of the most beloved and hated on novels in the American literary canon, but there is no arguing its status as a classic—a delineation it has earned. Melville’s story is about so much more than a vengeful old man hunting down the whale responsible for the loss of his leg. It’s a story about existence, fate, race, and man’s place in nature. There’s a reason everyone knows the title even if they’ve never read it. Its impact on the world is undeniable. For instance, did you know that Starbucks got its name from a character in the novel? In fact, it was originally going to be named the Pequod, the name of Ahab’s ship. I’m serious. Go look it up. And after you look it up, give the book a listen.
  • You Think It, I'll Say It Audiobook By Curtis Sittenfeld cover art

    • You Think It, I'll Say It

    • Stories
    • By: Curtis Sittenfeld
    • Narrated by: Emily Rankin, Mark Deakins
    • Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
    • Release date: 04-24-18
    • Language: English
    • 3.5 out of 5 stars 1,031 ratings
    • Sittenfeld writes it, I’ll listen to it
    • I love a good collection of short stories, but ever since starting here at Audible I’ve filled my library with mostly novels or nonfiction. I’ve been hesitant about listening to short fiction books because I wasn’t sure how that well the format would translate to audio. Well, as most people in my life would tell you, this is not the first thing I’ve ever been very wrong about. You Think It, I’ll Say It works perfectly in audio. Sittenfeld has written a collection of stories that feels and sounds really relevant to our world right now. The relationships, conflicts, and the dialogue are so true to this moment in time that, for someone like myself who reads mostly older work, this was a nice switch up. With mentions of current political issues and the social media-centric world we live in, I can’t remember the last book I encountered that felt this “in the moment.”
  • What I Talk about When I Talk about Running Audiobook By Haruki Murakami cover art

    • What I Talk about When I Talk about Running

    • A Memoir
    • By: Haruki Murakami
    • Narrated by: Ray Porter
    • Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
    • Release date: 07-29-08
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 4,704 ratings
    • When running meets writing
    • Award-winning fiction writer and literary master Haruki Murakami details his four-month long preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon with the thoughtfulness and eloquence that has earned him high praise and acclaim in the writing world for decades. Even if you aren’t a runner or aren’t familiar with Murakami’s work, this is such a solid piece if nonfiction that it doesn’t even matter.

Favorite Fiction

Jesus' Son Audiobook By Denis Johnson cover art
The House on Mango Street Audiobook By Sandra Cisneros cover art
The Virgin Suicides Audiobook By Jeffrey Eugenides cover art
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Audiobook By Junot Díaz cover art
Tenth of December Audiobook By George Saunders cover art
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Audiobook By Raymond Carver cover art