Best Audiobooks in November

These are the audiobooks that I enjoyed most during the month of November 2021, while quilting, baking, walking, and doing household chores:

The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves by J B MacKinnon
Audiobook [12 hr] read by Kaleo Griffith

Consumption is the greatest driver of environmental problems. Framed as a thought experiment, journalist and environmental activist James MacKinnon writes about powerful external forces urging us to consume and how we rely on a consumer-driven economy, which is destroying our world. I appreciate the optimism in this book, which looks at what a difference can be made by only a small shift in habits, as demonstrated at the start of Covid lockdowns. This book was a finalist for the GG award for nonfiction.

We have to stop shopping. We can‘t stop shopping.

Unreconciled: Family, Truth and Indigenous Resistance by Jesse Wente
Audiobook [7 hr] read by the author

CBC arts columnist Jesse Wente is of mixed Anishinaabe and white heritage. In this memoir he shows what anti-Indigenous racism in Canada feels like. From war-whoop taunting when he was a kid, to racial profiling by police, to anonymous death threats when he has spoken up about Indigenous issues on air. I remember Hal Niedzviecki's Appropriation Prize editorial in the May 2017 issue of Write magazine, an issue that showcased Indigenous authors. Wente was a weekly columnist for the CBC at that time and he recounts the heated conversations and strong emotions that were a fallout from that piece. He also writes poignantly about how his grandmother‘s experience at residential school has shaped the lives of her descendants. 

Storytelling is one of the key methods used by colonizers to explain and obscure their lawless treatment of the lands and peoples over which they claim dominion. But storytelling is also one of our best weapons in the fight to reclaim our rightful place.

I‘ve met people whose view of the world was so shaped by [Hollywood] misinformation that they believed all Indians were dead, that we‘d gone extinct. I‘ve met others who refused to believe I was Indigenous because I didn‘t have long hair.

Tokenism is a byproduct of dehumanization. It‘s hard to tokenize someone you see as fully human, someone whose ideas and work you respect.
In my experience, no matter how well disguised the tokenization, that realization always comes eventually, and it‘s never been fun when it arrives. At Toronto International Film Festival it took years, and it ultimately ruined the job of my dreams.

The Na‘vis‘ only chance at defending themselves and their way of life comes in the form of a white man who uses technology to remotely operate a lab-grown Na‘vi body. He is literally wearing Indigeneity as a costume. This revolting form of “going native” climaxes in the usual way, with the white saviour out-Na‘vi-ing the Na‘vi. He taps into their ancient spirituality in a way none of the Na‘vi seemingly can and uses the planet‘s energy to save the day. [regarding James Cameron's film Avatar]

Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call by Arthur Manuel and Chief Ronald Errickson
Audiobook [10 hr] read by Darrell Dennis

Arthur Manuel, son of influential Indigenous political leader George Manuel, combines memoir with an excellent overview of continuing Indigenous political and economic struggles over land rights. Sometimes while listening to this audiobook I would feel so frustrated about the way successive Canadian governments continue to ignore treaty agreements, Supreme Court judgements and our own constitution that I would either pace the floor or have to take a break entirely. Audiobook narrator Darrell Dennis is Secwepemc, as is author Arthur Manuel; I appreciate hearing the correct pronunciation of the many different Indigenous nations in British Columbia. 

Another thing I appreciate is the multifaceted knowledge I am acquiring by seeking out works by Indigenous authors. In Unsettling Canada, for example, Manuel has a completely different reaction to the film Avatar than film critic Jesse Wente (see previous entry); Manuel's experience with BC treaty negotiations is very different from Darrel McLeod's (in Peyakow); and Manuel's approach to self-government is different from Jody Wilson Raybauld's (see Indian in the Cabinet). 

The first obstacle in defining our new one-to-one relationship with Canada will be the very heavy debt from the seizure and economic exploitation of our lands for 150 years since Confederation. This debt is enormous. I suspect that one of the main reasons that the Canadian government refuses to acknowledge our Section 35 rights is that it would leave it open to paying a percentage of the astronomical wealth that has been taken out of our lands.

[On the 10 years spent drafting the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples]: Even referring to us as Indigenous "peoples” was a battle with the [United Nations member] states‘ representatives, who wanted us referred to as Indigenous "populations." That term would have kept us outside of the UN‘s basic rights covenants, which offers protections to all of the world‘s “peoples.”

There is no downside to justice.

A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey by Jonathan Meiburg
Audiobook [10 hr] read by the author

Before listening to this audiobook, I knew nothing about caracaras, which are falcons found mostly in South America. They are remarkable creatures, as the title claims: highly intelligent, sociable and inquisitive. The author does a deep dive into everything about them and the entire book is riveting. A must for natural science nerds.

Peregrines have the fastest visual processing speed measured in any animal and their eyes are so sharp that they could read the headline of a newspaper from a mile away. A human with eyes in the same proportion to its skull as a peregrine would have eyes that measure three inches across and weigh four pounds each.

The trouble with the past is that it keeps changing. The [dinosaur extinction] asteroid‘s effects on the history of life were so sudden and pervasive that it‘s easy to forget we didn‘t even know about it until very recently.

Social wasps share a skill that exceeds the ability of nearly every mammal on earth: they‘re master builders. Most social wasps fashion their homes from a papier-mâché of chewed-up wood fibres mixed with their own saliva, and each species builds in their own style.

Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System that Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer
Audiobook [10 hr] read by Steve Taylor

The human immune system is amazing and indispensable. It is also incredibly complex, so I was happy to have its multiple layers explained with humour and many analogies in this entertaining science book. The audiobook has frequent information summaries and is read by Steve Taylor, who also voices the Kurzgesagt science channel on YouTube. After listening, I went out and bought a print copy from Audreys bookstore so that I can refer back to this book in the future. The print copy has lavish colourful illustrations.

To most living things, you are not a person, but a landscape covered with forests, swamps and oceans, filled with rich resources and plenty of space to start a family and settle down.

The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield
Audiobook [15 hr] read by Ray Porter

Unlike the way I kept stopping to wonder about the science in Andy Weir‘s The Martian, I trusted all the space technology stuff in Hadfield‘s writing and just immersed myself in the setting, enjoying the psychological thrill of a suspenseful mystery set during the Cold War between the USA and the Soviets. I especially loved the woman cosmonaut and all the character dynamics. I was incidentally reminded of the cool facts in Mary Roach‘s Packing for Mars. 

Despite the tv ads, astronauts haven‘t drunk Tang in space since Gemini in the 1960s. One of the early astronauts had vomited Tang during space motion sickness and reported that it tasted even worse coming back up.

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
Audiobook [9 hr] read by Natalie Naudus

Demonic deals, small acts of magic, queer characters and a Vietnamese Jordan Baker as story narrator (stolen from her homeland when she was a baby) are exactly the ingredients I didn‘t know I wanted in this delicious reinvention of The Great Gatsby. Nghi Vo obviously loves the original classic, paying homage while adding her own imaginative spin. Jazz age excess with social justice undercurrents.

—And her man? Is he behaving himself?
—Of course not, Aunt Justine. But you know the type: a new girl every time he looks about & finds his arm free.
—Well, that‘s a shame for Daisy then. She ought to keep him in better line.
I thought sometimes that my aunt forgot about how big men were, how much space & air they could take up.
[transcribed from the audio edition]

So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix by Bethany C Morrow
Audiobook [8 hr] read by Adenrele Ojo

Like the previous audiobook, this is a retelling of classic literature. I loved Alcott's Little Women when I was in Grade 5, but it‘s not the kind of book I enjoy now (because too much fussing about physical appearance and boyfriends). This remix, on the other hand, is a treat. The setting, a Civil War-era freedpeople colony in North Carolina, is as vivid as the formerly-enslaved characters. Also, it has subtle queer content. Nods to the original are nicely folded in, while portraying a little-known side of American history.

Jo spoke gently now, so that [Amy] wasn‘t confused into thinking she‘d done anything wrong. “No one was ever a Master, dearheart. They were only enslavers, and they aren‘t now, not anymore, and never again.” [transcribed from the audio edition]