Alexei Navalny’s Patriot (Random House Audio, 16 hours and 46 minutes) is a book of rare importance and power. The voice of this heroic, brilliant, and droll man, speaking from beyond the grave, expressively read by English actor Matthew Goode, will entertain you, educate you, and ultimately move you to tears. Part 1 recounts the author’s experience of being poisoned in 2020—most likely by Russia’s FSB security agency—and was written while he was recovering in Germany. Arrested immediately upon his return to Russia, Navalny was able to complete Parts 2 and 3 as planned, chronicling his early life in the USSR, his sweet romance with wife Yulia, and his political career as an opposition leader, dealing ample scorn to the “dodderers,” “deadbeats,” “liars, thieves, and hypocrites” who control the country today. After that, imprisoned in ever more draconian circumstances and given only the barest access to writing materials, Part 4 became a prison diary cobbled together from brief dispatches. As his physical condition nosedived, he was treated only by a “typical prison doctor whose job is to confirm that a prisoner is completely healthy until he stops breathing” and charged with endless new crimes. Certain that he would not leave prison alive—as he did not—Navalny continued to be wry, upbeat, and unflagging in his commitment to his beloved country.

In his famously gravelly voice, with occasional resort to spluttering, falsetto, and Shakespeare, the great Al Pacino gives a heartfelt chronicle of his life and his craft in Sonny Boy (Penguin Audio, 12 hours and 27 minutes)—from his childhood in the South Bronx to discovery of his talent in high school to the movies that made his name in the 1970s: The Panic in Needle Park, The Godfather, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon. The audiobook itself is proof of his talent: Pacino delivers these stories in a style so natural and off-the-cuff that you’re sure he’s ad-libbing. (A comparison confirms that he’s reading almost word for word.) As the years unfold, the never-married star focuses more on his successes and failures in art and business than on his personal life, but we do get to hear about his relationship with Jill Clayburgh and some great stories about Diane Keaton—then, in the last pages of the book, meet his infant son, Roman. Clearly, he’s a youthful 84.

As the author explains at the start of the audiobook of Cher: The Memoir, Part One, (HarperAudio, 15 hours and 47 minutes ), her dyslexia would have made it impossible for her to read it all by herself. So she passes the mic back and forth with the actress who played her on Broadway, Stephanie J. Block, and it works perfectly. Another opening note explains that her trans son, Chaz, was still Chastity during the years the book covers—it ends around 1980—and has approved appearing here as daughter Chas. With that out of the way, the adventure begins, “an all-American rags-to-riches dream” in the words of our reviewer, who concluded that the “vicarious experience of wealth, glamour, and romance is rarely this much fun.” Cher rocketed out of a chaotic childhood at 16 when she met 27-year-old Sonny Bono, an assistant to record producer Phil Spector. They say we’re young and we don’t know…but these two definitely did know and were performing together within the year. You’ll be glad Cher took her time to linger over all the boyfriends, all the drama, and all the details, from the Bob Mackie “souffle dress” to the inside story on the night Robbie Robertson died.

Marion Winik hosts NPR’s The Weekly Reader podcast.