The weight is over. Dive into Audubles' most anticipated collection, the best of 2025, featuring top audiobooks, podcasts, and originals across all genres. Our editors have carefully curated this year's must-listens, from brilliant hidden gems to the busiest new releases.

Every title in this collection has earned its spot.

This is your go-to for the absolute best in 2025 audio entertainment.

Whether you love thrillers, romance, or non-fiction,

your next favorite listen awaits.

Discover why there's more to imagine when you listen at audible.com slash best of the year.

Andrew Callahan is the Patriots reporter. He's a Patriots reporter, I should say. He writes a column for the Boston Herald as well.

Andrew is brought to you by Ramjack New England, your local foundation repair experts. Visit them at ramjack.com.

Andrew, a hello, congratulations. Good morning. Thank you, Fred. On the child,

when was the child born? 11 days ago. So two Fridays ago. 11 days ago.

November 8th. And everything went to fine. Yeah. Actually, that was a Saturday. So now you can tell I had Dad Brain, November 8th. But yeah, things went fine. We had a, my wife had a fairly quick labor when we got in Friday night, overnight. And then she was out Saturday morning, happy and healthy. And now happy to be home for just over a week. Okay. Now, we knew it was a girl. Yes. What is the child's name? Carmela. Oh. Family name? Alicia, my wife's great grandmother, and a name that always kind of like struck me. It's like, you don't hear that that often? I kind of like the uncommon name, a little sweet, but also a little strong.

And so we went back and forth and landed on there. So a little family tribute and just kind of checked all the boxes. Don't let her marry a heavy Italian guy because I've heard that. He did not stay faithful? Carmela Callahan or did your wife keep up? No, Carmela Callahan. Okay. Yep. Yeah. Because you said you take it my name.

That's what Andrews said.

Oh.

Yeah.

Okay. Yep. Yeah. Because you said you take it my name.

That's what Andrews said. Oh. Yeah. Okay. That's a thing sometimes. No, not for us. All right, good. Well, sleeping, doing okay? Yeah, yeah. We're hanging. I usually take the 9 to 3, 9 to 4 shifts. we have my mother-in-law staying with us who's been just an absolute angel and helping out wherever she can. And, you know, some nights, like last night, there's nothing you could do because she's just crying and she's fed and you got the clean diaper and we burped you and what's going on. And then other nights when I need to catch up on Patriots games and rewatch overnight and she sounded asleep. I'm like, this is good. So yeah, really, really, really doing well. And something happened, you said on there? Yeah. When it happened at the, at the hospital, when we finally got there Friday, you know, again, she has onset contractions, you know, hit immediately. She's throwing up. And the nurses who we had met with beforehand told us, hey, you got to stay home as long as you can. Like, yeah, we should do this. But she's got like nothing left immediately. So we go into the hospital. And for the next 60 hours, we were at Beth Israel. This is not lip service, token, nice guy stuff. The nurses were among the best people I've ever met my entire

life like first class care that we got but among the 20 or so nurses that we had there was

one that my wife did not like and it was the first one that we met checked in at the triage so

this woman comes in and it's just hey girlfriend how are we doing and my wife didn't know this until very recently, but in the next three to four minutes,

I am in the corner of this hospital room averting my gaze because I can't quite figure out yet

if this was the last girl I dated before my wife.

...