Real talk, H.G. Wells was a fantastic author and his biggest hits are both immediately recognizable enough to be a performative conversation starter while also having the added bonus/hazard of potentially accidentally getting into it.

War of the Worlds, The Time Machine and The Invisible Man are all ones I’ve recently listened via Librivox (I linked the specific readers I listened to) during my commutes, but of course, my goal is to actually enjoy the books