Social Science bestsellers

Braiding Sweetgrass

Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Length: 16 hours 44 minutes

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our... Read more

The Age of Magical Overthinking

Notes on Modern Irrationality

By: Amanda Montell
Narrated by: Amanda Montell
Length: 6 hours 5 minutes

“Exploring our current culture of overthinking and the language surrounding it, these essays are fascinating and enlightening. Peppered with anecdotes and self-evaluation, this is the book Montell was meant to write. Read more

The Anthropocene Reviewed

Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

By: John Green
Narrated by: John Green
Length: 10 hours 42 minutes

“I read this in hardcover but this is worth a listen just capture John Green's tone on all these subjects! Read more

The Radium Girls

The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women

By: Kate Moore
Narrated by: Angela Brazil
Length: 15 hours 52 minutes

1917. As a war raged across the world, young American women flocked to work, painting watches, clocks and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job, lucrative and glamorous—the girls themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered head to toe in the dust from the paint. They were the radium girls.

As the... Read more

Doppelganger

A Trip into the Mirror World

By: Naomi Klein
Narrated by: Naomi Klein
Length: 14 hours 47 minutes

“What an evocative book, especially as read by the author! Come for the critical cultural analysis and stay for Klein's thoughtful, generous, hopeful conclusions. Read more

ADHD for Smart Ass Women

How to Fall in Love with Your Neurodivergent Brain

By: Tracy Otsuka
Narrated by: Tracy Otsuka
Length: 7 hours 33 minutes

An unprecedented guide for any woman with ADHD looking to celebrate her unique brilliance and to embark on a journey of self-discovery.ADHD is one of the most common neurological disor­ders in the United States—yet a staggering 75 percent of girls and women remain undiagnosed. Due to the gen­der gap in medical research, which does not account... Read more

Caste (Oprah's Book Club)

The Origins of Our Discontents

By: Isabel Wilkerson
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Length: 15 hours 10 minutes

“This is an important and beautifully written book examining the links and common elements between the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany. Highly recommended. Read more

How to Be an Antiracist

By: Ibram X. Kendi
Narrated by: Ibram X. Kendi
Length: 10 hours 29 minutes

“Among the multi-faceted array of antiracist literature newly published in the last two years, Ibram X. Kendi’s How To Be an Antiracist stands alone as a definitive source of history and socio-political critique, while offering a new paradigm of thought aimed at paving the way for correcting centuries of social injustice. Hearing this visionary... Read more

There's Always This Year

On Basketball and Ascension

By: Hanif Abdurraqib
Narrated by: Hanif Abdurraqib
Length: 8 hours 40 minutes

“Using basketball as a vehicle for reflection of East Columbus history and personal memoir, There’s Always This Year is a triumph of contemplative, emotionally-rich writing that will have you wiping tears and on the edge of your seat. Read more

Knife

Meditations After an Attempted Murder

By: Salman Rushdie
Narrated by: Salman Rushdie
Length: 6 hours 22 minutes

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him
 
On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the... Read more

Me and White Supremacy

Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

By: Layla F. Saad
Narrated by: Layla F. Saad
Length: 5 hours 19 minutes

“Want to learn how to be a good ancestor? Need to address your privilege and feel uncomfortable about talking about racism? You need to read and work through Me and White Supremacy. Read more

Fresh Banana Leaves

Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science

By: Jessica Hernandez, Ph.D.
Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
Length: 9 hours 35 minutes

A 2022 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in Science & Technology

An Indigenous environmental scientist breaks down why western conservationism isn't working--and offers Indigenous models informed by case studies, personal stories, and family histories that center the voices of Latin American women and land protectors.

Despite the... Read more

Talking to Strangers

What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know

By: Malcolm Gladwell
Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
Length: 8 hours 57 minutes

“Fascinating! How and why we so frequently misinterpret the words, intentions, and sincerity of strangers. Computers, analyzing only information, are far better at judging someone’s guilt or innocence (and future behavior) than judges, psychologists, and witnesses. Based on our preconceptions of how people should behave in certain situations, the... Read more

The Warmth of Other Suns

The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

By: Isabel Wilkerson
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Length: 22 hours 40 minutes

“I'm sorry I hadn't gotten to this sooner. Wilkerson pulls together so much of what I already knew about the US but not necessarily why... a great audiobook, too. Read more

The Dawn of Everything

A New History of Humanity

By: David Graeber & David Wengrow
Narrated by: Mark Williams
Length: 24 hours 13 minutes

“What do you do when a 700-page book about the entirety of human history has been sitting unopened on your desk for weeks, taunting you every time you pass it because you know you're going to love it but, man, it's intimidating? You download the audiobook. I've been listening to this radical, invigorating reexamination of the history of... Read more

Between Two Kingdoms

A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

By: Suleika Jaouad
Narrated by: Suleika Jaouad
Length: 13 hours 2 minutes

“Wow, what a story. This was an extremely moving memoir about a devastating but successful fight with cancer and the toll it takes on your life and relationships. But more than that, it also bring you on a journey of moving on and re-learning how to live your life. Jaouad is a fabulous writer and really take the reader on the journey with her.... Read more

Cultish

The Language of Fanaticism

By: Amanda Montell
Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
Length: 8 hours 21 minutes

“Thoroughly enjoyed listening to this on Libro.fm. Entertaining, informative, and a must-read (listen to) for anyone interested in Cults, MLMs, Fitness, the English language... etc. Read more

Unmasking Autism

Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

By: Devon Price, PhD
Narrated by: Devon Price, PhD
Length: 9 hours 51 minutes

A deep dive into the spectrum of Autistic experience and the phenomenon of masked Autism, giving individuals the tools to safely uncover their true selves while broadening society’s narrow understanding of neurodiversity

“A remarkable work that will stand at the forefront of the neurodiversity movement.”—Barry M. Prizant, PhD, CCC-SLP,author of... Read more

Come As You Are: Revised and Updated

The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life

By: Emily Nagoski
Narrated by: Emily Nagoski
Length: 11 hours 29 minutes

A revised and updated edition of Emily Nagoski’s game-changing New York Times bestseller Come As You Are, featuring new information and research on mindfulness, desire, and pleasure that will radically transform your sex life.

For much of the 20th and 21st centuries, women’s sexuality was an uncharted territory in science, studied far less... Read more

Briefly Perfectly Human

Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End

By: Alua Arthur
Narrated by: Alua Arthur
Length: 9 hours 51 minutes

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA deeply transformative memoir that reframes how we think about death and how it can help us lead better, more fulfilling and authentic lives, from America’s most visible death doula.""A truly unique, inspiring perspective on the time we have, what we do with it, and how we let go of this world.... There is no one I'd... Read more

The Other Significant Others

Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center

By: Rhaina Cohen
Narrated by: Rhaina Cohen
Length: 8 hours 41 minutes

"Author Rhaina Cohen’s vocal warmth and commitment to her ideas make this a touching audiobook. Her thinking and humanitarian spirit are well served by a performance that resonates with her broad sociological perspectives, as well as her desire to connect with listeners."—AudioFile

This program is read by the author.

"Rhaina Cohen’s moving,... Read more

How to Say Babylon

A Memoir

By: Safiya Sinclair
Narrated by: Safiya Sinclair
Length: 16 hours 46 minutes

“Jamaican-born poet Safiya Sinclair’s memoir about growing up in a strict Rastafarian household is one of the most powerful stories I have experienced in a long time. I learned so much about Jamaica, Rastafarianism, and this extraordinary woman listening to How to Say Babylon. Sinclair’s exquisite prose, heard in her own voice is ravishing. Her... Read more

How the Word Is Passed

A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

By: Clint Smith
Narrated by: Clint Smith
Length: 10 hours 6 minutes

“From plantation to Angola Prison. From Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, VA to the African Burial Ground in New York City. From Île de Gorée to Whitney Plantation. From the Emancipation Proclamation to Juneteenth. Clint Smith takes us on an unforgettable journey through the history of slavery in the United States, revealing many truths we’ve... Read more

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning

By: Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
Narrated by: Jason Reynolds
Length: 4 hours 11 minutes

“I listened to the audio and I highly recommend it. These two are a dynamite team. They were the narrators and it was perfect. More history needs to be told like this. Listened to it in 2 sittings and you will probably also, cause you will be fascinated. Read more

Freedom is a Constant Struggle

Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

By: Angela Y. Davis
Narrated by: Angela Y. Davis & Coleen Marlo
Length: 5 hours 47 minutes

“A must read on the interconnection of all liberation struggles that has only become more relevant since its publication in 2016. Angela Davis is one of the most steadfast voices of our time, and her background as a public speaker makes for excellent narration. Read more

Decolonizing Therapy

Oppression, Historical Trauma, and Politicizing Your Practice

By: Jennifer Mullan, PsyD
Narrated by: Carmen Jewel Jones
Length: 17 hours 55 minutes

A call to action for therapists to politicize their practice through an emotional decolonial lens.

An essential work that centers colonial and historical trauma in a framework for healing, Decolonizing Therapy illuminates that all therapy is—and always has been—inherently political. To better understand the mental health oppression and... Read more

Raw Dog

The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs

By: Jamie Loftus
Narrated by: Jamie Loftus
Length: 9 hours 38 minutes

“This book is a freaking wild ride, which I recommend you get on. Yes, there is hot dog information between the unfiltered commentary from the author, who reminds me of a young Anthony Bourdain, while they wander along the road searching for this iconic food. Read more

White Fragility

Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

By: Dr. Robin DiAngelo
Narrated by: Amy Landon
Length: 6 hours 20 minutes

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.

In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white... Read more

Opinions

A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business

By: Roxane Gay
Narrated by: Roxane Gay
Length: 9 hours 58 minutes

From beloved and bestselling author Roxane Gay, “a strikingly fresh cultural critic” (Washington Post) comes an exhilarating collection of her essays on culture, politics, and everything in between. Since the publication of the groundbreaking Bad Feminist and Hunger, Roxane Gay has continued to tackle big issues embroiling... Read more

Solito

A Memoir

By: Javier Zamora
Narrated by: Javier Zamora
Length: 17 hours 8 minutes

“Solito follows the journey of nine-year-old Javier Zamora, a boy from El Salvador, as he attempts to cross into the United States on his own. Though Zamora is supported and loved by his family in El Salvador, they are unable to make the voyage with him, meaning that he must face the challenges and unfamiliar terrain with a group of strangers... Read more

Together

The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World

By: Vivek H. Murthy
Narrated by: Vivek H. Murthy
Length: 10 hours 52 minutes

“Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World by Vivek Murthy is a well-articulated case for supporting human connection from a public health point of view. Murthy provides stories, medical reasoning, and strategies to apply in this playbook for connection. It's a timely read, especially in an environment that has... Read more

Poverty, by America

By: Matthew Desmond
Narrated by: Dion Graham
Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

“Desmond challenges readers to recognize how they benefit from poverty through low cost goods, services, and systemic structures that benefit those who already have resources (no surprise - they also have roots in racism and misogyny!). He reminds us that both the rich and poor benefit from government assistance, but only programs for the poor... Read more

Disability Intimacy

Essays on Love, Care, and Desire

By: Alice Wong
Narrated by: Full Cast
Length: 11 hours 21 minutes

The much-anticipated follow up to the groundbreaking anthology Disability Visibility: another revolutionary collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience, and intimacy in all its myriad forms.

What is intimacy? More than sex, more than romantic love, the pieces in this stunning and illuminating... Read more

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew

By: Emmanuel Acho & Noa Tishby
Narrated by: Emmanuel Acho & Noa Tishby
Length: 7 hours 32 minutes

From two New York Times bestselling authors, a timely, disarmingly honest, and thought-provoking investigation into antisemitism that connects the dots between the tropes and hatred of the past to our current complicated moment.

For Emmanuel Acho and Noa Tishby no question about Jews is off-limits. They go there. They cover Jews and money. Jews... Read more

The Devil in the White City

Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

By: Erik Larson
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Length: 14 hours 58 minutes

“The Devil in the White City is one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. Set amidst the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, Erik Larson's historical narrative interweaves the stories of two men who would come to define it, for better and for worse. One is Daniel Burnham, chief architect of the Fair, who threw his entire being into creating a... Read more

When Breath Becomes Air

By: Paul Kalanithi
Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra & Cassandra Campbell
Length: 5 hours 34 minutes

“With a message both mournful and life-affirming, When Breath Becomes Air chronicles a young doctor's journey from literature student to promising neurosurgeon and finally to a patient in his own hospital after being diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. Always profound, never sentimental, this important book refuses to take refuge in platitudes,... Read more

Cobalt Red

How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

By: Siddharth Kara
Narrated by: Peter Ganim
Length: 11 hours 20 minutes

“We cannot close our eyes to what is happening in our world even in 2023. Exposés like this force us to see and understand how our choices can affect people on the other side of the earth from us. Changes need to be made starting at the major corporations and then trickle down to the individual. Once we know what is happening we cannot un-know it. Read more

Who's Afraid of Gender?

By: Judith Butler
Narrated by: Judith Butler
Length: 11 hours 47 minutes

This program is read by the author.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Time, Elle, Kirkus, Literary Hub, The Millions, Electric Literature, and them.

"A profoundly urgent intervention.” —Naomi Klein

"A timely must-read for anyone actively invested in re-imagining collective futurity.” —Claudia Rankine

From a global icon, a bold, essential... Read more

The 1619 Project

A New Origin Story

By: Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman & Jake Silverstein
Narrated by: Nikole Hannah-Jones & Full Cast
Length: 18 hours 56 minutes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • NPR • Marie Claire
 
In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of... Read more

The Gifts of Imperfection: 10th Anniversary Edition

Features a new foreword

By: Brené Brown
Narrated by: Brené Brown
Length: 4 hours 31 minutes

“Brown's book concentrates on self-compassion and cultivating: resilient spirit, creativity, calm, & stillness, just to name a few. Read more

Dirtbag, Massachusetts

A Confessional

By: Isaac Fitzgerald
Narrated by: Isaac Fitzgerald
Length: 7 hours 11 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

USA TODAY BESTSELLER

Winner of the New England Book Award for Nonfiction

"The best of what memoir can accomplish . . . pulling no punches on the path to truth, but it always finds the capacity for grace and joy." —Esquire, "Best Memoirs of the Year"

A TIME Best Book of the Season * A Rolling Stone Top Culture Pick *... Read more

Burn Book

A Tech Love Story

By: Kara Swisher
Narrated by: Kara Swisher
Length: 7 hours 40 minutes

Instant New York Times Bestseller

From award-winning journalist Kara Swisher comes a witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead.

“Swisher, the bad-ass journalist and OG chronicler of Silicon Valley…takes no prisoners in this highly readable look at the evolution... Read more

A Little Devil in America

Notes in Praise of Black Performance

By: Hanif Abdurraqib
Narrated by: JD Jackson
Length: 9 hours 38 minutes

“Hanif Abdurraqib's exploration of Black performance in America is a cultural keystone that is chillingly relevant. Whether discussing the fact that a knowing look or advice on a route from a cashier is a form of a living Green Book that still exists because there are places Black people are not safe, to the origin of the card game spades or the... Read more

Hood Feminism

Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot

By: Mikki Kendall
Narrated by: Mikki Kendall
Length: 6 hours 57 minutes

“Powerful. Important. Compulsively readable. Kendall’s narrative style is top notch - riveting and un-put-down-able. Not only is this a must read, it's a must pay attention. It's a must revisit and keep learning kind of book. Kendall dives deep and doesn't pull punches, but she doesn't seek to shame either. This is necessary reading for anyone... Read more

The Day the World Stops Shopping

How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves

By: J.B. MacKinnon
Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
Length: 11 hours 54 minutes

Consuming less is our best strategy for saving the planet—but can we do it? In this thoughtful and surprisingly optimistic book, journalist J. B. MacKinnon investigates how we may achieve a world without shopping.

We can’t stop shopping. And yet we must. This is the consumer dilemma. The economy says we must always consume more: even the... Read more

Burnout

The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

By: Emily Nagoski, PhD & Amelia Nagoski, DMA
Narrated by: Emily Nagoski, PhD & Amelia Nagoski, DMA
Length: 7 hours 1 minute

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “This book is a gift! I’ve been practicing their strategies, and it’s a total game-changer.”—Brené Brown, PhD, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Dare to Lead

This groundbreaking book explains why women experience burnout differently than men—and provides a simple, science-based plan to help women minimize... Read more

"You Just Need to Lose Weight"

And 19 Other Myths About Fat People

Myths Made in America

By: Aubrey Gordon
Narrated by: Aubrey Gordon
Length: 7 hours 10 minutes

“Aubrey Gordon is one of the leading voices in the fat activist movement and I consider myself lucky to read her words (and listen to her podcast with Michael Hobbs called Maintenance Phase). If you want to be a better person and deprogram yourself from the weight-obsessed culture American life is steeped in, read both her books and listen to the... Read more

Madness

Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum

By: Antonia Hylton
Narrated by: Antonia Hylton
Length: 11 hours 2 minutes

In the tradition of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a page-turning 93-year history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the nation’s last segregated asylums, told by an award-winning journalist on her decade-long search for sanity in America’s mental healthcare system. 

On a cold day in March of 1911, officials marched twelve Black men into the... Read more

My Grandmother's Hands

Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

By: Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW & SEP
Narrated by: Cary Hite
Length: 10 hours 18 minutes

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"My Grandmother's Hands will change the direction of the movement for racial justice."— Robin DiAngelo, New York Times bestselling author of White Fragility

In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology.

The body... Read more

Stolen Focus

Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again

By: Johann Hari
Narrated by: Johann Hari
Length: 10 hours 21 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Our ability to pay attention is collapsing. From the author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections comes a groundbreaking examination of why this is happening—and how to get our attention back.

“The book the world needs in order to win the war on distraction.”—Adam Grant, author of Think Again

“Read this book to... Read more