Libro.fm Podcast
Bookseller Pick
Add to Wish List
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create accountGift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and Bookshop.org is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingThe Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
An Oprah’s Book Club Novel
Length
29 hours 48 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“Jeffers is an award-winning poet and Du Bois scholar from her days at Bard College, and she harnesses the power of poetry, deeply researched history, and compelling narrative to craft a multi-generational saga of a Southern Black family. POWERFUL!”
Samantha,
A Great Good Place for Books
Bookseller recommendation
“This is the best book I’ve read this year. An ambitious debut novel tracing the history of one family against the backdrop of American history and showing the stories that are remembered and the ones that are forgotten.”
Benedict Tanter,
Main Point Books
Bookseller recommendation
“A sweeping, multi-generational novel about a Southern Black family and their rich and complex ancestry. Focusing on the life of Hailey Pearl, a young woman coming of age in "the city" and her hometown of Chicasetta, GA, the novel jumps back and forth in time weaving together the triumphs and tragedies of her people and how these stories are passed or lost through the generations. Compelling and important read.”
A Great Good Place for Books
Bookseller recommendation
“At 29 hours this one might seem like quite a commitment, but after traveling the century with them, you’ll deeply miss the echoes of the voices of Ailey and Belle and even good old Uncle Root.”
Angie,
The Country Bookshop
Bookseller recommendation
“This book really won me over with its brilliant writing and entrancing story. Honestly, I was intimidated by the length and title (especially as someone who doesn't love poetry) but the blurb was so good and it sounded right up my alley. The narrators, Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton & Prentice Onayemi, all have gorgeous voices and immediately draw you in. It took a bit for me to get fully invested in the story but holy cow, Jeffers weaves an IMPRESSIVE tale. It was both too long and too short; I savored every word and was sad it when it was over. There is true talent in being able to hold your attention for 816 pages, especially for a slow burn of a literary novel and this one is well worth it in the end. With rich language, multi-generational family history, borderline poetic (and yet not intimidating poetic), this book is for fans of Pachinko, Homegoing, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, or any work of Jesmyn Ward's.”
Kimi,
Buttonwood Books and Toys
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2021
AN AUDIBLE, AUDIOFILE, AND WASHINGTON POST BEST AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR
AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB SELECTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD FOR DEBUT NOVEL • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION • A FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION • SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE
A New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year • A Time Must-Read Book of the Year • A Washington Post 10 Best Books of the Year • A Oprah Daily Top 20 Books of the Year • A People 10 Best Books of the Year • A Boston Globe Best Book of 2021 • A BookPage Best Fiction Book of the Year • A Booklist 10 Best First Novels of the Year • A Kirkus 100 Best Novels of the Year • An Atlanta Journal-Constitution 10 Best Southern Books of 2021 • A Parade Pick • A Chicago Public Library Top 10 Best Books of the Year • A KCRW Top 10 Books of 2021
An Instant Washington Post, USA Today, and Indie Bestseller
"Epic…. I was just enraptured by the lineage and the story of this modern African-American family…. A combination of historical and modern story—I’ve never read anything quite like it. It just consumed me." —Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Book Club Pick
An Indie Next Pick • A New York Times Book Everyone Will Be Talking About • A People 5 Best Books of the Summer • A Good Morning America 15 Summer Book Club Picks • An Essence Best Book of the Summer • A Washington Post 10 Books of the Month • A CNN Best Book of the Month • A Time 11 Best Books of the Month • A Ms. Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A Goodreads Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A BookPage Writer to Watch • A USA Today Book Not to Miss • A Chicago Tribune Summer Must-Read • An Observer Best Summer Book • A Millions Most Anticipated Book • A Ms. Book of the Month • A Well-Read Black Girl Book Club Pick • A BiblioLifestyle Most Anticipated Literary Book of the Summer • A Deep South Best Book of the Summer • Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
The 2020 NAACP Image Award-winning poet makes her fiction debut with this National Book Award-longlisted, magisterial epic—an intimate yet sweeping novel with all the luminescence and force of Homegoing; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and The Water Dancer—that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era.
The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s Problem on her shoulders.
Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother’s family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.
To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is a fiction writer, poet, and essayist. She is the author of five poetry collections, including the 2020 collection The Age of Phillis, which won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award, the George Washington Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She was a contributor to The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward, and has been published in the Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, and other literary publications. Jeffers was elected into the American Antiquarian Society, whose members include fourteen U.S. presidents, and is Critic at Large for Kenyon Review. She teaches creative writing and literature at University of Oklahoma. The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois is her first novel and was a New York Times bestseller, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, longlisted for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, a Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and an Oprah Book Club Pick.
Featured in these playlists...
Audiobook details
Bookshop.org is proud to partner with Libro.fm to give you a great audiobook experience.