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Blues City

A Walk in Oakland

by Ishmael Reed

Narrator Richard Allen

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Length 5 hours 7 minutes

Language English

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Summary
About the author
About the narrator

Oakland is a blues city, brawling and husky . . .

Often overshadowed by San Francisco, its twinkling sister city across the Bay, Oakland is itself an American wonder. The city is surrounded by and filled with natural beauty—mountains and hills and lakes and a bay—and architecture that mirrors its history as a Spanish mission, Gold Rush outpost, and home of the West’s most devious robber barons. It’s also a city of artists and blue-collar workers, the birthplace of the Black Panthers, neighbor to Berkeley, and home to a vibrant and volatile stew of immigrants and refugees.

In Blues City, Ishmael Reed, one of our most brilliant essayists, takes us on a tour of Oakland, exploring its fascinating history, its beautiful hills and waterfronts, and its odd cultural juxtapositions. He takes us into a year in the life of this amazing city, to black cowboy parades and Indian powwows, to Black Panther reunions and Gay Pride concerts, to a Japanese jazz club where a Lakota musician plays Coltrane’s “Naima.” Reed provides a fascinating tour of an un-tamed, unruly western outpost set against the backdrop of political intrigues, ethnic rivalries, and a gentrification-obsessed mayor, opening our eyes not only to a singular city, but to a newly emerging America.

Travel Essays Nonfiction

Ishmael Reed is one of America's most renowned African American writers. He has taught at Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, and UC Berkeley. Reed is the award-winning author of more than 20 books—novels, essays, plays, and collections of poetry—that have been translated into seven languages. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has twice been nominated for the National Book Award. Reed lives in Oakland, California.

Richard Allen is a three-time Audie®-nominated and Earphone Award–winning narrator who is one of the freshest voices to come onto the audiobook scene. A stage actor by training, Allen has worked on both sides of the Atlantic. He originated the role of Booker T. Washington in the world premiere of Ragtime–The Musical, in addition to several TV appearances on Star Trek: TNG, and ER.