Art bestsellers
The top 50 Art audiobooks on Libro.fm based on sales from our 2,000+ partner bookstore locations.
All bestsellers Bestsellers by genreBestseller #1
Monsters
A Fan's Dilemma
By Claire Dederer
Narrated by: Claire Dederer
Length: 8 hours 14 minutes
Monsters
“In this personal critique of creative genius Dederer examines the phenomena of cancel culture. Exploring relationships between artist and audience/fan and whether it's possible to have the proverbial "cake and eat it" too. Lots of food for thought. ”
Jennifer, East City Bookshop
Bestseller #2
Your Brain on Art
How the Arts Transform Us
By Susan Magsamen & Ivy Ross
Narrated by: Ellyn Jameson
Length: 9 hours 11 minutes
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A life-altering journey through the science of neuroaesthetics, which offers proof for how our brains and bodies transform when we participate in the arts—and how this knowledge can improve our health, enable us to flourish, and build stronger communities.
“This book blew my mind!”—Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times... Read more »
Bestseller #3
Into Every Generation a Slayer Is Born
How Buffy Staked Our Hearts
By Evan Ross Katz
Narrated by: Evan Ross Katz & Deanna Anthony
Length: 11 hours 42 minutes
Explore the history and cultural impact of a groundbreaking television show adored by old and new fans alike: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Over the course of its seven-year run, Buffy the Vampire Slayer cultivated a loyal fandom and featured a strong, complex female lead, at a time when such a character was a rarity. Evan Ross Katz explores the... Read more »
Bestseller #4
Life with Picasso
By Francoise Gilot & Carlton Lake
Narrated by: Mary Sarah
Length: 15 hours 2 minutes
Françoise Gilot was in her early twenties when she met the sixty-one-year-old Pablo Picasso in 1943. Brought up in a well-to-do upper-middle-class family, who had sent her to Cambridge and the Sorbonne and hoped that she would go into law, the young woman defied their wishes and set her sights on being an artist. Her introduction to Picasso led... Read more »
Bestseller #5
In Montmartre
Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art
By Sue Roe
Narrated by: Emma Bering
Length: 12 hours 50 minutes
A lively and deeply researched group biography of the figures who transformed the world of art in bohemian Paris in the first decade of the twentieth century
In Montmartre is a colorful history of the birth of Modernist art as it arose from one of the most astonishing collections of artistic talent ever assembled. It begins in October 1900, as a... Read more »
Bestseller #6
Out of the Shadows
How Lotte Reiniger Made the First Animated Fairytale Movie
By Fiona Robinson
Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
Length: 37 minutes
Lotte Reiniger (1899–1981) was a German film director and animator best known for The Adventures of Prince Achmed, which was released in 1926 and is the oldest surviving animated movie. (It came out a full eleven years before Disney’s Snow White!) As a little kid, Reiniger loved reading fairytales and fell in love with puppetry. At school, she... Read more »
Bestseller #7
The Wretched of the Earth
By Frantz Fanon
Narrated by: Sebastain Brown
Length: 12 hours 28 minutes
First published in 1961, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth is a masterful and timeless interrogation of race, colonialism, psychological trauma, and revolutionary struggle. In 2020, it found a new readership in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests and the centering of narratives interrogating race by Black writers. Bearing singular... Read more »
Bestseller #8
Leonardo da Vinci
By Walter Isaacson
Narrated by: Alfred Molina
Length: 17 hours 1 minute
The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is “a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it…Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life” (The New Yorker).
Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s astonishing... Read more »
Bestseller #9
The Kingdom of Prep
The Inside Story of the Rise and (Near) Fall of J.Crew
By Maggie Bullock
Narrated by: Cheryl Smith
Length: 13 hours 29 minutes
One of Vogue's most anticipated books of 2023.A quintessentially American fashion narrative about the rise and fall of the first lifestyle brand, J.Crew, and what the company’s fate means for the shifting landscape of the retail industry.Once upon a time, a no-frills J.Crew rollneck sweater held an almost mystical power—or at least it felt that... Read more »
Bestseller #10
Stalking Shakespeare
A Memoir of Madness, Murder, and My Search for the Poet Beneath the Paint
By Lee Durkee
Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
Length: 7 hours 35 minutes
A darkly humorous and spellbinding detective story that chronicles one Mississippi man’s relentless search for an authentic portrait of William Shakespeare.
Following his divorce, down-and-out writer and Mississippi exile Lee Durkee holed himself up in a Vermont fishing shack and fell prey to a decades-long obsession with Shakespearian... Read more »
Bestseller #11
The Design of Everyday Things
Revised and Expanded Edition
By Don Norman
Narrated by: Neil Hellegers
Length: 10 hours 39 minutes
Design doesn't have to complicated, which is why this guide to human-centered design shows that usability is just as important as aesthetics.
Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door.
The fault, argues this ingenious -- even... Read more »
Bestseller #12
The Chiffon Trenches
A Memoir
By André Leon Talley
Narrated by: André Leon Talley
Length: 9 hours 38 minutes
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the pages of Vogue to the runways of Paris, this “captivating” (Time)memoir by a legendary style icon captures the fashion world from the inside out, in its most glamorous and most cutthroat moments.
“The Chiffon Trenches honestly and candidly captures fifty sublime years of fashion.”—Manolo Blahnik
NAMED ONE OF... Read more »
Bestseller #13
The Story of Art Without Men
By Katy Hessel
Narrated by: Katy Hessel
Length: 10 hours 44 minutes
The story of art as it's never been told before, from the Renaissance to the present day.
How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what is the Baroque anyway?
Guided by Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of @thegreatwomenartists, discover the glittering... Read more »
Bestseller #14
Ordinary Notes
By Christina Sharpe
Narrated by: Christina Sharpe
Length: 7 hours 8 minutes
This program is read by the author.
The critically acclaimed author of In the Wake, "Christina Sharpe is a brilliant thinker who attends unflinchingly to the brutality of our current arrangements . . . and yet always finds a way to beauty and possibility" (Saidiya Hartman).
A singular achievement, Ordinary Notes explores profound questions about... Read more »
Bestseller #15
The 99% Invisible City
A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design
By Roman Mars & Kurt Kohlstedt
Narrated by: Roman Mars
Length: 10 hours 48 minutes
From the creators of the wildly popular 99% Invisible podcast, comes a guidebook to the unnoticed yet essential elements of our cities. Narrated by Roman Mars, with a bonus Q&A and a Full Episode of 99% Invisible. Have you ever wondered what those bright, squiggly graffiti marks on the sidewalk mean?Or stopped to consider why you don't see... Read more »
Bestseller #16
I Like to Watch
Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution
By Emily Nussbaum
Narrated by: Emily Nussbaum
Length: 13 hours 42 minutes
From The New Yorker’s fiercely original, Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic, a provocative collection of new and previously published essays arguing that we are what we watch.
“Emily Nussbaum is the perfect critic—smart, engaging, funny, generous, and insightful.”—David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF... Read more »
Bestseller #17
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
A Memoir
By Ai Weiwei
Narrated by: David Shih
Length: 13 hours 7 minutes
The “intimate and expansive” (Time) memoir of “one of the most important artists working in the world today” (Financial Times), telling a remarkable history of China over the last hundred years while also illuminating his artistic process
“Poignant . . . An illuminating through-line emerges in the many parallels Ai traces between his life and... Read more »
Bestseller #18
Ninth Street Women
Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art
By Mary Gabriel
Narrated by: Lisa Stathoplos
Length: 39 hours 14 minutes
Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times).
Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic,... Read more »
Bestseller #19
Tacky
Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer
By Rax King
Narrated by: Rax King
Length: 7 hours 12 minutes
An irreverent and charming collection of deeply personal essays about the joys of low pop culture and bad taste, exploring coming of age in the 2000s in the age of Hot Topic, Creed, and frosted lip gloss—from the James Beard Award-nominated writer of the Catapult column "Store-Bought Is Fine”
Tacky is about the power of pop... Read more »
Bestseller #20
On Freedom
Four Songs of Care and Constraint
By Maggie Nelson
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
Length: 10 hours 5 minutes
An expansive, exhilarating work of criticism by one of the most significant writers of our day.
So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to our autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom's long... Read more »
Bestseller #21
Color
A Natural History of the Palette
By Victoria Finlay
Narrated by: Victoria Finlay
Length: 15 hours 58 minutes
In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist’s palette, Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages, illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself.
How did the most precious color blue travel all the way from remote lapis... Read more »
Bestseller #22
The Queens of Animation
The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History
By Nathalia Holt
Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
Length: 11 hours 37 minutes
From the bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls, the untold, "richly detailed" story of the women of Walt Disney Studios, who shaped the iconic films that have enthralled generations (Margot Lee Shetterly, New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Figures).
From Snow White to Moana, from Pinocchio to Frozen, the animated films of Walt... Read more »
Bestseller #23
Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem
A Memoir
By Daniel R. Day
Narrated by: Omari Hardwick & Daniel R. Day
Length: 8 hours 30 minutes
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Dapper Dan is a legend, an icon, a beacon of inspiration to many in the Black community. His story isn’t just about fashion. It’s about tenacity, curiosity, artistry, hustle, love, and a singular determination to live our dreams out loud.”—Ava DuVernay, director of Selma, 13th, and A Wrinkle in Time
NAMED ONE OF THE... Read more »
Bestseller #24
Vanishing Fleece
Adventures in American Wool
By Clara Parkes
Narrated by: Clara Parkes
Length: 5 hours 55 minutes
A fast-paced account of the year Clara Parkes spent transforming a 676-pound bale of fleece into saleable yarn, and the people and vanishing industry she discovered along the way.
Join Clara Parkes on a cross-country adventure and meet a cast of characters that includes the shepherds, dyers, and countless workers without whom our knitting... Read more »
Bestseller #25
Broken Glass
Mies van der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth, and the Fight Over a Modernist Masterpiece
By Alex Beam
Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
Length: 8 hours 47 minutes
The true story of the intimate relationship that gave birth to the Farnsworth House, a masterpiece of twentieth-century architecture—and disintegrated into a bitter feud over love, money, gender, and the very nature of art.
“An intimate portrait . . . alive with architectural intrigue.”—Architect Magazine
In 1945, Edith Farnsworth asked the... Read more »
Bestseller #26
The Power Broker: Volume 2 of 3
Robert Moses and the Fall of New York: Volume 2
By Robert A. Caro
Narrated by: Robertson Dean
Length: 23 hours 1 minute
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A modern American classic, this huge and galvanizing biography of Robert Moses reveals not only the saga of one man’s incredible accumulation of power but the story of his shaping (and mis-shaping of twentieth-century New York. One of the Modern Library’s hundred greatest books of the twentieth century.
Robert Caro's... Read more »
Bestseller #27
The Art Thief
A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession
By Michael Finkel
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini & Michael Finkel
Length: 5 hours 39 minutes
One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first century: the story of the world’s most prolific art thief, Stéphane Breitwieser.
In this spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, the best-selling author of The Stranger in the Woods brings us into Breitwieser’s strange world—unlike most thieves, he never stole for... Read more »
Bestseller #28
Stealing the Show
A History of Art and Crime in Six Thefts
By John Barelli
Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
Length: 5 hours 41 minutes
When he retired as the chief security officer of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, John Barelli had spent the better part of forty years responsible not only for one of the richest treasure troves on the planet, but the museum’s staff, the millions of visitors, as well as American presidents, royalty, and heads of state from around the... Read more »
Bestseller #29
Room to Dream
By David Lynch & Kristine McKenna
Narrated by: David Lynch & Kristine McKenna
Length: 15 hours 45 minutes
An unprecedented look into the personal and creative life of the visionary auteur David Lynch, through his own words and those of his closest colleagues, friends, and family — adapted by David Lynch from the print book especially for this audio program
In this unique hybrid of biography and memoir, David Lynch opens up for the first time about... Read more »
Bestseller #30
Arrangements in Blue
Notes on Loving and Living Alone
By Amy Key
Narrated by: Amy Key
Length: 8 hours 42 minutes
Arrangements in Blue elegantly honors the life lived completely by—and for—oneself. Inspired by Joni Mitchell’s seminal album Blue, celebrated British poet Amy Key sets out to examine the volatile scales of romantic feeling as she has encountered them: from the low notes of loss and unfulfilled desire—punctuated by sharp, discordant feelings of... Read more »
Bestseller #31
Dickens and Prince
A Particular Kind of Genius
By Nick Hornby
Narrated by: Alex Jennings
Length: 3 hours 7 minutes
“An ardent fan letter from Hornby that makes you want to re-read Great Expectations while listening to Sign o’ the Times.” —Vogue
From the bestselling author of Just Like You, High Fidelity, and Fever Pitch, a short, warm, and entertaining book about art, creativity, and the unlikely similarities between Victorian novelist Charles Dickens and... Read more »
Bestseller #32
The Golden Thread
How Fabric Changed History
By Kassia St. Clair
Narrated by: Helen Johns
Length: 11 hours 25 minutes
The bestselling author of The Secret Lives of Color returns with this rollicking narrative of the 30,000-year history of fabric, briskly told through thirteen charismatic episodes.
From colorful 30,000-year-old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to the Indian calicoes that sparked the Industrial Revolution, The Golden Thread weaves... Read more »
Bestseller #33
The Secret Lives of Color
By Kassia St. Clair
Narrated by: Kassia St. Clair
Length: 8 hours 5 minutes
One of USA Today's “100 Books to Read While Stuck at Home During the Coronavirus Crisis”
A dazzling gift, the unforgettable, unknown history of colors and the vivid stories behind them in a beautiful multi-colored volume.
“Beautifully written . . . Full of anecdotes and fascinating research, this elegant compendium has all the... Read more »
Bestseller #34
Walk Through Walls
A Memoir
By Marina Abramovic
Narrated by: Marina Abramovic
Length: 14 hours 55 minutes
Walk Through Walls
“Considered one of the best performance artists of our time, Marina Abramovic narrates the story of her own fascinating life -- the inspiration behind many pieces, the outcome and response to them, the people she grew to know and love during her time around the world. She shares her difficult home life, the intimacy of her love affair with Ulay, and more fascinating details from throughout her life to this point.”
Amber, Quail Ridge Books
Bestseller #35
M Train
By Patti Smith
Narrated by: Patti Smith
Length: 6 hours 31 minutes
National Best Seller
From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: an unforgettable odyssey of a legendary artist, told through the prism of the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. It is a book Patti Smith has described as “a roadmap to my life.”
M Train begins in the tiny Greenwich Village café where Smith goes... Read more »
Bestseller #36
Picasso's War
How Modern Art Came to America
By Hugh Eakin
Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
Length: 15 hours 11 minutes
A riveting story of how dueling ambitions and the power of prodigy made America the cultural center of the world—and Picasso the most famous artist alive—in the shadow of World War II
“[Eakin] has mastered this material. . . . The book soars.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Vanity Fair, The New... Read more »
Bestseller #37
The Lonely City
Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
By Olivia Laing
Narrated by: Susan Lyons
Length: 9 hours 55 minutes
An expertly crafted work of reportage, memoir, and biography on the subject of loneliness told through the lives of six iconic artists, by the acclaimed author of The Trip to Echo Spring. You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavor to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by thousands of strangers. The... Read more »
Bestseller #38
How to Be an Artist
By Jerry Saltz
Narrated by: Jerry Saltz
Length: 2 hours 20 minutes
"Inspiration leaps off the pages from Jerry Saltz's new book on creativity. . . . This book is for the artist or non-artist, for the person who gets plain English, for the person who understands that practical talk can coax out the mystical messages that lie underneath." —Steve Martin
Art has the power to change our lives. For many, becoming an... Read more »
Bestseller #39
Dress Code
Unlocking Fashion from the New Look to Millennial Pink
By Véronique Hyland
Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya
Length: 9 hours 20 minutes
In the spirit of works by Jia Tolentino and Anne Helen Peterson, a smart and incisive essay collection centered on the fashion industry—its history, its importance, why we wear what we wear, and why it matters—from Elle Magazine’s fashion features director.Why does fashion hold so much power over us? Most of us care about how we dress and how we... Read more »
Bestseller #40
Van Gogh
The Life
By Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith
Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
Length: 44 hours 54 minutes
Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith galvanized readers with their astonishing Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for biography, a book acclaimed for its miraculous research and overwhelming narrative power. Now Naifeh and Smith have written another tour de force—an exquisitely detailed, compelling, and ultimately... Read more »
Bestseller #41
It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful
How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic
By Jack Lowery
Narrated by: Vikas Adam
Length: 14 hours 9 minutes
The story of art collective Gran Fury—which fought back during the AIDS crisis through direct action and community-made propaganda—offers lessons in love and grief.
In the late 1980s, the AIDS pandemic was annihilating queer people, intravenous drug users, and communities of color in America, and disinformation about the disease ran rampant. Out... Read more »
Bestseller #42
A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes
A Son’s Memoir of Gabriel García MArquez and Mercedes Barcha
By Rodrigo Garcia
Narrated by: Rodrigo Garcia
Length: 2 hours 16 minutes
A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes
“A beautiful, heartbreaking "son's memoir" from Rodrigo Garcia, son of "Gabo" Garcia Marquez. Despite its short, sparse chapters, this book is powerful and sad, powerfully sad. Of course, I wept (a lot), but in a good way. A poignant memoir about the terrible loss of memory, grief, and a son's abiding love for his father.”
Katia, Bookstore1Sarasota
Bestseller #43
Pop Song
Adventures in Art & Intimacy
By Larissa Pham
Narrated by: Cindy Kay
Length: 7 hours 30 minutes
Pop Song
“Pop Song is an engaging blend of art criticism, memoir, and travelogue with the raw and confessional style of the microblogging generation. Larissa Pham’s prose bounces seamlessly and dexterously from looking outward to inward and back with equal attention, passion, and insight.”
Matt Stowe, Greenlight Bookstore
Bestseller #44
ArtCurious
Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History
By Jennifer Dasal
Narrated by: Jennifer Dasal
Length: 9 hours 48 minutes
ArtCurious
“This is not your 'Introduction to Art History' college textbook. Art is neither boring nor stuffy. It's relevant and fascinating. This books is for the art lover and skeptic. It is filled with stories about art and artists surrounding pop culture, true crime, conspiracy theories and so much more! This is a great road trip listen!”
Amy , Auburn Oil Co. Booksellers
Bestseller #45
Fashionopolis
The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes
By Dana Thomas
Narrated by: Dana Thomas
Length: 9 hours 14 minutes
*NYTBR Paperback Row Selection * The Independent's Best Fashion Book on Sustainability*
An investigation into the damage wrought by the colossal clothing industry and the grassroots, high-tech, international movement fighting to reform it
What should I wear? It’s one of the fundamental questions we ask ourselves every day. More than ever, we are... Read more »
Bestseller #46
The Porcelain Thief
Searching the Middle Kingdom for Buried China
By Huan Hsu
Narrated by: Huan Hsu
Length: 11 hours 33 minutes
The Porcelain Thief
“Huan Hsu chronicles his journey to unearth his family's porcelain, said to have been buried during WW2. The treasure was then lost during China's Cultural Revolution. Although the surviving family members can't agree to what was owned and what became of the porcelain, Huan Hsu's journey to for the truth has given him some great stories. He learns his family's history and discovers a China he was completely unprepared for. I decided to read this book because I enjoyed "The Hare with the Amber Eyes", however his time in the urban and rural areas reminded me of the dystopian and sci-fi novels I enjoy. And if you don't appreciate reading dystopian or sci-fi, you will like this for the writer's story telling, the cultural insight and the history.”
Julia, The Bookloft
Bestseller #47
Art Is Life
Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night
By Jerry Saltz
Narrated by: Jerry Saltz & Mark Bramhall
Length: 16 hours
From the Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author of How to Be an Artist: a deliciously readable survey of the art world in turbulent times
Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists, and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural... Read more »
Bestseller #48
William Blake vs the World
By John Higgs
Narrated by: John Higgs
Length: 11 hours 12 minutes
A glittering stream of revelatory light . . . Fascinating' THE TIMES'Rich, complex and original' TOM HOLLAND'One of the best books on Blake I have ever read' DAVID KEENAN'Absolutely wonderful!' TERRY GILLIAM'An alchemical dream of a book' SALENA GODDEN'Tells us a great deal about all human imagination' ROBIN INCE***Poet, artist, visionary and... Read more »
Bestseller #49
Black Futures
By Kimberly Drew & Jenna Wortham
Narrated by: Kimberly Drew, Kevin R. Free, Dominic Hoffman, Robin Miles, Adenrele Ojo, Bahni Turpin & Jenna Wortham
Length: 11 hours 10 minutes
An archive of collective memory and exuberant testimony
A luminous map to navigate an opaque and disorienting present
An infinite geography of possible futures
What does it mean to be Black and alive right now?
Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together this collection of work—essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and... Read more »
Bestseller #50
Art and Faith
A Theology of Making
By Makoto Fujimura
Narrated by: David Shih
Length: 5 hours 59 minutes
From a world-renowned painter, an exploration of creativity's quintessential—and often overlooked—role in the spiritual life
Conceived over thirty years of painting and creating in his studio, this book is Makoto Fujimura's broad and deep exploration of creativity and the spiritual aspects of "making." What he does in the studio is theological... Read more »