Literary Criticism bestsellers

Didion and Babitz

By: Lili Anolik
Narrated by: Lili Anolik
Length: 12 hours 34 minutes

“"Art, my God, Joan, I'm embarrassed to mention it in front of you, you know, but you mentioned burning babies in locked cars so I can mention Art." Eve Babitz to Joan Didion, 1972. In this blazing memoir, one feels like they're out for drinks discussing '70s Hollywood sleaze, female chauvinist pigs, and Charles Manson with your wildly messy and... Read more

The Monster and the Mirror

Mental Illness, Magic, and the Stories We Tell

By: K.J. Aiello
Narrated by: K.J. Aiello
Length: 9 hours 58 minutes

Revelatory memoir and cultural criticism that connects popular fantasy and our perceptions of mental illness to offer an empathetic path to compassionate care Growing up, K.J. Aiello was fascinated by magical stories of dragons, wizards, and fantasy, where monsters were not what they seemed and anything was possible. These books and films... Read more

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Essays

Picador Modern Classics

By: Joan Didion
Narrated by: Maya Hawke
Length: 6 hours 23 minutes

“In this snapshot of mid-century American culture, Didion, deliberate and unabashed, takes the reader on journeys across the United States - from Newport, to Sacramento, to Hollywood, to Hawaii, and back to San Francisco - digesting political unrest, youthful buoyancy, and fundamental questions of morality and human responsibility. Her essays... Read more

Bad Feminist

Essays

By: Roxane Gay
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 11 hours 46 minutes

“Roxane Gay is so great at weaving the intimate and personal with what is most bewildering and upsetting at this moment in culture. She is always looking, always thinking, always passionate, always careful, always right there.”  — Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be?A New York Times BestsellerBest Book of the Year: NPR • Boston Globe •... Read more

Monsters

A Fan's Dilemma

By: Claire Dederer
Narrated by: Claire Dederer
Length: 8 hours 14 minutes

“As a reader and a bookseller and a lover of all kinds of art, I’m confronted daily by the question of how to reconcile my love with the sometimes horrible artists who created those works. This intelligent essay collection gave me a lot to think about and was even comforting in the end. Read more

A Poetry Handbook

By: Mary Oliver
Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
Length: 3 hours 33 minutes

“Mary Oliver would probably never admit to anything so grandiose as an effort to connect the conscious mind and the heart (that’s what she says poetry can do), but that is exactly what she accomplishes in this stunning little handbook.”—Los Angeles TimesFrom the beloved, legendary poet, the ultimate guide to writing and understanding poetry.With... Read more

Meet Me in the Margins

A Rom-Com for People Who Love Books

By: Melissa Ferguson
Narrated by: Talon David
Length: 7 hours 50 minutes

“Savannah is secretly writing a romance novel—something that the highly selective Nashville publishing house that employs her as an editor would never deign to pick up—but after a chance meeting with the editor-in-chief of her favorite romance imprint, Savannah thinks she might actually have a chance at getting published. In a cutthroat... Read more

A Wilder Shore

The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson

By: Camille Peri
Narrated by: Jeanette Illidge
Length: 16 hours 14 minutes

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE PICK

“Engrossing . . . [A] richly researched and vivid double portrait.” —Phyllis Rose, The Atlantic

“A love story, an adventure story, two literary biographies in one; A Wilder Shore is these things and more—and it's very, very good.” —Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha... Read more

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

By: George Saunders
Narrated by: George Saunders, Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman, Glenn Close, Keith David, Rainn Wilson, BD Wong & Renée Elise Goldsberry
Length: 14 hours 43 minutes

“This masterclass for writers is also a masterclass for readers, and you don't have to be a writer to enjoy it. Through his wise insights on storytelling, Saunders sent me away with an understanding of why I enjoy reading what I do, how stories work, and how to be a better storyteller (and human) in all rights. Read more

Pandora's Jar

Women in the Greek Myths

By: Natalie Haynes
Narrated by: Natalie Haynes
Length: 9 hours 24 minutes

“Funny, sharp explications of what these sometimes not-very-nice women were up to, and how they sometimes made idiots of . . . but read on!”—Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's TaleThe national bestselling author of A Thousand Ships returns with a fascinating, eye-opening take on the remarkable women at the heart of classical stories Greek... Read more

Poetry Unbound

50 Poems to Open Your World

By: Pádraig Ó Tuama
Narrated by: Pádraig Ó Tuama
Length: 7 hours 18 minutes

“Not only has he selected interesting poems, his down-to-earth essays describing why he loves them are excellent! Nothing uber-academic. Makes one wish this was the approach of poetry teachers everywhere. Read more

All Things Are Too Small

Essays in Praise of Excess

By: Becca Rothfeld
Narrated by: Ruth Crawford
Length: 10 hours 29 minutes

A glorious call to throw off restraint and balance in favor of excess, abandon, and disproportion, in essays ranging from such topics as decluttering, mindfulness, David Cronenberg, sadomasochism, and women who wait. All Things Are Too Small is brilliant cultural and literary critic Becca Rothfeld’s plea for derangement: imbalance, obsession,... Read more

The Black Box

Writing the Race

By: Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

“One of our finest historians shows how African Americans have used the written word to shape their realities, resisting the confines of the 'Black Box'. Read more

The Anatomy of Genres

How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works

By: John Truby
Narrated by: Nick Mondelli
Length: 22 hours 16 minutes

A guide to understanding the major genres of the story world by the legendary writing teacher and author of The Anatomy of Story John Truby. Most people think genres are simply categories on Netflix or Amazon that provide a helpful guide to making entertainment choices. Most people are wrong. Genre stories aren’t just a small subset of the... Read more

Jane Austen at Home

A Biography (250th Birthday Edition)

By: Lucy Worsley
Narrated by: Lucy Worsley
Length: 17 hours 17 minutes

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, Lucy Worsley has written a new Introduction to her Sunday Times Bestselling biography - the book that leads us into the rooms from which our best-loved novelist quietly changed the world.

This telling of the story of Jane's life shows us how and why she lived as she did, examining the... Read more

Red Comet

The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

By: Heather Clark
Narrated by: Laura Jennings
Length: 45 hours 26 minutes

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • The highly anticipated biography of Sylvia Plath that focuses on her remarkable literary and intellectual achievements, while restoring the woman behind the long-held myths about her life and art.

“One of the most beautiful biographies I've ever read." —Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller, Untamed

With a... Read more

Trick Mirror

Reflections on Self-Delusion

By: Jia Tolentino
Narrated by: Jia Tolentino
Length: 9 hours 45 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “From The New Yorker’s beloved cultural critic comes a bold, unflinching collection of essays about self-deception, examining everything from scammer culture to reality television.”—Esquire
 
Book Club Pick for Now Read This, from PBS NewsHour and The New York Times • “A whip-smart, challenging book.”—Zadie Smith • “Jia... Read more

One in a Millennial

On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In

By: Kate Kennedy
Length: 9 hours 26 minutes

This program is read by the author.

From pop culture podcaster and a voice of a generation, Kate Kennedy, a celebration of the millennial zeitgeist

One in a Millennial is an exploration of pop culture, nostalgia, the millennial zeitgeist, and the life lessons learned (for better and for worse) from coming of age as a member of a much-maligned... Read more

Minor Feelings

An Asian American Reckoning

By: Cathy Park Hong
Narrated by: Cathy Park Hong
Length: 6 hours 52 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE • A ruthlessly honest, emotionally charged, and utterly original exploration of Asian American consciousness

“Brilliant . . . To read this book is to become more human.”—Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen

In... Read more

M Train

A Memoir

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

Ulysses by James Joyce

By: James Joyce
Narrated by: Sam Blair , Pietro Kelley, Teo Harding, Sefa Chandler, Clarissa Meyer Samuel Welch, Arina Sharp, Joshua Riley
Length: 31 hours 28 minutes

Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce, first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on February 2, 1922, in Paris. It is considered one of the most important works of Modernist literature.
Ulysses chronicles the passage through Dublin by its main... Read more

Girlhood

By: Melissa Febos
Narrated by: Melissa Febos
Length: 8 hours 13 minutes

Bloomsbury presents Girlhood written and read by Melissa Febos.

National Book Critics Circle Award Winner
National Bestseller
Lambda Literary Award Finalist

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME * NPR * The Washington Post * Kirkus Reviews * Washington Independent Review of Books * The Millions * Electric Literature * Ms Magazine * Entropy... Read more

Against Interpretation, and Other Essays

By: Susan Sontag
Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
Length: 12 hours 6 minutes

Against Interpretation was Susan Sontag’s first collection of essays and is a modern classic. Originally published in 1966, it has never gone out of print and has influenced generations of readers all over the world. It includes the famous essays “Notes on Camp” and “Against Interpretation,” as well as her impassioned discussions of Sartre,... Read more

El infinito en un junco

La invención de los libros en el mundo antiguo

By: Irene Vallejo
Narrated by: Elena Silva
Length: 17 hours 59 minutes

EL ENSAYO REVELACIÓN DE LA TEMPORADA PREMIO NACIONAL DE ENSAYO 2020 De humo, de piedra, de arcilla, de seda, de piel, de árboles, de plástico y de luz... Un recorrido por la vida del libro y de quienes lo han salvaguardado durante casi treinta siglos. Premio el Ojo Crítico de Narrativa 2019 Prólogo narrado por la autora Este es un libro sobre... Read more

The Spook who Sat by the Door

By: Sam Greenlee
Narrated by: Dion Graham & Natiki Hope Pressley
Length: 6 hours 6 minutes

Continuously available in print since 1968, this novel has become embedded in progressive anti-racist culture with wide circulation of the book and hotly debated film. A literary classic, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is a strong comment on entrenched racial inequities in the United States in the late 1960s. With its focus on the “militancy”... Read more

What About the Baby?

Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction

By: Alice McDermott
Narrated by: Angela Dawe
Length: 6 hours 57 minutes

A collection of essays, lectures, and observations on the art of writing fiction from Alice McDermott, winner of the National Book Award and unmatched "virtuoso of language and image" (Rebecca Steinitz, The Boston Globe)

What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction gathers the bestselling novelist Alice McDermott’s pithiest wisdom... Read more

The Saga of the Volsungs

With The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok

By: Jackson Crawford
Narrated by: Jackson Crawford
Length: 4 hours 51 minutes

From the translator of the bestselling Poetic Edda comes a gripping new rendering of two of the greatest sagas of Old Norse literature. Together the two sagas recount the story of seven generations of a single legendary heroic family and comprise our best source of traditional lore about its members—including, among others, the dragon slayer... Read more

The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time

By: Robert Jordan & Teresa Patterson
Narrated by: Paul Woodson
Length: 10 hours 15 minutes

Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters.



The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns... Read more

Pretty Bitches

On Being Called Crazy, Angry, Bossy, Frumpy, Feisty, and All the Other Words That Are Used to Undermine Women

By: Lizzie Skurnick
Narrated by: Andrea Lopez, Shayna Small, Carolyne Leys, Kasey Lee Huizinga, Erica Wides, Judith Pasko, Galena White & Maybe Burke
Length: 8 hours 2 minutes

These empowering essays from leading women writers examine the power of the gendered language that is used to diminish women -- and imagine a more liberated world.

Words matter. They wound, they inflate, they define, they demean. They have nuance and power. "Effortless," "Sassy," "Ambitious," "Aggressive": What subtle digs and sneaky implications... Read more

The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis

How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind

By: Jason M Baxter
Narrated by: Simon Vance
Length: 5 hours 41 minutes

C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the twentieth century. Many readers know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a... Read more

Tyrant

Shakespeare on Politics

By: Stephen Greenblatt
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
Length: 5 hours 26 minutes

World-renowned Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt explores the playwright's insight into bad (and often mad) rulers. As an aging, tenacious Elizabeth I clung to power, a talented playwright probed the social causes, the psychological roots, and the twisted consequences of tyranny. In exploring the psyche (and psychoses) of the likes of... Read more

Wives and Daughters

Penguin Classics

By: Elizabeth Gaskell
Narrated by: Laura Aikman
Length: 26 hours 56 minutes

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Laura Aikman. This definitive recording includes an introduction by Pam Norris.

Set in English society before the 1832 Reform Bill, Wives and Daughters centres on the story of youthful Molly Gibson, brought up from childhood by her father. When he remarries a new stepsister, Cynthia,... Read more

The Art of Biblical Narrative

Revised and Updated

By: Robert Alter
Narrated by: Andy Ingalls
Length: 10 hours 24 minutes

From celebrated translator of the Hebrew Bible Robert Alter, the “groundbreaking” (Los Angeles Times) book that explores the Bible as literature, a winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Renowned critic and translator Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative has radically expanded our view of the Bible by recasting it as a work of... Read more

Jane Austen's Bookshelf

A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend

By: Rebecca Romney
Narrated by: Rebecca Romney
Length: TBA

From rare book dealer and guest star of the hit show Pawn Stars, a page-turning literary adventure that introduces readers to the women writers who inspired Jane Austen—and investigates why their books have disappeared from our shelves.

Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that... Read more

The Book of Virtues - Abridged

An Audio Library of Great Moral Stories

Book Of Virtues Collection: Book #1

By: William J. Bennett
Narrated by: William J. Bennett, Elayne Glover Bennett, Charlton Heston, Dana Ivey, Joe Morton, Tonya Pinkins, Harriet Walter, Fritz Weaver, Michael York, Faith Prince & Tom Selleck
Length: 1 hour 13 minutes

From the author of The Moral Compass and The Death of Outrage, William J. Bennett's bestselling The Book of Virtues is an inspiring anthology that helps children understand and develop moral character—and helps parents teach it to them.

Responsibility. Courage. Compassion. Honesty. Friendship. Persistence. Faith. Everyone recognizes these traits... Read more

Splinters

Another Kind of Love Story

By: Leslie Jamison
Narrated by: Leslie Jamison
Length: 8 hours 32 minutes

“Leslie Jamison is a truth-teller and this memoir about splitting with her husband and raising her infant daughter in her first year of life was absolutely gripping. Read it for the specificity of detail, the masterful descriptions of emotional and psychological shifts, and for her powerful prose. A knock-out! Read more

The Uptown Local

Joy, Death, and Joan Didion: A Memoir

By: Cory Leadbeater
Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
Length: 6 hours

A brilliant debut memoir about a young writer—struggling with depression, family issues, and addiction—and his life-changing decade working for Joan DidionAs an aspiring novelist in his early twenties, Cory Leadbeater was presented with an opportunity to work for a well-known writer whose identity was kept confidential. Since the tumultuous days... Read more

Divine Might

Goddesses in Greek Myth

By: Natalie Haynes
Narrated by: Natalie Haynes
Length: 9 hours 11 minutes

“Natalie Haynes writes as if she knows these goddesses personally, and this audiobook is her telling us all their secrets. I found myself falling back in love with greek mythology, and looking at it's female deities in new lights, for better and for worse. Read more

Orwell's Roses

By: Rebecca Solnit
Narrated by: Rebecca Solnit
Length: 7 hours 51 minutes

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography

“An exhilarating romp through Orwell’s life and times and also through the life and times of roses.” —Margaret Atwood

“A captivating account of Orwell as gardener, lover, parent, and endlessly curious thinker.” —Claire... Read more

Recognizing the Stranger

On Palestine and Narrative

By: Isabella Hammad
Narrated by: Isabella Hammad
Length: 2 hours 28 minutes

Nine days before October 7, 2023, award-winning author Isabella Hammad delivered the Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University. The text of Hammad’s seminal speech and her afterword, written in the early weeks of 2024, together make up a searing appraisal of the war on Palestine during what seems a turning point in the narrative of... Read more

Year of the Monkey

By: Patti Smith
Narrated by: Patti Smith
Length: 4 hours 31 minutes

“Thanks to Libro.fm I just spent six hours with Patti Smith in my car. There is no better balm for getting unstuck than to listen to someone clearly enlivened by aging, loss, death and elections. Admittedly, Patti's global walkabout In The Year of the Monkey, a memoir of her life approaching the age of 70, often blurs dream and reality - and I've... Read more

The Art of Memoir

By: Mary Karr
Narrated by: Mary Karr
Length: 7 hours 20 minutes

Bestselling author and renowned professor Mary Karr offers a master class in the essential elements of great memoir—delivered with her signature wit, insight, and candor.Credited with sparking the current memoir explosion, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club spent more than a year at the top of the New York Times list. She followed with two other smash... Read more

Bibliotherapy

Books to Guide You Through Every Chapter of Life

By: Molly Masters
Narrated by: Molly Masters
Length: 4 hours 12 minutes

A beautiful, thoughtful guide to finding your perfect next read, no matter what life’s throwing at you, from the founder of Aphra a.k.a. ‘your inclusive AF feminist book club’ Through turbulent times, stories keep us afloat. Books, particularly, console and guide us, feed our souls, and open our eyes... Read more

Read Dangerously

The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times

By: Azar Nafisi
Narrated by: Azar Nafisi
Length: 8 hours 28 minutes

The New York Times bestselling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran returns with a guide to the power of literature in turbulent times, arming readers with a resistance reading list, ranging from James Baldwin to Zora Neale Hurston to Margaret Atwood.""[A] stunning look at the power of reading. ... Provokes and inspires at every turn.""... Read more

Reading Genesis

By: Marilynne Robinson
Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
Length: 12 hours 41 minutes

One of our greatest novelists and thinkers presents a radiant, thrilling interpretation of the book of Genesis.

“[Suzanne] Toren's narration highlights Genesis as a work of literature that is especially beautiful when read aloud.”—AudioFile

For generations, the book of Genesis has been treated by scholars as a collection of documents by various... Read more

Mythology

By: Edith Hamilton
Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
Length: 14 hours 34 minutes

Dive into the timeless tales of gods and heroes in this bestselling A-to-Z encyclopedia detailing classic myths and legends—perfect for curious readers and academics alike. Edith Hamilton's mythology succeeds like no other book in bringing to life for the modern reader the Greek, Roman and Norse myths that are the keystone of Western culture-the... Read more

Praying with Jane Eyre

Reflections on Reading as a Sacred Practice

By: Vanessa Zoltan
Narrated by: Vanessa Zoltan & Cassandra Campbell
Length: 7 hours 21 minutes

“In these soaring, open-hearted essays, Vanessa Zoltan writes with fierce brilliance about suffering, survival, and the kind of meaning in life that can withstand real scrutiny.”—John Green, bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars and The Anthropocene Reviewed
 
 
A deeply felt celebration of a classic novel--and a reflection on the ways our... Read more

Translating Myself and Others

By: Jhumpa Lahiri
Narrated by: Sneha Mathan & Jhumpa Lahiri
Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

Sneha Mathan narrates these luminous essays on translation and self-translation by award-winning writer and literary translator Jhumpa LahiriWith an introduction, afterword, and acknowledgements read by the authorTranslating Myself and Others is a collection of candid and disarmingly personal essays by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa... Read more

The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1

An Experiment in Literary Investigation

By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
Length: 25 hours 56 minutes

“BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY.” —TimeVolume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.

“The greatest and most powerful single indictment of a... Read more

How to Think Like a Woman

Four Women Philosophers Who Taught Me How to Love the Life of the Mind

By: Regan Penaluna
Narrated by: Angie Kane
Length: 8 hours 26 minutes

As a young woman growing up in Iowa, Regan Penaluna daydreamed about the big questions: Who are we, and what is this strange world we find ourselves in? In college she fell in love with philosophy and chose to pursue it as an academic—the first step, she believed, to becoming a self-determined person living a life of the mind. What she didn’t... Read more