Black Authors

Sugar

By: Bernice L. McFadden

Narrated by: Myra Lucretia Taylor

Length: 8 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

A novel by a critically acclaimed voice in contemporary fiction, praised by Ebony for its “unforgettable images, unique characters, and moving story that keeps the pages turning until the end.”

A young prostitute comes to Bigelow, Arkansas, to start over, far from her haunting past. Sugar moves next door to Pearl, who is still grieving for the... Read more

The President’s Kitchen Cabinet

By: Adrian Miller

Narrated by: Ron Butler

Length: 9 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

James Beard award–winning author Adrian Miller vividly tells the stories of the African Americans who worked in the presidential food service as chefs, personal cooks, butlers, stewards, and servers for every First Family since George and Martha Washington. Miller brings together the names and words of more than 150 black men and women who... Read more

Harriet Tubman

By: Catherine Clinton

Narrated by: Shayna Small

Length: 8 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

The definitive biography of one of the most courageous women in American history "reveals Harriet Tubman to be even more remarkable than her legend" (Newsday).
Celebrated for her exploits as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman has entered history as one of nineteenth-century America's most enduring and important figures. But... Read more

They Can't Kill Us All

By: Wesley Lowery

Narrated by: Ron Butler

Length: 8 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

A deeply reported book that brings alive the quest for justice in the deaths of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray, offering both unparalleled insight into the reality of police violence in America and an intimate, moving portrait of those working to end it.

Conducting hundreds of interviews during the course of over one year reporting... Read more

The Sun is Also a Star

By: Nicola Yoon

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin, Raymond Lee & Dominic Hoffman

Length: 8 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

The #1 New York Times bestseller and National Book Award Finalist from the bestselling author of Everything, Everything will have you falling in love with Natasha and Daniel as they fall in love with each other.

Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not... Read more

You Can't Touch My Hair

By: Phoebe Robinson

Narrated by: Phoebe Robinson, Jessica Williams & John Hodgman

Length: 7 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • "A must-read…Phoebe Robinson discusses race and feminism in such a funny, real, and specific way, it penetrates your brain and stays with you." –Ilana Glazer, co-creator and co-star of Broad City

A hilarious and timely essay collection about race, gender, and pop culture from upcoming comedy superstar and 2 Dope... Read more

Sing for Your Life

By: Daniel Bergner

Narrated by: Ryan Vincent Anderson

Length: 8 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

The New York Times bestseller about a young black man's journey from violence and despair to the threshold of stardom: "A beautiful tribute to the power of good teachers" (Terry Gross, Fresh Air).

"One of the most inspiring stories I've come across in a long time."-Pamela Paul, New York Times Book Review

Ryan Speedo Green had a tough upbringing... Read more

The Doctor Is In

By: Carl Weber & Brenda Hampton

Narrated by: Lynnette Freeman

Length: 8 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

Dr. Kasen Phillips has the magic touch when it comes to helping his patients who are in dire need of counseling services, but when the love of his life winds up missing in action, Kasen's life takes a horrific turn for the worse. His office manager, Voncile Harper, is there to lend a helping hand. She's on a mission to shake Kasen from his... Read more

Original Gangstas

By: Ben Westhoff

Narrated by: J. D. Jackson

Length: 15 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

"Raw, authoritative, and unflinching ... An elaborately detailed, darkly surprising, definitive history of the LA gangsta rap era." -- Kirkus, starred review

A monumental, revealing narrative history about the legendary group of artists at the forefront of West Coast hip-hop: Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac Shakur.

Amid rising... Read more

The Defender

By: Ethan Michaeli

Narrated by: William Hughes

Length: 22 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Giving voice to the voiceless, the Chicago Defender condemned Jim Crow, catalyzed the Great Migration, and focused the electoral power of black America. Robert S. Abbott founded the Defender in 1905, smuggled hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, and was dubbed a “Modern Moses,” becoming one... Read more

Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil

By: Lezley McSpadden

Narrated by: Lisa Reneé Pitts

Length: 10 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

This revelatory memoir by the mother of Michael Brown, the African American teenager killed by the police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, sheds light on one of the landmark events in recent history.“I wasn’t there when Mike Mike was shot. I didn’t see him fall or take his last breath, but as his mother, I do know one thing... Read more

What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

By: Helen Oyeyemi

Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon, Piter Marek & Bahni Turpin

Length: 7 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

From the award-winning author of Boy, Snow, Bird and Mr. Fox comes an enchanting collection of intertwined stories. Playful, ambitious, and exquisitely imagined, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is cleverly built around the idea of keys, literal and metaphorical. The key to a house, the key to a heart, the key to a secret-Oyeyemi's keys not only... Read more

We Love You, Charlie Freeman

By: Kaitlyn Greenidge

Narrated by: Cherise Boothe, Karole Foreman & Myra Lucretia ...

Length: 10 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Frustrated by the limitations of cross-race communication in her predominantly white town, a young African-American girl teaches herself to sign. Years later, Laurel uproots her husband and daughters from their downwardly-mobile, over-educated and underpaid life in the South End of Boston for Cortland County, Massachusetts. The Freemans are to... Read more

If Beale Street Could Talk

By: James Baldwin

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

From one of the most important writers of the twentieth century comes a stunning love story about a young Black woman whose life is torn apart when her lover is wrongly accused of a crime—"a moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless” (The New York Times Book Review)."One of the best... Read more

The Illegal

By: Lawrence Hill

Narrated by: Gideon Emery

Length: 12 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Keita Ali has nothing: no bank account, no papers, no legal identity. A runner, he has fled home-- a brutal dictatorship that produces the world' s fastest marathoners-- to live as an illegal refugee in a wealthy western nation, surviving on winnings from local races. But the government is cracking down on illegal immigrants, so Keita-- who will... Read more

American Ace

By: Marilyn Nelson

Narrated by: Marilyn Nelson

Length: 1 hour 21 minutes

Abridged: No

This riveting novel in verse, perfect for fans of Jacqueline Woodson and Toni Morrison, explores American history and race through the eyes of a teenage boy embracing his newfound identity
 
Connor’s grandmother leaves his dad a letter when she dies, and the letter’s confession shakes their tight-knit Italian-American family: The man who raised... Read more

Negroland

By: Margo Jefferson

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 7 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

At once incendiary and icy, mischievous and provocative, celebratory and elegiac—here is a deeply felt meditation on race, sex, and American culture through the prism of Margo Jefferson’s rarefied upbringing and education among a black elite concerned with distancing itself from whites and the black generality while tirelessly measuring itself... Read more

This Way Home

By: Wes Moore & Shawn Goodman

Narrated by: JD Jackson

Length: 7 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

“Brimming with hard realities about the choices we make, the friendships we keep, and the unlikely allies we find along the way, this affecting novel helps to fill the gaping hole left by Walter Dean Myers’s passing.” —Booklist
 
“A taut, haunting tragedy.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
One young man searches for a place to call home in this gut-wrenching,... Read more

Carl Weber's Kingpins

By: Nikki Turner

Narrated by: Soozi Cheyenne

Length: 8 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times bestselling author Carl Weber has brought together eight of the best Urban Street writers to participate in the most highly anticipated series of 2015, the Kingpin series. Every city has an underworld leader. In the Kingpin series, we will visit eight cities and ride along with that city's kingpin as he rules the streets. The... Read more

Everything, Everything

By: Nicola Yoon

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin & Robbie Daymond

Length: 6 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

Risk everything for love with this #1 New York Times bestseller from Nicola Yoon • "Gorgeous and lyrical"—The New York Times Book Review

What if you couldn’t touch anything in the outside world? Never breathe in the fresh air, feel the sun warm your face . . . or kiss the boy next door? In Everything, Everything, Maddy is a girl who’s literally... Read more

And Sometimes I Wonder About You

By: Walter Mosley

Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi

Length: 8 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

The welcome return of Leonid McGill, Walter Mosley's NYC-based private eye, his East Coast foil to his immortal L.A.-based detective Easy Rawlins. As the Boston Globe raved, "A poignantly real character, [McGill is] not only the newest of the great fictional detectives, but also an incisive and insightful commentator on the American scene."
 ... Read more

Pleasantville

By: Attica Locke

Narrated by: JD Jackson

Length: 13 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEY’S WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTIONFrom Attica Locke, a writer and producer of FOX’s Empire, this sophisticated thriller sees lawyer Jay Porter—hero of her bestseller Black Water Rising—return to fight one last case, only to become embroiled in a dangerous game of shadowy politics and a witness to how far those in power are... Read more

The Light of the World

By: Elizabeth Alexander

Narrated by: Elizabeth Alexander

Length: 3 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

A deeply resonant memoir for anyone who has loved and lost, from acclaimed poet and Pulitzer Prize finalist Elizabeth Alexander.

In The Light of the World, Elizabeth Alexander finds herself at an existential crossroads after the sudden death of her husband. Channeling her poetic sensibilities into a rich, lucid price, Alexander tells a love... Read more

My Journey with Maya

By: Tavis Smiley

Narrated by: Tavis Smiley

Length: 4 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

A remarkable story of friendship, love, and courage.

When Maya Angelou and Tavis Smiley met in 1986, he was twenty-one and she was fifty-eight. For the next twenty-eight years, they shared an unlikely, special bond. Angelou was a teacher and a maternal figure to Smiley, and they talked often, of art, politics, history, race, religion, music,... Read more