Essays audiobooks

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

By: Jerome Klapka Jerome

Narrated by: Edward Young

Length: 4 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

A classic collection of humorous essays by Jerome K. Jerome. Read more

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

By: David Foster Wallace

Narrated by: Paul Garcia

Length: 17 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

In this exuberantly praised book - a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner - David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity,... Read more

The Prince

By: Niccolo Machiavelli

Narrated by: Emma Topping

Length: 3 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Machiavelli's leading political and philiosophical treatise on the nature of power and the State in Renaissance Florence which continues to be relevant to modern political thinking. Read more

In the Country of Brooklyn

By: Peter Golenbock

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 23 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

What is Brooklyn? A bedroom suburb of Manhattan? A crumbling relic of urban decay? A collection of gorgeous million dollar brownstones? A magnet for artists and writers and hipsters and yuppies and new immigrants and real estate developers? A hotbed of political activists? A breeding ground for mobsters? A place to achieve the American dream? A... Read more

Lost in Language and Sound

By: Ntozake Shange

Narrated by: Allyson Johnson

Length: 4 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Lost in Language and Sound is a vibrant and vital collection that celebrates the three most important muses in the life and work of Ntozake Shange: language, music, and dance. In this deeply personal book, the celebrated writer reflects on what it means to be an artist, a woman, and a woman of color through a beautiful combination of memoir and... Read more

Believe

By: Buck Brannaman & William Reynolds

Narrated by: John Pruden & Karen White

Length: 5 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

In his bestselling The Faraway Horses, Buck Brannaman, extraordinary trainer and acknowledged inspiration for The Horse Whispererer, described how he found his calling and honed his art and craft. Following the book's widespread acclaim, the universal application of Brannaman's approach to interpersonal relationships has struck a responsive... Read more

Desert Solitaire

By: Edward Abbey

Narrated by: Michael Kramer

Length: 11 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

When Desert Solitaire was first published in 1968, it became the focus of a nationwide cult. Rude and sensitive. Thought-provoking and mystical. Angry and loving. Both Abbey and this book are all of these and more. Here, the legendary author of The Monkey Wrench Gang, Abbey's Road, and many other critically acclaimed books vividly captures the... Read more

One on One

By: John Feinstein

Narrated by: David de Vries

Length: 16 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

John Feinstein's illuminating recollections from two decades of interviews with sports legends.

John Feinstein's career is a sports fan's dream-a lifetime of encounters with the great figures in sports, not just on the field, but in the locker room and behind the scenes with legends like Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jack Nicklaus,... Read more

The Faraway Horses

By: Buck Brannaman & William Reynolds

Narrated by: John Pruden

Length: 6 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Nearly every week of the year, Buck Brannaman is on the road, conducting horsemanship clinics in which he teaches horse owners how to better understand and work with their animals, creating a relationship based on trust and respect rather than force. Buck's skill has become the stuff of legend—in fact, the main character in Robert Redford's film... Read more

Best Friends, Occasional Enemies

By: Lisa Scottoline & Francesca Serritella

Narrated by: Lisa Scottoline & Francesca Serritella

Length: 5 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

From the New York Times bestselling writing team comes a hilarious new collection of essays that observe life from a mother/daughter perspective

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline and her daughter Francesca Serritella are the best of friends—99.9% of the time. They're number one on each other's speed dial and they tell each other... Read more

The New New Rules

By: Bill Maher

Narrated by: Bill Maher

Length: 4 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

From bestselling author and host of HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher's new book of political riffs serves up a savagely funny set of rules for preserving sanity in an insane world.A follow-up to the New York Times bestselling The New Rules, The New New Rules delivers a series of hilarious, intelligent rants on everything from same-sex marriage... Read more

To Jerusalem and Back

By: Saul Bellow

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 7 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

This extraordinary book is the result of Saul Bellow’s sojourn in Israel in 1975. A personal record of his stay—his experiences and impressions—as well as a meditation, it crackles with wit and controversy on America’s relationship with this embattled country.Using quick sketches and vignettes, Bellow captures the personal opinions, passions,... Read more

The Ecstasy of Influence

By: Jonathan Lethem

Narrated by: Jonathan Lethem

Length: 16 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

What’s a novelist supposed to do with contemporary culture? And what’s contemporary culture sup­posed to do with novelists? In The Ecstasy of Influence, Jonathan Lethem, tangling with what he calls the “white elephant” role of the writer as public intellectual, arrives at an astonishing range of answers.

A constellation of previously published... Read more

All It Takes Is Guts

By: Walter E. Williams

Narrated by: Peter Kjenaas

Length: 5 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

This is a collection of Walter Williams' essays, drawn from his syndicated column. Williams writes with brilliant clarity—and he doesn't mince words. He destroys a number of prevailing myths, such as that economic and social disparities are the result of racism and that economic sanctions will help punish the South African blacks more that the... Read more

The Time of Our Lives

By: Tom Brokaw

Narrated by: Tom Brokaw

Length: 7 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Tom Brokaw, known and beloved for his landmark work in American journalism and for the New York Times bestsellers The Greatest Generation and Boom!, now turns his attention to the challenges that face America in the new millennium, to offer reflections on how we can restore America’s greatness.
 
“What happened to the America I thought I knew?”... Read more

Blue Nights

By: Joan Didion

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

Length: 4 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.
 
... Read more

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

By: Mindy Kaling

Narrated by: Mindy Kaling, B. J. Novak, Michael Schur & Bren...

Length: 4 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER •  In this hilarious instant classic, the creator of The Mindy Project and Never Have I Ever invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood.

“[Kaling is] like Tina Fey’s cool little sister. Or perhaps . . . the next Nora Ephron.”—The New York Times
 
Mindy... Read more

The Bohemian Girl

By: Willa Cather

Narrated by: Laurie Klein

Length: 6 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

Uprooted from a well-ordered life in Virginia when she was nine, Willa Cather came of age in the West during the last years of the American frontier. She developed a love for the beauty of the open grassland and an abiding interest in the Old World customs of her neighbors, the dreamers and builders who inhabit her fiction. This collection... Read more

Aachen Sagen und Legenden

By: Nadine Boos

Narrated by: Uve Teschner

Length: 1 hour 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Erste Spuren vom heutigen Kurbad Aachen lassen sich bis in die Jungsteinzeit zurück verfolgen, später folgten Besiedlungen durch die Kelten und Römer. Pippin der Jüngere erwähnte die Stadt erstmals schriftlich im Jahr 765 als Aquis villa. Sein Sohn, Karl der Große, machte Aachen einige Jahre später zu seiner Residenz und ordnete den Bau eines... Read more

Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone

By: Hunter S. Thompson

Narrated by: Phil Gigante

Length: 17 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

“Buy the ticket, take the ride,” was a favorite slogan of Hunter S. Thompson, and it pretty much defined both his work and his life. Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone showcases the roller-coaster of a career at the magazine that was his literary home.Jann S. Wenner, the outlaw journalist’s friend and editor for nearly thirty-five years, has... Read more

You'll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again - Abridged

By: Heather McDonald

Narrated by: Heather McDonald

Length: 3 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: Yes

You’ll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again is the laugh-out-loud story of an attractive Los Angeles woman who found herself in the predicament of being an unwilling virgin. As an actress, writer, and stand-up comedienne, Heather McDonald passed up ample opportunities to have her V-card revoked by handsome, rich, and sometimes even fabulously... Read more

Heart of the Game

By: S.L. Price

Narrated by: Tom Schiff

Length: 9 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

“Genuine and raw…a heartfelt work of despair, triumph, and redemption.”
 —Boston GlobeThe critically acclaimed Heart of the Game—subtitled “Life, Death, and Mercy in Minor League America”—explores the pure roots of a sport that is stained by scandal at its highest level. S.L. Price, award-winning writer for Sports Illustrated and author of... Read more

My Shit Life So Far

By: Frankie Boyle

Narrated by: Angus King

Length: 6 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

Ever since being brought up by The Beatles, Frankie Boyle has been a tremendous liar. Join him on his adventures with his chum Clangy The Brass Boy and laugh as he doesn’t accidentally kill a student nurse when a party gets out of hand. I don't think anyone can have written an autobiography without at some point thinking... Read more

Socrates in the City

By: Eric Metaxas

Narrated by: Eric Metaxas & the contributing authors

Length: 14 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Following the extraordinary success of the New York Times bestseller Bonhoeffer, Eric Metaxas’ latest book offers inspirational and intellectually rigorous thoughts about the great questions surrounding us all today.The Greek philosopher Socrates famously said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Taking this as a starting point, Eric... Read more