Essays audiobooks

Changing My Mind

By: Zadie Smith

Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat

Length: 12 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

"[These essays] reflect a lively, unselfconscious, rigorous, erudite, and earnestly open mind that's busy refining its view of life, literature, and a great deal in between." —Los Angeles Times

Split into five sections--Reading, Being, Seeing, Feeling, and Remembering--Changing My Mind finds Zadie Smith casting an acute eye over material both... Read more

The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw

By: Patrick F. McManus

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 5 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Patrick McManus, author of How I Got This Way and one of America's favorite humorists, is an impish commentator on the obvious and not so obvious absurdities of modern life. His national best-seller, The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw, is a collection of hilarious short pieces about fishing, its exotic equipment, and activities like "gunkholing."... Read more

How I Got This Way

By: Patrick F. McManus

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 7 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Grab your fishing net and hold onto your funny-bone; you're in for a hilarious romp through the woods with best-selling funnyman Patrick McManus. How I Got This Way is a rib-tickling collection of stories about the outdoors guaranteed to leave you chuckling. Join McManus and his pals on a venture into the Idaho wilderness that includes taking a... Read more

Cherries in Winter

By: Suzan Colon

Narrated by: Suzan Colon

Length: 3 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

What is the secret to finding hope in hard times?

When Suzan Colón was laid off from her dream job at a magazine during the economic downturn of 2008, she needed to cut her budget way, way back, and that meant home cooking. Her mother suggested, “Why don’t you look in Nana’s recipe folder?” In the basement, Suzan found the tattered treasure, full... Read more

Eating the Dinosaur

By: Chuck Klosterman

Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman

Length: 6 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

After a bestselling and acclaimed diversion into fiction, Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, returns to the form in which he’s been spectacularly successful with a collection of essays about our consumption of pop culture and sports.

Q: What is this book about?

A: Well, that’s difficult to say. I haven’t read it yet—I’ve... Read more

What the Dog Saw

By: Malcolm Gladwell

Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell

Length: 12 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

The bestselling author of The Bomber Mafia focuses on "minor geniuses" and idiosyncratic behavior to illuminate the ways all of us organize experience in this "delightful" (Bloomberg News) collection of writings from The New Yorker.

What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard-but only one... Read more

Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates

By: Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein

Narrated by: Thomas Cathcart

Length: 4 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

From the authors of the bestselling Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . ., a new book on the meaning of death (and life, too). Read more

Under the Sea Wind

By: Rachel L. Carson

Narrated by: C. M. Hébert

Length: 6 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

The special mystery and beauty of the sea is the setting for Rachel Carson’s memorable portrait of the sea birds and sea creatures that inhabit the eastern coasts of North America. In a sequence of riveting adventures along the shore, within the open sea, and down in the twilight depths, Rachel Carson introduces us to the winds and currents of... Read more

Esslinger Sagen und Legenden

By: Christine Giersberg

Narrated by: Heiner Giersberg

Length: 1 hour 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Esslingen ist eine der wenigen Städte Deutschlands, die im zweiten Weltkrieg von nennenswerten Zerstörungen verschont blieb und sich ihren ursprünglichen mittelalterlichen Charme bewahren konnte. Deshalb verfügt die Stadt noch über viele mittelalterliche Sehenswürdigkeiten. Die erste urkundliche Erwähnung Esslingens stammt aus dem Jahr 777, als... Read more

Barack Like Me

By: David Alan Grier

Narrated by: David Alan Grier

Length: 6 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

FROM GROWING UP IN DETROIT, where he marched as a ten-year-old with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to attending the inauguration of President Barack Obama, where he narrowly avoided the Purple Tunnel of Doom but still saw nothing, David Alan Grier examines how he -- and America -- have changed for the better and the funnier.

Within these pages,... Read more

Manhood for Amateurs

By: Michael Chabon

Narrated by: Michael Chabon

Length: 8 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

“Chabon has always been a magical prose stylist, adept at combining the sort of social and emotional detail found in Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus stories with the metaphor-rich descriptions of John Updike and John Irving’s inventive sleight of hand. . . . As in his novels, he shifts gears easily between the comic and the melancholy, the... Read more

The Last Decent Parking Place in North America - Abridged

By: Tom Bodett

Narrated by: Tom Bodett

Length: 2 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Bodett offers his keen, unforgettable observations of the lives of the peopleof Homer, Alaska, who "just ended up there, and stayed." Read more

Growing Up, Growing Old and Going Fishing at the End of the Road - Abridged

By: Tom Bodett

Narrated by: Tom Bodett

Length: 2 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: Yes

A collection of short stories from The Big Garage on Clear Shot chronicles the offbeat lives of the colorful inhabitants of The End of the Road, a small town in Alaska. Read more

The Grasshopper Trap

By: Patrick F. McManus

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 6 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Patrick F. McManus, the “funniest guy in the Outdoor Life and Field & Stream gang … offers another bag of whimsy in the Great Outdoors”* with The Grasshopper Trap.

In this collection of thirty zany stories, spoofing camping, fishing, and other outdoor recreational activities, McManus shares his hilarious wilderness misadventures. From facing... Read more

The Good Samaritan Strikes Again

By: Patrick F. McManus

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 5 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

With “a style that brings to mind Mark Twain, Art Buchwald, and Garrison Keillor” (People), Patrick F. McManus delivers another stellar collection of witty cautionary tales of the great outdoors in The Good Samaritan Strikes Again.

Gathering together twenty-four of his hilarious essays—originally published in such magazines as Outdoor Life—this... Read more

Never Sniff a Gift Fish

By: Patrick F. McManus

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 6 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Humorist Patrick F. McManus has been called "a master at spoofing sportsmen" by Publishers Weekly. His rib-tickling books about hunting, fishing, and camping receive rave reviews from national media. The New York Times Book Review writes, "Everybody should read Patrick McManus." In the chapters of Never Sniff a Gift Fish, McManus will teach you... Read more

Real Ponies Don't Go Oink!

By: Patrick F. McManus

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 5 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

Best-selling outdoor humorist McManus (The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw) bags another in this collection of yarns featuring irascible woodsman Rancid Crabtree, "Phantom of the Woods" Retch Sweeney, boyhood pal Crazy Eddie, and others of McManus's acquaintance. Also meet hunting dog Strange, dog delinquent, whose prey of choice is year-old... Read more

The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas

By: author

Narrated by: Simon Le Bon & Derren Brown

Length: 5 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Read by Simon Le Bon, Derren Brown, Charlie Brooker, Richard Dawkins, Ben Goldacre, Mitch Benn and more!In this download there are 38 atheist celebrities, comedians, scientists and writers give their funny and serious tips for enjoying the Christmas season. When the Atheist Bus Campaign was first launched, over £150,000, was... Read more

How to Cope with Mitchell and Webb - Abridged

By: David Mitchell & Robert Webb

Narrated by: David Mitchell & Robert Webb

Length: 1 hour 2 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Read by David Mitchell and Robert Webb the comedy duo tackle various subject matters in a 'How to Cope with…' guide addressing various scenarios, and everyday situations. David Mitchell and Robert Webb tackle various subject matters in a 'How to Cope with…' guide talking you through every day scenarios and situations. The... Read more

The Bear in the Attic

By: Patrick F. McManus

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 7 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

With over two million copies of his works in print, Patrick McManus is an accomplished humor author. In The Bear in the Attic, he once again invites listeners to peek into his unique perspectives on life and his favorite topic, the great outdoors. Here listeners are treated to amazingly absurd tales of young male hijinks, camping mishaps and... Read more

I Shudder

By: Paul Rudnick

Narrated by: Paul Rudnick

Length: 10 hours

Abridged: No

I Shudder is a side-splittingly funny collection of essays from Paul Rudnick, one of America’s preeminent humorists. Rudnick, who writes for The New Yorker and has written the screenplays for the films In and Out, Sister Act, and Addams Family Values, shares his hilarious observations on life in New York City and New Jersey, the perils of show... Read more

The Possibility of Everything

By: Hope Edelman

Narrated by: Hope Edelman

Length: 10 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

From the bestselling author of Motherless Daughters, here is the real-life story of one woman’s search for a cure to her family’s escalating troubles and the leap of faith that took her on a journey to an exotic place and a new state of mind.In the autumn of 2000, Hope Edelman was a woman adrift, questioning her marriage, her profession, and her... Read more

Andrew Zimmern visits Huatulco

By: Andrew Zimmern

Narrated by: Andrew Zimmern

Length: 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Andrew Zimmern, the host of The Travel Channel’s hit series Bizarre Foods, has an extraordinarily well-earned reputation for traveling far and wide to seek out and sample anything and everything that’s consumed as food globally, from cow vein stew in Bolivia and giant flying ants in Uganda to raw camel kidneys in Ethiopia, putrefied shark in... Read more

Andrew Zimmern visits Tobago

By: Andrew Zimmern

Narrated by: Andrew Zimmern

Length: 22 minutes

Abridged: No

Andrew Zimmern, the host of The Travel Channel’s hit series Bizarre Foods, has an extraordinarily well-earned reputation for traveling far and wide to seek out and sample anything and everything that’s consumed as food globally, from cow vein stew in Bolivia and giant flying ants in Uganda to raw camel kidneys in Ethiopia, putrefied shark in... Read more