Essays audiobooks

Pies and Prejudice - Abridged

By: Stuart Maconie

Narrated by: Stuart Maconie

Length: 5 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: Yes

A Northerner in exile, Stuart Maconie goes on a journey in search of the North, attempting to discover where the clichés end and the truth begins. He travels from Wigan Pier to Blackpool Tower and Newcastle's Bigg Market to the Lake District to find his own Northern Soul, encountering along the way an exotic cast of chippy Scousers, pie-eating... Read more

Leipziger Sagen und Legenden

By: Katharina Hammann & Kristina Hammann

Narrated by: Heiner Giersberg

Length: 1 hour 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Urpsrünglich bewohnten slawische Siedler, die Sorben das Gebiet mit den Flüssen Elster, Parthe und Pleiße. Die bekannteste urkundliche Erwähnung der Stadt stammt aus dem Jahre 1165 n. Chr., als Markgraf Otto der Reiche Leipzig das Stadtrecht verlieh. Dieses beinhaltete damals weitreichende Privilegien. So entwickelte sich Leipzig, das an den... Read more

American Thighs

By: Jill Conner Browne

Narrated by: Jill Conner Browne

Length: 8 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

"If I can save one woman from these thighs, I will not have lived in vain," #1 New York Times bestselling humorist Jill Conner Browne writes in American Thighs, her handbook and memoir for the Hot and Flashy. Whether young enough to look "hot" or of the age to only feel that way (in flashes with buckets of sweat), every woman has given, or will... Read more

Men Are Stupid . . . And They Like Big Boobs - Abridged

By: Joan Rivers

Narrated by: Joan Rivers

Length: 6 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Red carpet fashion laureate, comic icon, and outspoken superstar Joan Rivers gives her signature straight-talking advice to women on how to live better through looking better.

Joan Rivers’s abiding life philosophy is simple: in the appearance focused society of the twenty-first century, beauty is key—especially where men are concerned. So,... Read more

Why Businessmen Need Philosophy and Other Essays

By: Ayn Rand, various authors, Leonard Peikoff, Har...

Narrated by: Susan O’Malley

Length: 4 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

"Ideas are the greatest and most crucially practical power on earth," wrote Ayn Rand.In the title essay of this collection, Leonard Peikoff applies this principle to the world of business. He shows that certain philosophic ideas, such as reason, egoism, and individualism, are needed to defend and protect the freedom of businessmen, while the... Read more

Why We Suck - Abridged

By: Denis Leary

Narrated by: Denis Leary

Length: 4 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Abridged CDs * 4 CDs, 5 hours

“Denis Leary snarls as naturally as most actors smile,” says one critic of the writer and comic. In Why We Suck, Leary snarls to brilliant effect. With his patented highspeed ranting and killer comic instinct, Denis Leary has become a beloved antihero whose bracing invective and outrageous riffs have earned him a... Read more

The Bloody Crossroads

By: Norman Podhoretz

Narrated by: Phillip J. Sawtelle

Length: 6 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

This is a series of essays dealing with authors who stand at “the bloody crossroads: where literature and politics meet.” Why bloody? Because writers’ blood has often been shed when they boldly expressed their opinions, and their opinions have often influenced political leaders to shed the blood of others.In his analysis of contemporary writers... Read more

The Sea and the Jungle

By: H. M. Tomlinson

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson

Length: 10 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

One rainy morning in the winter of 1909, a man with an altogether average look about him quit his job at the London Morning Leader, kissed his wife and children goodbye, and took a train to Swansea in Wales, where he talked his way aboard a freighter bound for the upper reaches of the Amazon. Three years later, Tomlinson published a book about... Read more

Too Fat to Fish

By: Artie Lange

Narrated by: Artie Lange, The Reverend Bob Levy, Gary Dell'A...

Length: 7 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

When Artie Lange joined the permanent cast of The Howard Stern Show in 2001, it was possibly the greatest thing ever to happen in the Stern universe, second only to the show’s move to the wild, uncensored frontier of satellite radio. Lange provided what Stern had yet to find all in the same place: a wit quick enough to keep pace with his own, a... Read more

Venice for Lovers

By: Louis Begley & Anka Muhlstein

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 3 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

Every year for the thirty they have been married, Louis Begley and Anka Muhlstein have escaped to Venice to write. In Venice for Lovers, Begley and Muhlstein fashion their own personal homages to Venice, one with a novella, the other with a personal essay. In her contribution to the book, Muhlstein charmingly describes how she and her husband... Read more

The Voice of Reason

By: Ayn Rand

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 15 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

In the years between her first public lecture in 1961 and her last in 1981, Ayn Rand spoke and wrote about topics as different as education, medicine, Vietnam, and the death of Marilyn Monroe. In The Voice of Reason, these pieces are gathered together in book form for the first time. Written in the last decades of Rand’s life, they reflect a... Read more

Alphabet Juice - Abridged

By: Roy Blount, Jr., Jr.

Narrated by: Roy Blount, Jr., Jr.

Length: 5 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Ali G: How many words does you know?

Noam Chomsky: Normally, humans, by maturity, have tens of thousands of them.

Ali G: What is some of 'em?
— Youtube.com


After forty years of making a living using words in every medium, print or electronic, except greeting cards, Roy Blount Jr. still can't get over his ABCs. In Alphabet Juice, he celebrates the... Read more

From Baghdad to America

By: Jay Kopelman

Narrated by: Christopher Lane

Length: 3 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Lieutenant Colonel Jay Kopelman won the hearts of readers with his moving story of adopting an abandoned puppy named Lava in a hellish corner of Iraq. For this Marine and his comrades, the puppy served as an important emotional touchstone in a grim and seemingly endless war.



Kopelman now writes about what it's like to be home. He credits his... Read more

In Morocco

By: Edith Wharton

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 4 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

"To step on board a steamer in a Spanish port, and three hours later to land in a country without a guidebook, is a sensation to rouse the hunger of the most replete sightseer. The sensation is attainable by any one who will take the trouble to row out into the harbor of Algeciras and scramble onto a little black boat headed across the... Read more

Sparring with Charlie

By: Christopher Hunt

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 8 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

When Christopher Hunt set off in search of Vietnam's notorious Ho Chi Minh Trail, he hardly expected to end up on a rickety, Russian-made motorcycle navigating 5,000 kilometers of paths rarely traveled by tourists and on roads missing from maps.Hunt left the United States expecting to explore the 1,700-kilometer highway that was once the supply... Read more

This I Believe II

By: Jay Allison & Dan Gediman

Narrated by: Full Cast

Length: 4 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

A new collection of inspiring personal philosophies from another noteworthy group of people

This second collection of This I Believe essays gathers seventy-five essayists—ranging from famous to previously unknown—completing the thought that begins the book's title. With contributors who run the gamut from cellist Yo-Yo Ma to ordinary folks like a... Read more

Fresh Air Fiend

By: Paul Theroux

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 22 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Internationally acclaimed author Paul Theroux adds Fresh Air Fiend, named a New York Times Notable Book, to his highly praised travel writings. A collection of essays, this intimate and fascinating book explores five continents and many cultures, while delving deep into the mind of Theroux. From one adventure to the next, listeners will be... Read more

Don't Let My Mama Read This

By: Hadjii

Narrated by: Beresford Bennett

Length: 5 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

Writer, director, and starring actor in Sundance Grand Jury Prize nominee Somebodies, Hadjii remembers the trials and tribulations of youth in Don't Let My Mama Read This. From the havoc that a boy's crusty underwear can wreak on a family's reputation to the first time getting caught coming home drunk, Hadjii covers all the aspects of a... Read more

Sunrise with Seamonsters, Part One

By: Paul Theroux

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 8 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Quintessential travel articles and thoughtful essays by the observant, witty and skeptical travel writer and novelist. Part One: 1964-1978 includes: Winter in Africa; Leper Colony; V.S. Naipaul; Memories of Old Afghanistan; The Night Ferry to Paris; and A Circuit of Corsica Read more

Best of News of the Weird - Abridged

By: Chuck Shepherd, John J. Kohut & Roland Sweet

Narrated by: Various

Length: 1 hour 28 minutes

Abridged: Yes

For news junkies and fans of the bizarre-but-true, here is an outrageous collection of all-real, all-weird news stories culled from the nation's mainstream newspapers! Read more

The Men Commandments - Abridged

By: Christian O’Connell

Narrated by: Christian O’Connell

Length: 3 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: Yes

'Women have Bridget Jones. Men have no one. Until now.' Ricky Gervais In the best-selling tradition of Clarkson and Moyles, this is TV and Radio personality Christian O’Connell’s take on all things men. For ten years Christian has dispensed his wisdom and advice to millions of lucky radio listeners on every topic... Read more

Bob Schieffer's America

By: Bob Schieffer

Narrated by: Bob Schieffer

Length: 6 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

Unbridged CDs * 6 CDs, 7 hours

Wise, rueful, candid, graceful commentaries from one of journalism’s most stylish and respected writers. Read more

The Dog Says How

By: Kevin Kling

Narrated by: Kevin Kling

Length: 3 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

A popular storyteller and National Public Radio commentator weaves scenes of childhood antics and adult absurdities into tales that provoke laughter—and elicit tears.

Kevin Kling is a master storyteller, as anyone knows who has seen him perform or heard him on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Drawing on his memories—an eventful... Read more

Autumnal Tints

By: Henry David Thoreau

Narrated by: Brett Barry

Length: 1 hour 11 minutes

Abridged: No

From the purple grasses of August, to the yellow elms of October, to the scarlet oak leaves of November, Henry David Thoreau casts his eye on the brilliant colors of autumn and guides us on a journey through the season’s bounty. In this classic essay, first published in 1862, Thoreau delights in fall’s foliage and reveals both a practical and... Read more