Essays audiobooks

Doctors and Distillers

By: Camper English

Narrated by: Joanna Carpenter

Length: 9 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

“At last, a definitive guide to the medicinal origins of every bottle behind the bar! This is the cocktail book of the year, if not the decade.” —Amy Stewart, author of The Drunken Botanist and Wicked Plants

“A fascinating book that makes a brilliant historical case for what I’ve been saying all along: alcohol is good for you…okay maybe it’s not... Read more

Good Grief

By: E.B. Bartels

Narrated by: Eileen Stevens

Length: 5 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

An unexpected, poignant, and personal account of loving and losing pets, exploring the singular bonds we have with our companion animals, and how to grieve them once they’ve passed.E.B. Bartels has had a lot of pets—dogs, birds, fish, tortoises. As varied a bunch as they are, they’ve taught her one universal truth: to own a pet is to love a pet,... Read more

Zero at the Bone

By: Christian Wiman

Narrated by: George Newbern

Length: 7 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

Few contemporary writers ask the questions about faith, morality, and God that Christian Wiman does, and even fewer—perhaps none—do so with his urgency and eloquence. Wiman, an award-winning poet and the author of My Bright Abyss, lays the motion of his mind on the page in this genre-defying work, an indivisible blend of poetry, criticism,... Read more

12 Trips in 12 Months

By: Jen Ruiz

Narrated by: Jen Ruiz

Length: 6 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

A LibraryReads pick for Notable NonfictionOne of Book Riot’s 10 Best New Nonfiction Books for AdultsBestselling author Jen Ruiz takes readers on a trip around the globe in 12 Trips in 12 Months, defying societal expectations of what a woman is supposed to be—and empowering others to do the same.The year before her thirtieth birthday, Jen Ruiz... Read more

The Long Slide

By: Tucker Carlson

Narrated by: Tucker Carlson

Length: 6 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News and the New York Times bestselling author of Ship of Fools, a collection of nostalgic writings that underscore America’s long slide from innocence to orthodoxy.

Thirty years ago, Tucker Carlson got his first job out of college fact checking for a quarterly... Read more

Eat More Better

By: Dan Pashman

Narrated by: Dan Pashman

Length: 7 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

What if you could make everything you eat more delicious?

As creator of the WNYC podcast The Sporkful and host of the Cooking Channel web series You're Eating It Wrong, Dan Pashman is obsessed with doing just that. Eat More Better weaves science and humor into a definitive, illustrated guidebook for anyone who loves food. But this book isn’t for... Read more

The Sex Lives of Cannibals

By: J. Maarten Troost

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 8 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

At age twenty-six, Maarten Troost decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to a remote South Pacific island. The idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better.This book tells the hilarious story of what happens when he discovers that the island is not the paradise he... Read more

Sophie From Romania

By: Rory Cellan-Jones

Narrated by: Rory Cellan-Jones

Length: 8 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Brought to you by Penguin.

How do you welcome someone new into your home and heart? A week before Christmas, newly
retired BBC journalist and award-winning Movers and Shakers podcaster Rory Cellan-Jones receives a special delivery that will change the course of his life. This is the story of #SophieFromRomania, told in full for the first time.

In... Read more

Weird but Normal

By: Mia Mercado

Narrated by: Mia Mercado

Length: 6 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Birth control. Body hair removal cream. Boobs. It’s all weird, but also pretty normal.Navigating racial identity, gender roles, workplace dynamics, and beauty standards, Mia Mercado's hilarious essay collection explores the contradictions of being a millennial woman, which usually means being kind of a weirdo. Whether it’s spending $30 on a... Read more

Vanishing Treasures

By: Katherine Rundell

Narrated by: Lenny Henry & Katherine Rundell

Length: 3 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

A Most Anticipated Book from Boston Globe, Parade, & Literary Hub • From the award-winning author Katherine Rundell comes a “rare and magical book” (Bill Bryson) reckoning with the vanishing wonders of our natural world

The world is more astonishing, more miraculous, and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this brilliant and... Read more

On Animals

By: Susan Orlean

Narrated by: Susan Orlean

Length: 10 hours

Abridged: No

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Magnificent.” —The New York Times * “Beguiling, observant, and howlingly funny.” —San Francisco Chronicle * “Spectacular.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis) * “Full of astonishments.” —The Boston Globe

Susan Orlean—the beloved New Yorker staff writer hailed as “a national treasure” by The Washington Post and the author of the New... Read more

Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light

By: Helen Ellis

Narrated by: Helen Ellis

Length: 2 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

The bestselling author of American Housewife and Southern Lady Code returns with an “inspiring, hilarious, straight-to-the-point” (Entertainment Weekly) collection of essays on friendship among grown-ass women.

"Ellis' prose is filled with so many laugh lines, you might want to go ahead and book the Botox.” —NPR

When Helen Ellis and her lifelong... Read more

Crying in the Bathroom

By: Erika L. Sánchez

Narrated by: Erika L. Sánchez

Length: 7 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

“Equal parts pee-your-pants hilarity and break your heart poignancy- like the perfect brunch date you never want to end!"--America Ferrera, Emmy award-winning actress in Ugly Betty

From the New York Times bestselling author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, an utterly original memoir-in-essays that is as deeply moving as it is... Read more

Intimations

By: Zadie Smith

Narrated by: Zadie Smith

Length: 1 hour 50 minutes

Abridged: No

“[Smith’s] slim collection of essays captures this peculiar moment with startling clarity. . . . The personal and political intermingle for a powerful indictment of America’s social systems.” —TIME, The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020

“While quarantined amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Smith penned six dazzling, trenchant essays burrowing deep into our... Read more

Southern Lady Code

By: Helen Ellis

Narrated by: Helen Ellis

Length: 3 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

"I loved it." —Ann Patchett 

The bestselling author of American Housewife ("Dark, deadpan and truly inventive." --The New York Times Book Review) is back with a fiercely funny collection of essays on marriage and manners, thank-you notes and three-ways, ghosts, gunshots, gynecology, and the Calgon-scented, onion-dipped, monogrammed art of living... Read more

So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y'all Don't Even Know

By: Retta

Narrated by: Retta

Length: 6 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

"This book feels like a real conversation. When we enter Retta's world we are at the best party and in the hands of a gracious, self-perceptive, and deeply hilarious host." — Amy Poehler

This program is read by the author.

In this hilarious audiobook essay collection, Parks and Recreation star Retta shares the stories that led to her success in... Read more

Scrappy Little Nobody

By: Anna Kendrick

Narrated by: Anna Kendrick

Length: 6 hours

Abridged: No

The New York Times bestselling collection of humorous autobiographical essays by the Academy Award nominated actress and star of Up in the Air and Pitch Perfect.

Even before she made a name for herself on the silver screen starring in films like Pitch Perfect, Up in the Air, Twilight, and Into the Woods, Anna Kendrick was unusually small, weird,... Read more

Danse Macabre

By: Stephen King

Narrated by: Holter Graham

Length: 18 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

NOW AVAILABLE ON AUDIO!

Before he gave us the “one of a kind classic” (The Wall Street Journal) memoir On Writing, Stephen King wrote a nonfiction masterpiece in Danse Macabre, “one of the best books on American popular culture” (Philadelphia Inquirer).

From the author of dozens of #1 New York Times bestsellers and the creator of many... Read more

I've Tried Being Nice

By: Ann Leary

Narrated by: Ann Leary

Length: 5 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times bestselling author Ann Leary offers a literary feast of humor and wisdom told from the perspective of a recovering people pleaser.

Having arrived at a certain age (her prime), Ann Leary casts a wry backward glance at a life spent trying—and often failing—to be nice. With wit and surprising candor, Leary recounts the bedlam of home... Read more

My Beloved Monster

By: Caleb Carr

Narrated by: James Lurie

Length: 13 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

The #1 bestselling author of The Alienist tells the extraordinary story of Masha, a half-wild rescue cat who fought off a bear, tackled Caleb like a linebacker—and bonded with him as tightly as any cat and human possibly can. Caleb Carr has had special relationships with cats since he was a young boy in a turbulent household, famously peopled by... Read more

Wolfish

By: Erica Berry

Narrated by: Lessa Lamb

Length: 15 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

"Lessa Lamb narrates with a fine tone and timbre. She inhabits the youthful sound and elegant style of this layered audiobook. Her timing and sense of occasion add richness to its informed foray into all things wolf as she captures the drama, fear, and anxiety that underlie the immersive presentation." - AudioFile Magazine (Earphones Award... Read more

My First Popsicle

By: Zosia Mamet

Narrated by: Zosia Mamet, Sian Clifford, Kaley Cuoco, Ted Da...

Length: 7 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

From a spectrum of talented authors, a collection of essays on food, and its entwinement with our emotions and our lives.

Of all the essentials for survival: oxygen, water, sleep, and food, only food is a vast treasure trove of memory and of sensory experience. Food is a portal to culture, to times past, to disgust, to comfort, to love: no matter... Read more

It Came from the Closet

By: Joe Vallese & various authors

Narrated by: various narrators, Graham Halstead, Aven Shore,...

Length: 10 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

Through the lens of horror—from Halloween to Hereditary—queer and trans writers consider the films that deepened, amplified, and illuminated their own experiences.Horror movies hold a complicated space in the hearts of the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist... Read more

What If? 2

By: Randall Munroe

Narrated by: Wil Wheaton

Length: 6 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of What If? and How To answers more of the weirdest questions you never thought to ask
 
The millions of people around the world who read and loved What If? still have questions, and those questions are getting stranger. Thank goodness xkcd creator Randall Munroe is here to help. Planning to ride a fire... Read more