Literary Criticism audiobooks

Didion and Babitz

By: Lili Anolik

Narrated by: Lili Anolik

Length: 12 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Named a Best Book of the Year by Time, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Air Mail, Harper’s Bazaar, The Washington Post, and more!

Joan Didion is revealed at last in this “vivid, engrossing” (Vogue), and outrageously provocative dual biography “that reads like a propulsive novel” (Oprah Daily) revealing the mutual attractions—and... Read more

The Monster and the Mirror

By: K.J. Aiello

Narrated by: K.J. Aiello

Length: 9 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

Revelatory memoir and cultural criticism that connects popular fantasy and our perceptions of mental illness to offer an empathetic path to compassionate care Growing up, K.J. Aiello was fascinated by magical stories of dragons, wizards, and fantasy, where monsters were not what they seemed and anything was possible. These books and films... Read more

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

By: Joan Didion

Narrated by: Maya Hawke

Length: 6 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

This program is read by actor and singer-songwriter Maya Hawke, star of Netflix's Stranger Things.

"Narrating in a voice as clear and sustaining as a cool glass of water, Hawke’s unflashy approach allows the words to reveal their magic."—The Orange County Register

“Maya Hawke performs this classic collection superbly...Hawke gets Didion's measured... Read more

Bad Feminist

By: Roxane Gay

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Length: 11 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

“Roxane Gay is so great at weaving the intimate and personal with what is most bewildering and upsetting at this moment in culture. She is always looking, always thinking, always passionate, always careful, always right there.”  — Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be?A New York Times BestsellerBest Book of the Year: NPR • Boston Globe •... Read more

Monsters

By: Claire Dederer

Narrated by: Claire Dederer

Length: 8 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A timely, passionate, provocative, blisteringly smart interrogation of how we make and experience art in the age of cancel culture, and of the link between genius and monstrosity. Can we love the work of controversial classic and contemporary artists but dislike the artist?

"A lively, personal... Read more

A Poetry Handbook

By: Mary Oliver

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

Length: 3 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

“Mary Oliver would probably never admit to anything so grandiose as an effort to connect the conscious mind and the heart (that’s what she says poetry can do), but that is exactly what she accomplishes in this stunning little handbook.”—Los Angeles TimesFrom the beloved, legendary poet, the ultimate guide to writing and understanding poetry.With... Read more

Meet Me in the Margins

By: Melissa Ferguson

Narrated by: Talon David

Length: 7 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

"Meet Me in the Margins is a delightfully charming jewel of a book that fans of romantic comedy won't be able to put down!" --Kristy Woodson Harvey, New York Times bestselling author of A Happier LifeYou've Got Mail meets The Proposal--this romance is one for the books.Savannah Cade's dreams are coming true. The Claire Donovan, editor-in-chief... Read more

A Wilder Shore

By: Camille Peri

Narrated by: Jeanette Illidge

Length: 16 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE PICK

“Engrossing . . . [A] richly researched and vivid double portrait.” —Phyllis Rose, The Atlantic

“A love story, an adventure story, two literary biographies in one; A Wilder Shore is these things and more—and it's very, very good.” —Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha... Read more

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

By: George Saunders

Narrated by: George Saunders, Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman...

Length: 14 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

From the New York Times bestselling, Booker Prize–winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves—and our world today.

For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA... Read more

Pandora's Jar

By: Natalie Haynes

Narrated by: Natalie Haynes

Length: 9 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

“Funny, sharp explications of what these sometimes not-very-nice women were up to, and how they sometimes made idiots of . . . but read on!”—Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's TaleThe national bestselling author of A Thousand Ships returns with a fascinating, eye-opening take on the remarkable women at the heart of classical stories Greek... Read more

Poetry Unbound

By: Pádraig Ó Tuama

Narrated by: Pádraig Ó Tuama

Length: 7 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

In the tumult of our contemporary moment, poetry has emerged as an inviting, consoling outlet with a unique power to move and connect us, to inspire fury, tears, joy, laughter, and surprise. This generous anthology pairs fifty illuminating poems with poet and podcast host Pádraig Ó Tuama's appealing, unhurried reflections. With keen insight and... Read more

All Things Are Too Small

By: Becca Rothfeld

Narrated by: Ruth Crawford

Length: 10 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

A glorious call to throw off restraint and balance in favor of excess, abandon, and disproportion, in essays ranging from such topics as decluttering, mindfulness, David Cronenberg, sadomasochism, and women who wait. All Things Are Too Small is brilliant cultural and literary critic Becca Rothfeld’s plea for derangement: imbalance, obsession,... Read more

The Black Box

By: Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman

Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times Notable Book

“Henry Louis Gates is a national treasure. Here, he returns with an intellectual and at times deeply personal meditation on the hard-fought evolution and the very meaning of African American identity, calling upon our country to transcend its manufactured divisions.” — Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other... Read more

The Anatomy of Genres

By: John Truby

Narrated by: Nick Mondelli

Length: 22 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

A guide to understanding the major genres of the story world by the legendary writing teacher and author of The Anatomy of Story John Truby. Most people think genres are simply categories on Netflix or Amazon that provide a helpful guide to making entertainment choices. Most people are wrong. Genre stories aren’t just a small subset of the... Read more

Jane Austen at Home

By: Lucy Worsley

Narrated by: Lucy Worsley

Length: 17 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, Lucy Worsley has written a new Introduction to her Sunday Times Bestselling biography - the book that leads us into the rooms from which our best-loved novelist quietly changed the world.

This telling of the story of Jane's life shows us how and why she lived as she did, examining the... Read more

Red Comet

By: Heather Clark

Narrated by: Laura Jennings

Length: 45 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • The highly anticipated biography of Sylvia Plath that focuses on her remarkable literary and intellectual achievements, while restoring the woman behind the long-held myths about her life and art.

“One of the most beautiful biographies I've ever read." —Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller, Untamed

With a... Read more

Trick Mirror

By: Jia Tolentino

Narrated by: Jia Tolentino

Length: 9 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “From The New Yorker’s beloved cultural critic comes a bold, unflinching collection of essays about self-deception, examining everything from scammer culture to reality television.”—Esquire
 
Book Club Pick for Now Read This, from PBS NewsHour and The New York Times • “A whip-smart, challenging book.”—Zadie Smith • “Jia... Read more

One in a Millennial

By: Kate Kennedy

Length: 9 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

This program is read by the author.

From pop culture podcaster and a voice of a generation, Kate Kennedy, a celebration of the millennial zeitgeist

One in a Millennial is an exploration of pop culture, nostalgia, the millennial zeitgeist, and the life lessons learned (for better and for worse) from coming of age as a member of a much-maligned... Read more

Minor Feelings

By: Cathy Park Hong

Narrated by: Cathy Park Hong

Length: 6 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE • A ruthlessly honest, emotionally charged, and utterly original exploration of Asian American consciousness

“Brilliant . . . To read this book is to become more human.”—Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen

In... Read more

Read Dangerously

By: Azar Nafisi

Narrated by: Azar Nafisi

Length: 8 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

The New York Times bestselling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran returns with a guide to the power of literature in turbulent times, arming readers with a resistance reading list, ranging from James Baldwin to Zora Neale Hurston to Margaret Atwood.""[A] stunning look at the power of reading. ... Provokes and inspires at every turn.""... Read more

M Train

By: Patti Smith

Narrated by: Patti Smith

Length: 6 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

National Best Seller 

From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: an unforgettable odyssey of a legendary artist, told through the prism of the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. It is a book Patti Smith has described as “a roadmap to my life.”

M Train begins in the tiny Greenwich Village café where Smith goes... Read more

Girlhood

By: Melissa Febos

Narrated by: Melissa Febos

Length: 8 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Bloomsbury presents Girlhood written and read by Melissa Febos.

National Book Critics Circle Award Winner
National Bestseller
Lambda Literary Award Finalist

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME * NPR * The Washington Post * Kirkus Reviews * Washington Independent Review of Books * The Millions * Electric Literature * Ms Magazine * Entropy... Read more

What We Talk About When We Talk About Books

By: Leah Price

Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers

Length: 5 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Reports of the death of reading are greatly exaggerated Do you worry that you've lost patience for anything longer than a tweet? If so, you're not alone. Digital-age pundits warn that as our appetite for books dwindles, so too do the virtues in which printed, bound objects once trained us: the willpower to focus on a sustained argument, the... Read more

The Bright Book of Life

By: Harold Bloom

Narrated by: Stephen Mendel

Length: 21 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

America's most original and controversial literary critic writes trenchantly about forty-eight masterworks spanning the Western tradition—from Don Quixote to Wuthering Heights to Invisible Man—in his first book devoted exclusively to narrative fiction.

In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom—who for more than half a century was... Read more