Nonfiction audiobooks

How to Argue With a Racist

By: Adam Rutherford

Narrated by: Adam Rutherford

Length: 4 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

Race is not a biological reality. Racism thrives on our not knowing this.



Racist pseudoscience is on the rise—fueling hatred, feeding nationalism, and seeping into our discourse on everything from sports to intelligence. Even the well-intentioned repeat stereotypes based on "science," because cutting-edge genetics are hard to grasp—and all too... Read more

Deep Delta Justice

By: Matthew Van Meter

Narrated by: Brad Sanders

Length: 8 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

Finalist for 2021 Audie Award in History/Biography

The book that inspired the documentary A Crime on the Bayou

2021 Chautauqua Prize Finalist

The "arresting, astonishing history" of one lawyer and his defendant who together achieved a "civil rights milestone" (Justin Driver).

In 1966 in a small town in Louisiana, a 19-year-old black man named Gary... Read more

Fathoms

By: Rebecca Giggs

Narrated by: Shiromi Arserio

Length: 12 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner of the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction * Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

A “delving, haunted, and poetic debut” (The New York Times Book Review) about the awe-inspiring lives of whales, revealing what they can teach us about... Read more

Miracle Country

By: Kendra Atleework

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

Length: 9 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Kendra Atleework grew up in Swall Meadows, in the Owens Valley of the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where annual rainfall averages five inches and in drought years measures closer to zero.



Kendra's family raised their children to thrive in this harsh landscape, forever at the mercy of wildfires, blizzards, and gale-force winds. Most of all, the... Read more

Sunny Days

By: David Kamp

Narrated by: David Sadzin

Length: 8 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the “Best Books” of the year from The Smithsonian, The Washington Independent Review, and more!

From bestselling writer David Kamp, the “fun, fascinating, and surprisingly touching,” (People) behind-the-scenes story of the cultural heroes who created the beloved children’s TV programs Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Mister Rogers’... Read more

Unfinished Business

By: Vivian Gornick

Narrated by: Vivian Gornick

Length: 4 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

One of our most beloved writers reassess the electrifying works of literature that have shaped her life.“I sometimes think I was born reading…I can’t remember the time when I didn’t have a book in my hands, my head lost to the world around me.”Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-reader is Vivian Gornick’s celebration of passionate... Read more

Dirt

By: Bill Buford

Narrated by: Bill Buford

Length: 16 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

“You can almost taste the food in Bill Buford’s Dirt, an engrossing, beautifully written memoir about his life as a cook in France.” —The Wall Street Journal

What does it take to master French cooking? This is the question that drives Bill Buford to abandon his perfectly happy life in New York City and pack up and (with a wife and three-year-old... Read more

On the Horizon

By: Lois Lowry

Narrated by: Lois Lowry

Length: 38 minutes

Abridged: No

From two-time Newbery medalist and living legend Lois Lowry comes a moving account of the lives lost in two of WWII’s most infamous events: Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima

Lois Lowry looks back at history through a personal lens as she draws from her own memories as a child in Hawaii and Japan, as well as from historical research, in this stunning... Read more

This Is Chance!

By: Jon Mooallem

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 8 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

The thrilling, cinematic story of a community shattered by disaster—and the extraordinary woman who helped pull it back together

“A powerful, heart-wrenching book, as much art as it is journalism.”—The Wall Street Journal
 
“A beautifully wrought and profoundly joyful story of compassion and perseverance.”—BuzzFeed (Best Books of the Year)

In the... Read more

How to Be Fine

By: Jolenta Greenberg & Kristen Meinzer

Narrated by: Jolenta Greenberg & Kristen Meinzer

Length: 4 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

A humorous and insightful look into what advice works, what doesn’t, and what it means to transform yourself, by the co-hosts of the popular By the Book podcast.In each episode of their podcast By the Book, Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinzer take a deep dive into a different self-help book, following its specific instructions, rules, and... Read more

At the Center of All Beauty

By: Fenton Johnson

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Length: 7 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

A profound meditation on accepting and celebrating one's solitude.



Solitude is the inspirational core for many writers, artists, and thinkers. Alone with our thoughts, we can make discoveries that matter not only to us but to others. To be solitary is not only to draw sustenance from being alone, but to know that our ultimate responsibility is... Read more

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

By: Sean Dietrich

Narrated by: Sean Dietrich

Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

From celebrated storyteller "Sean of the South" comes an unforgettable memoir of love, loss, the friction of family memories, and the unlikely hope that you're gonna be alright.Sean Dietrich was twelve years old when he scattered his father's ashes from the mountain range. His father was a man who lived for baseball, a steel worker with a ready... Read more

Spirit Run

By: Noé Álvarez

Narrated by: Ramon De Ocampo

Length: 5 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noé Álvarez worked at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother, who “slouched over a conveyor belt of fruit, shoulder to shoulder with mothers conditioned to believe this was all they could do with their lives.” A university scholarship offered escape, but as a first-generation Latino college-goer, Álvarez... Read more

Rising

By: Sharon Wood

Narrated by: Emily Durante

Length: 8 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

In Rising, Wood reflects on the seventy days she spent on Everest and on the pivotal experiences and influences that brought her to that staggeringly beautiful and austere corner of the world. Beyond the physical hardships, she faced personal challenges as an outlier in the male bastion of Himalayan climbing. These were compounded by the vexing... Read more

Early

By: Sarah DiGregorio

Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon

Length: 9 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

Inspired by the author’s harrowing experience giving birth to her premature daughter, a compelling and empathetic work that combines memoir with rigorous reporting to tell the story of neonatology—and to meditate on the questions raised by premature birth.The heart of many hospitals is the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It is a place where... Read more

Labyrinth of Ice

By: Buddy Levy

Narrated by: Will Damron

Length: 13 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

"Listen to this if you want to hear a narrator at the top of his game recount a fascinating--and at times disturbing--true story of adventure, disaster, discovery, cannibalism, and more. Will Damron makes Levy's fascinating account of the Greely (Polar) Expedition come to life...This is a harrowing adventure story and a great listen." —... Read more

Ordinary Girls

By: Jaquira Diaz

Narrated by: Almarie Guerra

Length: 10 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

A fierce, beautiful, and unflinching memoir from a wildly talented debut author



While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Jaquira Díaz found herself caught between extremes: as her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia, she was surrounded by the love of her friends; as she longed for a family and... Read more

A Month in Siena

By: Hisham Matar

Narrated by: Hisham Matar

Length: 3 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Return comes a profoundly moving contemplation of the relationship between art and life.
 
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND EVENING STANDARD

After finishing his powerful memoir The Return, Hisham Matar, seeking solace and pleasure, traveled to Siena, Italy. Always... Read more

Erosion

By: Terry Tempest Williams

Narrated by: Terry Tempest Williams

Length: 9 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

This program is read by the author.

Timely and unsettling essays from an important and beloved writer and conservationist

In Erosion, Terry Tempest Williams's fierce, spirited, and magnificent essays are a howl in the desert. She sizes up the continuing assaults on America's public lands and the erosion of our commitment to the open space of... Read more

Toil & Trouble

By: Augusten Burroughs

Narrated by: Anne Bobby, Augusten Burroughs, Gabra Zackman &...

Length: 12 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

"...on top of everything else, the audiobook features a multi-textural and atmospheric full-cast performance...This is a wild, spookily engaging take on a memoir from an iconic writer." -- Paste

From the number one New York Times bestselling author comes another stunning memoir that is tender, touching...and just a little spooky.

"Here’s a... Read more

Make It Scream, Make It Burn

By: Leslie Jamison

Narrated by: Leslie Jamison

Length: 9 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

From the "astounding" (Entertainment Weekly), "spectacularly evocative" (The Atlantic), and "brilliant" (Los Angeles Times) author of the New York Times bestsellers The Recovering and The Empathy Exams comes a return to the essay form in this expansive book.

With the virtuosic synthesis of memoir, criticism, and journalism for which Leslie... Read more

A Terrible Thing to Waste

By: Harriet A. Washington

Narrated by: Ron Butler

Length: 10 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

A "powerful and indispensable" look at the devastating consequences of environmental racism (Gerald Markowitz) -- and what we can do to remedy its toxic effects on marginalized communities.
Did you know...
Middle-class African American households with incomes between $50,000 and $60,000 live in neighborhoods that are more polluted than those of... Read more

Naturally Tan

By: Tan France

Narrated by: Tan France

Length: 7 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

"Tan France's unique accent, chummy intimacy, and cheeky delivery make audio the best way to experience his memoir." — AudioFile Magazine

This program is read by the author, with a special guest appearance!

In this heartfelt, funny, and touching memoir, one of the stars of Netflix’s Emmy Award-winning smash-hit Queer Eye reveals how an Englishman... Read more

Our Band Could Be Your Life

By: Michael Azerrad

Narrated by: Phil Elverum, Stephin Merritt, Jon Wurster, Cor...

Length: 21 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

The definitive chronicle of underground music in the 1980s tells the stories of Black Flag, Sonic Youth, The Replacements, and other seminal bands whose DIY revolution changed American music forever.
Our Band Could Be Your Life is the never-before-told story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan Eighties --... Read more