Social Science audiobooks

Yellow Bird

By: Sierra Crane Murdoch

Narrated by: Sierra Crane Murdoch

Length: 14 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • The gripping true story of a murder on an Indian reservation, and the unforgettable Arikara woman who becomes obsessed with solving it—an urgent work of literary journalism.

“I don’t know a more complicated, original protagonist in literature than Lissa Yellow Bird, or a more dogged reporter in American journalism than... Read more

Tightrope

By: Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn

Narrated by: Jennifer Garner, Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl W...

Length: 9 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of the acclaimed, best-selling Half the Sky now issue a plea--deeply personal and told through the lives of real Americans--to address the crisis in working-class America, while focusing on solutions to mend a half century of governmental failure.

With stark poignancy and political dispassion, Tightrope draws us... Read more

The Geography of Nowhere

By: James Howard Kunstler

Narrated by: Al Kessel

Length: 12 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the huge economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the... Read more

The Last Whalers

By: Doug Bock Clark

Narrated by: Jay Snyder

Length: 11 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

In this "immersive, densely reported, and altogether remarkable first book [with] the texture and color of a first-rate novel" (New York Times), journalist Doug Bock Clark tells the epic story of the world's last subsistence whalers and the threats posed to a tribe on the brink.

A New York Times Notable Book​
A New York Times Editors' Choice
Winner... Read more

Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism

By: Kristen R. Ghodsee

Narrated by: Esther Wane

Length: 5 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

A spirited, deeply researched exploration of why capitalism is bad for women and how, when done right, socialism leads to economic independence, better labor conditions, better work-life balance and, yes, even better sex.

In a witty, irreverent op-ed piece that went viral, Kristen Ghodsee argued that women had better sex under socialism. The... Read more

Everything's Trash, But It's Okay

By: Phoebe Robinson

Narrated by: Phoebe Robinson

Length: 8 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

DON’T MISS PHOEBE ROBINSON’S COMEDY SERIES EVERYTHING’S TRASH—NOW ON FREEFORM!

New York Times bestselling author and star of 2 Dope Queens Phoebe Robinson is back with a new, hilarious, and timely essay collection on gender, race, dating, and the dumpster fire that is our world.

Wouldn't it be great if life came with instructions? Of course, but... Read more

Wasteland

By: W. Scott Poole

Narrated by: Andrew Eiden

Length: 11 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

Historian and Bram Stoker Award nominee W. Scott Poole traces the confluence of history, technology, and art that gave us modern horror films and literature.In the early twentieth century, World War I was the most devastating event humanity had yet experienced. New machines of war left tens of millions killed or wounded in the most grotesque of... Read more

Heartland

By: Sarah Smarsh

Narrated by: Sarah Smarsh

Length: 9 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

*Finalist for the National Book Award*
*Finalist for the Kirkus Prize*
*Instant New York Times Bestseller*
*Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, New York Post, BuzzFeed, Shelf Awareness, Bustle, and Publishers Weekly*

An essential read for our times: an eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in America that will deepen our understanding of... Read more

Feminasty

By: Erin Gibson

Narrated by: Erin Gibson

Length: 6 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

From the wickedly funny and feminist creator and host of the Throwing Shade podcast, a collection of hilarious personal essays and political commentary perfect for fans of Lindy West and Roxane Gay.

Since women earned the right to vote a little under one hundred years ago, our progress hasn't been the Olympic sprint toward gender equality... Read more

Unbelievable (Movie Tie-In)

By: T. Christian Miller & Ken Armstrong

Narrated by: Hillary Huber, T. Christian Miller & Ken Armstrong

Length: 10 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Now the Netflix Limited Series Unbelievable, starring Toni Collette, Merritt Wever, and Kaitlyn Dever • Two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists tell the riveting true crime story of a teenager charged with lying about having been raped—and the detectives who followed a winding path to arrive at the truth.
 
“Gripping . . . [with a] John... Read more

This Will Be My Undoing

By: Morgan Jerkins

Narrated by: Morgan Jerkins

Length: 7 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

From one of the fiercest critics writing today, Morgan Jerkins’ highly-anticipated collection of linked essays interweaves her incisive commentary on pop culture, feminism, black history, misogyny, and racism with her own experiences to confront the very real challenges of being a black woman today—perfect for fans of Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist,... Read more

When They Call You a Terrorist

By: Patrisse Cullors & asha bandele

Narrated by: Angela Davis & Patrisse Cullors

Length: 6 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

"Narrating her own work, Patrisse Khan-Cullors shares the salient moments of her life that led her to become a founder of Black Lives Matter...pain, frustration, and joy [emblazon] each word she utters." — AudioFile Magazine

This program is read by Patrisse Cullors and includes a bonus conversation.

The emotional and powerful story of one of the... Read more

The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures

By: Aaron Mahnke

Narrated by: Aaron Mahnke

Length: 9 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

A fascinating, beautifully illustrated guide to the monsters that are part of our collective psyche, featuring stories from the Lore podcast—now a streaming television series—including “They Made a Tonic,” “Passed Notes,” and “Unboxed,” as well as rare material.

They live in shadows—deep in the forest, late in the night, in the dark recesses of... Read more

Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Narrated by: January LaVoy

Length: 1 hour 1 minute

Abridged: No

New York Times Best Seller
A Skimm Reads Pick
An NPR Best Book of 2017

From the best-selling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists comes a powerful new statement about feminism today--written as a letter to a friend.

A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise... Read more

Ghettoside

By: Jill Leovy

Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman

Length: 13 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, USA TODAY, AND CHICAGO TRIBUNE • A masterly work of literary journalism about a senseless murder, a relentless detective, and the great plague of homicide in America

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE... Read more

The Sixth Extinction

By: Elizabeth Kolbert

Narrated by: Anne Twomey

Length: 9 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
From the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe, a powerful and important work about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a compelling account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes.

Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass... Read more

All Over But the Shoutin' - Abridged

By: Rick Bragg

Narrated by: Rick Bragg

Length: 2 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: Yes

This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. It is the story of Bragg's father, a... Read more

Anatomy of Desire

By: Dr. Emily Jamea

Narrated by: Dr. Emily Jamea

Length: 7 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

This program is read by the author.

Combining over fifteen years of clinical experience with her groundbreaking research into the science of flow, Dr. Emily Jamea's ANATOMY OF DESIRE delivers a fresh perspective on the untapped potential of our sex lives, intimate partner connections, and personal wellbeing.

"Dr. Emily Jamea makes difficult issues... Read more

Wanted

By: Stephanie Kiser

Narrated by: Stephanie Kiser

Length: 7 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

What are the lives of America's richest families really like? Their nannies see it all . . .



When Stephanie Kiser moves to New York City after college to pursue a career in writing, she quickly learns that her entry-level salary won't cover the cost of living. But there is one in-demand job that pays enough to allow Stephanie to stay in the city:... Read more

The Singularity Is Nearer

By: Ray Kurzweil

Narrated by: Adam Barr

Length: 10 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

The noted inventor and futurist’s successor to his landmark book The Singularity Is Near explores how technology will transform the human race in the decades to come

Since it was first published in 2005, Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near and its vision of an exponential future have spawned a worldwide movement. Kurzweil's predictions about... Read more

Code Dependent

By: Madhumita Murgia

Narrated by: Madhumita Murgia

Length: 9 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

This program is read by the author and includes a bonus interview with the author.

“Engaging and entertaining, this work is essential listening for anyone following the potentially explosive development of AI.” —AudioFile

Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction

A riveting story of what it means to be human in a world changed by artificial... Read more

Pretty

By: KB Brookins

Narrated by: KB Brookins

Length: 6 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

By a prize-winning, young Black trans writer of outsized talent, a fierce and disciplined memoir about queerness, masculinity, and race.

Even as it shines light on the beauty and toxicity of Black masculinity from a transgender perspective—the tropes, the presumptions—Pretty is as much a powerful and tender love letter as it is a call for... Read more

The Black Box

By: Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman

Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

“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 Suns and Caste

“This is a... Read more

You Get What You Pay For

By: Morgan Parker

Narrated by: Morgan Parker

Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

In her “witty and searing” first essay collection, award-winning poet Morgan Parker examines “the cultural legacy of Black womanhood and the meaning of finding ‘well-being’ in a world that wasn’t built for you” (Vogue).

“Riveting and deeply personal . . . filled with poignant insights.”—Cosmopolitan

Dubbed a voice of her generation, poet and... Read more