Social Science audiobooks

A Million Years in a Day

By: Greg Jenner

Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies

Length: 11 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Who invented beds? When did we start cleaning our teeth? How old are wine and beer? Which came first: the toilet seat or toilet paper? What was the first clock? Every day, from the moment our alarm clock wakes us in the morning until our head hits our pillow at night, we all take part in rituals that are millennia old.



Structured around one... Read more

This Is Where You Belong

By: Melody Warnick

Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie

Length: 9 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

In the spirit of Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss, a journalist embarks on a project to discover what it takes to love where you live.The average restless American will move 11.7 times in a lifetime. For Melody Warnick, it was her sixth move, from Austin, Texas, to Blacksburg, Virginia, that... Read more

The South Side

By: Natalie Y. Moore

Narrated by: Allyson Johnson

Length: 8 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel have touted and promoted Chicago as a "world-class city." The skyscrapers kissing the clouds, the billion-dollar Millennium Park, Michelin-rated restaurants, pristine lake views, fabulous shopping, vibrant theater scene, downtown flower beds, and stellar architecture tell one story. Yet, swept under the... Read more

Invisible Man Got the Whole World Watching

By: Mychal Denzel Smith

Narrated by: Kevin R. Free

Length: 5 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

How do you learn to be a black man in America? For young black men today, it means coming of age during the presidency of Barack Obama. It means witnessing the deaths of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, and too many more. It means celebrating powerful moments of black self-determination for LeBron James, Dave Chappelle,... Read more

We Are Charleston

By: Herb Frazier, Dr. Bernard Edward Powers Jr. & M...

Narrated by: Barry Scott

Length: 8 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

We Are Charleston not only recounts the events of that terrible day but also offers a history lesson that reveals a deeper look at the suffering, triumph, and even the ongoing rage of the people who formed Mother Emanuel A.M.E. church and the wider denominational movement.On June 17, 2015, at 9:05 p.m., a young man with a handgun opened fire on... Read more

Face Value

By: Autumn Whitefield-Madrano

Narrated by: Autumn Whitefield-Madrano

Length: 9 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

A thought-provoking examination of how we think and talk about beauty today—and the unexpected and often positive ways that beauty shapes our lives.For decades, we’ve discussed our insecurities in the face of idealized, retouched, impossibly perfect images. We’ve worried primping and preening are a distraction and a trap. But have we focused too... Read more

A House Full of Daughters

By: Juliet Nicolson

Narrated by: Julie Teal

Length: 9 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

A family memoir that traces the myths, legends, and secrets of seven generations of remarkable women

All families have their myths and legends. For many years Juliet Nicolson accepted hers--the dangerous beauty of her flamenco dancing great-great-grandmother Pepita, the flirty manipulation of her great-grandmother Victoria, the infamous... Read more

The Long Prison Journey of Leslie van Houten

By: Karlene Faith

Narrated by: Gabra Zackman

Length: 7 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

At the age off twenty-one, Leslie Van Houten was sentenced to death, along with Charles Manson and his other disciples, for the infamous murder rampage spanning two nights in August 1969. Leslie, who was present at the Rosemary and Leno LaBianca stabbings, serenely accepted her sentence, wishing only that she had better served Manson in carrying... Read more

Invisible Influence

By: Jonah Berger

Narrated by: Keith Nobbs

Length: 6 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

In Invisible Influence, the New York Times bestselling author of Contagious explores the subtle influences that affect the decisions we make—from what we buy, to the careers we choose, to what we eat.

“Jonah Berger has done it again: written a fascinating book that brims with ideas and tools for how to think about the world.” —Charles Duhigg,... Read more

The Lynching

By: Laurence Leamer

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 10 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

The New York Times bestselling author of The Kennedy Women chronicles the powerful and spellbinding true story of a brutal race-based killing in 1981 and subsequent trials that undid one of the most pernicious organizations in American history—the Ku Klux Klan.On a Friday night in March 1981 Henry Hays and James Knowles scoured the streets of... Read more

Sex Object

By: Jessica Valenti

Narrated by: Jessica Valenti

Length: 4 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

NPR Great Read of 2016Author and Guardian US columnist Jessica Valenti has been leading the national conversation on gender and politics for over a decade. Now, in a darkly funny and bracing memoir, Valenti explores the toll that sexism takes from the every day to the existential. Sex Object explores the painful, funny, embarrassing, and... Read more

Magic and Loss

By: Virginia Heffernan

Narrated by: Candace Thaxton

Length: 7 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Virginia Heffernan “melds the personal with the increasingly universal in a highly informative analysis of what the Internet is—and can be. A thoroughly engrossing examination of the Internet’s past, present, and future” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) from one of the best living writers of English prose.

This book makes a bold claim: The... Read more

To Protect and Serve

By: Norm Stamper

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 10 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

American policing is in crisis. The last decade witnessed a vast increase in police aggression, misconduct, and militarization, along with a corresponding reduction in transparency and accountability. Nowhere is this more noticeable and painful than in African American and other ethnic minority communities. Racism—from raw, individualized... Read more

A Good Month for Murder

By: Del Quentin Wilber

Narrated by: Scott Sowers

Length: 8 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

Bestselling author Del Quentin Wilber tells the inside story of how a homicide squad---a dedicated, colorful team of detectives—does its almost impossible job

Twelve homicides, three police-involved shootings and the furious hunt for an especially brutal killer--February 2013 was a good month for murder in suburban Washington, D.C.

After gaining... Read more

Bound for Canaan

By: Fergus Bordewich

Narrated by: Peter J. Fernandez

Length: 19 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

An important book of epic scope on America’s first racially integrated, religiously inspired movement for changeThe civil war brought to a climax the country’s bitter division. But the beginnings of slavery’s denouement can be traced to a courageous band of ordinary Americans, black and white, slave and free, who joined forces to create what... Read more

Hogs Wild

By: Ian Frazier

Narrated by: Ian Frazier

Length: 12 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

"A master of both distilled insight and utter nonsense" (The Believer), Ian Frazier is one of the most gifted chroniclers of contemporary America. Hogs Wild assembles a decade's worth of his finest essays and reportage, and demonstrates the irrepressible passions and artful digressions that distinguish his enduring body of work.

Part muckraker,... Read more

But What If We're Wrong?

By: Chuck Klosterman

Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham & Chuck Klosterman

Length: 10 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times bestselling author Chuck Klosterman asks questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity? How certain are we about our understanding of time? What will be the defining memory of rock music, five hundred years from today? How seriously should we view the content of our dreams?... Read more

From Crisis to Calling

By: Sasha Chanoff & David Chanoff

Narrated by: Joseph Bronzi

Length: 4 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Making the Hardest Decisions


As a young aid worker, Sasha Chanoff was sent to evacuate a group of refugees from the violence-torn Congo. But when he arrived he discovered a second group. Evacuating them too could endanger the entire mission. But leaving them behind would mean their certain death.

All leaders face defining moments, when values are... Read more

Us versus Us

By: Andrew Marin

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 5 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Would you believe that 86 percent of LGBT people—from the proud marcher at the Pride Parade to the quiet, closeted teen—spent their childhood in church? More than half of them left those religious communities as adults; three out of four would be happy to come back.



For decades now we have found ourselves caught up in a culture war: us versus... Read more

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

By: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Narrated by: Mia Ellis

Length: 9 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

The eruption of mass protests in the wake of the police murders of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York City have challenged the impunity with which officers of the law carry out violence against black people and punctured the illusion of a postracial America. The Black Lives Matter movement has awakened a new... Read more

Esther the Wonder Pig

By: Steve Jenkins, Derek Walter & Caprice Crane

Narrated by: Steve Jenkins

Length: 4 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Unlikely pig owners Steve and Derek got a whole lot more than they bargained for when the designer micro piglet they adopted turned out to be a full-sized 600-pound sow! This funny, inspirational story shows how families really do come in all shapes and sizes.

In the summer of 2012, Steve Jenkins was contacted by an old friend about adopting a... Read more

The First Signs

By: Genevieve von Petzinger

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 9 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the most significant works on our evolutionary ancestry since Richard Leakey’s Origins, The First Signs is the first-ever exploration of the geometric images that accompany most cave art around the world—the first indications of symbolic meaning, intelligence, and language.Imagine yourself as a caveman or cavewoman. The place: Europe. The... Read more

The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi

By: Neal Bascomb

Narrated by: Jason Culp

Length: 5 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

A thrilling spy mission, a moving Holocaust story, and a first-class work of narrative nonfiction.The story of Eichmann's capture is now a major motion picture starring Oscar Isaac and Ben Kingsley, Operation Finale!In 1945, at the end of World War II, Adolf Eichmann, the head of operations for the Nazis' Final Solution, walked into the... Read more

Double Cup Love

By: Eddie Huang

Narrated by: Eddie Huang

Length: 5 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

From the author of Fresh Off the Boat, now a hit ABC sitcom, comes a hilarious and fiercely original story of culture, family, love, and red-cooked pork

Eddie Huang was finally happy. Sort of. He’d written a bestselling book and was the star of a TV show that took him to far-flung places around the globe. His New York City restaurant was... Read more