Staff Picks, Non-Fiction

The Order of Time

By: Carlo Rovelli
Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch
Length: 4 hours 19 minutes

“I was drawn to this book, the third in Rovelli's recent series of short introductions to the mind-blowing propositions of modern physics, by its inexhaustibly poignant and fascinating subject: time. He spends the first half of the book explaining why time doesn't exist, and the second half explaining why, at least for us lesser mortals, it does.... Read more

Gaslighting

Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People -- and Break Free

By: Stephanie Moulton Sarkis
Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar & Stephanie Moulton Sarkis
Length: 8 hours 32 minutes

A mental health expert sheds light on "gaslighting"--the manipulative technique used by sociopaths, narcissists, and others--offering practical strategies to cope and break free.

He's the charmer -- the witty, confident, but overly controlling date. She's the woman on your team who always manages to take credit for your good work. He's the... Read more

Maid

Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive

By: Stephanie Land
Narrated by: Stephanie Land
Length: 8 hours 34 minutes

“This was an amazing book about her life and struggles. It was so much better being able to hear the author tell the story. I could feel the despair in her voice and it made the book so much more poignant. Read more

How to Hide an Empire

A History of the Greater United States

By: Daniel Immerwahr
Narrated by: Luis Moreno
Length: 17 hours 25 minutes

“Digestible, darkly humorous, historical, timely - broadens your scope of how far the empire has reached and everything people have done to tighten their grip. This book will change how you view major figures in American history, and even how you might define the nation. Read more

The Socialist Manifesto

The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality

By: Bhaskar Sunkara
Narrated by: Benjamin Isaac
Length: 9 hours 39 minutes

A "razor-sharp" introduction to this political and economic ideology makes a galvanizing argument for modern socialism (Naomi Klein) -- and explains how its core tenets could effect positive change in America and worldwide.
In The Socialist Manifesto, Bhaskar Sunkara explores socialism's history since the mid-1800s and presents a realistic vision... Read more

The Universe Speaks in Numbers

How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets

By: Graham Farmelo
Narrated by: Hugh Kermode
Length: 8 hours 37 minutes

How math helps us solve the universe's deepest mysteriesOne of the great insights of science is that the universe has an underlying order. The supreme goal of physicists is to understand this order through laws that describe the behavior of the most basic particles and the forces between them. For centuries, we have searched for these laws by... Read more

The Bastard Brigade

The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb

By: Sam Kean
Narrated by: Ben Sullivan
Length: 14 hours 37 minutes

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes the gripping, untold story of a renegade group of scientists and spies determined to keep Adolf Hitler from obtaining the ultimate prize: a nuclear bomb.
  Scientists have always kept secrets. But rarely have the secrets been as vital as they were during World War II. In the middle of... Read more

We Are the Weather

Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast

By: Jonathan Safran Foer
Narrated by: Jonathan Safran Foer
Length: 5 hours 6 minutes

“In signature literary fashion, Jonathan Safran Foer draws on the threads of history, science, and family history to illustrate the power in a single human choice to change the world—and the challenge to make it. His premise is simple: You can stop climate change’s devastation by not eating animal products before dinner. While light on practical... Read more

Our Dogs, Ourselves

The Story of a Singular Bond

By: Alexandra Horowitz
Narrated by: Alexandra Horowitz
Length: 8 hours

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Inside of a Dog and The Year of the Puppy, an eye-opening, informative, “entertaining, and enlightening” (BookPage) celebration of the human-canine relationship for the curious dog owner and science-lover alike.

We keep dogs and are kept by them. We love dogs and (we assume) we are loved by them.... Read more

The Program

Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM

By: Toni Natalie & Chet Hardin
Narrated by: Toni Natalie
Length: 7 hours 54 minutes

As seen in the HBO docuseries THE VOW: A jaw-dropping insider look into the world of the so-called "Hollywood Sex Cult" NXIVM chronicling the rise of enigmatic cult leader, Keith Raniere, from its "Patient Zero," his former girlfriend and test subject for his coercive control techniques.
Many have heard of NXIVM and its creator, Keith Raniere,... Read more

Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights (Scholastic Focus)

By: Lawrence Goldstone
Narrated by: James Shippy
Length: 5 hours 10 minutes

A thrilling and incisive examination of the post-Reconstruction era struggle for and suppression of African American voting rights in the United States.Following the Civil War, the Reconstruction era raised a new question to those in power in the US: Should African Americans, so many of them former slaves, be granted the right to vote?In a... Read more

Disney's Land

By: Richard Snow
Narrated by: Jacques Roy
Length: 12 hours

A propulsive and “entertaining” (The Wall Street Journal) history chronicling the conception and creation of the iconic Disneyland theme park, as told like never before by popular historian Richard Snow.

One day in the early 1950s, Walt Disney stood looking over 240 acres of farmland in Anaheim, California, and imagined building a park where... Read more

Apollo 13

By: Jim Lovell & Jeffrey Kluger
Narrated by: Fred Sanders
Length: 16 hours 15 minutes

An all-new recording of the landmark #1 bestseller!

In April 1970, during the glory days of the Apollo space program, NASA sent Navy Captain Jim Lovell and two other astronauts on America’s fifth mission to the moon. Only fifty-five hours into the flight of Apollo 13, disaster struck: a mysterious explosion rocked the ship, and soon its oxygen... Read more

Meat Planet

Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food

By: Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft
Narrated by: Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft
Length: 10 hours 8 minutes

Meat Planet explores the quest to generate meat in the lab—a substance sometimes called "cultured meat"—and asks what it means to imagine that this is the future of food.



Neither an advocate nor a critic of cultured meat, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft spent five years researching the phenomenon. In Meat Planet, he reveals how debates about lab-grown... Read more

The Splendid and the Vile

A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

By: Erik Larson
Narrated by: John Lee & Erik Larson
Length: 17 hours 48 minutes

“An excellent account of the darkest hour through the intimate details of the Churchill family, and accounts and diaries of staff and English, German and American leaders and soldiers. Larson expertly shows Churchill's highs and lows and how his oration skills, charisma and spirit buoyed society at the exact right time. Excellent for WWII buffs... Read more

Code Red

How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country

By: E.J. Dionne, Jr.
Narrated by: Adam Barr & E.J. Dionne, Jr.
Length: 7 hours 40 minutes

This program includes an introduction read by the author.

New York Times bestselling author and Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. sounds the alarm in Code Red, calling for an alliance between progressives and moderates to seize the moment and restore hope to America’s future for the 2020 presidential election.

Will progressives and... Read more

Author in Chief

The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote

By: Craig Fehrman
Narrated by: Fred Sanders
Length: 15 hours 38 minutes

“Fascinating and engaging, Chris Fehrman’s Author in Chief delivers unique insights into U.S. politics, history, and publishing. Fehrman shows that analyzing our presidents as authors first provides understanding and appreciation into their personal lives and motivations, but also into how those motivations greatly influenced our country as a... Read more

Capital and Ideology

By: Thomas Piketty
Narrated by: Rick Adamson
Length: 48 hours 56 minutes

The epic successor to one of the most important books of the century: at once a retelling of global history, a scathing critique of contemporary politics, and a bold proposal for a new and fairer economic systemThomas Piketty’s bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century galvanized global debate about inequality. In this audacious follow-up,... Read more

American Rebels

How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution

By: Nina Sankovitch
Narrated by: Suzie Althens
Length: 15 hours 54 minutes

Nina Sankovitch’s American Rebels explores, for the first time, the intertwined lives of the Hancock, Quincy, and Adams families, and the role each person played in sparking the American Revolution.

Before they were central figures in American history, John Hancock, John Adams, Josiah Quincy Junior, Abigail Smith Adams, and Dorothy Quincy Hancock... Read more

Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider

How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels

By: Stephen B. Heard, PhD
Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
Length: 7 hours 17 minutes

“What's in a name? I mean, does a "rosa minutifolia" smell any sweeter than a "rosa stellata?" Heard's history of the naming of species through Linnaeus' system certainly doesn't cover all species, but provides a fun and cultural look at what goes into the process. Species bear the names they are given whether they come from celebrities,... Read more