2021 Bookish Reading Challenge

Braving the Wilderness: Reese's Book Club

The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

By: Brené Brown
Narrated by: Brené Brown
Length: 4 hours 11 minutes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • A timely and important book that challenges everything we think we know about cultivating true belonging in our communities, organizations, and culture, from the #1 bestselling author of Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of Imperfection

Don’t miss the five-part Max docuseries... Read more

Quit Like a Woman

The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol

By: Holly Whitaker
Narrated by: Holly Whitaker
Length: 10 hours 7 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “An unflinching examination of how our drinking culture hurts women and a gorgeous memoir of how one woman healed herself.”—Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed

“You don’t know how much you need this book, or maybe you do. Either way, it will save your life.”—Melissa Hartwig Urban, Whole30... Read more

See No Stranger

A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

The Revolutionary Love Project

By: Valarie Kaur
Narrated by: Valarie Kaur
Length: 13 hours 14 minutes

#1 LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER • FINALIST FOR THE DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE • An urgent manifesto and a dramatic memoir of awakening, this is the story of revolutionary love.

“In a world stricken with fear and turmoil, Valarie Kaur shows us how to summon our deepest wisdom.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love
 
How do we love in a time... Read more

Wintering

The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

By: Katherine May
Narrated by: Rebecca Lee
Length: 6 hours 53 minutes

“This was the perfect listen at the right time. Memoir, mythology, and meditations on an ever ignored fact that we must change our lifestyle in order to adapt to this sometimes brutal season. I will definitely come back to this one many times. Read more

Big Magic

Creative Living Beyond Fear

By: Elizabeth Gilbert
Narrated by: Elizabeth Gilbert
Length: 5 hours 5 minutes

“A must-read for all creatives (and those desiring more creativity in their lives). A surprisingly grounded, full-hearted guide for opening yourself up to inspiration, dreaming big, and embracing the Big Magic for a creative life. Read more

Real Change

Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World

By: Sharon Salzberg
Narrated by: Sharon Salzberg
Length: 7 hours 45 minutes

This program is read by the author.

From one of most prominent figures in the field of meditation comes a guidebook for how to use mindfulness to build our inner strength, find balance, and help create a better world.

In today’s fractured world, we’re constantly flooded with breaking news that causes anger, grief, and pain. People are feeling more... Read more

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Abridged

By: Zora Neale Hurston
Narrated by: Ruby Dee
Length: TBA

“A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don’t know how to live properly.” —Zadie SmithOne of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love... Read more

The Almost Sisters

A Novel

By: Joshilyn Jackson
Narrated by: Joshilyn Jackson
Length: 12 hours 39 minutes

“Leia Birch is pretty much a rock star in the comic world, but her personal life has taken over the drama of her heroines, Violet and Violence. Leia is pregnant with a biracial child after too much tequila and a one-night stand at Comic-Con, her sister's perfect marriage is imploding, and it appears her sweet, proper Southern grandmother has been... Read more

Swamplandia!

By: Karen Russell
Narrated by: Arielle Sitrick & David Ackroyd
Length: 13 hours 6 minutes

“This was by far one of my favorite novels of the year—and it turns out—one of the New York Times too. Landing itself on the coveted NYT’s best ten books of the year list, this novel is an incredible debut. Telling the tale of 13-year old Ava who has grown up on an island in her family’s alligator-wrestling theme park (I know, I know, but it... Read more

America Is Not the Heart

A Novel

By: Elaine Castillo
Narrated by: Donnabella Mortel
Length: 16 hours 24 minutes

Named one of the best books of 2018 by NPR, Real Simple, Lit Hub, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Post, Kirkus Reviews, and The New York Public Library 

"A saga rich with origin myths, national and personal . . . Castillo is part of a younger generation of American writers instilling literature with a layered sense of... Read more

Cantoras

A novel

By: Carolina De Robertis
Narrated by: Carolina De Robertis
Length: 13 hours 37 minutes

"Cantoras is a stunning lullaby to revolution—and each woman in this novel sings it with a deep ferocity. Again and again, I was lifted, then gently set down again—either through tears, rage, or laughter. Days later, I am still inside this song of a story." —Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award–winning author

From the highly acclaimed,... Read more

Under the Udala Trees

By: Chinelo Okparanta
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Length: 11 hours 18 minutes

Inspired by Nigeria’s folktales and war, Under the Udala Trees is a deeply searching, powerful debut about the dangers of living and loving openly.Ijeoma comes of age as her nation does; born before independence, she is eleven when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child, and... Read more

Silver Sparrow

By: Tayari Jones
Narrated by: Rosalyn Coleman-Williams & Heather Alicia Simms
Length: 10 hours 22 minutes

“This book was so well written. I read Jones' newest work, American Marriage, when it first came out. That book floored me—spectacular writing, structure, and character development. Silver Sparrow brings the same elements, two perspectives that show that there are two sides to every story. What Jones does so well is that the reader feels so... Read more

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

The Dark Star Trilogy: Book #1

By: Marlon James
Narrated by: Dion Graham
Length: 23 hours 59 minutes

“Marlon James’ Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a shot across the bow of fantasy literature: bold, fresh, and filled with brutal wonder and endless imagination. James’tale set in a fantastical ancient Africa follows a hunter known only as Tracker as he trails the scent of a lost boy, meeting a shape-shifting leopard along the way. At turns... Read more

Uprooted

By: Naomi Novik
Narrated by: Julia Emelin
Length: 17 hours 43 minutes

“Every ten years, a girl is chosen from the valley to live with the wizard in the tower, the Dragon. The villagers don't like it, but the Dragon is the only defense between them and the dangerous, vindictive forest on the edge of the valley, where every year, more and more people disappear, never to be heard from again. Or worse, returned to... Read more

Pet

By: Akwaeke Emezi
Narrated by: Christopher Myers
Length: 5 hours 32 minutes

“Wunderbarer Roman über eine nachrevolutionäre Welt, in der trans*-Sein und Familienvielfalt normalisiert werden, ohne Hauptthemen zu sein. - Wonderful novel about a post-revolutionary world in which being trans* and family diversity are normalized without being major themes. Read more

Brown Album

Essays on Exile and Identity

By: Porochista Khakpour
Narrated by: Porochista Khakpour
Length: 6 hours 12 minutes

“Porochista Khakpour is a novelist but believes she is better known as an essayist. Specifically, as an Iranian American essayist. One who now is debuting her first published essay collection on being Iranian American. And these are powerful essays on the subjects of, as the title says, exile and identity, along with culture and politics, of... Read more

The White Tiger

A Novel

By: Aravind Adiga
Narrated by: John Lee
Length: 8 hours 6 minutes

No saris. No scents. No spices. No music. No lyricism. No illusions.



This is India now.



Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in... Read more

Amberlough

Book 1 in the Amberlough Dossier

Amberlough Dossier: Book #1

By: Lara Elena Donnelly
Narrated by: Mary Robinette Kowal
Length: 11 hours 26 minutes

"[Narrator Mary Robinette Kowal] delivers a stellar performance, imbuing each character, even the minor ones, with a fully realized personality...Kowal's background in theater allows her to maximize the emotional impact of each pivotal event." — AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award Winner

From author Lara Elena Donnelly, comes a debut spy thriller,... Read more

Children of Blood and Bone

Legacy of Orisha: Book #1

By: Tomi Adeyemi
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 17 hours 44 minutes

“A sprawling fantasy teeming with deep and meaningful magic. One of the things I like most about this debut is that it raises very real and important issues of our time through multiple character's perspectives. No character is one-dimensional, and every character must learn from failure and introspection to become who they were meant to be. Read more