Books About Books, Reading, Bookstores

The Professor and The Madman

A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

By: Simon Winchester
Narrated by: Simon Winchester
Length: 7 hours 20 minutes

A New York Times Notable Book  The Professor and the Madman is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary—and literary history.The making of the OED was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the... Read more

Literary Life

A Second Memoir

By: Larry McMurtry
Narrated by: Henry Strozier
Length: 4 hours 21 minutes

In Literary Life, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry opens up about the triumphs and trials of his abundant literary career. Relaying his early interest in writing that began with a creative writing class at Rice University, to a career that boasts over 40 novels and an Academy Award-winning screenplay, this intimate portrait of the... Read more

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

A Novel

By: Annie Barrows & Mary Ann Shaffer
Narrated by: Paul Boehmer, Susan Duerden, Rosalyn Landor, John Lee & Juliet Mills
Length: 8 hours 5 minutes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A NETFLIX FILM • A remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German Occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name.

“Treat yourself to this book, please—I can’t recommend it highly enough.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

“I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there... Read more

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

A Novel

By: Matthew Sullivan
Narrated by: Madeleine Maby
Length: 8 hours 59 minutes

“Still reeling from witnessing a tragic event many years ago, Lydia is thrown headfirst into yet another tragedy after one of her favorite bookshop patrons commits suicide in the store and mysteriously leaves all his possessions to her. As Lydia follows the thread that he leaves her, she finds out more about him, her town, and even her own past.... Read more

The Library Book

By: Susan Orlean
Narrated by: Susan Orlean
Length: 12 hours 8 minutes

“On the day I turned 2, Chernobyl was struck by disaster. Three days later, hidden among the news and chaos, the Los Angeles Public Library was in flames. Two thousand degrees, more than a million books destroyed or damaged, and the source of the fire unknown. Susan Orlean centers her book on the fire and then moves outward to include librarians... Read more

The End of Your Life Book Club

A Memoir

By: Will Schwalbe
Narrated by: Jeff Harding
Length: 9 hours 36 minutes

“What are you reading?”

That’s the question Will Schwalbe asks his mother, Mary Anne, as they sit in the waiting room of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In 2007, Mary Anne returned from a humanitarian trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan suffering from what her doctors believed was a rare type of hepatitis. Months later she was diagnosed... Read more

Books for Living

Some Thoughts on Reading, Reflecting, and Embracing Life

By: Will Schwalbe
Narrated by: Jeff Harding
Length: 7 hours 3 minutes

“Anyone can recommend a book, but it's rare that someone can fully articulate its lifelong impact. Schwalbe has the rarest of voices -- both intimate and universal -- and with deep care and reflection he offers readers the most personal and heartfelt parts of himself in his latest collection. This is not a list of Schwalbe's favorite books, but... Read more

The Haunted Bookshop

By: Christopher Morley
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
Length: 6 hours 3 minutes

In 1917, Christopher Morley published Parnassus on Wheels, a love letter to the art of bookselling. Its suspenseful sequel, The Haunted Bookshop, finds his beloved characters married and still in love with both mystery and literature.Set in a lovingly evoked Brooklyn just after the end of World War I, The Haunted Bookshop cleverly juxtaposes a... Read more

Dark Archives

A Librarian's Investigation Into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin

By: Megan Rosenbloom
Narrated by: Justis Bolding
Length: 6 hours 58 minutes

On bookshelves around the world, surrounded by ordinary books bound in paper and leather, rest other volumes of a distinctly strange and grisly sort: those bound in human skin. Would you know one if you held it in your hand?In Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom seeks out the historic and scientific truths behind anthropodermic bibliopegy?the... Read more

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler

By: Italo Calvino
Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
Length: 9 hours 58 minutes

"You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel … Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade."—from If on a Winter's Night a TravelerItalo Calvino's stunning classic imagines a novel capable of endless possibilities in an intricately crafted, spellbinding story about writing and reading.If on a... Read more

The Reader on the 6.27

By: Jean-Paul Didierlaurent
Narrated by: Stephane Cornicard
Length: 4 hours 4 minutes

An irresistible French sensation - Mr Penumbra's 24- hour Bookstore meets Amélie - The Reader on the 6.27 explores the power of books through the lives of the people they save. It is sure to capture the hearts of book lovers everywhere.
Guylain Vignolles leads a dull and solitary life. He hates his job and his only company at home is a goldfish.... Read more

Mr. Dickens and His Carol

A Novel

By: Samantha Silva
Narrated by: Euan Morton
Length: 8 hours 8 minutes

“Full of fantastic period detail and delightful prose, Mr. Dickens and His Carol is a wonderful companion to the enduring holiday classic A Christmas Carol. A month before Christmas, Charles Dickens is informed that his latest serial is a failure and he must produce a holiday story in one month's time or pay back his publishers for their losses.... Read more

Once Upon a Tome

The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller

By: Oliver Darkshire
Narrated by: Oliver Darkshire
Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

“This anecdotal bookselling memoir from Sotheran's Oliver Darkshire is exactly what I needed this week. I actually finished the print copy, and immediately checked out the audiobook and began listening the same day (narrated by the author!) just to hear Oliver tell me his stories himself. Super relaxing, amusing, and just the right amount of... Read more

The Book Woman's Daughter

A Novel

By: Kim Michele Richardson
Narrated by: Katie Schorr
Length: 10 hours 29 minutes

“Rooted in her Appalachian upbringing, sixteen-year-old Honey Lovett's fierce and wilful spirit is nearly crushed when the loving adults in her life are taken from her. I raged at the misogyny, bigotry, racism, and ignorance that worked against her, and celebrated her remarkable resilience as she struggled mightily to maintain her independence. Read more

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

A Novel

By: Kim Michele Richardson
Narrated by: Katie Schorr
Length: 9 hours 25 minutes

“This book captures how reading can touch the soul and connect us with others. I was humbled and moved to tears - of both grief and joy - as I rode with Cussy Mary and her mule through the hills and hollows of Appalachia to deliver books to the isolated people of Troublesome Creek. A courier in the Kentucky Library Project in the 1930s, Cussy... Read more

Shelf Life

Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller

By: Nadia Wassef
Narrated by: Vaneh Assadourian
Length: 7 hours 3 minutes

The streets of Cairo make strange music: the echoing calls to prayer, the raging insults hurled between drivers, the steady crescendo of horns honking, the shouts of street vendors, the television sets and radios blaring from every sidewalk. Nadia Wassef knows this song by heart. In 2002, with her sister, Hind, and their friend, Nihal, she... Read more

Bibliomaniac

An Obsessive's Tour of the Bookshops of Britain

By: Robin Ince
Narrated by: Robin Ince
Length: TBA

A unique, funny picture of Britain... A love letter to bookshops and the vagaries of public transport.' Richard Osman

Why play to 12,000 people when you can play to 12? In Autumn 2021, Robin Ince's stadium tour with Professor Brian Cox was postponed due to the pandemic. Rather than do nothing, he decided instead to go on a tour of over a hundred... Read more

Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop

A Memoir

By: Alba Donati
Narrated by: Jane McDowell
Length: 6 hours 57 minutes

National Bestseller

Under the Tuscan Sun meets Diary of a Bookseller in this charming memoir by an Italian poet recounting her experience opening a bookshop in a village in Tuscany.

Alba Donati was used to her hectic life working as a book publicist in Italy—a life that made her happy and allowed her to meet prominent international authors—but... Read more

The Diary of a Bookseller

By: Shaun Bythell
Narrated by: Robin Laing
Length: 9 hours 42 minutes

“When you enter The Book Shop in Wigtown, Scotland, you enter Shaun Bythell’s world. You’ll recognize his colorful staff and quirky customers immediately and fall in love with them instantly. The Diary of a Bookseller was written for book buyers, booksellers, and book lovers everywhere (you must be one of them!). While books and The Book Shop... Read more