Absorbed in Pages Must Listen Playlist

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

By: Deesha Philyaw
Narrated by: Janina Edwards
Length: 4 hours 6 minutes

“Having grown up in a Mississippi Southern Baptist church, it wasn't until I was a teenager that I saw the secret double lives of some of us. Rebelling against the submit to authority messages on Saturday night, but sitting pious and submissive come Sunday morning services was de rigueur. Deesha Philyaw's book The Secret Lives of Church Ladies... Read more

Wandering in Strange Lands

A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots

By: Morgan Jerkins
Narrated by: Morgan Jerkins
Length: 8 hours 3 minutes

“Wandering in Strange Lands is an evocative, sensitive piece. Throughout the book, Morgan Jerkins retraces her family's lineage, the history of the lands from which they came, and despite working with gaps in generational memory, is able to make inspiring and meaningful connections. Listening to this audiobook on the way to Charleston, SC was... Read more

Breathe

A Letter to My Sons

By: Imani Perry
Narrated by: Imani Perry
Length: 4 hours 28 minutes

2020 Chautauqua Prize Finalist

2020 NAACP Image Award Nominee - Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction)

Best-of Lists: Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 (Kirkus Reviews) · 25 Can't-Miss Books of 2019 (The Undefeated)

Explores the terror, grace, and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in contemporary America and what it means to parent our... Read more

Look Both Ways

A Tale Told in Ten Blocks

By: Jason Reynolds
Narrated by: Heather Alicia Simms, Chris Chalk, Bahni Turpin, Kevin R. Free, JD Jackson, Guy Lockard, January LaVoy, Jason Reynolds, Adenrele Ojo & David Sadzin
Length: 3 hours 58 minutes

“10 short stories that seem simple, just following middle school kids on their walk home from school. It is packed with so much more from friendship to family dynamics to personal problems. Both reluctant and voracious listeners will enjoy. Read more

All Boys Aren't Blue

A Memoir-Manifesto

By: George M. Johnson
Narrated by: George M. Johnson
Length: 5 hours 11 minutes

This program is read by the author.

In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia.

A New York Times Bestseller!
Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News, Today Show, and MSNBC feature stories

... Read more

Hood Feminism

Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot

By: Mikki Kendall
Narrated by: Mikki Kendall
Length: 6 hours 57 minutes

“Hood Feminism touches on many subjects that mainstream feminists may not think of as feminist issues. Issues like food and housing insecurity, parenting, and disability rights, among others. Mikki Kendall calls out mainstream feminism as existing only for the advancement of white women, to the detriment of women of color. Some of my biggest... Read more

We Live for the We

The Political Power of Black Motherhood

By: Dani McClain
Narrated by: Dani McClain
Length: 6 hours 11 minutes

A warm, wise, and urgent guide to parenting in uncertain times, from a longtime reporter on race, reproductive health, and politics

In We Live for the We, first-time mother Dani McClain sets out to understand how to raise her daughter in what she, as a black woman, knows to be an unjust -- even hostile -- society. Black women are more likely to... Read more

With the Fire on High

By: Elizabeth Acevedo
Narrated by: Elizabeth Acevedo
Length: 7 hours 26 minutes

“This was a great listen. Emoni, a single teen mom, has so much on her plate and has maturity beyond her years. She’s realistic and responsible and navigates high school, parenting, college decisions and a budding love interest. She’s becoming a talented chef and her feelings are expressed in her food. The author narrates and she had me hooked... Read more

Rage Becomes Her

The Power of Women's Anger

By: Soraya Chemaly
Narrated by: Soraya Chemaly
Length: 11 hours 2 minutes

***A BEST BOOK OF 2018 SELECTION***
NPR * The Washington Post * Book Riot * Autostraddle * Psychology Today

***A BEST FEMINIST BOOK SELECTION***
Refinery 29, Book Riot, Autostraddle, BITCH

Rage Becomes Her is an “utterly eye opening” (Bustle) book that gives voice to the causes, expressions, and possibilities of female rage.

As women, we’ve... Read more

Heavy

An American Memoir

By: Kiese Laymon
Narrated by: Kiese Laymon
Length: 6 hours 17 minutes

“An incredibly generous, tender, and searingly honest book. Kiese Laymon is hands down one of the most talented American writers publishing right now. HEAVY overflows with deep love and deep pain. Laymon holds up a mirror to the US past, present - "We did not have to be this way. We will not ever have to be this way." I'm going back to read... Read more

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By: Maya Angelou
Narrated by: Maya Angelou
Length: 10 hours 10 minutes

Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute... Read more

The World According to Fannie Davis

My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers

By: Bridgett M. Davis
Narrated by: Bridgett M. Davis
Length: 10 hours 14 minutes

“I listened to this and it was read by the author herself. She did a fantastic job conveying her book and atmosphere. Fannie Davis was an amazing woman. She was smart, savvy and so generous. She loved her children and made sure that her daughter felt no food or housing insecurity despite the risks of her business running numbers. What the author... Read more

When They Call You a Terrorist

A Black Lives Matter Memoir

By: Patrisse Cullors & asha bandele
Narrated by: Angela Davis & Patrisse Cullors
Length: 6 hours 12 minutes

"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 Mothers

A Novel

By: Brit Bennett
Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
Length: 9 hours 54 minutes

“The 'mothers' of this book's title refers to the gaggle of elderly churchgoing women who comment on the congregation around them, especially the trio of Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey. But The Mothers is about more than that -- it refers to the concept of motherhood, whether biological, lost, aborted, adoptive, or conflicted. The three young people at... Read more

My Sister, the Serial Killer

A Novel

By: Oyinkan Braithwaite
Narrated by: Adepero Oduye
Length: 4 hours 14 minutes

“My Sister, the Serial Killer is one of the best books to come along in quite a while — fast, funny, and completely engrossing. Oyinkan Braithwaite offers up a tale of Nigerian sisters Ayoola, a beautiful and sociopathic serial killer who destroys boyfriends, aware that all they ever want her for is her appearance, and Korede, a nurse whose... Read more

Biased

Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do

By: Jennifer L. Eberhardt, PhD
Narrated by: Jennifer L. Eberhardt, PhD
Length: 10 hours 23 minutes

"Poignant....important and illuminating."—The New York Times Book Review

"Groundbreaking."—Bryan Stevenson, New York Times bestselling author of Just Mercy

From one of the world’s leading experts on unconscious racial bias come stories, science, and strategies to address one of the central controversies of our time

How do we talk about bias? How do... Read more

Parkland

Birth of a Movement

By: Dave Cullen
Narrated by: Dave Cullen & Robert Fass
Length: 10 hours 9 minutes

On the first anniversary of the events at Parkland, the acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author of Columbine offers an intimate, deeply moving account of the extraordinary teenage survivors who became activists and pushed back against the NRA and feckless Congressional leaders—inspiring millions of Americans to join their grassroots... Read more

Lot

Stories

By: Bryan Washington
Narrated by: Bryan Washington, Dion Graham, JD Jackson & Bahni Turpin
Length: 5 hours 41 minutes

“This is such a phenomenal book by a writer who should be on everyone’s radar for 2019. Washington has a detailed and poignant style that reveals the tender soul within all of his characters. None of the characters that we meet in Lot are strangers — they are our mothers, brothers, lovers, and friends. Washington pulls them all together through... Read more

Becoming

By: Michelle Obama
Narrated by: Michelle Obama
Length: 19 hours 1 minute

“I adore our former president and I miss him. Yet I cannot help but be ecstatic that Michelle is coming out with a book about her own life so that I can learn more about this powerful, intelligent, and singularly awesome woman. Barack would be the first to say that his wife is a superstar, and I can’t wait to get my hands on Becoming to read... Read more

Joyful

The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness

By: Ingrid Fetell Lee
Narrated by: Ingrid Fetell Lee
Length: 9 hours 29 minutes

Make small changes to your surroundings and create extraordinary happiness in your life with groundbreaking research from designer and TED star Ingrid Fetell Lee.

Next Big Idea Club selection—chosen by Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Dan Pink, and Adam Grant as one of the "two most groundbreaking new nonfiction reads of the season!"

"This book has... Read more