Astoria Bookshop Staff Favorites - Non-fiction

The Woman in Me

By: Britney Spears
Narrated by: Michelle Williams
Length: 5 hours 31 minutes

“I have a feeling we all don't know as much about Britney Spears as we thought we did, and listening to The Woman in Me reframed her story for me. With a bit of Britney to start, the narration is handed to Michelle Williams who gives grounding, a bit of sass, and a balance of the strong and gentle woman Britney seems to be. The story is intense... Read more

Witchcraft

A History in Thirteen Trials

By: Marion Gibson
Narrated by: Rose Akroyd
Length: 11 hours 2 minutes

“Gibson insightfully illuminates the social construct of the “witch” across several centuries. While ideas about magic have long abounded—and concern humans’ relationship with the surrounding world—the “witch” has more to do with control. Some of these trials are what you’d expect, but Gibson smartly expounds upon much lesser known incidents as... Read more

Pockets

An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close

By: Hannah Carlson
Narrated by: Stephanie Cannon
Length: 6 hours 38 minutes

“This was so much fun to listen to! It's an engaging way to explore our society, culture and gender politics. This asks questions you didn't know you had. And I loved every minute. Read more

Burn It Down

Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood

By: Maureen Ryan
Narrated by: Samara Naeymi
Length: 13 hours 54 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLERAn NPR Best Book of the YearIn this spectacular, newsmaking exposé that has the entertainment industry abuzz and on its heels, Vanity Fair's Maureen Ryan blows the lid off patterns of harassment and bias in Hollywood, the grassroots reforms under way, and the labor and activist revolutions... Read more

In the Dream House

A Memoir

By: Carmen Maria Machado
Narrated by: Carmen Maria Machado
Length: 5 hours 28 minutes

“In the most inventive memoir I've read, Machado uses narrative tropes in a series of fragments and vignettes to break down the ways in which she, herself, was breaking down in an abusive same-sex relationship. A book about 'archival silence,' about inventing a language to tell a story. Read more

Braiding Sweetgrass

Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Length: 16 hours 44 minutes

“This book is life-changing and world-changing. It is the type of book you borrow from your neighbor, you loan to your friend, you share with a parent. This book is a grassroots movement of ecological empathy and imagination. Robin Wall Kimmerer dares us to reexamine our relationships to science, reconsider our ideals of community, and revisit... Read more

Bad Gays

A Homosexual History

By: Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller
Narrated by: Ben Allen
Length: 13 hours 31 minutes

We all remember Oscar Wilde, but who speaks for Bosie? What about those 'bad gays' whose un-exemplary lives reveal more than we might expect? Too many popular histories seek to establish heroes, pioneers and martyrs but, as Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller argue, the past is filled with queer people whose sexualities and dastardly deeds have been... Read more

Dead Wake

The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

By: Erik Larson
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Length: 13 hours 3 minutes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania

“Both terrifying and enthralling.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.”—NPR
“Thoroughly engrossing.”—George R.R. Martin

On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a... Read more

1776

By: David McCullough
Narrated by: David McCullough
Length: 11 hours 35 minutes

America’s beloved and distinguished historian presents, in a book of breathtaking excitement, drama, and narrative force, the stirring story of the year of our nation’s birth, 1776, interweaving, on both sides of the Atlantic, the actions and decisions that led Great Britain to undertake a war against her rebellious colonial subjects and that... Read more

Killers of the Flower Moon

The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

By: David Grann
Narrated by: Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee & Danny Campbell
Length: 9 hours 4 minutes

“In "Killers of the Flower Moon", David Grann recounts the tragic tale of the Osage Indian Nations decimation and deceit at the hands of their government appointed guardians. Motivated by money, morally corrupt and masterfully manipulative, the true role of these benevolent benefactors, perpetrators of mass murder, is still a mystery today.... Read more

Several Short Sentences about Writing

By: Verlyn Klinkenborg
Narrated by: Verlyn Klinkenborg
Length: 4 hours 26 minutes

Most of what you think you know about writing is useless. It’s the harmful debris of your education—a mixture of half-truths, myths, and false assumptions that prevents you from writing well. Drawing on years of experience as a writer and teacher of writing, Verlyn Klinkenborg offers an approach to writing that will change the way you work and... Read more

I'll Be Gone in the Dark

One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer

By: Michelle McNamara
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Gillian Flynn & Patton Oswalt
Length: 10 hours 7 minutes

“An overwhelmingly obsessed Michelle McNamara dissects the decades old trail of tragedy, trauma and ongoing taunts by the elusive East Area Rapist in her investigative crime thriller “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” published posthumously after her unexpected demise. Dubbed the “Golden State Killer” by McNamara herself, his crime spree started with 50... Read more

How to Change Your Mind

What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence

By: Michael Pollan
Narrated by: Michael Pollan
Length: 13 hours 34 minutes

“Pollan didn’t create the local food movement, but his books brought our attention to it, catapulting the conversation to farmers markets and dinner tables everywhere. In How To Change Your Mind, Pollan has turned his eye to psychedelic drugs. What The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Food Rules did for food, this book is set to do in the fields of end of... Read more

Amateur

A True Story About What Makes a Man

By: Thomas Page McBee
Narrated by: Thomas Page McBee
Length: 3 hours 38 minutes

*Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction
*Shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award
*Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize

One of The Times UK’s Best Memoirs of 2018, BuzzFeed’s Best Nonfiction of 2018, Autostraddle’s Best LGBT Books of 2018, and 52 Insight’s Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2018

A “no-holds-barred examination... Read more