Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2021

Matrix

A Novel

By: Lauren Groff
Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
Length: 8 hours 51 minutes

“Groff’s imagining of Marie de France and a convent that she molds into a feminist utopia is magical and moving. Read more

How the Word Is Passed

A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

By: Clint Smith
Narrated by: Clint Smith
Length: 10 hours 6 minutes

“Smith has crafted a resource, narrative and detailed explanation into how we teach the legacy of slavery. He recounts visits from everywhere from NYC to the Whitney Plantation, integrating stories of people and visitors today. This book is lays a beautiful written foundation for interrogating the history we've been taught. Particularly... Read more

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

By: Dawnie Walton
Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Bahni Turpin, James Langton, André De Shields, Dennis Boutsikaris, Steve West, Gabra Zackman & full cast
Length: 13 hours 16 minutes

“The Final Revival of Opal & Nev absolutely shines in its full cast audio production. Organized as a series of interviews interspersed with editor notes, this book reads like a documentary-style non-fiction book but is actually FICTION which blows my mind. I felt like I read this book in its true format. The audiobook narration was SPOT... Read more

The Lincoln Highway

A Read with Jenna Pick (A Novel)

By: Amor Towles
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Marin Ireland & Dion Graham
Length: 16 hours 38 minutes

“Loved, loved, LOVED listening to the new Amor Towles book. The story was wonderful, but the readers made it especially enjoyable. Read more

Invisible Child

Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City

By: Andrea Elliott
Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
Length: 21 hours 9 minutes

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “vivid and devastating” (The New York Times) portrait of an indomitable girl—from acclaimed journalist Andrea Elliott

“From its first indelible pages to its rich and startling conclusion, Invisible Child had me, by turns, stricken, inspired, outraged, illuminated, in tears, and hungering for... Read more

Harlem Shuffle

A Novel

By: Colson Whitehead
Narrated by: Dion Graham
Length: 10 hours 35 minutes

“A wonderful evocation of a time and place, which is not to say it doesn't have the tension of a crime thriller. It's fun to ride along with Ray, who may be more than a little bent, but will likely become your favorite furniture salesman, nevertheless. Read more

Cloud Cuckoo Land

A Novel

By: Anthony Doerr
Narrated by: Marin Ireland & Simon Jones
Length: 14 hours 51 minutes

“Highly imaginative and incredibly ambitious, Cloud Cuckoo Land is a story within a story that is about stories. Though the premise, like the title, sounds maddening, I found Anthony Doerr’s novel to be rich, intricate, and deeply profound. Like the thread that binds together a vibrant tapestry, the story within the story, also named Cloud Cuckoo... Read more

These Precious Days

Essays

By: Ann Patchett
Narrated by: Ann Patchett
Length: 11 hours 13 minutes

“I loved absolutely everything about this book and did not want it to end. Ann Patchett's narration is magical and I believe is best way to experience her writing. Though these are essays, they are expertly arranged and together feel like a memoir. Patchett talks about everything from life and death to bookstores and book covers and you... Read more

Crying in H Mart

A Memoir

By: Michelle Zauner
Narrated by: Michelle Zauner
Length: 7 hours 22 minutes

“Growing up in Eugene, Oregon, Michelle felt embarrassed and harassed by her Korean mother's expectations. She takes the first opportunity to move away from their strained relationship and develop her music career in Philadelphia. But she's called back when her mother is diagnosed with late stage cancer. Crying in H Mart dives into Asian-American... Read more

Aftershocks

By: Nadia Owusu
Narrated by: Nadia Owusu
Length: 8 hours 32 minutes

In the tradition of The Glass Castle, this “gorgeous” (The New York Times, Editors’ Choice) and deeply felt memoir from Whiting Award winner Nadia Owusu tells the “incredible story” (Malala Yousafzai) about the push and pull of belonging, the seismic emotional toll of family secrets, and the heart it takes to pull through.

“In Aftershocks, Nadia... Read more

Crossroads

A Novel

By: Jonathan Franzen
Narrated by: David Pittu
Length: 24 hours 56 minutes

“Crossroads is Franzen's first novel since the National Book Award winning The Corrections that smacks of his original genius. Gloriously the tale of a 1960's Chicago minister led family of six is the start of a trilogy. The type of book you can't put down, I banned it from night time reading due to the thrilling descent of some of the... Read more

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

An Oprah’s Book Club Novel

By: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton & Prentice Onayemi
Length: 29 hours 48 minutes

“A sweeping, multi-generational novel about a Southern Black family and their rich and complex ancestry. Focusing on the life of Hailey Pearl, a young woman coming of age in "the city" and her hometown of Chicasetta, GA, the novel jumps back and forth in time weaving together the triumphs and tragedies of her people and how these stories are... Read more

Beautiful Country

A Memoir

By: Qian Julie Wang
Narrated by: Qian Julie Wang
Length: 9 hours 38 minutes

“In this brutally honest coming-of-age memoir, Qian Julie Wang comes to terms with the deprivations and struggles of her undocumented Chinese upbringing in New York City in the 1990s. Read more

At Night All Blood Is Black

A Novel

By: David Diop
Narrated by: Dion Graham
Length: 2 hours 57 minutes

WINNER OF THE 2021 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZEWinner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction"Astonishingly good." —Lily Meyer, NPR
"So incantatory and visceral I don’t think I’ll ever forget it." —Ali Smith, The Guardian | Best Books of 2020One of The Wall Street Journal's 11 best books of the fall | One of The A.V. Club's fifteen best... Read more

Land Of Big Numbers

Stories

By: Te-Ping Chen
Narrated by: Eddy Lee, Fiona Rene, Matt Yang King, Christine Lakin, Katie Tang, Chris Naoki Lee & Lynn Chen
Length: 6 hours 35 minutes

“I loved this stunning debut collection of stories. Chen digs deep and uses her experience as a foreign correspondent to portray the voices and lives of people living in modern China. These stories will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading the book. Highly recommended. Read more

Empire of Pain

The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

By: Patrick Radden Keefe
Narrated by: Patrick Radden Keefe
Length: 18 hours 6 minutes

“A look into the insidious rise of opioids in this country, and the family profiting off of it every step of the way. I couldn't stop reading this. Read more

When We Cease to Understand the World

By: Benjamin Labatut
Narrated by: Adam Barr
Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger—these are some of the luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the listener, showing us how they... Read more

Under a White Sky

The Nature of the Future

By: Elizabeth Kolbert
Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
Length: 6 hours 21 minutes

AudioFile Magazine’s Best Audiobooks of 2021

The New York Times bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction and Field Notes from a Catastrophe returns to humanity’s transformative impact on the environment in Under a White Sky.

That man should have dominion “over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” is a... Read more

Things We Lost to the Water

A novel

By: Eric Nguyen
Narrated by: Quyen Ngo
Length: 10 hours 38 minutes

A captivating novel about an immigrant Vietnamese family who settles in New Orleans and struggles to remain connected to one another as their lives are inextricably reshaped. This stunning debut is "vast in scale and ambition, while luscious and inviting … in its intimacy” (The New York Times Book Review).

When Huong arrives in New Orleans with... Read more

Leave the World Behind

A Novel

By: Rumaan Alam
Narrated by: Marin Ireland
Length: 7 hours 26 minutes

“In Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam, a family of four rents an Airbnb to get away from it all for a relaxing vacation. Everything they need is there: natural surroundings, a pool, and solitude. After an ominous notification about a power outage in the city, the internet goes out. When the owners of the house show up to stay until everything... Read more