Black Lives Matter
Black lives and black stories matter. Here are our recommendations of black and brown authors along with books on antiracism.
Parable of the Sower
Earthseed: Book #1
By Octavia E. Butler
Narrated by: Lynne Thigpen
Length: 12 hours 2 minutes
Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Octavia E. Butler paints a stunning portrait of an all-too-believable near future. As with Kindred and her other critically-acclaimed novels, Parable of the Sower skillfully combines startling visionary and socially realistic concepts. God is change. That is the central truth of the Earthseed movement, whose... Read more »
Pushout
The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools
By Monique W. Morris
Narrated by: Kristyl Dawn Tift
Length: 8 hours 54 minutes
Fifteen-year-old Diamond stopped going to school the day she was expelled for lashing out at peers who constantly harassed and teased her for something everyone on the staff had missed: she was being trafficked for sex. After months on the run, she was arrested and sent to a detention center for violating a court order to attend school. Just... Read more »
So You Want to Talk about Race
By Ijeoma Oluo
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 7 hours 41 minutes
A current, constructive, and actionable exploration of today’s racial landscape, offering straightforward clarity that readers of all races need to contribute to the dismantling of the racial divide
In So You Want to Talk about Race, editor-at-large of the Establishment Ijeoma Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in... Read more »
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval
By Saidiya Hartman
Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
Length: 10 hours 5 minutes
In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. Free love, common-law and transient marriages, queer relations, and single motherhood were among the sweeping changes that altered the character of everyday... Read more »
Their Eyes Were Watching God
By Zora Neale Hurston
Narrated by: Ruby Dee
Length: 6 hours 44 minutes
“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 Smith
One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love... Read more »
Between the World and Me
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Length: 3 hours 35 minutes
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT
Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal... Read more »
Ain't I a Woman
Black Women and Feminism 2nd Edition
By Bell Hooks
Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
Length: 8 hours 55 minutes
A classic work of feminist scholarship, Ain't I a Woman has become a must–read for all those interested in the nature of black womanhood. Examining the impact of sexism on black women during slavery, the devaluation of black womanhood, black male sexism, racism among feminists, and the black woman's involvement with feminism, Hooks attempts to... Read more »
Me and White Supremacy
Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
By Layla F. Saad
Narrated by: Layla F. Saad
Length: 5 hours 19 minutes
Me and White Supremacy
“Want to learn how to be a good ancestor? Need to address your privilege and feel uncomfortable about talking about racism? You need to read and work through Me and White Supremacy.”
Rachel, Avid Bookshop
Reclaiming Our Space
How Black Feminists Are Changing the World from the Tweets to the Streets
By Feminista Jones
Narrated by: Melanie Taylor
Length: 7 hours 10 minutes
A treatise of Black women’s transformative influence in media and society, placing them front and center in a new chapter of mainstream resistance and political engagement
In Reclaiming Our Space, social worker, activist, and cultural commentator Feminista Jones explores how Black women are changing culture, society, and the landscape of feminism... Read more »
Hair Love
By Matthew A. Cherry
Narrated by: Blue Ivy Carter
Length: 4 minutes
Zuri’s hair has a mind of its own. It kinks, coils, and curls every which way. Zuri knows it’s beautiful. When Daddy steps in to style it for an extra special occasion, he has a lot to learn. But he LOVES his Zuri, and he’ll do anything to make her—and her hair—happy. Tender and empowering, Hair Love is an ode to loving your natural hair—and a... Read more »
The Bluest Eye
By Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Toni Morrison
Length: 7 hours 5 minutes
The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature.
It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove--a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so... 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
“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 takeaways were that white women are reliant on upholding the patriarchy for their protection—although this is counterintuitive—and that the "strong," "powerful" Black woman is a harmful stereotype that denies such women the care and rest that they deserve. White liberal allies, beware of performative activism. Take notes while you listen to this book, step up to become angry accomplice intersectional feminists, and step aside to allow the voices of marginalized women to be heard.”
Mary, Raven Book Store
This Will Be My Undoing
Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America
By Morgan Jerkins
Narrated by: Morgan Jerkins
Length: 7 hours 5 minutes
This Will Be My Undoing
“This book ravaged and then healed my weary soul. A micro and macro look at the exhaustion and triumph of black womanhood, Jerkins' essays are poignant enough on their own. When linked together in her book, the pieces become the subtle knife cutting through the membrane of gender and racial disparity that covers our country. Jerkins uses herself not simply as a reference point, but as a dissection, laid on the table and explained.”
Hannah Oliver Depp, WORD Bookstores
When They Call You a Terrorist
A Black Lives Matter Memoir
By Patrisse Cullors & asha bandele
Narrated by: Patrisse Cullors & Angela Davis
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 »
Fearing the Black Body
The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia
By Sabrina Strings
Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
Length: 7 hours 26 minutes
How the female body has been racialized for over two hundred years There is an obesity epidemic in this country and poor black women are particularly stigmatized as "diseased" and a burden on the public health care system. This is only the most recent incarnation of the fear of fat black women, which Sabrina Strings shows took root more than two... Read more »
Sister Outsider
Essays and Speeches
Crossing Press Feminist: Book #1
By Audre Lorde
Narrated by: Robin Eller
Length: 7 hours 31 minutes
Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action... Read more »
The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Length: 22 hours 40 minutes
The Warmth of Other Suns
“I'm sorry I hadn't gotten to this sooner. Wilkerson pulls together so much of what I already knew about the US but not necessarily why... a great audiobook, too.”
Jamie, Flyleaf Books
A Black Women's History of the United States
REVISIONING HISTORY: Book #5
By Daina Ramey Berry & Kali Nicole Gross
Narrated by: Janina Edwards
Length: 10 hours 2 minutes
2021 NAACP Image Award Nominee: Outstanding Literary Work – Non-Fiction
Honorable Mention for the 2021 Organization of American Historians Darlene Clark Hine Award
A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are—and have always been—instrumental in shaping our country
In... Read more »
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning
By Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
Narrated by: Jason Reynolds
Length: 4 hours 11 minutes
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
“This “not history, history book” is a remix of Ibram X. Kendi’s adult book, Stamped From the Beginning. In Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, Jason Reynolds tells the narrative of racism throughout time with a young adult audience in mind. From the first racist, to slavery, to modern politics, Reynolds revelations surrounding the history of racism and our current struggles with racism are eye-opening and important. Ultimately, he asks each of us if we’re choosing to be a segregationist, an assimilationist, or an anti-racist. A must-read for both young adults and adults.”
Kristina, Auburn Oil Co. Booksellers
The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition
By Michelle Alexander
Narrated by: Karen Chilton
Length: 16 hours 56 minutes
Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexanders The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of... Read more »