2023 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence Longlist

An Immense World

How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

By: Ed Yong
Narrated by: Ed Yong
Length: 14 hours 17 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “thrilling” (The New York Times), “dazzling” (The Wall Street Journal) tour of the radically different ways that animals perceive the world that will fill you with wonder and forever alter your perspective, by Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist Ed Yong
 
“One of this year’s finest works of narrative... Read more

The Swimmers

A novel (CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE WINNER)

By: Julie Otsuka
Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
Length: 4 hours 5 minutes

“The Swimmers is a gorgeously written book about a group bound together by a public pool. Over and over the swimmers come together, defined by their lanes and their habits. When a crack appears on the bottom of the pool the swimmers' shared world is slowly shattered. They are forced into the harsh dry world above where Alice is losing her memory,... Read more

Greenland

A Novel

By: David Santos Donaldson
Narrated by: Theo Solomon
Length: 10 hours

Shortlisted for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction A dazzling, debut novel-within-a-novel in the vein of The Prophets and Memorial, about a young author writing about the secret love affair between E.M. Forster and Mohammed el Adl—in which Mohammed’s story collides with his own, blending fact and fiction.In 1919, Mohammed... Read more

Vagina Obscura

An Anatomical Voyage

By: Rachel E. Gross
Narrated by: Siho Ellsmore
Length: 10 hours 50 minutes

“A wild journey into a long-neglected and maligned body part. I found myself equally enraptured and enraged the whole way through. Complete with haunting illustrations by Armando Veve, Vagina Obscura provides scientific, philosophical, psychological, and historical perspective on the past, present, and future of the vagina. Read more

Night of the Living Rez

By: Morgan Talty
Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
Length: 7 hours 6 minutes

“The twelve stories intersect creating more of a novel than a set of separate stories. I love the characters--Paige, Frick, Fellis, grandmother, mom, Tyson, and JP, all of them doing the best they can under the circumstances. I think what I love most is that the stories are told without judgment or snark but with compassion and understanding.... Read more

Constructing a Nervous System

A Memoir

By: Margo Jefferson
Narrated by: Karen Murray
Length: 5 hours 1 minute

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From "one of our most nuanced thinkers on the intersections of race, class, and feminism" (Cathy Park Hong, New York Times bestselling author of Minor Feelings) comes a memoir "as electric as the title suggests" (Maggie Nelson, author of On Freedom).

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, TIME... Read more

Our Wives Under the Sea

By: Julia Armfield
Narrated by: Annabel Baldwin & Robyn Holdaway
Length: 6 hours 6 minutes

“For quite some time, Our Wives Under the Sea has been one of my favorite books to recommend. Despite this, I still struggle to explain this plot without eventually resorting to saying something like, “Just read it. Trust me.” This little book is a short read, best described as an agonizingly surreal depiction of a slowly unraveling, completely... Read more

By Hands Now Known

Jim Crow's Legal Executioners

By: Margaret A. Burnham
Narrated by: Diana Blue
Length: 10 hours 59 minutes

A paradigm-shifting investigation of Jim Crow–era violence, the legal apparatus that sustained it, and its enduring legacy, from a renowned legal scholar.



If the law cannot protect a person from a lynching, then isn't lynching the law?



In By Hands Now Known, Margaret A. Burnham, director of Northeastern University's Civil Rights and Restorative... Read more

The School for Good Mothers

A Novel

By: Jessamine Chan
Narrated by: Catherine Ho
Length: 11 hours 56 minutes

“This book was absolutely wild. Chan really makes you examine motherhood and how subjective it can be. With her fictional school and its excessive tactics, you wonder how you can judge mothers - is it possible to learn how to be a 'good' mother and what does 'good' even mean. Every moment of this book will stress you out a little (in a good way)... Read more

Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

By: Hernan Diaz
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Jonathan Davis, Mozhan Marnò & Orlagh Cassidy
Length: 10 hours 20 minutes

“Who can you trust in the end? This 'brilliant literary puzzle' tells the story of the legendary Wall Street Tycoon Andrew Bevel and his enigmatic wife Mildred. Told in four interlocking parts, Trust is a novel within a novel, the fragmented notes for a ghostwritten memoir that Andrew hopes will set the record straight, the ghostwriter's own... Read more

The Vortex

A True Story of History’s Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation

By: Scott Carney & Jason Miklian
Narrated by: Vikas Adam
Length: 15 hours 24 minutes

The deadliest storm in modern history ripped Pakistan in two and led the world to the brink of nuclear war when American and Soviet forces converged in the Bay of BengalIn November 1970, a storm set a collision course with the most densely populated coastline on Earth. Over the course of just a few hours, the Great Bhola Cyclone would kill... Read more

The Impossible City

A Hong Kong Memoir

By: Karen Cheung
Narrated by: Karen Cheung
Length: 11 hours 3 minutes

A boldly rendered—and deeply intimate—account of Hong Kong today, from a resilient young woman whose stories explore what it means to survive in a city teeming with broken promises.

“[A] pulsing debut . . . about what it means to find your place in a city as it vanishes before your eyes.”—The New York Times Book Review

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF... Read more

The Candy House

A Novel

By: Jennifer Egan
Narrated by: Michael Boatman, Nicole Lewis, Thomas Sadoski, Colin Donnell, Griffin Newman, Rebecca Lowman, Jackie Sanders, Lucy Liu, Christian Barillas, Tara Lynne Barr, Alex Allwine, Emily Tremaine, Kyle Beltran, Dan Bittner, Chris Henry Coffey, Ali Andre Ali, Corey Brill, Danny Campbell, George Newbern, Timothy Andrés Pabon, Gibson Frazier, Allison Light & Travis Tonn
Length: 11 hours 11 minutes

“Egan weaves together these seemingly disparate characters and storylines into a stunning ending. The Candy House is about family, connection, legacy, technology, and so much more. It is her best work yet. Read more

Every Good Boy Does Fine

A Love Story, in Music Lessons

By: Jeremy Denk
Narrated by: Jeremy Denk
Length: 13 hours 16 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A beautifully written, witty memoir that is also an immersive exploration of classical music—its power, its meanings, and what it can teach us about ourselves—from the MacArthur “Genius” Grant–winning pianist

LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL • “Jeremy Denk has written a love letter to the music, and especially... Read more

If I Survive You

By: Jonathan Escoffery
Narrated by: Torian Brackett
Length: 8 hours

“A compelling collection of stories about blended identities, race, parental favoritism and financial struggles. A Jamaican family moves to Miami, but their youngest son struggles to fit in, constantly wondering who he is, always feeling like an outsider even within his own family. Beautiful writing. Read more

Calling for a Blanket Dance

By: Oscar Hokeah
Narrated by: Oscar Hokeah & Rainy Fields
Length: 6 hours 49 minutes

“This is an incredible family epic in sleek, unpretentious form. Hokeah uses his characters as crisp prisms through which we see the nature of family: vicious and precious, mournful and joyful, everything in-between. A remarkable debut! Read more

The Kingdom of Sand

A Novel

By: Andrew Holleran
Narrated by: David Pittu
Length: 8 hours 31 minutes

This program is read by award-winning actor and two-time Tony Award–nominee David Pittu.

Andrew Holleran’s unique literary voice is on full display in this poignant story of lust, dread, and desire—the first novel in thirteen years from one of the most acclaimed gay authors of our time.

The Kingdom of Sand features a nameless narrator who has... Read more

Indigenous Continent

The Epic Contest for North America

By: Pekka Hamalainen
Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
Length: 18 hours 44 minutes

There is an old, deeply rooted story about America that goes like this: Columbus "discovers" a strange continent and brings back tales of untold riches. The European empires rush over, eager to stake out as much of this astonishing "New World" as possible. Though Indigenous peoples fight back, they cannot stop the onslaught. White imperialists... Read more

Demon Copperhead

A Novel

By: Barbara Kingsolver
Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
Length: 21 hours 2 minutes

“Demon Copperhead is without a doubt one of the best books I've ever read! The narrator is the perfect! Everything about this book is perfection. Pro-tip count how many times you say, "oh no Demon." Read more

Stay True

A Memoir (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

By: Hua Hsu
Narrated by: Hua Hsu
Length: 5 hours 28 minutes

“Heartbreakingly honest, this look at friendship and grief is beautifully written and full of love. Hsu perfectly captures what it's like to be in college and navigate relationships in your early twenties. Read more