Audiobooks Inspired by Cowboy Carter

Bluebird, Bluebird

A Highway 59 Novel: Book #1

By: Attica Locke
Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
Length: 9 hours 24 minutes

“Loved this audiobook. Darren Matthews is such a compelling protagonist, and the cast of characters, pacing, etc of this novel is terrific. Also thought the reader did an excellent job. Now on to Heaven My Home! Read more

Goodbye Earl

A Revenge Novel

By: Leesa Cross-Smith
Narrated by: Mela Lee, Kamali Minter, Sarah Beth Goer, Erin Bennett, Traci Odom & Julian Thomas
Length: 12 hours 25 minutes

Four women take fate into their own hands in this big-hearted story of friendship, resilience, and revenge on monstrous men, from the award-winning author of Half-Blown Rose. 

Taking inspiration from the infamous, empowering song, Goodbye Earl follows four best friends through two unforgettable summers, fifteen years apart.
 
In 2004, Rosemarie,... Read more

Seven Days in June

By: Tia Williams
Narrated by: Mela Lee
Length: 10 hours 32 minutes

“Enjoyed getting to see how each of the main characters were settled in their lives before they’re reunited. The slow reveal of what broke them up was a good decision. Second chance romance done right; and side characters that were just as compelling as the leads. Read more

Dyscalculia

A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation

By: Camonghne Felix
Narrated by: Camonghne Felix
Length: 2 hours 7 minutes

“Powerful . . . a poetic meditation on how love or attempts at loving can drive us to madness.”—The Boston Globe
 
“We learn about the cracks in Felix’s upbringing, the hurt from the breakup itself, and a pain that spans a lifetime, all through a sharp millennial voice.”—Time

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, Chicago Public Library, Electric... Read more

Friday Black

Stories

By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Narrated by: Corey Allen & Carra Patterson
Length: 7 hours 8 minutes

“What a breathtaking collection. These stories are so artfully crafted and imaginatively constructed that at first blush they carry the same satisfaction as the best social satire out there and all the respect that goes along with the label; this collection, however, commands that and more. It is wrenching in its acute, precise indictment of... Read more

Black Cowboys of the Old West

True, Sensational, and Little-Known Stories From History

By: Tricia Martineau Wagner
Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
Length: 4 hours 35 minutes

The word cowboy conjures up vivid images of rugged men on saddled horses—men lassoing cattle, riding bulls, or brandishing guns in a shoot-out. White men, as Hollywood remembers them. What is woefully missing from these scenes is their counterparts: the black cowboys who made up one-fourth of the wranglers and rodeo riders. This book tells their... Read more

Somebody's Daughter

A Memoir

By: Ashley C. Ford
Narrated by: Ashley C. Ford
Length: 8 hours 44 minutes

"Ashley C. Ford brings listeners into her life in this outstanding coming-of-age story...Listeners will cheer as Ford attends college and weep as she visits her father in prison, and when he is finally released." -- AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner

This program is read by the author, and includes a bonus conversation between the author... 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

Another Brooklyn

A Novel

By: Jacqueline Woodson
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Length: 2 hours 43 minutes

“This lovely novel packs so much more punch, so much more emotion than many books three times its size. The lyrical quality of the diction had me swooning and the shifts back and forth in time only highlighted the haunting sense of history. A brilliant and heartbreaking meditation on how we process loss. Read more

Sula

By: Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Toni Morrison
Length: 5 hours 46 minutes

Sula and Nel are born in the Bottom—a small town at the top of a hill. Sula is wild, and daring; she does what she wants, while Nel is well-mannered, a mamma’s girl with a questioning heart. Growing up they forge a bond stronger than anything, stronger even than the dark secret they have to bear. Strong enough, it seems, to last a... Read more

Sula

By: Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Jane Santos
Length: 5 hours 49 minutes

Una obra maestra de la ganadora del Premio Nobel de Literatura 1993. Esta es la historia de Sula y Nel, dos niñas que crecen juntas en un barrio de negros, compartiendo sus sueños e ilusiones. Ambas son precoces y curiosas, hijas de familias pobres. Pero el tiempo pasa y, cuando Nel se casa, Sula se marcha del suburbio para ir a la universidad y... Read more

James

A Novel

By: Percival Everett
Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
Length: 7 hours 48 minutes

“This re-telling of Huckleberry Finn, from the perspective of Jim, gives the reader much to think about. It’s a perfect read for a book club discussion! I give this book 10 ++++ stars. Read more

Come and Get It: A GMA Book Club Pick

By: Kiley Reid
Narrated by: Nicole Lewis
Length: 12 hours 52 minutes

“Kiley Reid is the master of social tension, and the tension is delicately taut in Come and Get It. The narration is superb, capturing the nuances of various Southern accents that really gave me #BamaRush TikTok vibes in the very best way. Read more

Shoutin' in the Fire

An American Epistle

By: Danté Stewart
Narrated by: Danté Stewart
Length: 6 hours 54 minutes

A stirring meditation of being Black and learning to love in a loveless, anti-Black world

“Only once in a lifetime do we come across a writer like Danté Stewart, so young and yet so masterful with the pen. This work is a thing to make dungeons shake and hearts thunder.”—Robert Jones, Jr., New York Times bestselling author of The Prophets

In... Read more

A Little Devil in America

Notes in Praise of Black Performance

By: Hanif Abdurraqib
Narrated by: JD Jackson
Length: 9 hours 38 minutes

“I loved Hanif Abdurraqib’s A Little Devil in America. This essential book explores a handful of Black performers—some world-famous, others everyday people—across a wide variety of disciplines, seamlessly woven into snippets and stories from Hanif’s own life about Black culture and the performance of Blackness. JD Jackson’s low and easy narration... Read more

If Beale Street Could Talk

A Novel

By: James Baldwin
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

From one of the most important writers of the twentieth century comes a stunning love story about a young Black woman whose life is torn apart when her lover is wrongly accused of a crime—"a moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless” (The New York Times Book Review)."One of the best... Read more

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

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

“The warmth and compassion of these stories can't be overstated - they made me hungry in every way possible. Deesha Philyaw sets up snapshots that feel deeply intimate without voyeurism, universal without vagueness, and Janina Edwards brings it home. Read more