Our Favorite James Baldwin Audiobooks

Go Tell It on the Mountain

A Novel

Vintage International

By: James Baldwin
Narrated by: Joe Morton & Roxane Gay
Length: 8 hours 54 minutes

“The narration made this book feel like a whole new story from when I read the physical copy years ago. I cannot recommend this book enough to first time Baldwin readers. Read more

Giovanni's Room

A Novel

Vintage International

By: James Baldwin
Narrated by: Matt Bomer & Kevin Young
Length: 6 hours 4 minutes

“Oh wow, this one hurt...Rife with toxic masculinity, internalized and outward homophobia, European frankness, and American artifice, this 1950's queer romance will leave you hurting, in a claustrophobic Parisian flat, drunk, and without a cent to your name. Read more

Notes of a Native Son

By: James Baldwin
Narrated by: Ron Butler
Length: 5 hours 3 minutes

At last, a new audio edition of the book many have called James Baldwin's most influential work!Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained... Read more

The Fire Next Time

By: James Baldwin
Narrated by: Jesse Martin
Length: 2 hours 25 minutes

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - The book that galvanized the nation, gave voice to the emerging civil rights movement in the 1960s—and still lights the way to understanding race in America today. - “The finest essay I’ve ever read.” —Ta-Nehisi CoatesAt once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the... Read more

Another Country

By: James Baldwin
Narrated by: Dion Graham
Length: 16 hours 13 minutes

“I’m reading Another Country by Baldwin because it’s personally important for me to read stories and narratives from the past that focus on race and sexuality. It helps me process and compare/contrast the past with present. 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

Recitatif

A Story

By: Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Zadie Smith & Bahni Turpin
Length: 1 hour 54 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A beautiful, arresting story about race and the relationships that shape us through life by the legendary Nobel Prize winner—for the first time in a beautifully produced stand-alone edition, with an introduction by Zadie Smith
 
“A puzzle of a story, then—a game.... When [Morrison] called Recitatif an ‘experiment’ she... Read more

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By: Maya Angelou
Narrated by: Maya Angelou
Length: 10 hours 10 minutes

“A lot can be said about this autobiography - it is one of the best I have ever read. The stories are personal and well accounted for, and the reader has no choice but to regard her life and strength through hardship so inspiring. Before reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, I had a good idea of Angelou through her poetry and lectures. Her... Read more

All About Love

New Visions

By: bell hooks
Narrated by: January LaVoy
Length: 6 hours 9 minutes

“There’s nothing I can say about bell hooks that hasn’t already been said. This book is excellent and did cause me to think about love in a different way. It’s beautifully-written and philosophically brilliant. Read more

Speeches by Malcolm X - The Ultimate Collection

By: Malcolm X
Narrated by: Malcolm X
Length: 17 hours 47 minutes

"Any kind of movement for freedom of Black people based solely within the confines of America is absolutely doomed to fail."
Speeches and interviews of Malcolm X. Read more