National Book Awards Finalists 2024

James

A Novel

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

“LOVED this book. SO good. The narration was wonderful and the story shoots to classic status in my mind. If we teach Mark Twain/Huck Finn in school, James should be taught right along with it. The retelling of Huck Finn from the slave Jim's perspective, this book is so impactful and felt much more true to the life and times. If you're... Read more

Kareem Between

By: Shifa Saltagi Safadi
Narrated by: Peter Romano
Length: 3 hours 20 minutes

This award-winning, heartfelt coming-of-age novel in verse tells the powerful story of a seventh-grade Syrian American boy and his struggles, big and small, as he navigates middle school.

"The exact type of book I would've loved, and needed, as a kid." —Jasmine Warga, New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Honor recipient for Other Words... Read more

Soldiers and Kings

Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling

By: Jason De León
Narrated by: Jason De León
Length: 9 hours 57 minutes

“This was a riveting read on the complex issues of migration and human smuggling. As the author points out, there is a difference between human trafficking and smuggling and this book, gives a human face to those smugglers. These guides, are often driven by poverty and desperation, to make a life for themselves, similar to their clients. The... Read more

Martyr!

A novel

By: Kaveh Akbar
Narrated by: Arian Moayed
Length: 10 hours 39 minutes

“Do not speed this one up! Narrator Arian Moayed is meant to be heard at 1.0. His reading performance is brilliant and so is the book. I listened to this one in two days, walking, running, baking -- anything to not have to hit stop. The writing is beautiful, the dialogue a treat, and the characters fully realized. Read more

All Fours

A Novel

By: Miranda July
Narrated by: Miranda July
Length: 10 hours 13 minutes

“A semi-famous wife and mother embarks on a cross-country trip, but only makes it about 30 minutes from home. There she sets up camp in a motel and goes on a different type of journey. NY Times called it "the first great peri-menopausal novel" and that's dead on. Deals with issues of marriage, motherhood, sexuality, and desire. AND the audiobook... Read more

Circle of Hope

A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church

By: Eliza Griswold
Narrated by: Jennifer Pickens
Length: 11 hours 57 minutes

A Pulitzer Prize winner’s intimate portrait of a church, its radical mission, and its riveting crisis.

"Jennifer Pickens adopts an even-keeled reportorial cadence and timbre well suited to Griswold's immersion journalism, which recounts the rise and fall of Circle of Hope."—AudioFile

“The revolution I wanted to be part of was in the church.”... Read more

Unshrinking

How to Face Fatphobia

By: Kate Manne
Narrated by: Kate Manne
Length: 6 hours 38 minutes

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • The definitive takedown of fatphobia, drawing on personal experience as well as rigorous research to expose how size discrimination harms everyone, and how to combat it—from the acclaimed author of Down Girl and Entitled

“An elegant, fierce, and profound argument for fighting fat oppression in ourselves, our... Read more

Knife

Meditations After an Attempted Murder

By: Salman Rushdie
Narrated by: Salman Rushdie
Length: 6 hours 22 minutes

“Markedly human and open. Rushdie reads us vulnerably into his experience and ponders about our broken and somehow beautiful world. Read more

Whiskey Tender

A Memoir

By: Deborah Taffa
Narrated by: Charley Flyte
Length: 11 hours 37 minutes

Finalist for the National Book AwardLonglisted for a Carnegie Medal for ExcellenceWinner of the Southwest Book AwardA Best Book of the Year: Washington Post, Esquire, Time, The Atlantic, NPR, and Publishers WeeklyAn Oprah Daily ""Best New Book"" and ""Riveting Nonfiction and Memoir You Need to Read"" * A New York Times ""New Book to Read"" * A... Read more

mother

Penguin Poets

By: m.s. RedCherries
Narrated by: m.s. RedCherries
Length: 2 hours 3 minutes

FINALIST FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY

“This is an incredibly powerful book of poetry that is also fiction but it is so real, and singular, as to defy definition, and I defy anyone to read it and come away unchanged.” —Tommy Orange, author of There There and Wandering Stars

A stunning, multimorphic work of poetry and prose about... Read more

Modern Poetry

Poems

By: Diane Seuss
Narrated by: Diane Seuss
Length: 2 hours 38 minutes

Diane Seuss's signature voice—audacious in its honesty, virtuosic in its artistry, outsider in its attitude—has become one of the most original in contemporary poetry. Her latest collection takes its title, Modern Poetry, from the first textbook Seuss encountered as a child and the first poetry course she took in college, as an enrapt but... Read more

Aednan

An Epic

By: Linnea Axelsson
Narrated by: Angela Dawe
Length: 2 hours 48 minutes

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • The winner of Sweden’s most prestigious literary award makes her American debut with an epic, multigenerational novel-in-verse about two Sámi families and their quest to stay together across a century of migration, violence, and colonial trauma.

“Crystalline prose that reads like poetry and myth at once.... Read more

The Villain's Dance

By: Fiston Mwanza Mujila
Narrated by: Amir Abdullah
Length: 6 hours 46 minutes

Full of wit, music, and a rollicking cast of characters, The Villain's Dance shows Fiston Mwanza Mujila is back with a bang.



Zaire. Late 90's. Mobutu's thirty-year reign is tottering. In Lubumbashi, the stubbornly homeless Sanza has fallen in with a trio of veteran street kids led by the devious Ngungi. A chance encounter with the mysterious... Read more

Buffalo Dreamer

By: Violet Duncan
Narrated by: Ashley Callingbull
Length: 2 hours 9 minutes

“I loved this layered, impactful, heartbreaking and joyful story. Read more

The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky

By: Josh Galarza
Narrated by: Robb Moreira
Length: 9 hours 28 minutes

“Wow. That was incredibly profound for such a wacky title - don’t let it fool you into thinking it’s all foody sci-fi fun! While there is definitely a lighthearted element to fall back on, the depth of emotion this book uncovers is impressive. I’m blown away by the realistic struggle and support a teen can endure while managing an eating disorder... Read more

The First State of Being

By: Erin Entrada Kelly
Narrated by: Ramon de Ocampo
Length: 5 hours 4 minutes

“I absolutely judged this book by its cover. Thankfully, the story lives up to the beauty of the packaging. In 1999 two normal kids have their lives interrupted by a time traveling teenager whose dearest wish is to visit a mall. This seemingly mundane quest and subsequent friendship has a larger influence on the future than any of our main... Read more

The Unboxing of a Black Girl

By: Angela Shanté
Narrated by: Angela Shanté
Length: 1 hour 17 minutes

A LOVE LETTER TO BLACK GIRLS

Set in New York City in the ’90s, Angela Shanté’s poems and stories paint a mosaic of childhood that is shaped by the past and reverberates into the present. As Shanté navigates the city through memory, this timeless book illuminates the places where Black girls are nurtured or boxed in, through stories and poems... Read more