The New York Times Book Review: 100 Notable Books of 2020

Yellow Bird

Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country

By: Sierra Crane Murdoch
Narrated by: Sierra Crane Murdoch
Length: 14 hours 56 minutes

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • The gripping true story of a murder on an Indian reservation, and the unforgettable Arikara woman who becomes obsessed with solving it—an urgent work of literary journalism.

“I don’t know a more complicated, original protagonist in literature than Lissa Yellow Bird, or a more dogged reporter in American journalism than... Read more

Writers & Lovers

A Novel

By: Lily King
Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
Length: 8 hours 13 minutes

“Lily King captures what it’s like to be a creative person and not give up on your pursuits no matter what. I was hooked into this one. I really enjoyed this as a writer, but think this is really a great book for those who love contemporary, workplace fiction, literary fiction, and romance. Creatives are a strange breed, and this book shows what... Read more

A Woman Like Her

The Story behind the Honor Killing of a Social Media Star

By: Sanam Maher
Narrated by: Deepti Gupta
Length: 9 hours 21 minutes

The murder of a Pakistani social media star exposes a culture divided between accelerating modernity and imposed traditional values—and the tragedy of those caught in the middle.In 2016, Pakistan’s first social media celebrity, Qandeel Baloch, was murdered in a suspected honor killing. Her death quickly became a media sensation. It was both... Read more

Why I Don't Write

And Other Stories

By: Susan Minot
Narrated by: Alex McKenna, Kristen Sieh & Andrew Eiden
Length: 4 hours 38 minutes

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A “clear-eyed and fearless” (The New York Times Book Review) collection of ten short stories from the award-winning author of Evening

“Tender, precise, emotional, insightful, and funny.”—JULIANNE MOORE
 
A writer dryly catalogs the myriad reasons she cannot write; an artist bicycles through a protest encampment in... Read more

Who Gets In and Why

A Year Inside College Admissions

By: Jeffrey Selingo
Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
Length: 10 hours 17 minutes

From award-winning higher education journalist and New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Selingo comes a revealing look from inside the admissions office—one that identifies surprising strategies that will aid in the college search.

Getting into a top-ranked college has never seemed more impossible, with acceptance rates at some elite... Read more

War: How Conflict Shaped Us

By: Margaret MacMillan
Narrated by: Deepti Gupta
Length: 10 hours 41 minutes

Is peace an aberration? The New York Times bestselling author of Paris 1919 offers a provocative view of war as an essential component of humanity.

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“Margaret MacMillan has produced another seminal work. . . . She is right that we must, more than ever, think about war.... Read more

Wagnerism

Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music

By: Alex Ross
Narrated by: Alex Ross
Length: 28 hours 20 minutes

This program is read by the author, and includes excerpts from Richard Wagner's musical compositions throughout.

A New York Times Notable Books of 2020

Alex Ross, renowned New Yorker music critic and author of the international bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist The Rest Is Noise, reveals how Richard Wagner became the proving ground for... Read more

The Vanishing Half

A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)

By: Brit Bennett
Narrated by: Shayna Small
Length: 11 hours 33 minutes

“This was my first book by Bennett and it made her an auto-buy author. The Vanishing Half may resemble Passing, by Nella Larsen, in theme, but it certainly stands out by itself. It's a book that encompasses so much: life in small villages, race and colorism in the United States, the relationship between siblings, and how one decision may alter... Read more

Until the End of Time

Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe

By: Brian Greene
Narrated by: Brian Greene
Length: 14 hours 36 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A captivating exploration of deep time and humanity's search for purpose from the world-renowned physicist and best-selling author of The Elegant Universe

"Few humans share Greene’s mastery of both the latest cosmological science and English prose." —The New York Times

Until the End of Time is Brian Greene's... Read more

The Undocumented Americans

By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Length: 4 hours 53 minutes

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • One of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard reveals the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans in this deeply personal and groundbreaking portrait of a nation.

“Karla’s book sheds light on people’s personal experiences and allows their stories to be told and their voices to be... Read more

Uncanny Valley

A Memoir

By: Anna Wiener
Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar
Length: 8 hours 44 minutes

“Like Joan Didion or Renata Adler, Ben Lerner or Sally Rooney, Anna Wiener writes with dead-on specificity, scalpel-sharp analysis, deep sensitivity, and an eye for the absurd. She headed west into the modern gold rush that is the tech boom and now returns with gleaming ingots of insight, weaving tales of a strange land where boy-CEOs ride... Read more

Tokyo Ueno Station (National Book Award Winner)

A Novel

By: Yu Miri
Narrated by: Johnny Heller
Length: 3 hours 58 minutes

WINNER OF THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN TRANSLATED LITERATURE

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

A surreal, devastating story of a homeless ghost who haunts one of Tokyo's busiest train stations.

Kazu is dead. Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Japanese Emperor, his life is tied by a series of coincidences to the Imperial... Read more

This Is All I Got

A New Mother's Search for Home

By: Lauren Sandler
Narrated by: Lauren Sandler
Length: 10 hours 3 minutes

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • From an award-winning journalist, a poignant and gripping immersion in the life of a young, homeless single mother amid her quest to find stability and shelter in the richest city in America

LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD • “Riveting . . . a remarkable feat of reporting.”—The New York Times

Camila is... Read more

The Third Rainbow Girl

The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia

By: Emma Copley Eisenberg
Narrated by: Emma Copley Eisenberg
Length: 10 hours 32 minutes

“In this thoughtful and immersive chronicle of the 1980 murders that thrust West Virginia’s Pocahontas County into the national spotlight, Eisenberg seeks to better understand not only the crimes and their aftermath, but also the lasting impact the region (which she came to know independent of her inquiry) had on her. A complex and captivating... Read more

The Splendid and the Vile

A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

By: Erik Larson
Narrated by: John Lee & Erik Larson
Length: 17 hours 48 minutes

“Larson does a splendid job again of creating the personal story out of a larger historical event. Here he concentrates on the Churchills and the two years of the London blitz. By using diaries and letters, he tells of the immense loss of life and property. He also gives voice to the great spirit of the people who endured this. We are transported... Read more

Soul Full of Coal Dust

A Fight for Breath and Justice in Appalachia

By: Chris Hamby
Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann
Length: 14 hours 1 minute

In a devastating and urgent work of investigative journalism, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hamby uncovers the tragic resurgence of black lung disease in Appalachia, its Big Coal cover-up, and the resilient mining communities who refuse to back down. Decades ago, a grassroots uprising forced Congress to enact long-overdue legislation designed to... Read more

Sisters

A Novel

By: Daisy Johnson
Narrated by: Daisy Edgar-Jones & Anna Koval
Length: 4 hours 34 minutes

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

“[A] skillfully crafted gothic mystery . . . Johnson pulls off a great feat in this book.” —Financial Times

“It reminded me, in its general refusal to play nice, of early Ian McEwan.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Johnson crafts an aching thriller about the dangers of loving too intensely.” —Time

From a... Read more

The Sirens of Mars

Searching for Life on Another World

By: Sarah Stewart Johnson
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
Length: 7 hours 56 minutes

“I loved this quietly gorgeous book. Sarah Johnson Stewart brings her characters to vivid life —philosophers and scientists from the annals of Western history, family and teachers from her own life, or the dusty dunes of the ‘red planet’ itself — with clear, almost poetic prose, detailing the history of humanity’s fascination with Mars, as well... Read more

Shakespeare in a Divided America

What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future

By: James Shapiro
Narrated by: Fred Sanders
Length: 9 hours 11 minutes

One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year • A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • A New York Times Notable Book

A timely exploration of what Shakespeare’s plays reveal about our divided land.

“In this sprightly and enthralling book . . . Shapiro amply demonstrates [that] for Americans the politics of Shakespeare are not... Read more

The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison

By: Ralph Ellison
Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman & John F. Callahan
Length: 49 hours 4 minutes

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A radiant collection of letters from the renowned author of Invisible Man that traces the life and mind of a giant of American literature, with insights into the riddle of identity, the writer’s craft, and the story of a changing nation over six decades

These extensive and revealing letters span the life of Ralph... Read more