Powerful Prose by Poets

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

An Oprah’s Book Club Novel

By: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton & Prentice Onayemi
Length: 29 hours 48 minutes

“This book really won me over with its brilliant writing and entrancing story. Honestly, I was intimidated by the length and title (especially as someone who doesn't love poetry) but the blurb was so good and it sounded right up my alley. The narrators, Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton & Prentice Onayemi, all have gorgeous voices and immediately... Read more

Memorial Drive

A Daughter's Memoir

By: Natasha Trethewey
Narrated by: Natasha Trethewey
Length: 5 hours 9 minutes

“Natasha Trethewey was 19 when her mother was murdered by her stepfather in 1985. For decades, she hid the event, and memories of her mother, in the recesses of her mind while she went on to win a Pulitzer Prize and become the Poet Laureate of the United States. Now, decades later, she opens herself up to her past to produce a harrowing yet... Read more

Bestiary

A Novel

By: K-Ming Chang
Narrated by: Catherine Ho, Nancy Wu & Ren Hanami
Length: 8 hours 59 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • Three generations of Taiwanese American women are haunted by the myths of their homeland in this spellbinding, visceral debut about one family’s queer desires, violent impulses, and buried secrets.

“Gorgeous and gorgeously grotesque . . . Every line of this sensuous, magical-realist marvel is utterly... Read more

Memphis: A Read with Jenna Pick

A Novel

By: Tara M. Stringfellow
Narrated by: Karen Murray, Adenrele Ojo & Tara Stringfellow
Length: 9 hours 23 minutes

“Centering Black joy above all, Stringfellow’s life-affirming debut follows three generations of unforgettable women in a gifted but tested family. Readers will cry, laugh, and sing. I hope we read Stringfellow for a long, long time. Read more

Nightcrawling

A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)

By: Leila Mottley
Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
Length: 10 hours 48 minutes

“At 17, Kiara has had more difficulties than most. Forced to drop out of high school to find work to avoid eviction, she finds getting a job next to impossible. She falls into sex work, which leads her to a sex trafficking ring run by the Oakland police. Mottley presents these circumstances without flinching or hand wringing. Her astute... Read more

When We Were Sisters

A Novel

By: Fatimah Asghar
Narrated by: Farah Kidwai, Kamran Khan & Deepti Gupta
Length: 5 hours 23 minutes

“Brimming with poetic lyricism, When We Were Sisters encourages you to rethink the definitions of 'family' and 'home'! Would highly recommend! Read more

Martyr!

A novel

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

“Exploration of grief, identity, and the search for meaning. The story follows Cyrus Shams, a 27-year-old Iranian-American poet grappling with the aftermath of his mother's death in the 1988 Iran Air Flight 655 tragedy and his father's subsequent decline. As Cyrus embarks on a journey toward sobriety, he becomes obsessed with the concept of... Read more

Original Sins

The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of AmericanRacism

By: Eve L. Ewing
Narrated by: Robin Miles & Eve L. Ewing
Length: 12 hours 14 minutes

“I think everyone who grew up in the American school system should read this book. Both a look at the history of (mis)education to marginalized people to the continuing disenfranchisement of many students in America, I learned a lot from reading this. I will never look at schools or the United States in the same way. An excellent and... Read more

Where There Was Fire

A Novel

By: John Manuel Arias
Narrated by: Adriana Sananes
Length: 10 hours 25 minutes

"Bilingual Spanish/English audiobook narrator Sananes enlivens Costa Rican American poet/writer Arias’ multigenerational saga." —Booklist

A lush and lyrical debut novel about a Costa Rican family wrestling with a deadly secret, from rising literary star John Manuel Arias

Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s... Read more

Salt Houses

By: Hala Alyan
Narrated by: Leila Buck
Length: 12 hours 15 minutes

Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award A Best Book of the Year: NPR • NYLON • Kirkus • Bustle • BookPage "What does home mean when you no longer have a house—or a homeland? This beautiful novel traces one Palestinian family's struggle with that question and how it can haunt generations. … This is an example of... Read more

How We Fight For Our Lives

By: Saeed Jones
Narrated by: Saeed Jones
Length: 5 hours 34 minutes

“Saeed Jones does amazing transformative things with words. This stunning coming-of-age memoir is no exception. Prepare yourself for intense vulnerability as he fights to find and take up space as a Black gay man growing up in the American South. Read more

Sour Heart

Stories

By: Jenny Zhang
Narrated by: Greta Jung, Jenny Zhang, Kim Mai Guest, Nancy Wu, Emily Woo Zeller & Samantha Quan
Length: 9 hours 59 minutes

A sly debut story collection that conjures the experience of adolescence through the eyes of Chinese American girls growing up in New York City—for readers of Zadie Smith, Helen Oyeyemi, and Junot Díaz

A fresh new voice emerges with the arrival of Sour Heart, establishing Jenny Zhang as a frank and subversive interpreter of the immigrant... Read more

How to Pronounce Knife

Stories

By: Souvankham Thammavongsa
Narrated by: James Tang & Kulap Vilaysack
Length: 2 hours 59 minutes

“A great collection of varied stories of Laotian immigrants in Canada. It showcases immigrant lives in their various forms. And lots of food is discussed! Just lovely. Read more

How the Word Is Passed

A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

By: Clint Smith
Narrated by: Clint Smith
Length: 10 hours 6 minutes

“Poet Clint Smith’s personal, intimate examination of sites of historical significance to slavery is as soulful and accessible as it is urgent and important. The opening chapter on Jefferson’s Monticello is one of the best chapters of American historical writing in recent memory, and should be required reading on the legacy of America’s founders.... Read more

A Ghost in the Throat

By: Doireann Ní Ghríofa
Narrated by: Siobhán McSweeney
Length: 7 hours 51 minutes

When we first met, I was a child, and she had been dead for centuries.



On discovering her murdered husband's body, an eighteenth-century Irish noblewoman drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary lament. Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill's poem travels through the centuries, finding its way to a new mother who has narrowly avoided her own... Read more

War and Me

A Memoir

By: Faleeha Hassan
Narrated by: Christine Tawfik
Length: 12 hours 47 minutes

An intimate memoir about coming of age in a tight-knit working-class family during Iraq’s seemingly endless series of wars.Faleeha Hassan became intimately acquainted with loss and fear while growing up in Najaf, Iraq. Now, in a deeply personal account of her life, she remembers those she has loved and lost.As a young woman, Faleeha hated seeing... Read more

How to Say Babylon

A Memoir

By: Safiya Sinclair
Narrated by: Safiya Sinclair
Length: 16 hours 46 minutes

“This book is a true account of a girl growing up under her father's strict Rastafarian beliefs, which turned to fanaticism. Smoking weed was acceptable; eating meat was forbidden. The main tenets of the sect are disdain for 'Babylon,' white people’s influence and Western ways. Yet even in their homeland of Jamaica, Safiya and her siblings were... Read more

The Book of Delights

By: Ross Gay
Narrated by: Ross Gay
Length: 5 hours

“This is one of my favorite books to recommend, especially for someone looking for a gift. Poet and avid gardener Ross Gay, who also is the fantastic narrator, reflects on what delights him over the course of a year. Lyrical, humorous, philosophical and sometimes heartbreaking, these essays may be bite-sized but they will fill you up. A great way... Read more