FROM THE ANNEX

It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful

How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic

By: Jack Lowery
Narrated by: Vikas Adam
Length: 14 hours 9 minutes

The story of art collective Gran Fury—which fought back during the AIDS crisis through direct action and community-made propaganda—offers lessons in love and grief.

In the late 1980s, the AIDS pandemic was annihilating queer people, intravenous drug users, and communities of color in America, and disinformation about the disease ran rampant. Out... Read more

Corporate Rock Sucks

The Rise and Fall of SST Records

By: Jim Ruland
Narrated by: Jim Ruland
Length: 13 hours 54 minutes

A no-holds-barred narrative history of the iconic label that brought the world Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, and more, by the co-author of Do What You Want and My Damage.

Greg Ginn started SST Records in the sleepy beach town of Hermosa Beach, CA, to supply ham radio enthusiasts with tuners and transmitters. But when Ginn... Read more

The Last Days of Roger Federer

And Other Endings

By: Geoff Dyer
Narrated by: Richard Burnip
Length: 11 hours 29 minutes

One of Esquire's best books of spring 2022

An extended meditation on late style and last works from "one of our greatest living critics" (Kathryn Schulz, New York).

When artists and athletes age, what happens to their work? Does it ripen or rot? Achieve a new serenity or succumb to an escalating torment? As our bodies decay, how do we keep on? In... Read more

This Woman's Work

Essays on Music

By: Kim Gordon & Sinead Gleeson
Narrated by: Sinead Gleeson, Cindy Kay, Nikki Massoud & Jeanette Illidge
Length: 8 hours 46 minutes

Edited by iconic musician Kim Gordon and esteemed writer Sinéad Gleeson, this powerful collection of award-winning female creators shares their writing about the female artists that matter most to them. This book is for and about the women who kicked in doors, as pioneers of their craft or making politics central to their sound: those who offer... Read more

Be My Baby

A Memoir

By: Ronnie Spector
Narrated by: Rosie Perez
Length: 10 hours 42 minutes

"This heartfelt, brilliantly narrated memoir — with an introduction by Keith Richards — is one of the best I have ever listened to." -Washington Post

"...actress Rosie Perez stepped in to read the audiobook, and, go figure: She’s a total dream." -Vulture

"With her indefatigable energy, Rosie Perez emerges as the perfect choice to read this... Read more

Shine Bright

A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop

By: Danyel Smith
Narrated by: Danyel Smith
Length: 13 hours 36 minutes

American pop music is arguably this country’s greatest cultural contribution to the world, and its singular voice and virtuosity were created by a shining thread of Black women geniuses stretching back to the country’s founding. This is their surprising, heartbreaking, soaring story—from “one of the generation’s greatest, most insightful, most... Read more

Dilla Time

The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm

By: Dan Charnas
Narrated by: Dan Charnas
Length: 14 hours 52 minutes

This program contains examples of J Dilla's music performed in the studio by drummer Nate Smith and is accompanied by a bonus PDF of maps, photos, guides, and more.

"This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius.” —QUESTLOVE

Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time... Read more

This Is What I Know About Art

Pocket Change Collective

By: Kimberly Drew
Narrated by: Kimberly Drew
Length: 1 hour 3 minutes

"Drew's experience teaches us to embrace what we are afraid of and be true to ourselves. She uses her passion to change the art world and invites us to join her."--Janelle Monáe, award-winning singer, actress, and producer

"Powerful and compelling, this book gives us the courage to discover our own journeys into art."--Hans Ulrich Obrist,... Read more

Funny Weather

Art in an Emergency

By: Olivia Laing
Narrated by: Sophie Aldred
Length: 9 hours 39 minutes

"One of the finest writers of the new non-fiction" (Harper's Bazaar) explores the role of art in the tumultuous twenty-first century.



In the age of Trump and Brexit, every crisis is instantly overridden by the next. The turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century generates anxiety and makes it difficult to know how to react. Olivia... Read more

When Women Invented Television

The Untold Story of the Female Powerhouses Who Pioneered the Way We Watch Today

By: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
Narrated by: Nan McNamara
Length: 9 hours 40 minutes

“Leaps at the throat of television history and takes down the patriarchy with its fervent, inspired prose. When Women Invented Television offers proof that what we watch is a reflection of who we are as a people.” —Nathalia Holt, New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket GirlsNew York Times bestselling author of Seinfeldia Jennifer... Read more

1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows

A Memoir

By: Ai Weiwei
Narrated by: David Shih
Length: 13 hours 7 minutes

The “intimate and expansive” (Time) memoir of “one of the most important artists working in the world today” (Financial Times), telling a remarkable history of China over the last hundred years while also illuminating his artistic process
 
“Poignant . . . An illuminating through-line emerges in the many parallels Ai traces between his life and... Read more

Colorization

One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World

By: Wil Haygood
Narrated by: Cary Hite
Length: 17 hours 36 minutes

ANEW YORK TIMESCRITICS'TOP BOOK OF THE YEAR • BOOKLISTS' EDITOR'S CHOICE •ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

“At once a film book, a history book, and a civil rights book.… Without a doubt, not only the very best film book [but] also one of the best books of the year in any genre. An absolutely essential read.” —Shondaland

This unprecedented... Read more

Ninth Street Women

Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art

By: Mary Gabriel
Narrated by: Lisa Stathoplos
Length: 39 hours 14 minutes

Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times).

Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic,... Read more

The Golden Thread

How Fabric Changed History

By: Kassia St. Clair
Narrated by: Helen Johns
Length: 11 hours 25 minutes

The bestselling author of The Secret Lives of Color returns with this rollicking narrative of the 30,000-year history of fabric, briskly told through thirteen charismatic episodes.



From colorful 30,000-year-old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to the Indian calicoes that sparked the Industrial Revolution, The Golden Thread weaves an... Read more

I Like to Watch

Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution

By: Emily Nussbaum
Narrated by: Emily Nussbaum
Length: 13 hours 42 minutes

From The New Yorker’s fiercely original, Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic, a provocative collection of new and previously published essays arguing that we are what we watch.

“Emily Nussbaum is the perfect critic—smart, engaging, funny, generous, and insightful.”—David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF... Read more

Major Labels

A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres

By: Kelefa Sanneh
Narrated by: Kelefa Sanneh
Length: 18 hours 59 minutes

One of Oprah Daily's 20 Favorite Books of 2021 • Selected as one of Pitchfork's Best Music Books of the Year

“One of the best books of its kind in decades.” —The Wall Street Journal

An epic achievement and a huge delight, the entire history of popular music over the past fifty years refracted through the big genres that have defined and dominated... Read more