Social Science bestsellers

Braiding Sweetgrass

Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Length: 16 hours 44 minutes

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our... Read more

The Age of Magical Overthinking

Notes on Modern Irrationality

By: Amanda Montell
Narrated by: Amanda Montell
Length: 6 hours 5 minutes

“Exploring our current culture of overthinking and the language surrounding it, these essays are fascinating and enlightening. Peppered with anecdotes and self-evaluation, this is the book Montell was meant to write. Read more

The Anthropocene Reviewed

Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

By: John Green
Narrated by: John Green
Length: 10 hours 42 minutes

“A continuation of John Green's podcast of the same name, this audiobook is engaging, intriguing and hard to put down. Read by the author, this book resonated with me on so many levels and left me with food for thought. 5 stars. Read more

There's Always This Year

On Basketball and Ascension

By: Hanif Abdurraqib
Narrated by: Hanif Abdurraqib
Length: 8 hours 40 minutes

“Using basketball as a vehicle for reflection of East Columbus history and personal memoir, There’s Always This Year is a triumph of contemplative, emotionally-rich writing that will have you wiping tears and on the edge of your seat. Read more

Talking to Strangers

What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know

By: Malcolm Gladwell
Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
Length: 8 hours 57 minutes

“Instead of reading this important book outright, Gladwell uses a podcast-style format to really engage the listener. Thoroughly engaging, interesting, and enlightening, audio is definitely an excellent way to read this book. Read more

How to Be an Antiracist

By: Ibram X. Kendi
Narrated by: Ibram X. Kendi
Length: 10 hours 29 minutes

“Among the multi-faceted array of antiracist literature newly published in the last two years, Ibram X. Kendi’s How To Be an Antiracist stands alone as a definitive source of history and socio-political critique, while offering a new paradigm of thought aimed at paving the way for correcting centuries of social injustice. Hearing this visionary... Read more

Poverty, by America

By: Matthew Desmond
Narrated by: Dion Graham
Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

“Desmond challenges readers to recognize how they benefit from poverty through low cost goods, services, and systemic structures that benefit those who already have resources (no surprise - they also have roots in racism and misogyny!). He reminds us that both the rich and poor benefit from government assistance, but only programs for the poor... Read more

Caste (Oprah's Book Club)

The Origins of Our Discontents

By: Isabel Wilkerson
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Length: 15 hours 10 minutes

“This is an important and beautifully written book examining the links and common elements between the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany. Highly recommended. Read more

Black Disability Politics

By: Sami Schalk
Narrated by: Imani Barbarin
Length: 8 hours

In Black Disability Politics Sami Schalk explores how issues of disability have been and continue to be central to Black activism from the 1970s to the present. Schalk shows how Black people have long engaged with disability as a political issue deeply tied to race and racism. She points out that this work has not been recognized as part of the... Read more

Doppelganger

A Trip into the Mirror World

By: Naomi Klein
Narrated by: Naomi Klein
Length: 14 hours 47 minutes

“What an evocative book, especially as read by the author! Come for the critical cultural analysis and stay for Klein's thoughtful, generous, hopeful conclusions. Read more

The Radium Girls

The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women

By: Kate Moore
Narrated by: Angela Brazil
Length: 15 hours 52 minutes

1917. As a war raged across the world, young American women flocked to work, painting watches, clocks and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job, lucrative and glamorous—the girls themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered head to toe in the dust from the paint. They were the radium girls.

As the... Read more

Liliana's Invincible Summer (Pulitzer Prize winner)

A Sister's Search for Justice

By: Cristina Rivera Garza
Narrated by: Victoria Villarreal
Length: 8 hours 32 minutes

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “A searing account of grief and the quest to bring her sister’s murderer to justice years after the fact” (The Boston Globe), from “one of Mexico’s greatest living writers” (Jonathan Lethem).
 
“Part memoir, part true-crime story, Garza’s chronicle is both... Read more

Cultish

The Language of Fanaticism

By: Amanda Montell
Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
Length: 8 hours 21 minutes

“The Manson family, Scientology, Crossfit, and Mary Kay all have something in common. They all use language and rhetoric found in cults. The world cult is tossed around so lightly and Cultish is here to show you why. This book defines and explains the power of emphatic language and how companies and cults use it at others detriment. It also has a... Read more

Feel It All

A Therapist’s Guide to Reimagining Your Relationship with Sex

By: Casey Tanner
Narrated by: Casey Tanner
Length: 6 hours 19 minutes

A groundbreaking guide to sexuality that dispels the stale cultural attitudes about sex that leave too many feeling inadequate, and offers an expansive, attachment-based framework to free us and develop bolder, more satisfying relationships with our sexual selves.When it comes to sex, most people feel insecure. But it’s not because we’re... Read more

Morning After the Revolution

Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History

By: Nellie Bowles
Narrated by: Nellie Bowles
Length: 6 hours 59 minutes

From former New York Times reporter Nellie Bowles, a look at how some of the most educated people in America lost their minds—and how she almost did, too.

As a Hillary voter, a New York Times reporter, and frequent attendee at her local gay bars, Nellie Bowles fit right in with her San Francisco  neighbors and friends—until she started... Read more

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning

By: Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
Narrated by: Jason Reynolds
Length: 4 hours 11 minutes

“The history of Black Americans from two people who get it. But this isn't just a history book: it's a recount of why America is the way that it is today, why we have people who think they way they do, and why we have a racist in the White House. Jason Reynolds melodic voice comes through in audio and on the pages. You are guaranteed to learn... Read more

The Warmth of Other Suns

The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

By: Isabel Wilkerson
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Length: 22 hours 40 minutes

“I'm sorry I hadn't gotten to this sooner. Wilkerson pulls together so much of what I already knew about the US but not necessarily why... a great audiobook, too. Read more

The Dawn of Everything

A New History of Humanity

By: David Graeber & David Wengrow
Narrated by: Mark Williams
Length: 24 hours 13 minutes

“In this brilliant and sometimes funny reexamination of human history, the authors argue that we are less free than our ancestors, and that it was not inevitable "progress" that brought us here. Using evidence from the last few decades of archeology, the authors contend that the centralization of power in the hands of a few was often avoided in... Read more

Knife

Meditations After an Attempted Murder

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

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him
 
On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the... Read more

The 1619 Project

A New Origin Story

By: Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman & Jake Silverstein
Narrated by: Nikole Hannah-Jones & Full Cast
Length: 18 hours 56 minutes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • NPR • Marie Claire
 
In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of... Read more

Between Two Kingdoms

A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

By: Suleika Jaouad
Narrated by: Suleika Jaouad
Length: 13 hours 2 minutes

“Wow, what a story. This was an extremely moving memoir about a devastating but successful fight with cancer and the toll it takes on your life and relationships. But more than that, it also bring you on a journey of moving on and re-learning how to live your life. Jaouad is a fabulous writer and really take the reader on the journey with her.... Read more

Magical/Realism

Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders

By: Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
Narrated by: Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
Length: 12 hours 24 minutes

A brilliant, singular collection of essays that looks to music, fantasy, and pop culture—from Beyoncé to Game of Thrones—to excavate and reimagine what has been disappeared by migration and colonialism.

Upon becoming a new mother, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal was called to Mexico to reconnect with her ancestors and recover her grandmother’s... Read more

White Fragility

Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

By: Dr. Robin DiAngelo
Narrated by: Amy Landon
Length: 6 hours 20 minutes

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.

In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white... Read more

ADHD for Smart Ass Women

How to Fall in Love with Your Neurodivergent Brain

By: Tracy Otsuka
Narrated by: Tracy Otsuka
Length: 7 hours 33 minutes

An unprecedented guide for any woman with ADHD looking to celebrate her unique brilliance and to embark on a journey of self-discovery.ADHD is one of the most common neurological disor­ders in the United States—yet a staggering 75 percent of girls and women remain undiagnosed. Due to the gen­der gap in medical research, which does not account... Read more

The Color of Law

A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

By: Richard Rothstein
Narrated by: Adam Grupper
Length: 9 hours 32 minutes

“This is one of the most informative and thought-provoking books I’ve ever read. Rothstein masterfully delivers information on the way local and federal governments reinforce segregated neighborhoods, racial zoning, and support violence to keep African Americans out of certain areas. Full of eye-opening research, this is the kind of book everyone... Read more

Me and White Supremacy

Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

By: Layla F. Saad
Narrated by: Layla F. Saad
Length: 5 hours 19 minutes

“Want to learn how to be a good ancestor? Need to address your privilege and feel uncomfortable about talking about racism? You need to read and work through Me and White Supremacy. 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

“Smith has crafted a resource, narrative and detailed explanation into how we teach the legacy of slavery. He recounts visits from everywhere from NYC to the Whitney Plantation, integrating stories of people and visitors today. This book is lays a beautiful written foundation for interrogating the history we've been taught. Particularly... Read more

Come As You Are: Revised and Updated

The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life

By: Emily Nagoski
Narrated by: Emily Nagoski
Length: 11 hours 29 minutes

A revised and updated edition of Emily Nagoski’s game-changing New York Times bestseller Come As You Are, featuring new information and research on mindfulness, desire, and pleasure that will radically transform your sex life.

For much of the 20th and 21st centuries, women’s sexuality was an uncharted territory in science, studied far less... Read more

Solito

A Memoir

By: Javier Zamora
Narrated by: Javier Zamora
Length: 17 hours 8 minutes

“Solito follows the journey of nine-year-old Javier Zamora, a boy from El Salvador, as he attempts to cross into the United States on his own. Though Zamora is supported and loved by his family in El Salvador, they are unable to make the voyage with him, meaning that he must face the challenges and unfamiliar terrain with a group of strangers... Read more

Burn Book

A Tech Love Story

By: Kara Swisher
Narrated by: Kara Swisher
Length: 7 hours 40 minutes

Instant New York Times Bestseller

From award-winning journalist Kara Swisher comes a witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead.

“Swisher, the bad-ass journalist and OG chronicler of Silicon Valley…takes no prisoners in this highly readable look at the evolution... Read more

Hood Feminism

Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot

By: Mikki Kendall
Narrated by: Mikki Kendall
Length: 6 hours 57 minutes

“Hood Feminism touches on many subjects that mainstream feminists may not think of as feminist issues. Issues like food and housing insecurity, parenting, and disability rights, among others. Mikki Kendall calls out mainstream feminism as existing only for the advancement of white women, to the detriment of women of color. Some of my biggest... Read more

Disability Intimacy

Essays on Love, Care, and Desire

By: Alice Wong
Narrated by: Full Cast
Length: 11 hours 21 minutes

The much-anticipated follow up to the groundbreaking anthology Disability Visibility: another revolutionary collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience, and intimacy in all its myriad forms.

What is intimacy? More than sex, more than romantic love, the pieces in this stunning and illuminating... Read more

Dopamine Nation

Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

By: Dr. Anna Lembke
Narrated by: Dr. Anna Lembke
Length: 6 hours 11 minutes

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES and LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER
“Brilliant . . . riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued.”—Beth Macy, author of Dopesick,
as heard on Fresh Air

This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is... Read more

My Grandmother's Hands

Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

By: Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW & SEP
Narrated by: Cary Hite
Length: 10 hours 18 minutes

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"My Grandmother's Hands will change the direction of the movement for racial justice."— Robin DiAngelo, New York Times bestselling author of White Fragility

In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology.

The body... Read more

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew

By: Emmanuel Acho & Noa Tishby
Narrated by: Emmanuel Acho & Noa Tishby
Length: 7 hours 32 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From two New York Times bestselling authors, a timely, disarmingly honest, and thought-provoking investigation into antisemitism that connects the dots between the tropes and hatred of the past to our current complicated moment.

For Emmanuel Acho and Noa Tishby no question about Jews is off-limits. They go there. They... Read more

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama

Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy

By: Nathan Thrall
Narrated by: Peter Ganim
Length: 6 hours 44 minutes

Immersive and gripping, an intimate story of a deadly accident outside Jerusalem that unravels a tangle of lives, loves, enmities, and histories over the course of one revealing, heartbreaking day.

Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a... Read more

Kindred

By: Octavia E. Butler
Narrated by: Kim Staunton
Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

“A beautiful story of the complex heritage of Dana, a Black woman who mysteriously gets transported from the 1970s to the early 1800 antebellum south where she is faced with saving the white son of a plantation owner from drowning. Throughout, Dana journeys back and forth from present to past, and each of her stays in the past grows longer and... Read more

Burnout

The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

By: Emily Nagoski, PhD & Amelia Nagoski, DMA
Narrated by: Emily Nagoski, PhD & Amelia Nagoski, DMA
Length: 7 hours 1 minute

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “This book is a gift! I’ve been practicing their strategies, and it’s a total game-changer.”—Brené Brown, PhD, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Dare to Lead

This groundbreaking book explains why women experience burnout differently than men—and provides a simple, science-based plan to help women minimize... Read more

"You Just Need to Lose Weight"

And 19 Other Myths About Fat People

Myths Made in America

By: Aubrey Gordon
Narrated by: Aubrey Gordon
Length: 7 hours 10 minutes

“Aubrey Gordon is one of the leading voices in the fat activist movement and I consider myself lucky to read her words (and listen to her podcast with Michael Hobbs called Maintenance Phase). If you want to be a better person and deprogram yourself from the weight-obsessed culture American life is steeped in, read both her books and listen to the... Read more

How to Say Babylon

A Memoir

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

“The author's growing understanding of her childhood isolation and the world around her helped turn her pain into poetry as she broke free. After reading this memoir I am now interested in reading some of her award winning poetry. Read more

Raw Dog

The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs

By: Jamie Loftus
Narrated by: Jamie Loftus
Length: 9 hours 38 minutes

“Raw Dog by Jamie Loftus, (host of The Lolita Podcast and Ghost Church), covers all the basics you'd expect from a writer embarking on a road trip to taste test all the hottest pork tubes in America - a crumbling relationship due to a distaste for mustard, xenophobia and sexism in the competitive hot-dog eating circuit, and the horrible... Read more

The Devil in the White City

Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

By: Erik Larson
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Length: 14 hours 58 minutes

“The Devil in the White City is one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. Set amidst the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, Erik Larson's historical narrative interweaves the stories of two men who would come to define it, for better and for worse. One is Daniel Burnham, chief architect of the Fair, who threw his entire being into creating a... Read more

Unmasking Autism

Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

By: Devon Price, PhD
Narrated by: Devon Price, PhD
Length: 9 hours 51 minutes

A deep dive into the spectrum of Autistic experience and the phenomenon of masked Autism, giving individuals the tools to safely uncover their true selves while broadening society’s narrow understanding of neurodiversity

“A remarkable work that will stand at the forefront of the neurodiversity movement.”—Barry M. Prizant, PhD, CCC-SLP,author of... Read more

The Serviceberry

By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Length: TBA

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she... Read more

Who's Afraid of Gender?

By: Judith Butler
Narrated by: Judith Butler
Length: 11 hours 47 minutes

This program is read by the author.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Time, Elle, Kirkus, Literary Hub, The Millions, Electric Literature, and them.

"A profoundly urgent intervention.” —Naomi Klein

"A timely must-read for anyone actively invested in re-imagining collective futurity.” —Claudia Rankine

From a global icon, a bold, essential... Read more

All About Love

New Visions

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

A New York Times bestseller and enduring classic, All About Love is the acclaimed first volume in feminist icon bell hooks' ""Love Song to the Nation"" trilogy.  All About Love reveals what causes a polarized society, and how to heal the divisions that cause suffering. Here is the truth about love, and inspiration to help us instill caring,... Read more

King: A Life

By: Jonathan Eig
Narrated by: Dion Graham
Length: 20 hours 45 minutes

Winner of the 2024 Audie Award for Best Nonfiction Narrator!

This program is narrated by Dion Graham, narrator of over 300 audiobooks and an AudioFile Golden Voice. Dion has won multiple Earphones and Audie Awards.

"Dion Graham superbly narrates this riveting audiobook, emulating the majestic cadence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, speeches. He... Read more

How to Know a Person

The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

By: David Brooks
Narrated by: David Brooks
Length: 7 hours 27 minutes

“Brooks went from zero to hero in my mind. His deep research and obvious self-reflection glows in this book. I not only have new terminology to grapple with people who don't listen, but also used his story telling inquiry for richer conversations with my family. Read more

Eve

How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution

By: Cat Bohannon
Narrated by: Cat Bohannon
Length: 15 hours 54 minutes

An ambitious, eye-opening, myth-busting, and groundbreaking history of the evolution of the female body, by a brilliant new researcher and writer

Why do women live longer than men? Why do women have menopause? Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s? Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly... Read more

Briefly Perfectly Human

Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End

By: Alua Arthur
Narrated by: Alua Arthur
Length: 9 hours 51 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA deeply transformative memoir that reframes how we think about death and how it can help us lead better, more fulfilling and authentic lives, from America’s most visible death doula.""A truly unique, inspiring perspective on the time we have, what we do with it, and how we let go of this world.... There is no one I'd... Read more