Classics that get banned/challenged

In Cold Blood

By: Truman Capote
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Length: 14 hours 25 minutes

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The most famous true crime novel of all time "chills the blood and exercises the intelligence" (The New York Review of Books)—and haunted its author long after he finished writing it.

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a... Read more

Invisible Man

By: Ralph Ellison
Narrated by: Joe Morton
Length: 18 hours 36 minutes

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching--yet always with... Read more

Lord of the Flies

By: William Golding
Narrated by: William Golding
Length: 6 hours 34 minutes

William Golding's classic novel of primitive savagery and survival is one of the most vividly realized and riveting works in modern fiction. The tale begins after a plane wreck deposits a group of English school boys, aged six to twelve on an isolated tropical island. Their struggle to survive and impose order quickly evolves from a battle... Read more

The Hobbit

Lord of the Rings: Book #0

By: J.R.R. Tolkien
Narrated by: Rob Inglis
Length: 11 hours 4 minutes

Like every other hobbit, Bilbo Baggins likes nothing better than a quiet evening in his snug hole in the ground, dining on a sumptuous dinner in front of a fire. But when a wandering wizard captivates him with tales of the unknown, Bilbo becomes restless. Soon he joins the wizard's band of homeless dwarves in search of giant spiders, savage... Read more

Brave New World

By: Aldous Huxley
Narrated by: Michael York
Length: 8 hours

Originally published in 1932, this outstanding work of literature is more crucial and relevant today than ever before. “One of the most prophetic dystopian works of the 20th century” —Wall Street JournalCloning, feel-good drugs, antiaging programs, and total social control through politics, programming, and media—has Aldous Huxley accurately... Read more

Animal Farm

By: George Orwell
Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
Length: 3 hours 11 minutes

Soon to be an animated film adaptation produced and directed by Andy Serkis George Orwell’s classic satire of the Russian Revolution has become an intimate part of our contemporary culture, with its treatment of democratic, fascist, and socialist ideals through an animal fable.The animals of Mr. Jones’s Manor Farm are overworked, mistreated, and... Read more

Strega Nona

By: Tomie dePaola
Narrated by: Rex Robbins
Length: 12 minutes

Strega Nona's meddling assistant Big Anthony is determined to prove to the townspeople his knowledge of the magic secrets contained in the pasta pot of Strega Nona. In so doing, he unleashes a torrent of pasta which threatens to engulf their little Italian town. Read more

The Adventures of Captain Underpants: Color Edition (Captain Underpants #1)

Captain Underpants

By: Dav Pilkey
Narrated by: Len Forgione, Dazjon Freeman & Ben D'Amico
Length: 59 minutes

Fourth graders George Beard and Harold Hutchins invent the wedgie-powered superhero Captain Underpants in the first book in this #1 New York Times bestselling series by Dav Pilkey, the author and illustrator of Dog Man!George and Harold are a couple of class clowns. The only thing they enjoy more than playing practical jokes is creating their... Read more

James and the Giant Peach

By: Roald Dahl
Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt
Length: 3 hours 17 minutes

From the World's No. 1 Storyteller, James and the Giant Peach is a children's classic that has captured young reader's imaginations for generations.

One of TIME MAGAZINE’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time

After James Henry Trotter's parents are tragically eaten by a rhinoceros, he goes to live with his two horrible aunts, Spiker and Sponge. Life... Read more

Where the Wild Things Are

A Caldecott Award Winner

By: Maurice Sendak
Narrated by: Michelle Obama
Length: 4 minutes

Let the wild rumpus start—Where the Wild Things Are is turning sixty with this all-new digital audio edition narrated by Michelle Obama!Maurice Sendak's Caldecott Medal–winning picture book has become one of the most highly acclaimed and best-loved children's books of all time. This iconic story of Max and his journey to visit the Wild Things... Read more

And Tango Makes Three

By: Justin Richardson & Peter Parnell
Narrated by: Neil Patrick Harris
Length: 8 minutes

The heartwarming true story of two penguins who create a nontraditional family is now available in a sturdy board book edition.

At the penguin house at the Central Park Zoo, two penguins named Roy and Silo were a little bit different from the others. But their desire for a family was the same. And with the help of a kindly zookeeper, Roy and Silo... Read more

The Kite Runner

By: Khaled Hosseini
Narrated by: Khaled Hosseini
Length: 12 hours 3 minutes

A Stunning Novel of Hope and Redemption

Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable and beautifully told story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Raised in the same household and sharing the same wet nurse, Amir and Hassan grow up in different worlds: Amir... Read more

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (10th Anniversary Edition)

By: Sherman Alexie
Narrated by: Sherman Alexie
Length: 7 hours 49 minutes

Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

Heartbreaking, funny, and... Read more

The Bluest Eye

By: Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Toni Morrison
Length: 7 hours 5 minutes

“The literary highlight of my year so far came from a writer I thought I knew well already. I had read (and loved) many of Morrison's novels, but when I learned that she narrates the audio versions of some of her best-known books, I took that chance to catch up with one I'd missed, her debut. And my god, what a debut, and what an experience to... Read more

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

By: Stephen Chbosky
Narrated by: Noah Galvin
Length: 6 hours 23 minutes

“This is one of my favorite books. I read it at a time when adolescence, finding your tribe and discovering who you are were all starting to take shape for me. And then I went and grew up and named my bookstore after it! Read more

To Kill a Mockingbird

By: Harper Lee
Narrated by: Sissy Spacek
Length: 12 hours 17 minutes

Look for The Land of Sweet Forever, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025.Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American ReadHarper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the... Read more

The Grapes of Wrath

Penguin Audio Classics

By: John Steinbeck
Narrated by: Dylan Baker
Length: 21 hours

John Steinbeck's powerful evocation of the suffering and hardship caused by the Great Depression, and a panoramic vision of the struggle for the American Dream, The Grapes of Wrath includes a critical introduction by Robert DeMott in Penguin Modern Classics. 'I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.'... Read more

1984

By: George Orwell
Narrated by: Theo Solomon
Length: 12 hours 18 minutes

One of the most celebrated classics of the twentieth century, this cautionary tale of a man trapped under the gaze of an authoritarian state is more relevant now than ever before.“Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed for ever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get... Read more