Black Authors

James

By: Percival Everett

Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman

Length: 7 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • SHORTLISTED FOR THE... Read more

Parable of the Sower

By: Octavia E. Butler

Narrated by: Lynne Thigpen

Length: 12 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Octavia E. Butler paints a stunning portrait of an all-too-believable near future. As with Kindred and her other critically-acclaimed novels, Parable of the Sower skillfully combines startling visionary and socially realistic concepts. God is change. That is the central truth of the Earthseed movement, whose... Read more

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

By: James McBride

Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman

Length: 12 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A NEW YORK TIMES READERS PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

WINNER OF THE 2024 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRIZE FOR AMERICAN FICTION

FROM ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF 2024

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR/FRESH AIR, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, AND... Read more

Legendborn

By: Tracy Deonn

Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt

Length: 18 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

An Instant New York Times Bestseller!
Winner of the Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe for New Talent Author Award

Filled with mystery and an intriguingly rich magic system, Tracy Deonn’s YA contemporary fantasy reinvents the King Arthur legend and “braids together Southern folk traditions and Black Girl Magic into a searing modern tale of grief,... Read more

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

By: Tia Williams

Narrated by: Mela Lee & Preston Butler

Length: 11 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

In this sexy modern-day fairytale from the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Days in June, a free-spirited florist and an enigmatic musician share a soul mate connection told through the history, art, and the magic of Harlem.

The daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, Ricki Wilde is the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. In her... Read more

The Vanishing Half

By: Brit Bennett

Narrated by: Shayna Small

Length: 11 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES • THE WASHINGTON POST • NPR • PEOPLE • TIME MAGAZINE • VANITY FAIR • GLAMOUR

New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

2021 WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST

“Bennett’s tone and style recalls James Baldwin and... Read more

Chain Gang All Stars: A Read with Jenna Pick

By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Narrated by: Shayna Small, Aaron Goodson, Michael Crouch & L...

Length: 13 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own in this explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York... Read more

Sharks Don't Sink

By: Jasmin Graham

Narrated by: Jasmin Graham

Length: 6 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

The uplifting story of a young Black scientist’s challenging journey to flourish outside the traditional confines of academia, inspired by her innate connection to nature’s most misunderstood animal—the shark.

"Jasmin Graham has that winning combination of talent and grit needed to excel as a scientist. Every girl who wants to be a marine... Read more

Caste (Oprah's Book Club)

By: Isabel Wilkerson

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 15 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NEW YORK TIMES READERS PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the... Read more

Original Sins

By: Eve L. Ewing

Narrated by: Robin Miles & Eve L. Ewing

Length: 12 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Why don’t our schools work? Eve L. Ewing tackles this question from a new angle: What if they’re actually doing what they were built to do? She argues that instead of being the great equalizer, America’s classrooms were designed to do the opposite: to maintain the nation’s inequalities. It’s a task at which they excel.

“This book will transform... Read more

How to Be an Antiracist

By: Ibram X. Kendi

Narrated by: Ibram X. Kendi

Length: 10 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a “groundbreaking” (Time) approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society and in ourselves—now updated, with a new preface.

“The most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.”—The... Read more

The 1619 Project

By: Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman & Jake Silverstein

Narrated by: Nikole Hannah-Jones & Full Cast

Length: 18 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

#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

The Fifth Season

By: N. K. Jemisin

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 15 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this "intricate and extraordinary" Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. (The New York Times)

This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time.

It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent,... Read more

A Promised Land

By: Barack Obama

Narrated by: Barack Obama

Length: 29 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making—from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND PEOPLE

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post •... Read more

Bloodmarked

By: Tracy Deonn

Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt

Length: 22 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

An instant #1 New York Times bestseller!
“Deonn expertly weaves together a universe that both shines a light on the pervasive nature of racism and also harnesses the complexity of Black identity within this space. Deonn writes so much more than simple fantasies or Arthurian retellings.” —Booklist (starred review)

The “worthy successor to an... Read more

The Nickel Boys (Winner 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

By: Colson Whitehead

Narrated by: JD Jackson & Colson Whitehead

Length: 6 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This follow-up to The Underground Railroad brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. • "One of the most gifted novelists in America today." —NPR

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE NOMINATED FOR... Read more

The City We Became

By: N. K. Jemisin

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 16 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Three-time Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N.K. Jemisin crafts her most incredible novel yet, a "glorious" story of culture, identity, magic, and myths in contemporary New York City.

In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But... Read more

The Bluest Eye

By: Toni Morrison

Narrated by: Toni Morrison

Length: 7 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature.

It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove--a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so... Read more

Hood Feminism

By: Mikki Kendall

Narrated by: Mikki Kendall

Length: 6 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“The fights against hunger, homelessness, poverty, health disparities, poor schools, homophobia, transphobia, and domestic violence are feminist fights. Kendall offers a feminism rooted in the livelihood of everyday women.” —Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of  How to Be an Antiracist, in The... Read more

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

By: Akwaeke Emezi

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Length: 9 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

A Good Morning America Buzz Pick

“A love story like no other, and this one…will have you gripped from page one.” —Vogue

“An unabashed ode to living with, and despite, pain and mortality.” —The New York Times Book Review

A New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and “one of our greatest living writers” (Shondaland)... Read more

The Sum of Us

By: Heather McGhee

Narrated by: Heather McGhee

Length: 11 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color.

WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • ONE... Read more

A Master of Djinn

By: P. Djèlí Clark

Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar

Length: 15 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

"[Narrator Suehyla] El-Attar expertly creates a vibrant version of Cairo that captures a heady blend of the cosmopolitan and the supernatural that will win many new fans." -- AudioFile Magazine

Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns to his popular alternate Cairo universe for his fantasy novel debut, A Master of Djinn

Cairo,... Read more

The Neighbor Favor

By: Kristina Forest

Narrated by: Keylor Leigh & Malik Rashad

Length: 10 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

A shy bookworm enlists her charming neighbor to help her score a date, not knowing he’s the obscure author she’s been corresponding with, in this sparkling and heart-fluttering romance by Kristina Forest.

Shy, bookish, and admittedly awkward, Lily Greene has always felt inadequate compared to the rest of her accomplished family, who strive for... Read more

Kindred

By: Octavia E. Butler

Narrated by: Kim Staunton

Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

The first science fiction written by a Black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of Black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably... Read more