Black Authors

Bridges Instead of Walls

By: Mavis Staples & Carole Boston Weatherford

Narrated by: Mavis Staples & Adenrele Ojo

Length: 28 minutes

Abridged: No

Legendary singer and Civil Rights activist Mavis Staples has teamed with an award-winning children’s poet to share her rousing life story in this spectacular picture book, adapted for audio.

At 85, Mavis Staples is still singing in front of large audiences and sharing her message of love, faith, and justice. She’s been performing since age eight... Read more

Phillis Wheatley

By: Simonetta Carr

Narrated by: Erin Bennett

Length: 54 minutes

Abridged: No

No one could have imagined that the frail, seven-year-old slave girl who arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1761 would become the first published African American, achieving fame for her poetry in both America and England. Upon her arrival, Phillis quickly learned to read the Bible and other classic literature, publishing her first poem in... Read more

The Library Thief

By: Kuchenga Shenjé

Narrated by: Cora Kirk

Length: 11 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

A strikingly original and absorbing mystery about a white-passing bookbinder in Victorian England and the secrets lurking on the estate where we she works, for fans of Fingersmith and The Confessions of Frannie Langton

The library is under lock and key. But its secrets can't be contained.

1896. After he brought her home from Jamaica as a baby,... Read more

Holding

By: Alexandria House

Narrated by: Jakobi Diem & Wesleigh Siobhan

Length: 6 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

Childhood neighbors, enemies, best friends, lovers, enemies, Sires lineman Terrence Ford and his ex-wife, Krystle, have meant all these things to each other.
Once believing their union was indestructible, they find themselves unhappily apart.
Maybe what they see as an ending is really the beginning of a stronger bond and a deeper understanding of... Read more

The Expiration Date

By: Kimberly Brown

Narrated by: Jaime Lincoln Smith & J. Shani Michaels

Length: 6 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Audrey Pilar is a master in the art of breaking up. Her friends have dubbed her ritual of leaving men as “The Expiration Date.” Hurt from her past has caused Audrey to protect her heart at all costs, even if it means self sabotage. She’s developed the habit of looking for red flags, and it seems to work for her—until she meets Sullivan Santiago.... Read more

Only Big Bumbum Matters Tomorrow

By: Damilare Kuku

Narrated by: Weruche Opia

Length: 6 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

A “wise, funny, irresistible” (Shelf Awareness) debut novel about family secrets, judgmental aunties, and Brazilian butt lifts, from the author of the internationally bestselling story collection Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad. In Nigerian families, none of your business is private. Not even if it's about your bumbum.Freshly out of Obafemi... Read more

Ash Dark as Night

By: Gary Phillips

Narrated by: Leon Nixon

Length: 8 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

In the follow-up to One-Shot Harry, fearless crime photographer and occasional private eye Harry Ingram finds himself in the LAPD’s crosshairs after capturing damning evidence of police brutality.

An atmospheric dive into a city on the brink that’s brimming with remarkable historical detail, Ash Dark as Night is perfect for fans of Walter Mosley... Read more

The Poisons We Drink

By: Bethany Baptiste

Narrated by: Lynnette R. Freeman

Length: 16 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

In a country divided between humans and witchers, Venus Stoneheart hustles as a brewer making illegal love potions to support her family.

Love potions are a dangerous business. Brewing has painful, debilitating side effects, and getting caught means death or a prison sentence. But what Venus is most afraid of is the dark, sentient magic within... Read more

Stamped from the Beginning

By: Ibram X. Kendi

Narrated by: Avery Kidd Waddell

Length: 23 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America—it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit.



In... Read more

The Last Stand

By: Antwan Eady

Narrated by: Antwan Eady

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

The author of Nigel and the Moon, delivers a tender intergenerational story inspired by his childhood in the rural south. Here's a farm stand that represents the importance of family, community, and hope.

Every stand has a story.
This one is mine.

Saturday is for harvesting. And one little boy is excited to work alongside his Papa as they collect... Read more

A Pair of Wings

By: Carole Hopson

Narrated by: Alaska Jackson

Length: 14 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

An airline captain crafts a riveting, adventurous novel inspired by the remarkable true life of pioneer aviatrix Bessie Coleman, a Black woman who learned to fly at the dawn of aviation and found freedom in the air

A few years after the Wright brothers’ first flight, Bessie was working the Texas cotton fields with her family when an airplane flew... Read more

Adas Raum (Ungekürzt)

By: Sharon Dodua Otoo

Narrated by: Sharon Dodua Otoo & Dela Dabulamanzi

Length: 8 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

Das erste Hörbuch der Bachmann-Preisträgerin Sharon Dodua Otoo: "Adas Raum" verwebt die Lebensgeschichten vieler Frauen zu einer Reise durch die Jahrhunderte und über Kontinente. Ein überraschender Roman, der davon erzählt, was es bedeutet, Frau zu sein. Ada erlebt die Ankunft der Portugiesen an der Goldküste des Landes, das einmal Ghana werden... Read more

Project Mercury

By: Ronald L. Smith

Narrated by: Nile Bullock

Length: 6 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

Ike Pressure is an Army brat.Which, if you ask him, is not an insult.His mom’s new job is in Mercury, Nevada, on a secretive military base close to Area 51. What’s more, his childhood friend, Eesha Webb, and her family are about to move there too.Spoiler alert: Ike and Eesha aren’t really best buds, even though their parents think so. They used... Read more

From Come Over To Come Home

By: Jahquel J.

Narrated by: Jaime Lincoln Smith & La'Rey Aris

Length: 6 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Wren Michelle is the top real-estate agent in North Carolina. She resides in Brookwood, an upcoming city in North Carolina filled with young professionals. A single mom by choice, her only concern is her daughter, her career, and trying to successfully co-parent with her first love. She thought she would have been married while raising her child... Read more

Besaydoo

By: Yalie Saweda Kamara

Narrated by: Yalie Saweda Kamara

Length: 2 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Selected by Amaud Jamaul Johnson for the 2023 Jake Adam York Prize, Yalie Saweda Kamara’s Besaydoo is an elegantly wrought love song to home—as place, as people, as body, and as language.A griot is a historian, a living repository of communal legacies with “a story pulsing in every blood cell.” In Besaydoo, Kamara serves as griot for the... Read more

The Science of Friendship

By: Tanita S. Davis

Narrated by: Emana Rachelle

Length: 7 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

A friendship hypothesis—and one failed experiment—leads one girl to investigate the science of middle school friendship makeups and breakups in this hopeful and heartwarming story from Tanita S. Davis, author of Partly Cloudy and Serena Says.Rylee Swanson is beginning eighth grade with zero friends.A humiliating moment at the... Read more

The Game Changer

By: Embassie Susberry

Narrated by: Nerissa Bradley

Length: 9 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

Sometimes making history means breaking some rules… Don't miss the powerful new historical fiction novel Inspired by the incredible true story of Althea Gibson, the first Black athlete to win a Grand Slam title in 1956. ––––––––––––––––––––– New York, 1950.... Read more

The Beautiful Dream

By: Atiba Hutchinson

Narrated by: Odario Williams

Length: 9 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“A captivating read from one of our country’s greatest athletes.”
―Christine Sinclair, former captain of the Canadian Women's National Soccer Team and National Bestselling Author of Playing the Long Game


Out of the Toronto suburb of Brampton comes an irresistible story of trials, perseverance, the limelight of international... Read more

The Everybody Experiment

By: Lisa Moore Ramée

Narrated by: Sisi Aisha Johnson

Length: 5 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

From the award-winning author of A Good Kind of Trouble, Lisa Moore Ramée, comes a hilarious and heartfelt young middle grade novel, in the vein of Judy Blume, about friendship, fitting in, and the ups and downs of middle school. Sure to resonate with fans of Rebecca Stead, Meg Medina, and Kelly Yang.Eleven-year-old Kylie’s friends seem so much... Read more

The Rich People Have Gone Away

By: Regina Porter

Narrated by: William DeMeritt & Shayna Small

Length: 9 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

AN AUDACIOUS BOOK CLUB PICK • A diverse group of New Yorkers are brought together by the search for a missing woman—in this electric novel of secrets, connection, and community.

“Cinematic, preternaturally humane, and absolutely unputdownable—I just loved it.”—Claire Lombardo, People “What Your Favorite Authors are Reading This... Read more

Ridge

By: A.C. Arthur

Narrated by: Mari & Winston James

Length: 8 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

New beginnings… Talaya Richmond is content with her life as a social worker in London, where nobody knows her father was a notorious serial killer. The notion that nefarious tendencies could be passed via DNA still haunts her, but she’s determined to build a new life, one where pain and despair are distant memories. A meeting with billionaire... Read more

Lazy Love

By: Keion Henderson

Narrated by: Keion Henderson

Length: 7 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Bestselling author and Senior Pastor of The Lighthouse Church and Ministries shares how to strengthen your relationships and find deeper satisfaction by learning to love better.  

Humans are meant to love and be loved, but so often we fall short at loving well. We take others for granted. We make assumptions. We forget to show our affection. We... Read more

Dirty Pleasures

By: Kenya Wright

Narrated by: Lacy Laurel & Tristan Josiah

Length: 13 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Kazimir is not only dangerous; he's feared by all. No one crosses him and gets away with it. And he will stop at nothing to protect Emily. Still, threats loom around every corner: murder, kidnapping, betrayal. Enemies lurk within the shadows. Dead animals appear along with ancient warnings. And with a cruel twist of fate, a huge rival that... Read more

Some Places More Than Others

By: Renée Watson

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Length: 4 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Bloomsbury presents Some Places More Than Others by Renée Watson, read by Bahni Turpin.

From Newbery Honor- and Coretta Scott King Author Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Renée Watson comes a heartwarming and inspiring novel for middle schoolers about finding deep roots and exploring the past, the present, and the places that make... Read more