Black Authors

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

Wow, No Thank You.

By: Samantha Irby

Narrated by: Samantha Irby

Length: 10 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

A new rip-roaring essay collection from the smart, edgy, hilarious, unabashedly raunchy, and bestselling Samantha Irby.

Irby is forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what Inspirational Instagram Infographics have promised her. She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and... Read more

Quietly Hostile

By: Samantha Irby

Narrated by: Samantha Irby

Length: 9 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A GLAMOUR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A hilarious new essay collection from Samantha Irby "engages readers with her characteristic combination of laugh-out-loud moments, heartfelt passages and plenty of awkward experiences.... Quietly Hostile will delight established fans and newcomers alike (Parade).
 
“Brilliant and one... Read more

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

By: Deesha Philyaw

Narrated by: Janina Edwards

Length: 4 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double... Read more

Cobalt Red

By: Siddharth Kara

Narrated by: Peter Ganim

Length: 11 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

This program includes an author's note read by the author.

An unflinching investigation reveals the human rights abuses behind the Congo’s cobalt mining operation—and the moral implications that affect us all.

Cobalt Red is the searing, first-ever exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the... Read more

Heavy

By: Kiese Laymon

Narrated by: Kiese Laymon

Length: 6 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

*Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times*

*Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, BuzzFeed (Nonfiction), The Undefeated, Library Journal (Biography/Memoirs), The Washington Post (Nonfiction), Southern Living (Southern), Entertainment Weekly, and The New York Times... Read more

So Let Them Burn

By: Kamilah Cole

Narrated by: Keylor Leigh & Kamali Minter

Length: 11 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Whip-smart and immersive, this Jamaican-inspired fantasy follows a gods-blessed heroine who’s forced to choose between saving her sister or protecting her homeland—perfect for fans of Iron Widow and The Priory of the Orange Tree. 
 
Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island... Read more

When No One Is Watching

By: Alyssa Cole

Narrated by: Susan Dalian & Jay Aaseng

Length: 8 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

""I was knocked over by the momentum of an intense psychological thriller that doesn’t let go until the final page. This is a terrific read."" – Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author
Rear Window meets Get Out in this gripping thriller from a critically acclaimed and New York Times Notable author, in which the gentrification of a... Read more

Transcendent Kingdom: A Read with Jenna Pick

By: Yaa Gyasi

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Length: 8 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK! • Finalist for the WOMEN'S PRIZE

Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.

Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford... Read more

The Violin Conspiracy

By: Brendan Slocumb

Narrated by: JD Jackson & Brendan Slocumb

Length: 12 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK! • Ray McMillian is a Black classical musician on the rise—undeterred by the pressure and prejudice of the classical music world—when a shocking theft sends him on a desperate quest to recover his great-great-grandfather’s heirloom violin on the eve of the most prestigious musical competition in the world.

“I... Read more

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

By: N. K. Jemisin

Narrated by: Casaundra Freeman

Length: 11 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

After her mother's mysterious death, a young woman is summoned to the floating city of Sky in order to claim a royal inheritance she never knew existed in the first book in this award-winning fantasy trilogy from the NYT bestselling author of The Fifth Season.

Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under... Read more

The House of Hidden Meanings

By: RuPaul

Narrated by: RuPaul

Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

***An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller!***From international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing and personal work to date--a deeply intimate memoir of discovery, found family, and self-acceptance. The House of Hidden Meanings is a self-portrait of the legendary icon on the road to global fame and changing... Read more

Their Eyes Were Watching God

By: Zora Neale Hurston

Narrated by: Ruby Dee

Length: 6 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

“A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don’t know how to live properly.” —Zadie SmithOne of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love... Read more

The Saint of Bright Doors

By: Vajra Chandrasekera

Narrated by: Sid Sagar

Length: 12 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

The Saint of Bright Doors sets the high drama of divine revolutionaries and transcendent cults against the mundane struggles of modern life, resulting in a novel that is revelatory and resonant.

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. This gave him plenty to talk about in therapy.

He walked among invisible... Read more

The Stone Sky

By: N. K. Jemisin

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 14 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Humanity will finally be saved or destroyed in the shattering conclusion to the post-apocalyptic and highly acclaimed NYT bestselling trilogy that won the Hugo Award three years in a row.

The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.

Essun has inherited the power of... Read more

They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

By: Hanif Abdurraqib

Narrated by: Hanif Abdurraqib

Length: 8 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

*2018 "12 best books to give this holiday season" TODAY Show*Best Books of 2018* Rolling Stone"A Best Book of 2017" NPR, Buzzfeed, Paste Magazine, Esquire, Chicago Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, CBC, Stereogum, National Post, Entropy, Heavy, Book Riot, Chicago Review of Books, The Los Angeles Review, Michigan Daily*American Booksellers Association... 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

Leslie F*cking Jones

By: Leslie Jones

Narrated by: Leslie Jones & Chris Rock

Length: 16 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER with 5+ hours of bonus material not found in the print version and read by Leslie Jones. AudioFile Magazine awarded the recording an ‘Earphones Award’, saying: “No listener can leave this memoir unaffected as Jones laughs and sobs, sharing the highs and lows, joys and sorrows of her full life.”

Hey you guys, it’s... Read more

One of Us Knows

By: Alyssa Cole

Narrated by: Susan Dalian

Length: 10 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

From the critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling author of When No One Is Watching comes a riveting thriller about the new caretaker of a historic estate who finds herself trapped on an island with a murderer—and the ghosts of her past. Years after a breakdown and a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder derailed her historical... 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

They Were Her Property

By: Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

Narrated by: Allyson Johnson

Length: 10 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

A bold and searing investigation into the role of white women in the American slave economy.



Bridging women's history, the history of the South, and African American history, this book makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. Historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that... Read more

I Take My Coffee Black

By: Tyler Merritt

Narrated by: Jimmy Kimmel, Tyler Merritt, James Iglehart, Je...

Length: 11 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

In the wake of his deeply powerful viral videos ("Before You Call the Cops" and "Walking While Black"), Tyler Merritt shares his experiences as a black man in America with truth, humor, and poignancy. Tyler Merritt's video "Before You Call the Cops" has been viewed millions of times. He's appeared on Jimmy Kimmel and Sports Illustrated and has... Read more

The Dating Playbook

By: Farrah Rochon

Narrated by: Rebecca Lee

Length: 9 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

When a personal trainer agrees to fake date her client, all rules are out the window in this delightful romantic comedy from the USA Today bestselling author of The Boyfriend Project!

When it comes to personal training, Taylor Powell kicks serious butt. Unfortunately, her bills are piling up, rent is due, and the money situation is dire. Taylor... Read more

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

By: Dawnie Walton

Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Bahni Turpin, James Langton, An...

Length: 13 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

2022 FICTION AUDIE AWARD WINNER!

An electrifying novel about the meteoric rise of an iconic interracial rock duo in the 1970s, their sensational breakup, and the dark secrets unearthed when they try to reunite decades later for one last tour.

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2021 BY BARACK OBAMA * THE WASHINGTON POST * NPR *... Read more