Essays audiobooks

The Message

By: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Length: 5 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities.

“Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose. . . . These pilgrimages, for him, help ground his powerful writing about... Read more

The Anthropocene Reviewed

By: John Green

Narrated by: John Green

Length: 10 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

“Masterful. The Anthropocene Reviewed is a beautiful, timely book about the human condition—and a timeless reminder to pay attention to your attention.” —Adam Grant, #1 bestselling author of Think Again and host of the podcast Re:Thinking

The instant #1 bestseller from John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down, is... Read more

Crying in H Mart

By: Michelle Zauner

Narrated by: Michelle Zauner

Length: 7 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far... Read more

How To Tell When We Will Die

By: Johanna Hedva

Narrated by: Johanna Hedva

Length: 15 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

The long-awaited essay collection from one of the most influential voices in disability activism that detonates a bomb in our collective understanding of care and illness, showing us that sickness is a fact of life.   In the wake of the 2014 Ferguson riots, and sick with a chronic condition that rendered them housebound, Johanna Hedva turned to... Read more

On Tyranny

By: Timothy Snyder

Narrated by: Timothy Snyder

Length: 1 hour 47 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “bracing” (Vox) guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism, from “a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present” (The New York Times)

“Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has... Read more

Hijab Butch Blues

By: Lamya H

Narrated by: Ashraf Shirazi

Length: 7 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this “raw and relatable memoir that challenges societal norms and expectations” (Linah Mohammad, NPR).

“A masterful, must-read contribution to conversations on power, justice, healing, and devotion from a singular voice I now trust... Read more

Want

By: Gillian Anderson

Narrated by: Anonymous & Gillian Anderson

Length: 11 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

A collection of sexual fantasies from women around the world, Want is a revelatory, sensational, and game-changing exploration of women’s sexuality that asks, and answers: How do women feel about sex when they have the freedom to be totally anonymous?“The book you hold in your hands started as an invitation to women across the world, a call for... Read more

Raw Dog

By: Jamie Loftus

Narrated by: Jamie Loftus

Length: 9 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

One of BookPage's Best Audiobooks of 2023

"Loftus is a charming narrator...goofy, engaging, and always game to do a silly voice." —The New York Times

"There’s something terribly irresistible about her narration, which is often incredibly funny." —BookPage

Part travelogue, part culinary history, all capitalist critique—comedian Jamie Loftus's debut,... Read more

Kitchen Confidential

By: Anthony Bourdain

Narrated by: Anthony Bourdain

Length: 8 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

When Chef Anthony Bourdain wrote "Don't Eat Before You Read This" in The New Yorker, he spared no one's appetite, revealing what goes on behind the kitchen door. In Kitchen Confidential, he expanded the appetizer into a deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet that lays out his twenty-five years of sex, drugs, and haute cuisine.

From his... Read more

The Memory Palace

By: Nate DiMeo

Narrated by: Nate DiMeo, Jad Abumrad, Daniel Alarcón, Betsy ...

Length: 8 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

Incredible true stories reveal strange new magic in American history in this wondrous first book from the creator of the award-winning podcast The Memory Palace.

“One doesn’t often find the words imagination and history in the same sentence. Nate DiMeo has forever woven them together. The Memory Palace wants you to linger, to stay awhile, and... Read more

Surviving Autocracy

By: Masha Gessen

Narrated by: Masha Gessen

Length: 5 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

“When Gessen speaks about autocracy, you listen.” —The New York Times

“A reckoning with what has been lost in the past few years and a map forward with our beliefs intact.” —Interview

As seen on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and heard on NPR’s All Things Considered: the bestselling, National Book Award–winning journalist offers an essential guide to... Read more

I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying

By: Youngmi Mayer

Narrated by: Youngmi Mayer

Length: 8 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

From standup comedian Youngmi Mayer, an unforgettable memoir written with “raw, enviable freedom that simply floors you,” interrogating whiteness, gender, and sexuality in America, navigating a tumultuous childhood in Korea and Saipan, and coming to terms with her parents’ shortcomings (Michelle Zauner).

“Do you know what happens if you laugh... Read more

These Precious Days

By: Ann Patchett

Narrated by: Ann Patchett

Length: 11 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays.  ""The elegance of Patchett’s prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike."" —Publisher's... Read more

Happy-Go-Lucky

By: David Sedaris

Narrated by: David Sedaris

Length: 7 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

An Audie Award Winner

David Sedaris, the “champion storyteller,” (Los Angeles Times) returns with his first new collection of personal essays since the bestselling Calypso.

Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As... Read more

Dear Girls

By: Ali Wong

Narrated by: Ali Wong & Justin Hakuta

Length: 6 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Heartfelt and hilarious essays from the Emmy and Golden Globe Award–winning actress, star of the Netflix original series Beef, and two-time member of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year list
 
“A collection of letters to her baby girls that are barn-burning reflections on being a working mom, marriage, sex,... Read more

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey

By: Amber Ruffin & Lacey Lamar

Narrated by: Amber Ruffin & Lacey Lamar

Length: 5 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers Amber Ruffin writes with her sister Lacey Lamar with humor and heart to share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism.

Now a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and host of The Amber Ruffin Show, Amber Ruffin lives in New York, where she is no one's First Black... Read more

Calypso

By: David Sedaris

Narrated by: David Sedaris

Length: 6 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

David Sedaris returns with his most deeply personal and darkly hilarious book.

If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong.

When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent... Read more

How Far the Light Reaches

By: Sabrina Imbler

Narrated by: Sabrina Imbler

Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

A fascinating tour of creatures from the surface to the deepest ocean floor: this "miraculous, transcendental book" invites us to envision wilder, grander, and more abundant possibilities for the way we live (Ed Yong, author of An Immense World). A queer, mixed race writer working in a largely white, male field, science and conservation... Read more

The Crane Wife

By: CJ Hauser

Narrated by: CJ Hauser

Length: 9 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

A memoir in essays that expands on the viral sensation “The Crane Wife” with a frank and funny look at love, intimacy, and self in the twenty-first century. From friends and lovers to blood family and chosen family, this “elegant masterpiece” (Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Hunger) asks what more expansive definitions of love... Read more

Little Weirds

By: Jenny Slate

Narrated by: Jenny Slate

Length: 4 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Step into Jenny Slate's wild imagination in this "magical" (Mindy Kaling), "delicious" (Amy Sedaris), and "poignant" (John Mulaney) New York Times bestseller about love, heartbreak, and being alive -- "this book is something new and wonderful" (George Saunders).

You may "know" Jenny Slate from her Netflix special, Stage Fright, as the creator of... Read more

The Book of Delights

By: Ross Gay

Narrated by: Ross Gay

Length: 5 hours

Abridged: No

The winner of the NBCC Award for Poetry offers up a spirited collection of short lyric essays, written daily over a tumultuous year, reminding us of the purpose and pleasure of praising, extolling, and celebrating ordinary wonders. Ross Gay's The Book of Delights is a genre-defying book of essays- some as short as a paragraph; some as long as... Read more

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century

By: Alice Wong

Narrated by: Alejandra Ospina & Alice Wong

Length: 8 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of... Read more

Holidays on Ice

By: David Sedaris

Narrated by: David Sedaris, Ann Magnuson & Amy Sedaris

Length: 4 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is new again with six more pieces, including a never before published story. Along with such favoritesas the diaries of a Macy's elf and the annals of two very competitive families, are Sedaris's tales of tardy trick-or-treaters ("Us and Them"); the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to the... Read more

Bossypants

By: Tina Fey

Narrated by: Tina Fey

Length: 5 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

Spirited and whip-smart, these laugh-out-loud autobiographical essays are "a masterpiece" from the Emmy Award-winning actress and comedy writer known for 30 Rock, Mean Girls, and SNL" (Sunday Telegraph).

Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update," before "Sarah Palin," Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she... Read more