Essays audiobooks

The American Spirit

By: David McCullough

Narrated by: David McCullough

Length: 4 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times Bestseller

A timely collection of speeches by David McCullough, the most honored historian in the United States—winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book Awards, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among many others—that reminds us of fundamental American principles.

“Insightful and inspirational, The American Spirit... Read more

Why I Love Superman

By: Brad Meltzer

Narrated by: Brad Meltzer

Length: 6 minutes

Abridged: No

See where Brad's obsession started. Originally written for USA Weekend. Read more

Wherever You Go, There They Are

By: Annabelle Gurwitch

Narrated by: Annabelle Gurwitch

Length: 10 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

A hysterically funny and slyly insightful new collection of essays from New York Times bestselling author Annabelle Gurwitch, about her own family of scam artists and hucksters, as well as the sisterhoods, temporary tribes, communities, and cults who have become surrogates along the way.

When Annabelle Gurwitch was a child, surrounded by a cast... Read more

When You Find Out the World is Against You

By: Kelly Oxford

Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky

Length: 8 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

The famed internet personality—named one of Rolling Stone’s Funniest People on Twitter and creator of the viral #notokay for women to share their stories of sexual assault—and bestselling author of Everything Is Perfect When You’re a Liar turns her laser-like wit to anxiety, parenthood (or ""the sheer insanity of being in charge of the safety... Read more

Esto es agua

By: David Foster Wallace

Narrated by: Carlos Manuel Vesga

Length: 28 minutes

Abridged: No

Escucha ahora este discurso que vio la luz en 2005 y ha sido debatido ampliamente tras la muerte del autor. Transido con su humor único, su intelecto preciso y su filosofía práctica, Esto es agua muestra los retos de la vida diaria, un legado conciso de uno de los grandes pensadores de nuestro tiempo. Había una vez dos peces jóvenes que iban... Read more

My Cubs

By: Scott Simon

Narrated by: Scott Simon

Length: 2 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

NPR's Scott Simon's personal, heartfelt reflections on his beloved Chicago Cubs, replete with club lore, memorable anecdotes, frenetic fandom and wise and adoring intimacy that have made the world champion Cubbies baseball's most tortured—and now triumphant—franchise.

Heartbreak and hope. Charmed and haunted. My Cubs is Scott Simon’s love letter... Read more

Enslaved by Ducks

By: Bob Tarte

Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne

Length: 10 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

When Bob Tarte bought a house in rural Michigan, he was counting on a tranquil haven. Then Bob married Linda. She wanted a rabbit, which seemed innocuous enough until the bunny chewed through their electrical wiring. And that was just the beginning. Before long, Bob found himself constructing cages, buying feed, clearing duck waste, and... Read more

La muerte de Guernica

By: Paul Preston

Narrated by: Carlos Vicente

Length: 1 hour 40 minutes

Abridged: No

Escucha este brillante ensayo sobre el bombardeo de Guernica que nos ayuda a entender mejor el fuego y las llamas y a distinguir el humo de las mentiras. La destrucción de Guernica el 26 de abril de 1937 quedó grabada a fuego en la conciencia europea: fue la primera ciudad «abierta» prácticamente arrasada por completo durante un bombardeo.... Read more

Killings

By: Calvin Trillin

Narrated by: Robert Fass

Length: 11 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

True stories of sudden death in the classic collection by a master of American journalism

“Reporters love murders,” Calvin Trillin writes in the introduction to Killings. “In a pinch, what the lawyers call ‘wrongful death’ will do, particularly if it’s sudden.” Killings, first published in 1984 and expanded for this edition, shows Trillin to be... Read more

Ballplayer

By: Chipper Jones & Carroll Rogers Walton

Narrated by: Mark Deakins & Chipper Jones

Length: 10 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones—one of the greatest switch-hitters in baseball history—shares his remarkable story, while capturing the magic nostalgia that sets baseball apart from every other sport.
 
Before Chipper Jones became an eight-time All-Star who amassed Hall of Fame–worthy statistics during a nineteen-year career with the... Read more

The Annotated Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table

By: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Narrated by: Robert Bethune

Length: 10 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

Imagine a boardinghouse in the days when the Civil War was still a decade in the future - in which an erudite, polished, witty, sophisticated, learned gentleman holds forth each day at breakfast, entertaining the boarders with fascinating talk: observations on people and nature, occasional flights of verse, remarks on current events,... Read more

Aftershock - One man's quest and the quake on Everest (Unabridged)

By: Jules Mountain

Narrated by: Peter Silverly

Length: 6 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

'A remarkable chronicle of resilience and resourcefulness' - Daily Mail When the worst earthquake to hit Nepal in living memory strikes on 25 April 2015, Jules Mountain is shivering in his tent at Base Camp. To reach the summit of Everest has been a life-long dream, one which he is more determined than ever to realise, having won his battle with... Read more

The Yellow Envelope

By: Kim Dinan

Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard

Length: 8 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

After Kim and her husband, Brian, decide to quit their jobs to travel around the world, they're given a yellow envelope containing a check and instructions to give the money away. There are only three rules for the envelope: don't overthink it, share your experiences, and don't feel pressured to give it all away. Through Ecuador, Peru, Nepal,... Read more

Indian Creek Chronicles

By: Pete Fromm

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Length: 7 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award, Indian Creek Chronicles is Pete Fromm's account of seven winter months spent alone in a tent in Idaho guarding salmon eggs and coming face to face with the blunt realities of life as a contemporary mountain man. A gripping story of adventure and a modern-day Walden, this... Read more

Cork Dork

By: Bianca Bosker

Narrated by: Bianca Bosker

Length: 12 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' PICK

“Thrilling . . . [told] with gonzo élan . . . When the sommelier and blogger Madeline Puckette writes that this book is the Kitchen Confidential of the wine world, she’s not wrong, though Bill Buford’s Heat is probably a shade closer.” —Jennifer Senior, The New York... Read more

A Really Big Lunch

By: Jim Harrison

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

Length: 8 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times bestselling author Jim Harrison was one of this country’s most beloved writers, a muscular, brilliantly economic stylist with a salty wisdom. He also wrote some of the best essays on food. A Really Big Lunch collects many of his food pieces for the first time—and taps into his larger-than-life appetite with wit and verve.Jim... Read more

Strange Company

By: Jean Ryan

Narrated by: Nikiya Palombi

Length: 1 hour 53 minutes

Abridged: No

In Strange Company, a delightful collection of short essays, Jean Ryan brings us closer to the natural world. From lizards to lady bugs, from the inscrutable sloth to the resplendent quetzal, Ryan reveals some of our commonalities with earth's creatures and hints at the lessons we might learn from them.Do lizards fall in love? What do sloths... Read more

The 1997 Masters

By: Tiger Woods

Narrated by: Scott Van Pelt

Length: 6 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

To mark the anniversary of his historic win at the 1997 Masters, Tiger Woods will for the first time reflect on the record-setting win both on and off the course.

In 1997, Tiger Woods was already among the most-watched and closely examined athletes in history. But it wasn't until the Masters Tournament that his career would definitively change... Read more

How to Watch Soccer

By: Ruud Gullit

Narrated by: Shaun Grindell

Length: 8 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Ruud Gullit knows better than anyone else that to understand soccer you have to understand strategy. When he started playing soccer, his only "strategy" was to get the ball, outrun everyone else to the other end of the field, and score. At first it served him well, but as he advanced through the sport, he learned that it takes much more than... Read more

The Possessed

By: Elif Batuman

Narrated by: Elif Batuman

Length: 9 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year 


THE TRUE BUT UNLIKELY STORIES OF LIVES DEVOTED―ABSURDLY! MELANCHOLICALLY! BEAUTIFULLY!―TO THE RUSSIAN CLASSICS

No one who read Elif Batuman's first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. "Babel in California" told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University... Read more

Free Women, Free Men

By: Camille Paglia

Narrated by: Camille Paglia

Length: 11 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

From the fiery intellectual provocateur— and one of our most fearless advocates of gender equality—a brilliant, urgent essay collection that both celebrates modern feminism and challenges us to build an alliance of strong women and strong men. 

Ever since the release of her seminal first book, Sexual Personae, Camille Paglia has remained one of... Read more

Hi-Ho Silver, Anyway

By: Bill Stokes

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, R. C. Bray, James Foster, Joe ...

Length: 11 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

For ten years Bill Stokes was a roving reporter and columnist for the Milwaukee Journal. He has written reams of material about his vivid impressions of people, animals, events, personal activities, and “things in general.”Through his travels, Bill has met with the unusual and unique to the humorous, trivial, and tragic. This select group from... Read more

The Fermented Man

By: Derek Dellinger

Narrated by: Sean Crisden

Length: 9 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

On January 1, 2014, homebrewer and writer Derek Dellinger began a journey that would change nearly everything he thought he knew about fermented food and beverage—and as a beer expert, he knew a lot. For an entire year, Dellinger would eat or drink only products that had been created by microbes. Exploring the vast world of fermentation,... Read more

Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy

By: Nicholas Reynolds

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

Length: 9 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

A former CIA officer and curator of the CIA Museum unveils the shocking, untold story of Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway’s secret life as a spy for both the Americans and the Soviets before and during World War II.While he was the curator of the CIA Museum, Nicholas Reynolds, a longtime military intelligence expert, began to discover... Read more