Essays audiobooks

Being a Beast

By: Charles Foster

Narrated by: Charles Foster

Length: 7 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

A passionate naturalist explores what it’s really like to be an animal―by living like them

How can we ever be sure that we really know the other? To test the limits of our ability to inhabit lives that are not our own, Charles Foster set out to know the ultimate other: the non-humans, the beasts. And to do that, he tried to be like them, choosing... Read more

The Wonder Trail

By: Steve Hely

Narrated by: Steve Hely

Length: 7 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

Steve Hely, writer for The Office and American Dad!, and recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, presents a travel book about his journey through Central and South America. Part travel book, part pop history, part comic memoir, Hely's writing will make readers want to reach for their backpack and hiking boots.
 
The Wonder Trail is... Read more

I'm Just a Person

By: Tig Notaro

Narrated by: Tig Notaro

Length: 5 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

One of America’s most original comedic voices delivers a darkly funny, wryly observed, and emotionally raw account of her year of death, cancer, and epiphany.In the span of four months in 2012, Tig Notaro was hospitalized for a debilitating intestinal disease called C. diff, her mother unexpectedly died, she went through a breakup, and then she... Read more

The Boys of My Youth

By: Jo Ann Beard

Narrated by: Jo Ann Beard

Length: 7 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

The "utterly compelling, uncommonly beautiful" collection of personal essays (Newsweek) that established Jo Ann Beard as one of the leading writers of her generation.

Cousins, mothers, sisters, dolls, dogs, best friends: these are the fixed points in Jo Ann Beard's universe, the constants that remain when the boys of her youth -- and then men... Read more

How to Ruin Everything

By: George Watsky

Narrated by: George Watsky

Length: 5 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times Bestseller

"Funny, subversive, and able to excavate such brutally honest sentences that you find yourself nodding your head in wonder and recognition."
—Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer and lyricist of In the Heights and Hamilton: An American Musical

Are you a sensible, universally competent individual? Are you tired of the crushing... Read more

In Memory of Bread

By: Paul Graham

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews

Length: 7 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

The funny, poignant memoir of one man’s struggle to come to terms with his celiac diagnosis, forcing him to reexamine his relationship with food.

When Paul Graham was suddenly diagnosed with celiac disease at the age of thirty-six, he was forced to say goodbye to traditional pasta, pizza, sandwiches, and more. Gone, too, were some of his favorite... Read more

Essays of E. B. White

By: E. B. White

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 12 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Legendary author and essayist E. B. White writes, “The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest.”Covering a large number of subjects, this classic collection features thirty-one of White’s most memorable essays. Read more

Hogs Wild

By: Ian Frazier

Narrated by: Ian Frazier

Length: 12 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

"A master of both distilled insight and utter nonsense" (The Believer), Ian Frazier is one of the most gifted chroniclers of contemporary America. Hogs Wild assembles a decade's worth of his finest essays and reportage, and demonstrates the irrepressible passions and artful digressions that distinguish his enduring body of work.

Part muckraker,... Read more

Knitlandia

By: Clara Parkes

Narrated by: Clara Parkes

Length: 6 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

Knitting aficionado and notable artisan Clara Parkes delves into her storied travels with this inspiring and witty New York Times bestselling memoir on a creative life enriched by her adventures around the world. 
 
Building on the success of The Yarn Whisperer, Parkes's rich personal essays invite listeners and devoted crafters on excursions to... Read more

Black Man, White House

By: D. L. Hughley

Narrated by: Mia Barron, Cherise Boothe, Ron Butler, Greg It...

Length: 9 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

From legendary comedian D.L. Hughley comes a bitingly funny send-up of the Obama years, as “told” by the key political players on both sides of the aisle.What do the Clintons, Republicans, fellow Democrats, and Obama’s own family really think of President Barack Obama? Finally, the truth is revealed in this raucously funny “oral history”... Read more

The Yarn Whisperer

By: Clara Parkes

Narrated by: Clara Parkes

Length: 4 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

Stockinette, ribbing, cables, even the humble yarn over can instantly evoke places, times, people, conversations, all those poignant moments that we’ve tucked away in our memory banks. Over time, those stitches form a map of our lives.
—From the preface

In The Yarn Whisperer: Reflections on a Life in Knitting, renowned knitter and author Clara... Read more

But What If We're Wrong?

By: Chuck Klosterman

Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham & Chuck Klosterman

Length: 10 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times bestselling author Chuck Klosterman asks questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity? How certain are we about our understanding of time? What will be the defining memory of rock music, five hundred years from today? How seriously should we view the content of our dreams?... Read more

Esther the Wonder Pig

By: Steve Jenkins, Derek Walter & Caprice Crane

Narrated by: Steve Jenkins

Length: 4 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Unlikely pig owners Steve and Derek got a whole lot more than they bargained for when the designer micro piglet they adopted turned out to be a full-sized 600-pound sow! This funny, inspirational story shows how families really do come in all shapes and sizes.

In the summer of 2012, Steve Jenkins was contacted by an old friend about adopting a... Read more

The View from the Cheap Seats

By: Neil Gaiman

Narrated by: Neil Gaiman

Length: 15 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

An enthralling collection of nonfiction essays on a myriad of topics—from art and artists to dreams, myths, and memories—observed in #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman’s probing, amusing, and distinctive style.An inquisitive observer, thoughtful commentator, and assiduous craftsman, Neil Gaiman has long been celebrated for the... Read more

Voyager

By: Russell Banks

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall

Length: 10 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

The acclaimed, award-winning novelist takes us on some of his most memorable journeys in this revelatory collection of travel essays that spans the globe, from the Caribbean to Scotland to the Himalayas.Now in his mid-seventies, Russell Banks has indulged his wanderlust for more than half a century. “Since childhood, I’ve longed for escape, for... Read more

Pen & Palate

By: Lucy Madison & Tram Nguyen

Narrated by: Lucy Madison & Tram Nguyen

Length: 6 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

From the writers of acclaimed blog Pen & Palate, a humorous coming-of-age (and mastering-the-art-of-home-cooking) memoir of friendship, told through stories, recipes, and beautiful illustrations.

Getting through life in your twenties isn't easy--especially if you're broke, awkward, and prone to starting small grease fires in your studio... Read more

scientific experiments that could have destroyed the world

By: Introbooks Team

Narrated by: Andrea Giordani

Length: 39 minutes

Abridged: No

Science informs the public policies, the social, and the personal decisions to conserve energy, farming, leisure, health, transport, defense, and so forth. Whether there are fair chances for failure or not, conducting experiments on merits basis, is usual amidst the world wide scientists today. If there are ample negatives then it is good to... Read more

How to Make White People Laugh

By: Negin Farsad

Narrated by: Negin Farsad

Length: 5 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

From the acclaimed writer, director, and star of the hit documentary The Muslims are Coming! comes a memoir in essays about growing up Iranian-American in a post-9/11 world and the power of comedy to combat racism.



Negin Farsad is an Iranian-American-Muslim female stand-up comedian who believes she can change the world through jokes. And yes,... Read more

Bare Bones

By: Bobby Bones

Narrated by: Bobby Bones

Length: 6 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

A touching, funny, heart-wrenching, and triumphant memoir from one of the biggest names in radio, the host of The Bobby Bones Show, one of the most listened-to drive time morning radio shows in the nation.Growing up poor in Mountain Pine, Arkansas, with a young, addicted mom, Bobby Estell fell in love with country music. Abandoned by his father... Read more

It's Not Okay

By: Andi Dorfman

Narrated by: Andi Dorfman

Length: 9 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Andi Dorfman, the beloved finalist of season eighteen of The Bachelor who infamously rejected Juan Pablo and went on to star on season ten of The Bachelorette, dishes about what it’s like to live out a love story—and its collapse—in front of the cameras, offering hard-won advice for moving on after a break-up, public or not.

Andi talks candidly... Read more

Mother Tongue

By: Christine Gilbert

Narrated by: Angela Dawe

Length: 7 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

One woman's quest to learn Mandarin in Beijing, Arabic in Beirut, and Spanish in Mexico, with her young family along for the ride. Imagine negotiating for a replacement carburetor in rural Mexico with words you're secretly pulling from a pocket dictionary. Imagine your two-year-old asking for more niunai at dinner-a Mandarin word for milk that... Read more

Shrill

By: Lindy West

Narrated by: Lindy West

Length: 6 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Shrill is an uproarious memoir, a feminist rallying cry in a world that thinks gender politics are tedious and that women, especially feminists, can't be funny.

Coming of age in a culture that demands women be as small, quiet, and compliant as possible -- like a porcelain dove that will also have sex with you -- writer and humoristLindy West... Read more

The One True Barbecue

By: Rien Fertel

Narrated by: George Newbern

Length: 7 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Whole hog barbecue is a culinary art form that is both disappearing and experiencing a renaissance. In The One True Barbecue, Rien Fertel chronicles the uniquely southern art of whole hog barbecue—America's original barbecue—through the professional pitmasters who make a living firing, smoking, flipping, and cooking 200-plus pound pigs.

More... Read more

Dave Hill Doesn't Live Here Anymore

By: Dave Hill

Narrated by: Dave Hill

Length: 6 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

With his signature matter-of-fact humor, comedian and musician Dave Hill explores his increasingly close relationship with his recently widowed father in a series of painfully funny essays you will want to read again and again by the fire, at the beach, in a truck stop men’s room, or just about anywhere. It’s your call, really.

These days, Dave... Read more