Essays audiobooks

My Years With Apu

By: Satyajit Ray

Narrated by: Suyash Mohan

Length: 4 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

The absorbing story of how one of the greatest directors of our time began his film-making career. Read more

The Joy of Doing Just Enough

By: Jennifer McCartney

Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller

Length: 1 hour 33 minutes

Abridged: No

Sit around, leave sh*t all over the place, drink, forget about deadlines...being lazy is pretty easy. But the real art to being chill is when someone without any real ambition can fly under the radar and live unscathed by the never-ending reams of self-help and inspiration rained upon anyone who just wants to watch Netflix. Find that magical... Read more

The View from Flyover Country

By: Sarah Kendzior

Narrated by: Sarah Kendzior

Length: 6 hours

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES and MIBA BESTSELLER

From the St. Louis–based journalist often credited with first predicting Donald Trump’s presidential victory.

"A collection of sharp-edged, humanistic pieces about the American heartland...Passionate pieces that repeatedly assail the inability of many to empathize and to humanize." — Kirkus

In 2015, Sarah Kendzior... Read more

Go Ask Ali

By: Ali Wentworth

Narrated by: Ali Wentworth

Length: 3 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times bestselling author Ali Wentworth offers her hilarious and unique advice on surviving the absurdity of modern life in her third collection of laugh-out-loud comic vignettes.Ali Wentworth’s first two books, Ali in Wonderland and Happily Ali After, were lauded by readers, critics, and fellow comedians alike. Entertainment Weekly... Read more

Against Interpretation, and Other Essays

By: Susan Sontag

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

Length: 12 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

Against Interpretation was Susan Sontag’s first collection of essays and is a modern classic. Originally published in 1966, it has never gone out of print and has influenced generations of readers all over the world. It includes the famous essays “Notes on Camp” and “Against Interpretation,” as well as her impassioned discussions of Sartre,... Read more

What the Future Looks Like

By: Jim Al-Khalili

Narrated by: Pete Cross

Length: 7 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

Every day, scientists conduct pioneering experiments with the potential to transform how we live. Yet it isn't every day you hear from the scientists themselves! Now, award-winning author Jim Al-Khalili and his team of top-notch experts explain how today's earthshaking discoveries will shape our world tomorrow- and beyond. Pull back the curtain... Read more

The Truth About Animals

By: Lucy Cooke

Narrated by: Lucy Cooke

Length: 10 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

Mary Roach meets Bill Bryson in this "surefire summer winner" (Janet Maslin, New York Times), an uproarious tour of the basest instincts and biggest mysteries of the animal world

Humans have gone to the Moon and discovered the Higgs boson, but when it comes to understanding animals, we've still got a long way to go. Whether we're seeing a viral... Read more

Acid West

By: Joshua Wheeler

Narrated by: Andrew Eiden

Length: 12 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

A rollicking debut book of essays that takes listeners on a trip through the muck of American myths that have settled in the desert of our country’s underbellyEarly on July 16, 1945, Joshua Wheeler’s great grandfather awoke to a flash and then a long rumble: the world’s first atomic blast filled the horizon north of his ranch in Alamogordo, New... Read more

100 Länder, 100 Frauen, 100 Räusche - Abridged

By: Michael Berndt & Rainer Schäfer

Narrated by: Sebastian Pappenberger

Length: 6 hours

Abridged: Yes

Michael Berndt führt ein beschauliches Leben im ländlichen Sachsen. Er absolviert eine Metzgerlehre, nach der Arbeit trifft er sich gerne mit Freunden und Bekannten in der Kneipe, wo die Stammtischgespräche nicht selten in Unmut über die unerwünschten Fremden umschlagen, die einem ja doch nur die Arbeit wegnähmen. Michael Berndt sieht das... Read more

Mike Honeycutt’s World of Hunting and Fishing

By: Mike Honeycutt

Narrated by: Kate Marcin

Length: 1 hour 39 minutes

Abridged: No

For author Mike Honeycutt, there’s nothing more exciting than a remote trip with great scenery. In Mike Honeycutt’s World of Hunting and Fishing, he shares a travelogue that speaks to his passion for traveling the world to exotic locales to hunt and fish for unusual animal species. Based on his extensive travel experiences, Honeycutt narrates... Read more

Hamburger Sagen und Legenden

By: Katharina Hammann & Kristina Hammann

Narrated by: Michael Nowack

Length: 1 hour 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Lange vor der heutigen Zeit lebten zauberhafte Wesen in der Hamburger Gegend und es geschahen seltsame Dinge, an die sich fast niemand mehr erinnert. So birgt die Hansestadt Hamburg zahlreiche Geheimnisse. Wohin z.B. verschwand der Goldschatz des Klaus Störtebeker? Wie kam der Stadtteil Altona zu seinem Namen? Das Hörbuch liefert Antworten und... Read more

A Brief History of Oversharing

By: Shawn Hitchins

Narrated by: Shawn Hitchins

Length: 6 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

Musings from a “one-man flash mob” (Toronto Star)Comedian Shawn Hitchins explores his irreverent nature in this debut collection of essays. Hitchins doesn’t shy away from his failures or celebrate his mild successes — he sacrifices them for an audience’s amusement. He roasts his younger self, the effeminate ginger-haired kid with a competitive... Read more

My Patients and Other Animals

By: Suzy Fincham-Gray

Narrated by: Suzy Fincham-Gray

Length: 9 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

A moving memoir of a life spent in the company of animals—a veterinarian sheds light on the universal experience of loving, healing, and losing our beloved pets, and the many ways they change our lives.
 
The pursuit of a childhood dream has taken Suzy Fincham-Gray on a journey in veterinary medicine from pastoral farms on the English–Welsh border... Read more

Air Traffic

By: Gregory Pardlo

Narrated by: Gregory Pardlo

Length: 7 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning poet: an extraordinary memoir and blistering meditation on fatherhood, race, addiction, and ambition. 
 
Gregory Pardlo's father was a brilliant and charismatic man--a leading labor organizer who presided over a happy suburban family of four. But when he loses his job following the famous air traffic... Read more

The Displaced

By: Viet Thanh Nguyen (Editor)

Narrated by: Greta Jung & Timothy Andrés Pabon

Length: 5 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

In January 2017, Donald Trump signed an executive order stopping entry to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries and dramatically cutting the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States each year. The American people spoke up, with protests, marches, donations, and lawsuits that quickly overturned the order.... Read more

The Very Worst Missionary

By: Jamie Wright

Narrated by: Madeleine Lambert

Length: 4 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

After finding Jesus at a suburban megachurch, young Jamie Wright trades in the easy life on the cul-de-sac for the green fields of Costa Rica. There, along with her husband, kids, and the family cat, she intends to serve God and make converts. But she soon loses faith and falls into a funk of cynicism and despair. Fortunately, Knives the cat is... Read more

My American Dream

By: Lidia Matticchio Bastianich

Narrated by: Lidia Matticchio Bastianich

Length: 12 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

For decades, beloved chef Lidia Bastianich has introduced Americans to Italian food through her cookbooks, TV shows, and restaurants. Now she tells her own story for the first time in this “memoir as rich and complex as her mushroom ragú" (O, the Oprah Magazine).

Born in Pula, on the Istrian peninsula, Lidia grew up surrounded by love and... Read more

Meaty

By: Samantha Irby

Narrated by: Samantha Irby

Length: 7 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

Smart, edgy, hilarious, and unabashedly raunchy New York Times bestselling author Samantha Irby explodes off the printed page in her uproarious first collection of essays. 

Irby laughs her way through tragicomic mishaps, neuroses, and taboos as she struggles through adulthood: chin hairs, depression, bad sex, failed relationships, masturbation,... Read more

See What Can Be Done

By: Lorrie Moore

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 16 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

A welcome surprise: more than fifty prose pieces, gathered together for the first time, by one of America’s most revered and admired novelists and short-story writers, whose articles, essays, and cultural commentary—appearing in the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, the New Yorker, The Atlantic, the Guardian, Harper’s... Read more

Look Alive Out There

By: Sloane Crosley

Narrated by: Sloane Crosley

Length: 6 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

This program is read by the author

Sloane Crosley returns to the form that made her a household name in really quite a lot of households: Essays! These small doses of wit and sass make for an exuberant, unforgettable audiobook.

From the New York Times–bestselling author Sloane Crosley comes Look Alive Out There—a brand-new collection of essays... Read more

Feast

By: Hannah Howard

Narrated by: Hannah Howard

Length: 8 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

The compulsively readable memoir of a woman at war—with herself, with her body, and with food—while working her way through the underbelly of New York City’s glamorous culinary scene.Hannah Howard is a Columbia University freshman when she lands a hostess job at Picholine, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Manhattan. Eighteen years old and eager... Read more

Meditaciones desde el subsuelo

By: Guillermo Fadanelli

Narrated by: Mauricio Meléndez

Length: 4 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

¿Qué causas pueden sustentar a la escritura? ¿Tiene sentido seguir escribiendo en el mundo contemporáneo? Para responder, recurre a una cita E. L. Doctorow: "[La ficción] enseña las leyes de la comunidad y distribuye el sufrimiento". A partir de ella construye distintos argumentos a favor de la producción de ficciones y su consumo. La literatura... Read more

Under the Sign of Saturn

By: Susan Sontag

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

Length: 6 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Sontag’s most important critical writings from 1972 to 1980 are collected in Under the Sign of Saturn. One of America’s leading essayists, Sontag’s writings are commentaries on the relation between moral and aesthetic ideas, discussing the works of Antonin Artaud, Leni Riefenstahl, Elias Canetti, Walter Benjamin, and others. The collection... Read more

Run Forever

By: Amby Burfoot

Narrated by: Chris Ciulla

Length: 6 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

In Run Forever, Boston Marathon winner and former Runner's World editor-in-chief Amby Burfoot shares practical advice and wisdom on how to run with greater joy and health for an entire lifetime.

Everyone learns how to run at an early age. It's naturally wired into your body. Yet in recent years, running has become complicated by trendy gadgets... Read more