History audiobooks

Travel as a Political Act

By: Rick Steves

Narrated by: Rick Steves

Length: 10 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Change the world one trip at a time. In this illuminating collection of stories and lessons from the road, acclaimed travel writer Rick Steves shares a powerful message that resonates now more than ever.

With the world facing divisive and often frightening events, from Trump, Brexit, and Erdogan, to climate change, nativism, and populism, there's... Read more

The Great Beanie Baby Bubble

By: Zac Bissonnette

Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan

Length: 8 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

A bestselling journalist delivers the never-before-told story of the plush animal craze that became the tulip mania of the 1990s



In the annals of consumer crazes, nothing compares to Beanie Babies. In just three years, collectors who saw the toys as a means of speculation made creator Ty Warner, an eccentric college dropout, a billionaire—without... Read more

Caesar's Last Breath

By: Sam Kean

Narrated by: Ben Sullivan

Length: 10 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

The Guardian's Best Science Book of 2017: the fascinating science and history of the air we breathe.

It's invisible. It's ever-present. Without it, you would die in minutes. And it has an epic story to tell.

In Caesar's Last Breath, New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean takes us on a journey through the periodic table, around the globe,... Read more

Writing to Save a Life

By: John Edgar Wideman

Narrated by: Roger Guenveur Smith

Length: 7 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

A major literary figure tells “a searching tale of loss, recovery, and déja vu that is part memoir and what-if speculation, part polemic and exposé” (The Washington Post) about two generations of one family—civil rights martyr Emmett Till and his father, Louis—shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Emmett Till took a train from... Read more

Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me

By: Steven Hyden

Narrated by: Ben Sullivan

Length: 7 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Steven Hyden explores nineteen music rivalries and what they say about life in this "highly entertaining" book (Rolling Stone) perfect for every passionate music fan.

Beatles vs. Stones. Biggie vs. Tupac. Kanye vs. Taylor. Who do you choose? And what does that say about you? Actually -- what do these endlessly argued-about pop music rivalries... Read more

Agent Sonya

By: Ben Macintyre

Narrated by: Ben Macintyre

Length: 14 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “master storyteller” (San Francisco Chronicle) behind the New York Times bestseller The Spy and the Traitor uncovers the true story behind one of the Cold War’s most intrepid spies.

“[An] immensely exciting, fast-moving account.”—The Washington Post
 
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Foreign Affairs, Kirkus... Read more

The Palace Papers

By: Tina Brown

Narrated by: Tina Brown

Length: 18 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “addictively readable” (The Washington Post) inside story of the British royal family’s battle to overcome the dramas of the Diana years—only to confront new, twenty-first-century crises
 
“Frothy and forthright, a kind of Keeping Up with the Windsors with sprinkles of Keats.”—The New York Times (Notable Book of... Read more

Scoundrel

By: Sarah Weinman

Narrated by: Gabra Zackman

Length: 9 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

A Recommended Read from: The Los Angeles Times * Town and Country * The Seattle Times * Publishers Weekly * Lit Hub * Crime Reads * AlmaFrom the author of The Real Lolita and editor of Unspeakable Acts, the astonishing story of a murderer who conned the people around him—including conservative thinker William F. Buckley—into helping set him... Read more

No Escape

By: Nury Turkel

Narrated by: Stewart Lang

Length: 9 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

A powerful memoir by Nury Turkel lays bare China’s repression of the Uyghur people. Turkel is cofounder and board chair of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and a commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

In recent years, the People’s Republic of China has rounded up as many as three million Uyghurs, placing... Read more

New Yorkers

By: Craig Taylor

Narrated by: Catherine Ho, Maria Liatis, Richard Poe, Ron Bu...

Length: 14 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

A symphony of contemporary New York through the magnificent words of its people—from the best-selling author of Londoners.

In the first twenty years of the twenty-first century, New York City has been convulsed by terrorist attack, blackout, hurricane, recession, social injustice, and pandemic. New Yorkers weaves the voices
of some of the city’s... Read more

Sh*tshow!

By: Charlie LeDuff

Narrated by: Charlie LeDuff

Length: 7 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

A daring, firsthand, and utterly-unscripted account of crisis in America, from Ferguson to Flint to Cliven Bundy's ranch to Donald Trump's unstoppable campaign for President--at every turn, Pulitzer-prize winner and bestselling author of Detroit: An American Autopsy, Charlie LeDuff was there

In the Fall of 2013, long before any sane person had... Read more

How Star Wars Conquered the Universe

By: Chris Taylor

Length: 20 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

In 1973, a young filmmaker named George Lucas scribbled some notes for a far-fetched space-fantasy epic. More than forty years and $37 billion later, Star Wars–related products outnumber human beings, a stormtrooper army spans the globe, and “Jediism” has become a religion in its own right. Lucas’s creation has grown into far more than a... Read more

The Bald Eagle

By: Jack E. Davis

Narrated by: Dan John Miller

Length: 15 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Gulf, a sweeping cultural and natural history of the bald eagle in America.

The bald eagle is regal but fearless, a bird you’re not inclined to argue with. For centuries, Americans have celebrated it as “majestic” and “noble,” yet savaged the living bird behind their national symbol as a malicious... Read more

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

By: Peter Matthiessen

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall

Length: 28 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

On a hot June morning in 1975, a fatal shoot-out took place between FBI agents and American Indians on a remote property near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in which an Indian and two federal agents were killed. Eventually, four members of the American Indian Movement were indicted on murder charges in the deaths of the two agents. Leonard Peltier,... Read more

We Don't Know Ourselves

By: Fintan O'Toole

Narrated by: Aidan Kelly

Length: 22 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society—perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history.



Born to a working-class family in the... Read more

California Burning

By: Katherine Blunt

Narrated by: Nan McNamara

Length: 9 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
2022 Winner of the Golden Poppy Award for Nonfiction (California Independent Booksellers Alliance)

A revelatory, urgent narrative with national implications, exploring the decline of California’s largest utility company that led to countless wildfires — including the one that destroyed the town of Paradise — and the human cost... Read more

The Traitor's Daughter

By: Roxana Spicer

Narrated by: Roxana Spicer

Length: 20 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

The masterful narration of a daughter's decades-long quest to understand her extraordinary mother, who was born in Lenin's Soviet Union, served as a combat soldier in the Red Army, and endured three years of Nazi captivity—but never revealed her darkest secrets.

As a child, Roxana Spicer would sometimes wake to the... Read more

Still Life with Bones

By: Alexa Hagerty

Narrated by: Rose Akroyd

Length: 8 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • An anthropologist working with forensic teams and victims’ families to investigate crimes against humanity in Latin America explores what science can tell us about the lives of the dead in this haunting account of grief, the power of ritual, and a quest for justice.

“Absorbing . . . multifaceted and... Read more

Why We Love Football

By: Joe Posnanski

Narrated by: Joe Posnanski

Length: 12 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A Kirkus Reviews Most Anticipated Book of the Fall

A moving celebration of the history of American football from the New York Times bestselling author of Why We Love Baseball

After his bestselling home run books Why We Love Baseball and The Baseball 100, Joe Posnanski turns from the national pastime to the number one... Read more

Outspoken

By: Sima Samar

Narrated by: Wajma Soroor & Sally Armstrong

Length: 9 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

The impassioned memoir of Afghanistan's Sima Samar: medical doctor, public official, founder of schools and hospitals, thorn in the side of the Taliban, nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, and lifelong advocate for girls and women.

“I have three strikes against me. I’m a... Read more

My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy

By: Clint Hill & Lisa McCubbin Hill

Narrated by: Clint Hill

Length: 5 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the authors of the #1 New York Times bestseller Mrs. Kennedy and Me comes another New York Times bestseller, which reveals never-before-told stories of Secret Service Agent Clint Hill’s travels with Jacqueline Kennedy through Europe, Asia, and South America. Featuring more than two hundred rare and... Read more

Cabinet of Curiosities

By: Aaron Mahnke

Narrated by: Aaron Mahnke

Length: 12 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

This program features a bonus conversation between Aaron Mahnke, the book's author and creator of the smash-hit iHeartPodcast series, and journalist and screenwriter Dana Schwartz.

The new audiobook is based on the long-running hit podcast by Aaron Mahnke, which has translated into over 120-million downloads to date, and a monthly average of... Read more

The Deviant's War

By: Eric Cervini

Narrated by: Vikas Adam

Length: 15 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

"Vikas Adam draws the listener in, expertly narrating Cervini's work, which charts the beginning of the gay rights movement in the United States...Vikas Adam does an excellent job lending unique voices to real historical figures." -- AudioFile Magazine

A Publishers Weekly most anticipated spring book

From a young Harvard- and... Read more

Nobody Ever Asked Me about the Girls

By: Lisa Robinson

Narrated by: Lisa Robinson

Length: 8 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

This program is read by the author.

"Indispensable [reading] about the feminine journey through a man's world" —USA Today

An intimate look at the lives of our most celebrated female musicians—and their challenges with fame—from a legendary music journalist

Over four decades, Lisa Robinson has made a name for herself as a celebrated journalist in a... Read more