Social Science audiobooks

The Singularity Is Nearer

By: Ray Kurzweil

Narrated by: Adam Barr

Length: 10 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

The noted inventor and futurist’s successor to his landmark book The Singularity Is Near explores how technology will transform the human race in the decades to come

Since it was first published in 2005, Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near and its vision of an exponential future have spawned a worldwide movement. Kurzweil's predictions about... Read more

Frostbite

By: Nicola Twilley

Narrated by: Nicola Twilley

Length: 12 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

"Engrossing...hard to put down." — The New York Times Book Review

“Frostbite is a perfectly executed cold fusion of science, history, and literary verve . . . as a fellow nonfiction writer, I bow down. This is how it's done.” — Mary Roach, author of Fuzz and Stiff

An engaging and far-reaching exploration of refrigeration, tracing its evolution... Read more

Pretty

By: KB Brookins

Narrated by: KB Brookins

Length: 6 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

By a prize-winning, young Black trans writer of outsized talent, a fierce and disciplined memoir about queerness, masculinity, and race.

Even as it shines light on the beauty and toxicity of Black masculinity from a transgender perspective—the tropes, the presumptions—Pretty is as much a powerful and tender love letter as it is a call for... Read more

Christmas and Other Horrors

By: Ellen Datlow

Narrated by: Carrie Coello & Andrew J. Andersen

Length: 13 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Hugo Award–winning editor, and horror legend, Ellen Datlow presents a terrifying and chilling horror anthology of original short stories exploring the endless terrors of winter solstice traditions across the globe, featuring chillers by Tananarive Due, Stephen Graham Jones, Alma Katsu, and many more.



The winter solstice is celebrated as a time of... Read more

The Black Box

By: Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman

Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

“Henry Louis Gates is a national treasure. Here, he returns with an intellectual and at times deeply personal meditation on the hard-fought evolution and the very meaning of African American identity, calling upon our country to transcend its manufactured divisions.”
— Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste

“This is a... Read more

You Get What You Pay For

By: Morgan Parker

Narrated by: Morgan Parker

Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

In her “witty and searing” first essay collection, award-winning poet Morgan Parker examines “the cultural legacy of Black womanhood and the meaning of finding ‘well-being’ in a world that wasn’t built for you” (Vogue).

“Riveting and deeply personal . . . filled with poignant insights.”—Cosmopolitan

Dubbed a voice of her generation, poet and... Read more

Infectious Generosity

By: Chris Anderson

Narrated by: Chris Anderson

Length: 6 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

“If you want to help create a more equitable world but don’t know where to start, Infectious Generosity is for you.”—Bill Gates, GatesNotes 

The bestselling author, media pioneer, and curator of TED explores one of humankind’s defining but overlooked impulses, and how we can super-charge its potential to build a hopeful future

Let’s face it:... Read more

The Future of Geography

By: Tim Marshall

Narrated by: Tim Marshall

Length: 6 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

From the New York Times bestselling author of Prisoners of Geography and leading geopolitics expert comes an “insightful, hopeful, and endlessly fascinating” (Daily Express) book on today’s space race—including the increasingly tense power struggle between the US, China, and Russia and what it means for all of us here on Earth.

Spy satellites... Read more

Endangered Eating

By: Sarah Lohman

Narrated by: Sarah Lohman

Length: 11 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Apples, a common New England crop, have been called the United States' most endangered food. The iconic Texas Longhorn cattle is categorized at critical risk for extinction. Unique date palms, found nowhere else on the planet, grow in California’s Coachella Valley, but the family farms that caretake them are shutting down. Apples, cattle,... Read more

The Meth Lunches

By: Kim Foster

Narrated by: Sara Sheckells

Length: 12 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

Food is a conduit for connection; we envision smiling families gathered around a table—eating, happy, content. But what happens when poverty, mental illness, homelessness, and addiction claim a seat at that table? In The Meth Lunches, Kim Foster peers behind the polished visions of perfectly curated dinners and charming families to reveal the... Read more

Round Here and Over Yonder

By: Trae Crowder & Corey Ryan Forrester

Narrated by: Trae Crowder & Corey Ryan Forrester

Length: 7 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

Read by the authors.Join Southern comedian duo Trae Crowder and Corey Ryan Forrester in this hilarious and irreverent travel guide as they wander about ponderin' the peculiarities beyond their small-town front porches.Trae and Corey will take you from the smallest of small towns to major US metropolises (or is it metropoli? We haven't a fartin'... Read more

Pulling the Chariot of the Sun

By: Shane McCrae

Narrated by: Shane McCrae

Length: 5 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Vulture’s #1 Memoir of 2023

An unforgettable, “lyrical and poignant” (The Washington Post) memoir by an award-winning poet about being kidnapped from his Black father and raised by his white supremacist grandparents.

When Shane McCrae was three years old, his grandparents kidnapped him and took him to suburban Texas. His mom was white and his dad... Read more

100 Places to See After You Die

By: Ken Jennings

Narrated by: Ken Jennings

Length: 7 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

From New York Times bestselling author and legendary Jeopardy! host and champion Ken Jennings comes a hilarious travel guide to the afterlife, exploring to die for destinations from literature, mythology, and pop culture.

Ever wonder which circles of Dante’s Inferno have the nicest accommodations? Where’s the best place to grab a bite to eat in... Read more

Moby Dyke

By: Krista Burton

Narrated by: Sarah Beth Pfeifer

Length: 12 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

A former Rookie contributor and creator of the popular blog Effing Dykes investigates the disappearance of America’s lesbian bars by visiting the last few in existence.

Lesbian bars have always been treasured safe spaces for their customers, providing not only a good time but a shelter from societal alienation and outright persecution. In 1987,... Read more

The Forgotten Girls

By: Monica Potts

Narrated by: Monica Potts

Length: 7 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

Talented and ambitious, Monica Potts and her best friend, Darci, were both determined to make something of themselves. How did their lives turn out so different?

“The Forgotten Girls is much more than a memoir; it’s the unflinching story of rural women trying to live in the most rugged, ultra-religious, and left-behind places in America.”—Beth... Read more

Built from the Fire

By: Victor Luckerson

Narrated by: JD Jackson

Length: 19 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

A multigenerational saga of a family and a community in Tulsa’s Greenwood district, known as “Black Wall Street,” that in one century survived the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, urban renewal, and gentrification

“Ambitious . . . absorbing . . . By the end of Luckerson’s outstanding book, the idea of building something new from the ashes of what has... Read more

Paved Paradise

By: Henry Grabar

Narrated by: Rob Shapiro

Length: 10 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Shortlisted for the Zócalo Book Prize

Named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker and The New Republic

“Consistently entertaining and often downright funny.” —The New Yorker

“Wry and revelatory.” —The New York Times

"A romp, packed with tales of anger, violence, theft, lust, greed, political chicanery and transportation policy gone... Read more

The LGBTQ + History Book

By: DK

Narrated by: Willow Heath

Length: 15 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Discover the rich and complex history of LGBTQ+ people around the world - their struggles, triumphs, and cultural contributions.

Exploring and explaining the most important ideas and events in LGBTQ+ history and culture, this book showcases the breadth of the LGBTQ+ experience. This diverse, global account explores the most important moments,... Read more

Body Horror

By: Anne Elizabeth Moore

Narrated by: Anne Elizabeth Moore

Length: 8 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Whether for entertainment, under the guise of medicine, or to propel consumerism, heinous acts are perpetrated daily on women’s bodies. In Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes, award-winning journalist Anne Elizabeth Moore catalogs the global toll of capitalism on our physical autonomy. Weaving together unflinching research and... Read more

Ordinary Wonder Tales

By: Emily Urquhart

Narrated by: Anne Wessel

Length: 7 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

A journalist and folklorist explores the truths that underlie the stories we imagine—and reveals the magic in the everyday.“I’ve always felt that the term fairy tale doesn’t quite capture the essence of these stories,” writes Emily Urquhart. “I prefer the term wonder tale, which is Irish in origin, for its suggestion of awe coupled with... Read more

The Humanity Archive

By: Jermaine Fowler

Narrated by: Jermaine Fowler

Length: 15 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times Bestseller
This sweeping survey of Black history shows how Black humanity has been erased and how its recovery can save the humanity of us all.
"An innovative reading of Black history, gracefully joining it to the larger history of all humankind." — Kirkus Starred Review
Using history as a foundation, The Humanity Archive uses... Read more

The Love You Save

By: Goldie Taylor

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Length: 7 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

“The Love You Save will console and inspire countless people."—J.R. Moehringer, New York Times bestselling author of The Tender Bar

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings meets Educated in this harrowing, deeply hopeful memoir of family, faith and the power of books—from acclaimed journalist and human rights activist Goldie Taylor 
 
Aunt Gerald takes in... Read more

Poisoned

By: Jeff Benedict

Narrated by: Jackie Sanders

Length: 8 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

NOW A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY

From Jeff Benedict, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Tiger Woods and The Dynasty, Poisoned chronicles the events surrounding the worst food-poisoning epidemic in US history: the deadly Jack in the Box E. coli infections in 1993.

On December 24, 1992, six-year-old Lauren Rudolph was hospitalized with... Read more

Punk Paradox

By: Greg Graffin

Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins & Greg Graffin

Length: 12 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

From the legendary singer-songwriter of Bad Religion comes a historical memoir and cultural criticism of punk rock’s evolution.  Greg Graffin is the lead vocalist and songwriter of Bad Religion, recently described as “America's most significant punk band.” Since its inception in Los Angeles in 1980, Bad Religion has produced 18 studio albums,... Read more