Share in the childhood tales of A Girl Named Zippy. Hear Kenneth Branagh read Samuel Pepys' exuberant 17th-century diary. Be transformed by the extraordinary women of Half the Sky. You'll find these and other remarkable life stories under biography and memoir.
by Rodney Stotts with Kate Pipkin; read by James Fouhey
To escape the tough streets of Southeast Washington DC in the late 1980s, young Rodney Stotts would ride the metro to the Smithsonian National Zoo. There, the bald eagles and other birds of prey captured his imagination for the first time. In Bird Brother, Rodney shares his unlikely journey to becoming a conservationist and one of America's few Black master falconers. Learn More
Aviculturist Raffin introduced us to Sweetie, a special breed of quail with an outsized personality; Oscar the inspiring disabled Lady Gouldian finch; Victoria, Wing, and Coffee, sibling crowned pigeons ecstatic in reunion; and other rescued feathered friends that have been her life's work. Along the way she teaches us how conservationism is as much about saving ourselves as these rare birds. Learn More
In Black and Female, Tsitsi Dangarembga examines the legacy of imperialism on her own life and on every aspect of black embodied African life. This paradigm-shifting essay collection weaves the personal and political in an illuminating exploration of race and gender. Learn More
Volume one of Black Heart Fades Blue, a three-part memoir by the founder and frontman for one of punk rock's most notorious acts, Poison Idea. Learn More
Volume two of Black Heart Fades Blue, a three-part memoir by the founder and frontman for one of punk rock's most notorious acts, Poison Idea. Learn More
Volume three of Black Heart Fades Blue, a three-part memoir by the founder and frontman for one of punk rock's most notorious acts, Poison Idea. Learn More
A black teenager from Philadelphia describes her experiences in an exclusive New England prep school, first as a student coming to terms with a new and different way of life, and then as a teacher at her alma mater. Learn More
by Nyasha Junior & Jeremy Schipper; read by David Sadzin
Before Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King was identified with Moses, African Americans identified those who challenged racial oppression in America with Samson. In Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon, Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper tell the story of how this biblical character became an icon of African American literature. Learn More
A captivating memoir of a biracial boy growing up in Washington, DC, abandoned by his birth parents, and lovingly raised by a woman with deep emotional scars from her upbringing in the segregated South. Learn More
An intense, harrowing recounting of Larry Heinemann’s brutal tour of duty in Southeast Asia that tragically and irrevocably altered his life and that of his family, and the long journey of mourning that led him, ultimately, to reconciliation. Learn More
In Blow Your House Down, Gina Frangello uses her personal story to examine the place of women in contemporary society: the violence they experience, the rage they suppress, the ways their bodies often reveal what they cannot say aloud, and finally, what it means to transgress "being good" in order to reclaim your own life. Learn More
Body Leaping Backward is the haunting and beautifully drawn story of a self-destructive girlhood, of a town and a nation overwhelmed in a time of change, and of how life-altering a glimpse of a world bigger than the one we come from can be. Learn More
by Kirk Yeager, PhD, and Selene Yeager; read by Paul Bellantoni
F O R T H C O M I N G ! Available July
A rare peek behind the curtain into boots-on-the-ground, in-the-lab scientific bomb forensics—told with humanity, heart, and even a bit of humor. Learn More
Social psychologist and author Dr. Susan Newman empowers you to break your debilitating "yes" habit with her simple techniques and insights. Learn More
Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist Saltire Literary Awards Shortlist Kirkus Best of 2017 2018 National Book Critics Circle Awards Finalist
Border is a scintillating, immersive travel narrative that is also a shadow history of the Cold War, a sideways look at the migration crisis troubling Europe, and a deep, witchy descent into interior and exterior geographies. Learn More
Revealing the central yet intentionally obliterated role of Africa in the creation of modernity, Born in Blackness vitally reframes our understanding of world history. Learn More
A long-overdue biography of the head of Grand Central Terminal's Red Caps, who flourished in the cultural nexus of Harlem and American railroads. Learn More
Love, murder, mountains of cash, bribery, political intrigue, rivers of bourbon, and a grand spectacle like few before it, the tale of George Remus provides listeners with a lens into the dark heart of Prohibition's "Bourbon Trail," the thirst of the American people, and their fascination with crime. Learn More