Biography * Memoir: Women & Persons of Color

The Scandalous Lady W

by Hallie Rubenhold; read by Pearl Hewitt

It was the divorce that scandalized Georgian England . . . She was a spirited young heiress. He was a handsome baronet with a promising career in government. Their marriage had the makings of a fairy tale but ended as one of the most salacious and highly publicized divorces in history. Learn More

Self-Portrait in Black and White

by Thomas Chatterton Williams; read by Thomas Chatterton Williams

A meditation on race and identity from one of our most provocative cultural critics. Learn More

She Got Up Off the Couch

Haven Kimmel; read by Haven Kimmel

Picking up where A Girl Named Zippy left off, Haven Kimmel crafts a tender portrait of her mother, a modestly heroic woman who took the odds that life gave her and somehow managed to win. Learn More

Shortlisted

by Renee Knake Jefferson & Hannah Brenner Johnson; read by Kitty Hendrix

The inspiring and previously untold history of the women considered—but not selected—for the US Supreme Court. Learn More

A Sick Life

by Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins

Hailed by Rolling Stone as "the most effervescent and soulful girl group anyone has seen since the Supremes," five-time Grammy Award winning supergroup TLC has seen phenomenal fame and success. But backstage, Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins has lived a dual life. Learn More

Sisters and Rebels

by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall; read by Karen White

2020 PEN America Literary Award Winner

Grounded in decades of research, Sisters and Rebels unfolds an epic narrative of American history through the lives and works of three Southern women. Learn More

A Slave in the White House

Elizabeth Dowling Taylor; foreword by Annette Gordon Reed; read by Judith West and Kevin Kenerly

A New York Times Bestseller!
Sound Commentary Best Audiobooks of the Year Pick

The inspiring story of Paul Jennings, a slave in President James Madison’s household, and his long struggle for freedom. Learn More

Slouching Towards Los Angeles

by Steffie Nelson; read by Eric Jason Martin & Xe Sands

This collection of original essays covers the turf that made Joan Didion a sensation—Hollywood and Patty Hearst; Malibu, Manson and the Mojave; the Summer of Love and the Central Park Five—while bringing together some of the finest voices of today's Los Angeles and beyond. Learn More

Song in a Weary Throat

by Pauli Murray; read by Allyson Johnson

A prophetic memoir by the activist who "articulated the intellectual foundations" (The New Yorker) of the civil rights and women's rights movements. Learn More

Spirit Run

by Noe Alvarez; read by Ramon de Ocampo

Library Journal 2020 Title to Watch
•New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice 2020
Amazon Editors Pick Best Nonfiction 2020

The electrifying debut memoir of a son of working-class Mexican immigrants who fled a life of labor in fruit-packing plants to run in an Indigenous marathon from Canada to Guatemala, reimagining North America and his place in it. Learn More

Square Haunting

by Francesca Wade; read by Corrie James

Nestled in the heart of Bloomsbury, Mecklenburgh Square has borne witness to the lives of some of the century's most revolutionary cultural figures—many of whom were extraordinary women. Square Haunting is a glorious portrait of five of the square's inhabitants: Hilda Doolittle, Dorothy Sayers, Jane Harrison, Eileen Power, and Virginia Woolf. Learn More

Stand Up Straight and Sing!

by Jessye Norman; read by Mia Ellis

In Stand Up Straight and Sing!, Jessye Norman recalls in rich detail the strong women who were her role models, from her ancestors to family friends, relatives, and teachers. Learn More

Storming the Heavens

by Gerald Horne; read by Bill Quinn

The recent Hollywood film Hidden Figures presents a portrait of how African American women shaped the U.S. effort in aerospace during the height of Jim Crow. In Storming the Heavens, Gerald Horne presents the necessary back story to this account and goes further to detail the earlier struggle of African Americans to gain the right to fly. Learn More