Experience our world: as it was, as it is, as it might become with these audiobooks about history, the arts, culture, education, and politics. Don't miss Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, or Fresh Air with Terry Gross: Writers, or Gwen Ifill's The Breakthrough.
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 the tradition of Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919 comes this groundbreaking history of the Irish Revolution. In this invigorating account, Walsh demonstrates how this national revolution captured worldwide attention from India to Argentina and was itself shaped by political, economic, and cultural events. Learn More
With startling new evidence, this gripping reexamination of the Black Dahlia murder offers a definitive theory of a quintessential American crime. Learn More
With surprising tales of vicious mutineers, imperial riches, and high-seas intrigue, Black Flags, Blue Waters vividly reanimates the "Golden Age" of piracy in the Americas. Learn More
An award-winning historian illuminates the adversities and joys of the Black working class in America through a stunning narrative centered on her forebears. Learn More
by Otto Penzler; read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Sean Crisden
Some of the best-known and most influential pieces of crime fiction have been from African American writers. Be it Walter Mosley's great detective Easy Rawlins, or the mean streets of Harlem at the hands of Chester Himes, the stories and characters in this anthology have shaped the mystery genre with their own unique viewpoints and styles. 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 bold account of one of the most controversial and haunting initiatives in American history, Black Site tells the full story of the post-9/11 counterterrorism world at the CIA. Learn More
Seven minutes past midnight on March 10, 1945, nearly 300 American B-29s thundered into the skies over Tokyo. Their payloads of incendiaries ignited a firestorm that reached up to 2,800 degrees, liquefying asphalt and vaporizing thousands; sixteen square miles of the city were flattened and more than 100,000 men, women, and children were killed. Black Snow is the story of this devastating operation. Learn More
Black Software centralizes African Americans' role in the Internet's creation and evolution, illuminating both the limits and possibilities for using digital technology to push for racial justice in the United States and across the globe. Learn More
by James H. Cone, introduction by Cornel West; read by Leon Nixon
First published in 1969, Black Theology and Black Power is the first systematic presentation of black theology that also introduced the voice of a young theologian who would shake the foundations of American theology. 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
by Kim Ghattas; read by Kim Ghattas & Nan McNamara
Novelistic and character-driven, Black Wave is an unprecedented and ambitious examination of how the modern Middle East unraveled and why it started with the pivotal year of 1979. Learn More
by Matthew D. Morrison; read by Matthew D. Morrison
F O R T H C O M I N G ! Available August
Blacksound explores the sonic history of blackface minstrelsy and the racial foundations of American musical culture from the early 1800s through the turn of the twentieth century. With this namesake book, Matthew D. Morrison develops the concept of "Blacksound" to uncover how the popular music industry and popular entertainment in general in the United States arose out of slavery and blackface. Learn More
