General Audiobooks | Fiction & Literature

Raw, Unvarnished, provocative, and poetically written, 'The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage' is the memoir of Roxana Shirazi, who was raised during Iran's revolution within a politically active family and sent to England by her family aged ten during the Iran/Iraq war, and led far astray by the sound - and the sex appeal - of rock and roll. Alone in England and feeling a loss of identity, she found a new 'home' in the world of rock 'n' roll with bands like Guns 'n' Roses, Motley Crue and Velvet Revolver and discovered that there is no such things as rock 'n' roll: a place where only men are allowed to be transgressive, and sexually wild. A place where women are demonised for doing what men do. With heart-breaking accounts of child abuse, abortion and domestic violence, TLLS reads like an Iranian female Bukowski: raw, working class and poetic.

Roxana Shirazi (Author), Roxana Shirazi (Narrator)

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[German] - Amaryllis

»Amaryllis« erzählt die bewegende Biographie von Valerie, die im leicht bohèmen Familienmilieu aufgewachsen ist und davon träumt, als große Artistin und Clownin in einer Männerdomäne berühmt zu werden. Bei einem Familienurlaub lernt sie den jungen Schweizer Lorenzo kennen. Viele Jahre später gehen sie zusammen mit dem Berufswunsch Clown in die berühmte Zirkusschule Dimitri. Diese Ausbildung prägt beide sehr. Er schafft den Durchbruch in den Olymp der Zirkuswelt, während Valerie ihm als seine Choreografin, Managerin und Muse zur Seite steht. Ihr gemeinsames Leben ist voller gegenseitiger Liebe, Respekt und großer Heiterkeit. Trotzdem verspürt sie immer wieder eine gewisse Bedrückung und Trauer angesichts ihrer Rolle hinter dem Vorhang. In einem schwachen Moment Lorenzos überredet er Valerie statt seiner bei dem großen Zirkusfestival in Monte-Carlo aufzutreten. Doch dies hat Folgen …

Jutta Speidel (Author), Jutta Speidel (Narrator)

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Not Now Please

In 'Not Now Please: Living through Racism, Ableism, and Grief,' Elizabeth takes you on an intimate journey through the intersecting worlds of adversity, resilience, and transformation. This compelling narrative is a candid exploration of personal experiences that touch upon the deep-rooted issues of racism, ableism, and the complexities of grief. The book invites readers to navigate the author's life, sharing in moments of vulnerability and strength. Through powerful storytelling, it lays bare the often-unspoken challenges faced by individuals who encounter discrimination on multiple fronts. Elizabeth's reflections offer insights into how racism and ableism intersect, shaping lives and experiences in profound ways. As you delve into these pages, you'll witness the impact of systemic biases, cultural prejudices, and personal struggles. The author's voice is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, reminding us that even in the face of adversity, there is hope, strength, and the potential for change. 'Not Now Please' is not just a book; it's a call to action. It encourages readers to confront societal norms, challenge assumptions, and advocate for a more inclusive and compassionate world. The stories within these pages will provoke thought, spark conversation, and inspire empathy. This is a book that transcends boundaries and speaks to the universal human experience. It's a reminder that we all have a role to play in dismantling discrimination and fostering a society where every individual's worth is recognized and celebrated. Join the author on a journey of self-discovery, resilience, and the pursuit of justice. 'Not Now Please' is a book that will stay with you long after you've turned the final page, leaving you with a renewed sense of purpose and a commitment to be the change we all wish to see in the world.

Elizabeth Horlemann (Author), Corinne Schied, Valerie Gulotta (Narrator)

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Entwined: Essays on Polyamory and Creating Home

In a series of genre-blending essays read by the author, Entwined tells the story of Alex Alberto’s decade-long polyamorous journey toward a new kind of family. In these essays, Alex attempts to build two committed relationships at once when no one involved has done this before; develops a powerful bond with the woman their partner loves; sits through a tense Thanksgiving Dinner with religious in-laws; questions the need for rules and hierarchy in their relationships; experiences the intensity of a triad; wrestles with the fragility baked into the nuclear family after their father’s stroke; and explores their queerness and gender identity in English, in New York, and struggles to reconcile their newfound self in their native French-Canadian language and culture. Entwined explores the fuzzy lines between friendship, romance, and family with various essay forms, including a play, an advice column, and a love letter. Yes, there are challenges, but rather than wallowing in the throes of jealousy, this memoir celebrates the hard work of creating a love life that resists conventional narratives. WHAT EARLY READERS SAY ABOUT ENTWINED: 'Entwined is a goddamn bible for poly-curious people.' —Chloe Caldwell (she/her), 37, questioning 'Entwined is about the desire to create a life outside of capitalism, heteronormativity, and the patriarchy.' —Samantha Paige Rosen (she/her), 33, queer and monogamous 'Entwined had me captivated from start to finish. It will no doubt influence my approach to romance and family.' —Rio C. (she/her), 21, queer, trans, and curious about polyamory 'I laughed, cried, and felt my heart fill the fuck up.' — Dan D. (they), 36, queer and newly navigating non-monogamy within a lifelong partnership.

Alex Alberto (Author), Alex Alberto (Narrator)

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Left for Dead

Imagine having your innocence stolen at an early age by someone you trust, or struggling financially before even knowing the meaning of the word “struggling.” Ebony Canion has had her share of tumultuous events, yet even she was stunned when a speeding car hit her intentionally, dragging her through the streets with her body folded underneath the vehicle. In a coma for nearly two months, Ebony had no idea her tongue and face had to be sewn back on, or the list of thirty other life-threatening injuries she had sustained. Ebony didn’t know she’d been Left for Dead. In this horrifying first-hand account of a survivor, Ms. Canion delivers a riveting story about overcoming tragedy throughout her childhood, and developing the will to live after numerous attacks on her life. Her unimaginable determination to walk, talk, and eat again will leave you spellbound and inspired. Her scars tell a story that must be heard and will have you never wanting to complain again.

Ebony Canion (Author), Adah King, TBD (Narrator)

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Soundtrack of Silence: Love, Loss, and a Playlist for Life

An inspiring memoir of a young man who discovered he was going completely deaf just at the moment he’d fallen in love for the first time. As a child, Matt Hay didn’t know his hearing wasn’t the way everyone else processed sound—because of the workarounds he did to ﬁt in, even the school nurse didn’t catch his condition at the annual hearing and vision checks. But by the time he was a prospective college student and couldn’t pass the entrance requirements for West Point, Hay’s condition, generated by a tumor, was unavoidable: his hearing was going, and fast. A personal soundtrack was Hay’s determined compensation for his condition. As a typical Midwestern kid growing up in the 1980s whose life events were pegged to pop music, Hay planned to commit his favorite songs to memory. He prepared a mental playlist of the bands he loved and created a way to tap into his most resonant memories. And the track he needed to cement most clearly? The one he and his new girlfriend, Nora—the love of his life—listened to in the car on their ﬁrst date. Made vivid with references to instantly recognizable songs—from the Eagles to Elton John, Bob Marley to Bing Crosby, U2 to Peter Frampton—Soundtrack of Silence asks readers to run the soundtrack of their own lives through their minds. It’s an involving memoir of loss and disability, and, ultimately, a both unique and universal love story.

Matt Hay (Author), Matt Hay, TBD (Narrator)

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The Ballad of Speedball Baby: A Memoir

The Ballad of Speedball Baby is the thrilling, extremely funny, and heart-wrenchingly vulnerable story of Ali Smith’s coming of age in ’90s New York as she commits to the messy, exhilarating life of a musician and must survive the slings and arrows society reserves for women who refuse to comply. As an only child reeling from the demolition of her parents’ toxic marriage, the New York City underground music scene offers a young Ali a different family of misfits and talented outsiders to belong to. She becomes the bass player for edgy band Speedball Baby, a decision that will take her around the world—from onstage at the legendary CBGBs to the red-light district of Amsterdam. She’s often the only girl in a broken-down tour van, being strip-searched at the Croatian border, chased by lunatics, and navigating the seedy underbelly of a male-dominated music scene full of addiction, violence, and misogyny—all while keeping her sharp wit and dark humor intact. Rimmed with heavy black eyeliner and smelling faintly of cheap booze, The Ballad of Speedball Baby is a pulse-quickening, unpredictable ride through the ’90s music scene—alternately terrifying, hilarious, and painfully evocative—as well as a love letter to the power of female solidarity.

Ali Smith (Author), Ali Smith, TBD (Narrator)

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Sex with a Brain Injury: On Concussion and Recovery

For readers of Meghan O'Rourke's The Invisible Kingdom, Esme Weijun Wang's The Collected Schizophrenias, and Melissa Febos's Girlhood, a powerful and deeply personal memoir in essays that sheds light on the silent epidemic of head trauma. Annie Liontas suffered multiple concussions in her thirties. In Sex with a Brain Injury, she writes about what it means to be one of the "walking wounded," facing her fear, her rage, her physical suffering, and the effects of head trauma on her marriage and other relationships. Forced to reckon with her own queer mother's battle with addiction, Liontas finds echoes in their pain. Liontas weaves history, philosophy, and personal accounts to interrogate and expand representations of mental health, ability, and disability—particularly in relation to women and the LGBT community. She uncovers the surprising legacy of brain injury, examining its role in culture, the criminal justice system, and through historical figures like Henry VIII and Harriet Tubman. Encountering Liontas's sharp, affecting prose, the reader can imagine this kind of pain, and having to claw one's way back to a new normal. The hidden gift of injury, Liontas writes, is the ability to connect with others. For the millions of people who have suffered from concussions and for those who have endeavored to support loved ones through the painful and often baffling experience of head trauma, this astonishing and compassionate narrative offers insight and hope in equal measure.

Annie Liontas (Author), Natalie Naudus, TBD (Narrator)

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Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics

While we can all recall images of Martin Luther King Jr. giving his 'I Have a Dream' speech in front of a massive crowd at Lincoln Memorial, few of us remember the man who organized this watershed nonviolent protest in eight short weeks: Bayard Rustin. This was far from Rustin's first foray into the fight for civil rights. As a world-traveling pacifist, he brought Gandhi's protest techniques to the forefront of US civil rights demonstrations, helped build the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led the fight for economic justice, and played a deeply influential role in the life of Dr. King by helping to mold him into an international symbol of nonviolent resistance. Rustin's legacy touches many areas of contemporary life-from civil resistance to violent uprisings, democracy to socialism, and criminal justice reform to war resistance. Despite these achievements, Rustin was often relegated to the background. He was silenced, threatened, arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and fired from important leadership positions, largely because he was an openly gay man in a fiercely homophobic era. This volume draws a full picture of Bayard Rustin: a gay, pacifist, socialist political radical who changed the course of US history and set a precedent for future civil rights activism, from LGBTQ+ Pride to Black Lives Matter.

Michael G. Long (Author), William Andrew Quinn (Narrator)

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Squeaky Wheels: Travels with My Daughter by Train, Plane, Metro, Tuk-tuk and Wheelchair

Squeaky Wheels: Travels with my Daughter by Train, Plane, Metro, Tuk-tuk and Wheelchair is a mother-daughter travel memoir woven with comparative culture and accessibility awareness. Kamata's adventures with her teen-who happens to be deaf, with cerebral palsy, and in a wheelchair-through subterranean Tennessee, to the islands of Japan, and to the top of the Eiffel Tower ultimately lead to a daughter's increasing independence, a mother letting go of expectations, and advocacy for travel which prohibits discrimination.

Suzanne Kamata (Author), Sanya Simmons (Narrator)

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Letter to the Shooting Stars Among Us

Dear You, Welcome to your love letter. A letter signed to the secrets and celebrations that brought you here. The found family, and the lost innocence, and the wanderlust, and the returning home again in ways you never thought possible. Not to mention the whiskey and the sobriety and the streetlights and the sweet sleepless nights you danced through on your way to this moment. Welcome to the love letter to your leaving and arriving again. Here. Letter to the Shooting Stars Among Us is a concoction of music and poetry that pushes the boundaries of genre and expectation. Flowing from spoken word poetry and hip-hop roots, it’s a personal and powerful testament to the beauty and heartbreak of wising up and self-discovery. Examining everything from breakups, illness, crustaceans, immigration, supernovas, God, tomatoes, seedy motels, and all those other memories you locked up somewhere safe, this book is a reminder to love deeply, live boldly, and seek beauty in unconventional spaces.

Dylan Thomas Doyle (Author), Dylan Thomas Doyle (Narrator)

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The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon

A revelatory new biography of the writer-activist who inspired today's movements for racial liberation In the era of Black Lives Matter, Frantz Fanon's shadow looms larger than ever. He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power continue to shape radical movements across the world. In this searching biography, Adam Shatz tells the story of Fanon's stunning journey, which has all the twists of a Cold War-era thriller. Fanon left his modest home in Martinique to fight in the French Army during World War II; when the war was over, he fell under the influence of Existentialism while studying medicine in Lyon and trying to make sense of his experiences as a Black man in a white city. Fanon went on to practice a novel psychiatry of 'dis-alienation' in rural France and Algeria, and then join the Algerian independence struggle, where he became a spokesman, diplomat, and clandestine strategist. He died in 1961, while under the care of the CIA in a Maryland hospital. Today, Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth have become canonical texts of the Black and global radical imagination, comparable to James Baldwin's essays in their influence. And yet they are little understood. In The Rebel's Clinic, Shatz offers a dramatic reconstruction of Fanon's extraordinary life--and a guide to the books that underlie today's most vital efforts to challenge white supremacy and racial capitalism.

Adam Shatz (Author), Luis Soto (Narrator)

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General Audiobooks in Fiction & Literature