Audiobooks narrated by Jaime Lincoln Smith

Jahid Wilson, Jr. (Author), Erin Ruth Walker, Jaime Lincoln Smith, Jesus E. Martinez, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

That's How They Get You: An Unruly Anthology of Black American Humor

From the Thurber Prize-winning author of What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker comes a pioneering collection of Black humor from some of the most acclaimed writers and performers at work today A critic explores the paradox of finding community in "the dozens" while grieving. A violent town ritual causes an all-too-familiar moral panic. An email thread between friends on why we need an updated Green Book but for public toilets. All across the nation, "Karens" become illegal overnight. These are just a few of the hilarious worlds contained in Damon Young's groundbreaking anthology featuring the best, funniest, and Blackest essays, short stories, letters, and rants. With words that roast, ignite, and burn while connecting to and coalescing around a singular thesis, That's How They Get You emphasizes how and why Black American humor is uniquely transfixing. This is a mixture of not just observational anxieties and stream-of-consciousness lucidities but also acute political clarity about America. Edited and with an introduction by Damon Young, the critically acclaimed author of What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker, the collection features new material from an all-star roster of contributors, including Hanif Abdurraqib, Mahogany L. Browne, Wyatt Cenac, Kiese Laymon, Deesha Philyaw, Roy Wood Jr., and Nicola Yoon.

Damon Young (Author), André Santana, Cary Hite, Chanté McCormick, Damon Young, Deanna Anthony, Jaime Lincoln Smith, Janina Edwards, Je Nie Fleming, Ozzie Jacobs, Ryan Vincent Anderson, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King

A thought-provoking exploration of the Black musicians who inspired Elvis Presley's music, primarily through the lens of four overlooked artists: Little Junior Parker, Big Mama Thornton, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, and Calvin Newborn After Baz Luhrmann's movie, Elvis, hit theaters in the summer of 2022, audiences and critics alike couldn't help but question the Black origins of Elvis Presley's music and style, reigniting a debate that has been circling for decades. In Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King, author Preston Lauterbach answers these questions definitively, based on new research and extensive, previously unpublished interviews with the artists who blazed the way and the people who knew them. Within these pages, Lauterbach examines the lives, music, legacies, and interactions with Elvis Presley of the four innovative Black artists who created a style that would come to be known as Rock 'n' Roll: Little Junior Parker, Big Mama Thornton, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, and most revealingly, the mostly-unknown eccentric Beale Street guitarist Calvin Newborn, whose portrayal will be a revelation to even the most seasoned Elvis Presley and rock devotees. Lauterbach makes a convincing case that Newborn is the key to understanding where Presley's music and performance style came from. And Lauterbach has the receipts, the dates, the interviews, and the confirmation of Presley's presence and key club engagements, and the recording sessions. Along the way, he delves into the injustices of copyright theft and media segregation that resulted in Black artists living in poverty as white performers, managers, and producers reaped the lucrative rewards. In the wake of continuing conversations about American music and appropriation, Before Elvis is indispensable.

Preston Lauterbach (Author), Jaime Lincoln Smith, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Merlin's Tour of the Universe: A Traveller's Guide to Blue Moons and Black Holes, Mars, Stars and Ev

*Fully revised and updated for the 21st century* The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry takes readers on an odyssey into the deepest, darkest depth of the universe and back again with his extra-terrestrial tour guide, Merlin. Merlin is a timeless visitor to Earth from the planet Omniscia in the Andromeda galaxy, and he has observed first-hand many of the major scientific events of Earth's history - from the Big Bang to the extinction of the dinosaurs and beyond. In Merlin's Tour of the Universe, Merlin responds to popular questions asked by adults and children alike about the universe and our place within it. All questions are answered with authentic science, infused with wit, wisdom, an occasional rhyme and accompanied by the odd illustration. Merlin's friends include the most important scientific figures and explorers of all time - including da Vinci, Magellan, Newton, Einstein and Hubble, and Merlin's Tour also features playful conversations with these historical luminaries. Based on the first book that Tyson ever published in the 1990s and now fully updated and extended for the twenty-first century, Merlin's Tour of the Universe is a must-read for anyone who wants to know more about how the cosmos works.

Neil Degrasse Tyson (Author), André Santana, Bronson Pinchot, Em Grosland, Jaime Lincoln Smith, Jim Meskimen, Kevin R. Free, Lauren Fortgang, Luzma Ortiz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Pun Bandhu (Narrator)

Audiobook

Pinnacle: The Lost Paradise of Rasta

A fascinating first-person origin story of the Rastafari ideology, culture, and philosophy, capturing a crucial and little-known chapter in Jamaican history IN 1932, A JAMAICAN MAN NAMED LEONARD PERCIVAL HOWELL began leading nonviolent protests in Kingston, Jamaica, against British colonial rule. While history books rightly credit Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. with popularizing nonviolent protest strategies in later years, little is known about Leonard Howell and his vision of self-reliance?poor people working together to build a society of their own. When Howell first started preaching on street corners in Kingston, he was immediately perceived as seditious, and he became a target for police harassment. Howell soon founded an organization called the Ethiopian Salvation Society. His idea was to add a religious element to Marcus Garvey's message of African independence. Although Christian values were part of his belief system, he decided to make a break from the Christian interpretation of the Bible and extend the idea of divinity to a living man, Emperor Haile Selassie I, who had been crowned king of Ethiopia in 1930. Jamaican journalists coined a name for the group: the Ras Tafarites, or Rastas. Howell was arrested several times and was eventually found guilty of sedition and sentenced to prison for two years of hard labor. In 1940, Howell and his growing group of followers moved to an old estate in the parish of St. Catherine. They named their land Pinnacle, and for the next sixteen years built a self-reliant community that would ultimately give birth to the Rastafari movement. In 1942, Leonard Howell's wife Tenneth gave birth to their second child, whom they named Bill. In Pinnacle: The Lost Paradise of Rasta, Bill Blade Howell offers his firsthand account of this utopian community that suffered near-constant persecution from Jamaican authorities. Howell also dispels many misguided notions about the origins of Rastafari culture, including allegations of sexism and homophobia. Pinnacle was built on egalitarian principles and steered clear of all religious dogma. Pinnacle: The Lost Paradise of Rasta provides a crucial and highly informed new perspective on the Rastafari subculture that Bob Marley would later help to spread across the globe. The volume includes original documents related to Pinnacle.

Bill Howell, Hélène Lee (Author), Jaime Lincoln Smith (Narrator)

Audiobook

Reimagining the Revolution: Four Stories of Abolition, Autonomy, and Forging New Paths in the Modern

These are the architects of the modern civil rights movement: 4 profiles of revolutionary groups making change beyond protest A radically different approach to sustaining social justice movements-4 strategies for abolition and liberation from the new architects of the modern civil rights movement Many of us think, I don't support the police. But what should take their place? Or: Prisons don't keep us safe. But what new systems could? A lot of books about racial justice ask us how we got here, but Reimagining the Revolution is different: award-winning journalist and activist Paula Lehman-Ewing presents an inside-access look at the activists redefining where we go from here. Readers will hear from: - Ivan Kilgore, an incarcerated activist who founded the 501c3 nonprofit United Black Family Scholarship Foundation from behind prison walls - Critical Resistance, one of the oldest grassroots organizations in the nation working to dismantle the prison-industrial complex - The co-founders of Greenwood, a Black-owned financial technology institution designed specifically for Black and Latino people and businesses: Michael Render, aka Killer Mike, Amb. Andrew Young and Ryan Glover - Incarcerated activist Heshima Denham on his grassroots efforts to build a society for Black and Brown people independent of the state - The Movement for Black Lives, the Alliance for Safety and Justice, BYP 100, and 8toAbolition - Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated artists using art to heal from trauma, connect with other incarcerated people, and amplify abolitionist change Lehman-Ewing frames each profile within two fundamental truths: The current system-built and sustained by oppression, extraction, and inequity by design-cannot be reformed. And, knowing this, we need abolition; we need creative solutions designed by the people most impacted by the systems they fight to change. Reimagining the Revolution is a call to action for each of us: if we can access the tools we have, we can dream bigger, think outside the box, and follow the paths laid out by change-making activists toward nothing short of revolution.

Paula Lehman-Ewing (Author), Jaime Lincoln Smith, Paula Lehman-Ewing (Narrator)

Audiobook

Better Must Come

Barely Missing Everything meets American Street in this fiercely evocative, action-packed young adult thriller that looks at the darker side of light-filled Jamaica and how a tragedy and missing drug money helplessly entangles the lives of two teens who want to change their fate. Deja is a "barrel girl"—one of the Jamaican kids who get barrels full of clothes, food, and treats shipped to them from parents who have moved to the US or Canada to make more money. Gabriel is caught up in a gang and desperate for a way out. When he meets Deja at a party, he starts looking for a way into her life and wonders if they could be a part of each other's futures. Then, one day while out fishing, Deja spies a go-fast boat stalled out by some rocks, smeared with blood. Inside, a badly wounded man thrusts a knapsack at her, begging her to deliver it to his original destination, and to not say a word. She binds his wounds, determined to send for help and make good on her promise…not realizing that the bag is stuffed with $500,000 American. Not realizing that the posse Gabriel is in will stop at nothing to get their hands on this bag—or that Gabriel's and her lives will intersect in ways neither ever imagined, as they both are forced to make split-second choices to keep the ones they love most alive.

Desmond Hall (Author), Jaime Lincoln Smith, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Calvin Peete: Golf's Forgotten Star

His story is unprecedented in the world of golf. Born to a family of migrant laborers, Calvin Peete dropped out of school in the eighth grade, went to work picking crops, first swung a golf club at the age of twenty-three-and rose to the top of the PGA. In Calvin Peete: Golf's Forgotten Star, Gordon Hobson tells for the first time Peete's incredible story. Hobson recounts how, when Peete joined the lily-white PGA tour in 1976, he stood out from the competition in more ways than one. Peete wasn't raised in country clubs and didn't learn the game at prestigious golf universities. He had a permanently bent left elbow and practiced endless hours in a public park to develop one of the most accurate swings in the history of golf. He endured years of futility and despair, but, eventually, he emerged as the best player on the Tour from 1982-86. Calvin Peete's story is inspiring, but it also reveals the struggles many Black golfers endured even after the Caucasian-only clause was removed from the PGA's bylaws. He may have won twelve championships, played on the US Ryder Cup team twice, and won the prestigious Vardon Award, but the road to success wasn't easy. Calvin Peete: Golf's Forgotten Star shows how, even without the advantages some people are born into, one can find success through hard work, determination, and fortitude.

Gordon Hobson (Author), Jaime Lincoln Smith (Narrator)

Audiobook

John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community

For six decades John Robert Lewis was a towering figure in the U.S. struggle for civil rights. As an activist and progressive congressman, he was renowned for his unshakable integrity, indomitable courage, and determination to get into 'good trouble.' In this biography of Lewis, Raymond Arsenault traces Lewis's upbringing in rural Alabama, his activism, his championing of voting rights and anti-poverty initiatives, and his decades of service as the 'conscience of Congress.' Both in the streets and in Congress, Lewis promoted a philosophy of nonviolence to bring about change. He helped the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders plan the 1963 March on Washington, where he spoke at the Lincoln Memorial. He was instrumental in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and he advocated for racial and economic justice, immigration reform, LGBTQ rights, and national health care. Arsenault recounts Lewis's lifetime of work toward one overarching goal: realizing the 'beloved community,' an ideal society based in equity and inclusion. Lewis never wavered in this pursuit, and even in death his influence endures, inspiring resistance in the fight for social justice.

Raymond Arsenault (Author), Jaime Lincoln Smith (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Slain Divine

In the thrilling conclusion to USA Today bestselling author David Dalglish's new epic fantasy trilogy, a usurped prince must master the magic of shadows in order to reclaim his kingdom and his people. The Everlorn Empire's grip on Thanet is tighter than ever. The God-Incarnate himself has arrived on its shores to crush the struggling rebellion and carry out his final, sinister plan: he will sacrifice the entire island in order to rise, reincarnated from its ashes. The rebellion is struggling to separate allies from enemies, and to figure out a way to stop the slow destruction of everything and everyone they care for. Meanwhile, Cyrus is disappearing deeper beneath the vicious mask of the "Vagrant". Under the mantle of the legendary assassin, he may be strong enough to take down the Empire, but at what cost?

David Dalglish (Author), Imani Parks, Jaime Lincoln Smith, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bitcoin on the Go: The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains

Antony Lewis (Author), Jaime Lincoln Smith (Narrator)

Audiobook

Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies

Since its founding as a discipline, Black Studies has been under relentless attack by social and political forces seeking to discredit and neutralize it. Our History Has Always Been Contraband was born out of an urgent need to respond to the latest threat: efforts to remove content from an AP African American Studies course being piloted in high schools across the United States. Edited by Colin Kaepernick, Robin D. G. Kelley, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Our History Has Always Been Contraband brings together canonical texts and authors in Black Studies, including those excised from or not included in the AP curriculum. Featuring writings by: David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, Zora Neale Hurston, W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, James Baldwin, June Jordan, Angela Y. Davis, Robert Allen, Barbara Smith, Toni Cade Bambara, bell hooks, Barbara Christian, and many others. Our History Has Always Been Contraband excerpts readings that cut across and between literature, political theory, law, psychology, sociology, gender and sexuality studies, queer and feminist theory, and history. This volume also includes original essays by editors Kaepernick, Kelley, and Taylor, elucidating how we got here, and pieces by Brea Baker, Marlon Williams-Clark, and Roderick A. Ferguson detailing how we can fight back.

Tbd (Author), Jaime Lincoln Smith (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Jaime Lincoln Smith