Audiobooks narrated by Janina Edwards

The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn

Award-winning historian Amrita Chakrabarti Myers has recovered the riveting, troubling, and complicated story of Julia Ann Chinn (ca. 1796–1833), the enslaved wife of Richard Mentor Johnson, owner of Blue Spring Farm, veteran of the War of 1812, and US vice president under Martin Van Buren. Johnson never freed Chinn, but during his frequent absences from his estate, he delegated to her the management of his property, including Choctaw Academy, a boarding school for Indigenous men and boys on the grounds of the estate. This meant that Chinn, although enslaved herself, oversaw Blue Spring's slave labor force and had substantial control over economic, social, financial, and personal affairs within the couple's world. Chinn's relationship with Johnson was unlikely to have been consensual since she was never manumitted. What makes Chinn's life exceptional is the power that Johnson invested in her, the opportunities the couple's relationship afforded her and her daughters, and their community's tacit acceptance of the family—up to a point. When the family left their farm, they faced steep limits. Johnson's relationship with Chinn ruined his political career and Myers compellingly demonstrates that it wasn't interracial sex that led to his downfall but his refusal to keep it—and Julia Chinn—behind closed doors.

Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (Author), Janina Edwards (Narrator)

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Welcome to Pawnee: Stories of Friendship, Waffles, and Parks and Recreation

Jim O’Heir, who played Jerry (or Garry or Larry) on Parks and Recreation and co-hosts the hit podcast Parks and Recollection, brings fans a heartfelt behind-the-scenes look at one of America’s most beloved sitcoms, brimming with never-before-told stories featuring the cast and crew, along with dozens of unseen photos! For seven seasons, Leslie Knope and the Parks and Recreation gang charmed millions of viewers with their quirky antics and unwavering positivity. The sitcom continues to be a fan-favorite for streaming services today, nearly a decade after its finale. Now for the first time, Jim O’Heir, who played the lovable Jerry (or, well, Garry/Larry/Terry/Barry, depending on the episode), invites readers back to Pawnee for an exclusive look behind the scenes. Joined by some of his Parks and Rec pals, including Chris Pratt, Retta, Rob Lowe, and showrunners Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, O’Heir reveals how this “little show that could” came to be, thanks to the tireless dedication and comedic genius of Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, and the rest of the gang. As the show found its footing, the cast quickly bonded into a tight-knit family. Here O’Heir shares all his favorite unforgettable memories both on and off camera, from hilarious unscripted moments and epic dance-offs in the hair and makeup trailers, to iconic birthday parties at Rashida Jones’s house and quiet bonfires in Nick Offerman’s backyard. Welcome to Pawnee is O’Heir’s loving tribute to Parks and Recreation, imbued with the same warmth and humor that endeared the show to millions.

Jim O'heir (Author), Adam Verner, Eva Kaminsky, George Newbern, Janina Edwards, Jim Meskimen, Jim O'Heir, Roger Wayne, TBD (Narrator)

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The Icon and the Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry That Brought Birth Co

A riveting history about the little-known rivalry between Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett that profoundly shaped reproductive rights in America In the 1910s, as the birth control movement was born, two leaders emerged: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett. While Sanger would go on to found Planned Parenthood, Dennett’s name has largely faded from public knowledge. Each held a radically different vision for what reproductive autonomy and birth control access should look like in America. Few are aware of the fierce personal and political rivalry that played out between Sanger and Dennett over decades—a battle that had a profound impact on the lives of American women. Meticulously researched and vividly drawn, The Icon and the Idealist reveals how and why these two women came to activism, the origins of the clash between them, and the ways in which their missteps and breakthroughs have reverberated across American society for generations. With deep archival scope and rigorous execution, Stephanie Gorton weaves together a personal narrative of two fascinating women and the political history of a country rocked by changing social norms, the Depression, and a fervor for eugenics. Refusing to shy away from the enmeshed struggles of race, class, and gender, Gorton has made a sweeping examination of every force that has come in the way of women’s reproductive freedom. Brimming with insight and compelling portraits of women’s struggles throughout the twentieth century, The Icon and the Idealist is a comprehensive history of a radical cultural movement.

Stephanie Gorton (Author), Janina Edwards (Narrator)

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How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History from NPR Music

Drawn from NPR Music’s acclaimed, groundbreaking series Turning the Tables, the definitive book on the vital role of Women in Music—from Beyoncé to Odetta, Taylor Swift to Joan Baez, Joan Jett to Dolly Parton—featuring excerpts of archival interviews, essays, and best album and song shoutouts. What if the history of popular music could be seen through the lens of the women who made it? This remarkable anthology expands on NPR Music’s celebratory and provocative multi-platform series Turning the Tables, examining the crucial and historically understated role women have and continue to play in popular music. Before Turning the Tables launched in 2017, best album lists in magazines or online included few works by women, and female artists would claim only a few places of honor in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But Turning the Tables helped change that. How Women Made Music inaugurates a new phase in NPR’s ongoing mission to infuse canon-making with life. With an introduction by acclaimed critic and Turning the Tables co-founder, Ann Powers, and edited by co-founder Alison Fensterstock, this impressive history draws from every Turning the Tables season and is enhanced with new material—representing more than fifty years of NPR’s exclusive coverage of women in popular music—as well as new text, interviews, and reporting from deep inside the NPR archives, including: Joan Baez talking about nonviolence as a musical principle in 1971 Patti Smith describing art as her “jealous mistress” in 1976 Nina Simone, in 2001, explaining how she developed the edge in her voice as a tool against racism. Taylor Swift talking about when she had no idea if her musical career might work Odetta on how shifting from classical music to folk allowed her to express her fury over Jim Crow Destined to become a classic, this incomparable volume is not only a vital record of history; it reveals much about how music is made, how musical lives are maintained, and how tastes and trends change from generation to generation.

Alison Fensterstock, National Public Radio, Inc. (Author), Alison Fensterstock, Ann Powers, Chanté McCormick, Hillary Huber, Inés del Castillo, Janina Edwards, Maggie-Meg Reed, TBD (Narrator)

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Ida, in Love and in Trouble

For fans of Bridgerton and The Davenports comes a sweeping historical novel from bestselling author Veronica Chambers about courageous (and flirtatious) Ida B. Wells as she navigates society parties and society prejudices to become a civil rights crusader. Before she became a warrior, Ida B. Wells was an incomparable flirt with a quick wit and a dream of becoming a renowned writer. The first child of newly freed parents who thrived in a community that pulsated with hope and possibility after the Civil War, Ida had a big heart, big ambitions, and even bigger questions: How to be a good big sister when her beloved parents perish in a yellow fever epidemic? How to launch her career as a teacher? How to make and keep friends in a society that seems to have no place for a woman who speaks her own mind? And - always top of mind for Ida - how to find a love that will let her be the woman she dreams of becoming? Ahead of her time by decades, Ida B. Wells pioneered the field of investigative journalism with her powerful reporting on violence against African Americans. Her name became synonymous with courage and an unflinching demand for racial and gender equality. But there were so many facets to Ida Bell and critically acclaimed writer Veronica Chamber unspools her full and colorful life as Ida comes of age in the rapidly changing South, filled with lavish society dances and parties, swoon-worthy gentleman callers, and a world ripe for the taking.

Veronica Chambers (Author), Janina Edwards, TBD (Narrator)

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Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad

"There are five square knots on the quilt every two inches apart. They escaped on the fifth knot on the tenth pattern and went to Ontario, Canada. The monkey wrench turns the wagon wheel toward Canada on a bear's paw trail to the crossroads--" And so begins the fascinating story that was passed down from generation to generation in the family of Ozella McDaniel Williams. But what appears to be a simple story that was handed down from grandmother to mother to daughter is actually much, much more than that. In fact, it is a coded message steeped in African textile traditions that provides a link between slave-made quilts and the Underground Railroad. In 1993, author Jacqueline Tobin visited the Old Market Building in the historic district of Charleston, South Carolina, where local craftspeople sell their wares. Amid piles of beautiful handmade quilts, Tobin met African American quilter Ozella Williams and the two struck up a conversation. With the admonition to "write this down," Williams began to tell a fascinating story that had been handed down from her mother and grandmother before her. As Tobin sat in rapt attention, Williams began to describe how slaves made coded quilts and then used them to navigate their escape on the Underground Railroad. But just as quickly as she started, Williams stopped, informing Tobin that she would learn the rest when she was "ready." During the three years it took for Williams's narrative to unfold--and as the friendship and trust between the two women grew--Tobin enlisted Raymond Dobard, Ph.D., an art history professor and well-known African American quilter, to help provide the historical context behind what Williams was describing. Now, based on Williams's story and their own research, Tobin and Dobard, in what they call "Ozella's Underground Railroad Quilt Code," offer proof that some slaves were involved in a sophisticated network that melded African textile traditions with American quilt practices and created a potent result: African American quilts with patterns that conveyed messages that were, in fact, essential tools for escape along the Underground Railroad.

Jacqueline L. Tobin, Raymond G. Dobard (Author), Janina Edwards, Leon Nixon, TBD (Narrator)

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The Movement: How Women's Liberation Transformed America 1963-1973

A comprehensive and engaging oral history of the decade that defined the feminist movement, including interviews with living icons and unsung heroes—from former Newsweek reporter and author of the "powerful and moving" (New York Times) Witness to the Revolution. For lovers of both Barbie and Gloria Steinem, The Movement is the first oral history of the decade that built the modern feminist movement. Through the captivating individual voices of the people who lived it, The Movement tells the intimate inside story of what it felt like to be at the forefront of the modern feminist crusade, when women rejected thousands of years of custom and demanded the freedom to be who they wanted and needed to be. This engaging history traces women's awakening, organizing, and agitating between the years of 1963 and 1973, when a decentralized collection of people and events coalesced to create a spontaneous combustion. From Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, to the underground abortion network the Janes, to Shirley Chisolm's presidential campaign and Billie Jean King's 1973 battle of the sexes, Bingham artfully weaves together the fragments of that explosion person by person, bringing to life the emotions of this personal, cultural, and political revolution. Artists and politicians, athletes and lawyers, Black and white, The Movement brings readers into the rooms where these women insisted on being treated as first class citizens, and in the process, changed the fabric of American life.

Clara Bingham (Author), Aida Reluzco, Angel Pean, Billie Fulford-Brown, Cassandra Campbell, Clara Bingham, David Sadzin, Eunice Wong, Gibson Frazier, Janina Edwards, Kamali Minter, Kevin R. Free, Keyonni James, Natalie Naudus, Sunny Lu, TBD (Narrator)

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Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy

A stirring, comprehensive look at the state of women in the workforce—why women's progress has stalled, how our economy fosters unproductive competition, and how we can fix the system that holds women back. In the #MeToo era, when gender equality is at the forefront of the conversation, women are still falling behind in the workplace faster than ever before; this was true before COVID, and even more true after. Fair Shake explains that the system that governs our economy—a winner-takes-all economy—is the cause. The WTA economy self-selects for aggressive, cutthroat business tactics, which creates a feedback loop that sidelines women. The book explores what legal scholars determine the "triple bind" including: -If women don't compete on the same terms as men, they lose. -If women do compete on the same terms as men, they lose. -When women see that they can't win on the same terms as men, they take themselves out of the game (if they haven't been pushed out already). Fair Shake offers a timely, practical view of women in the workforce today—what holds them back and what stops them from entering at all. Using legal cases throughout, Naomi Cahn offers rich, detailed storytelling to demonstrate how our laws fail to protect women. This book is the much-needed wake-up call to make the lasting changes required for gender equality in the workplace.

June Carbone, Nancy Levit, Naomi Cahn (Author), Janina Edwards, TBD (Narrator)

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Black Meme: The History of the Images that Make Us

Representations of Blackness have always been integral to our understanding of of the modern world. In Black Meme, Legacy Russell, author of Glitch Feminism, explores the construct, culture, and material of the 'meme' as mapped to Black visual culture from 1900 to present day. Mining archival and contemporary media Russell explores the impact of Blackness, Black life, and death on contemporary conceptions of viral culture, borne in the age of the internet. These meditations include: the circulation of Lynching postcards; Jet magazine's publication of a picture of Emmett Till in his open casket; how the televised broadcast of protesters in Selma enters the nation's living room and changed the debate on civil rights; how a citizen-recorded video of the Rodney King beating at the hands of the LAPD became known as the 'first viral video'; what the Anita Hill hearings tell us about the media's creation of the Black icon; Tamara Lanier's fight to reclaim the photos of her enslaved ancestors, Renty and Delia, from Harvard's archive; the Facebook Live recording by Lavish 'Diamond' Reynolds of the murder of her partner Philando Castile by the police after being stopped for a broken tail light; and more. Legacy Russell explores the power of these tokens and argues that without the contributions of Black people, digital culture would not exist in its current form.

Legacy Russell (Author), Janina Edwards (Narrator)

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On Sex and Gender: A Commonsense Approach

An eye-opening account of what the left and right get wrong about sex and gender—and how we can be a thoughtful, sex-smart society. On Sex and Gender focuses on three sequential and consequential questions: What is sex as opposed to gender? How does sex matter in our everyday lives? And how should it be reflected in law and policy? All three have been front-and-center in American life and politics since the rise of the trans rights movement: They are included in both major parties' political platforms. They are the subject of ongoing litigation in the federal courts and of highly contentious legislation on Capitol Hill. And they are a pivotal issue in the culture wars between left and right playing out around dinner tables, on campuses and school boards, on op-ed pages, and in corporate handbooks. Doriane Coleman challenges both sides to chart a better way. In a book that is equal parts scientific explanation, historical examination, and personal reflection, she argues that denying biological sex and focusing only on gender would have detrimental effects on women's equal opportunity, on men's future prospects, and on the health and welfare of society. Structural sexism needed to be dismantled—a true achievement of feminism and an ongoing fight—but going forward we should be sex smart, not sex blind. This book is a clear guide for reasonable Americans on sex and gender—something everyone wants to understand but is terrified to discuss. Coleman shows that the science is settled, but equally that there is a middle ground where common sense reigns and we can support transgender people without denying the facts of human biology. She livens her narrative with a sequence of portraits of exceptional human beings from legal pioneers like Myra Bradwell and Ketanji Brown Jackson to champion athletes like Caster Semenya and Cate Campbell to civil rights giants like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Pauli Murray. Above all, Coleman reminds us that sex not only exists, but is also good—and she shows how we can get both sex and gender right for society.

Doriane Lambelet Coleman (Author), Janina Edwards, TBD (Narrator)

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Imagination: A Manifesto

A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. Work that doesn't strangle the life out of people? Naive. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly. We have the power to use our imaginations to create a world in which everyone can thrive. But obstacles abound. We have inherited destructive ideas that trap us inside a dominant imagination. Consider how racism, sexism, and classism make hierarchies, exploitation, and violence seem natural and inevitable-but all emerged from the human imagination. The most effective way to disrupt these deadly systems is to do so collectively. Ruha Benjamin highlights the educators, artists, activists, and many others who are refuting powerful narratives that justify the status quo, crafting new stories that reflect our interconnection, and offering creative approaches to seemingly intractable problems. Imagination: A Manifesto offers visionary examples and tactics to push beyond the constraints of what we think, and are told, is possible. This book is for anyone who is ready to take to heart Toni Morrison's instruction: 'Dream a little before you think.'

Ruha Benjamin (Author), Janina Edwards (Narrator)

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Your Best Financial Life: Save Smart Now for the Future You Want

Anne Lester—former head of retirement solutions for JPMorgan and award-winning investor—blends science and experience to provide Millennials and Gen Z with the key steps that will set them up for a successful retirement and help them achieve their biggest life goals. Most 20-and 30-somethings are understandably anxious about their future. Just as they emerged from a pandemic that forever changed their relationship with work, they had to abruptly discover their place in the AI revolution. But imagine if in the midst of all this uncertainty they had one thing they could depend on: their financial security. Enter Anne Lester, former head of retirement solutions for JPMorgan Asset Management. In Your Best Financial Life, Anne provides actionable solutions for the unique challenges Millennials and Gen Z face while saving for their future. Drawing on her own personal experience, latest research, and fresh case studies, Anne meets readers where they are and helps them: · Understand why they behave the way they do around money · Identify their savings and spending profiles—and how to hack their brains to begin accumulating real wealth · Balance saving for retirement with paying off debt and other life goals · Decode confusing financial jargon to make life’s biggest decisions just a little bit easier And so much more. Written with compassion and empathy, Your Best Financial Life is the book that Millennials and Gen Z who are anxious about money—and their future—have been waiting for.

Anne Lester (Author), Janina Edwards, TBD (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Janina Edwards