Social Science bestsellers

The Anthropocene Reviewed

Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

By: John Green
Narrated by: John Green
Length: 10 hours 42 minutes

“A continuation of John Green's podcast of the same name, this audiobook is engaging, intriguing and hard to put down. Read by the author, this book resonated with me on so many levels and left me with food for thought. 5 stars. Read more

How the Word Is Passed

A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

By: Clint Smith
Narrated by: Clint Smith
Length: 10 hours 6 minutes

“From plantation to Angola Prison. From Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, VA to the African Burial Ground in New York City. From Île de Gorée to Whitney Plantation. From the Emancipation Proclamation to Juneteenth. Clint Smith takes us on an unforgettable journey through the history of slavery in the United States, revealing many truths we’ve... Read more

Cultish

The Language of Fanaticism

By: Amanda Montell
Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
Length: 8 hours 21 minutes

“Thoroughly enjoyed listening to this on Libro.fm. Entertaining, informative, and a must-read (listen to) for anyone interested in Cults, MLMs, Fitness, the English language... etc. Read more

Cue the Sun!

The Invention of Reality TV

By: Emily Nussbaum
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
Length: 15 hours 11 minutes

The rollicking saga of reality television—an ambitious cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning New Yorker writer

“Written with a storyteller’s verve, a journalist’s skepticism, a critic’s astuteness, and a fan’s loving eye.”—Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures... Read more

How to Be an Antiracist

By: Ibram X. Kendi
Narrated by: Ibram X. Kendi
Length: 10 hours 29 minutes

“Among the multi-faceted array of antiracist literature newly published in the last two years, Ibram X. Kendi’s How To Be an Antiracist stands alone as a definitive source of history and socio-political critique, while offering a new paradigm of thought aimed at paving the way for correcting centuries of social injustice. Hearing this visionary... Read more

Caste (Oprah's Book Club)

The Origins of Our Discontents

By: Isabel Wilkerson
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Length: 15 hours 10 minutes

“This is an important and beautifully written book examining the links and common elements between the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany. Highly recommended. Read more

The 1619 Project

A New Origin Story

By: Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman & Jake Silverstein
Narrated by: Nikole Hannah-Jones & Full Cast
Length: 18 hours 56 minutes

“This new landmark work of U.S. history, criticism, and art is forged of 18 essays that consider the relevance of slavery to contemporary America through the prism of such subjects as capitalism, music, and healthcare and poems and fiction that focus on key moments in the oppression, resistance, and liberation of Black people in America. Riveting... Read more

The Age of Magical Overthinking

Notes on Modern Irrationality

By: Amanda Montell
Narrated by: Amanda Montell
Length: 6 hours 5 minutes

“Imagine if your best friend could channel Mary Roach to explain psycho-social phenomena, and you’d have Amanda Montell. Her explanations of cognitive biases are clear and relatable, and make this book not just a fascinating read, but a compass for our turbulent times. Read more

Talking to Strangers

What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know

By: Malcolm Gladwell
Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
Length: 8 hours 57 minutes

“Instead of reading this important book outright, Gladwell uses a podcast-style format to really engage the listener. Thoroughly engaging, interesting, and enlightening, audio is definitely an excellent way to read this book. Read more

The Warmth of Other Suns

The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

By: Isabel Wilkerson
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Length: 22 hours 40 minutes

“I'm sorry I hadn't gotten to this sooner. Wilkerson pulls together so much of what I already knew about the US but not necessarily why... a great audiobook, too. Read more

How to Know a Person

The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

By: David Brooks
Narrated by: David Brooks
Length: 7 hours 27 minutes

“Brooks went from zero to hero in my mind. His deep research and obvious self-reflection glows in this book. I not only have new terminology to grapple with people who don't listen, but also used his story telling inquiry for richer conversations with my family. Read more

Unmasking Autism

Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

By: Devon Price, PhD
Narrated by: Devon Price, PhD
Length: 9 hours 51 minutes

A deep dive into the spectrum of Autistic experience and the phenomenon of masked Autism, giving individuals the tools to safely uncover their true selves while broadening society’s narrow understanding of neurodiversity

“A remarkable work that will stand at the forefront of the neurodiversity movement.”—Barry M. Prizant, PhD, CCC-SLP,author of... Read more

Burnout

The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

By: Emily Nagoski, PhD & Amelia Nagoski, DMA
Narrated by: Emily Nagoski, PhD & Amelia Nagoski, DMA
Length: 7 hours 1 minute

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “This book is a gift! I’ve been practicing their strategies, and it’s a total game-changer.”—Brené Brown, PhD, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Dare to Lead

This groundbreaking book explains why women experience burnout differently than men—and provides a simple, science-based plan to help women minimize... Read more

This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch

The Joy of Loving Something--Anything--Like Your Life Depends On It

By: Tabitha Carvan
Narrated by: Tanya Schneider
Length: 6 hours 29 minutes

Why We Can’t Sleep meets Furiously Happy in this hilarious, heartfelt memoir about one woman’s midlife obsession with Benedict Cumberbatch, and the liberating power of reclaiming our passions as we age, whatever they may be. 

Tabitha Carvan was a new mother, at home with two young children, when she fell for the actor Benedict Cumberbatch. You... Read more

Come As You Are: Revised and Updated

The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life

By: Emily Nagoski
Narrated by: Emily Nagoski
Length: 11 hours 29 minutes

A revised and updated edition of Emily Nagoski’s game-changing New York Times bestseller Come As You Are, featuring new information and research on mindfulness, desire, and pleasure that will radically transform your sex life.

For much of the 20th and 21st centuries, women’s sexuality was an uncharted territory in science, studied far less... Read more

"You Just Need to Lose Weight"

And 19 Other Myths About Fat People

Myths Made in America

By: Aubrey Gordon
Narrated by: Aubrey Gordon
Length: 7 hours 10 minutes

“I am so onboard with everything about this book, and I wish everyone would read it. It has been impeccably researched, yet is presented in an incredibly approachable volume. Fat activist Aubrey Gordon discusses things like the intersections of fatness and desirability politics and why 'fatphobia' isn’t the best word to describe the oppression of... Read more

There's Always This Year

On Basketball and Ascension

By: Hanif Abdurraqib
Narrated by: Hanif Abdurraqib
Length: 8 hours 40 minutes

“Using basketball as a vehicle for reflection of East Columbus history and personal memoir, There’s Always This Year is a triumph of contemplative, emotionally-rich writing that will have you wiping tears and on the edge of your seat. Read more

The Future Is Disabled

Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs

By: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Narrated by: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Length: 9 hours 20 minutes

In The Future Is Disabled, Leah Laksmi Piepzna-Samarasinha asks some provocative questions: What if, in the near future, the majority of people will be disabled—and what if that's not a bad thing? And what if disability justice and disabled wisdom are crucial to creating a future in which it's possible to survive fascism, climate change, and... Read more

The Dawn of Everything

A New History of Humanity

By: David Graeber & David Wengrow
Narrated by: Mark Williams
Length: 24 hours 13 minutes

“What do you do when a 700-page book about the entirety of human history has been sitting unopened on your desk for weeks, taunting you every time you pass it because you know you're going to love it but, man, it's intimidating? You download the audiobook. I've been listening to this radical, invigorating reexamination of the history of... Read more

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning

By: Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
Narrated by: Jason Reynolds
Length: 4 hours 11 minutes

“This “not history, history book” is a remix of Ibram X. Kendi’s adult book, Stamped From the Beginning. In Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, Jason Reynolds tells the narrative of racism throughout time with a young adult audience in mind. From the first racist, to slavery, to modern politics, Reynolds revelations surrounding the history of... Read more

Doppelganger

A Trip into the Mirror World

By: Naomi Klein
Narrated by: Naomi Klein
Length: 14 hours 47 minutes

“What an evocative book, especially as read by the author! Come for the critical cultural analysis and stay for Klein's thoughtful, generous, hopeful conclusions. Read more

This American Ex-Wife

How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life

By: Lyz Lenz
Narrated by: Lyz Lenz
Length: 7 hours 36 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply validating manifesto on the gender politics of marriage (bad) and divorce (actually pretty good!) in America today, and an argument that the former needs a reboot—from journalist and proud divorcée Lyz Lenz

“This American Ex-Wife is a bomb, a bouquet (but not a wedding bouquet), a memoir, a manifesto, and a... Read more

Kindred

By: Octavia E. Butler
Narrated by: Kim Staunton
Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

“A beautiful story of the complex heritage of Dana, a Black woman who mysteriously gets transported from the 1970s to the early 1800 antebellum south where she is faced with saving the white son of a plantation owner from drowning. Throughout, Dana journeys back and forth from present to past, and each of her stays in the past grows longer and... Read more

The Power Broker: Volume 1 of 3

Robert Moses and the Fall of New York: Volume 1

By: Robert A. Caro
Narrated by: Robertson Dean
Length: 22 hours 21 minutes

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A modern American classic, this huge and galvanizing biography of Robert Moses reveals not only the saga of one man’s incredible accumulation of power but the story of his shaping (and mis-shaping of twentieth-century New York.  One of the Modern Library’s hundred greatest books of the twentieth century.

Robert Caro's... Read more

Raw Dog

The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs

By: Jamie Loftus
Narrated by: Jamie Loftus
Length: 9 hours 38 minutes

“This is your smart, funny, acerbic, friend talking at you a mile a minute about their latest hyperfixation which, in this case, is hot dogs. This is a cross country travelogue steeped in meat-sweat and post-pandemic uncertainty with detours through such territory as gas station pickles and the politics of competitive eating. This is an... Read more

Poverty, by America

By: Matthew Desmond
Narrated by: Dion Graham
Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

“A succinct discussion of the causes, effects, and potential changes required to eradicate poverty in the United States. Read more

White Fragility

Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

By: Dr. Robin DiAngelo
Narrated by: Amy Landon
Length: 6 hours 20 minutes

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.

In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white... Read more

Ace

What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex

By: Angela Chen
Narrated by: Natalie Naudus
Length: 7 hours 43 minutes

“This book is an eye-opening collection of personal testimonies, research, and history about asexuality, and to a lesser extent, aromanticism. Whether you are new to learning about asexuality or are asexual yourself, by the end of the book you will have a richer and multifaceted understanding of ace identity and experience. Read more

How to Say Babylon

A Memoir

By: Safiya Sinclair
Narrated by: Safiya Sinclair
Length: 16 hours 46 minutes

“A poetic memoir of growing up Rastafari in Jamaica. A gripping story of growing up under a fundamentalist father who tried to mold her into the perfect Rasta daughter but who eventually rebelled and broke free. The writing is wonderful, melodious - it’s so clear it’s a poet who’s writing. The author’s many years of reciting poetry shines thru in... Read more

Catch and Kill

Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators

By: Ronan Farrow
Narrated by: Ronan Farrow
Length: 10 hours 43 minutes

“A timely, incredibly important account of the difficulties Farrow faced at NBC while working on the Weinstein expose, which he took to the New Yorker and subsequently won a Pulitzer for. The audiobook is grippingly read by Farrow (though the accents he attempts are... let's go with 'confusing'). It's upsetting, sure, but heartening to see the... Read more

Hood Feminism

Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot

By: Mikki Kendall
Narrated by: Mikki Kendall
Length: 6 hours 57 minutes

“Hood Feminism touches on many subjects that mainstream feminists may not think of as feminist issues. Issues like food and housing insecurity, parenting, and disability rights, among others. Mikki Kendall calls out mainstream feminism as existing only for the advancement of white women, to the detriment of women of color. Some of my biggest... Read more

Fight Like Hell

The Untold History of American Labor

By: Kim Kelly
Narrated by: Em Grosland
Length: 12 hours 11 minutes

“In Fight Like Hell, Kim Kelly celebrates the untold stories and unsung heroes of the American labor movement, taking great care to center voices that have historically been sidelined or silenced in mainstream conversations around workers' rights. The result is an inclusive, fascinating, and galvanizing retrospective that mines the depths of the... Read more

The Devil in the White City

Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

By: Erik Larson
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Length: 14 hours 58 minutes

“The Devil in the White City is one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. Set amidst the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, Erik Larson's historical narrative interweaves the stories of two men who would come to define it, for better and for worse. One is Daniel Burnham, chief architect of the Fair, who threw his entire being into creating a... Read more

I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself

One Woman's Pursuit of Pleasure in Paris

By: Glynnis MacNicol
Narrated by: Glynnis MacNicol
Length: 7 hours 15 minutes

“A delight, the literary equivalent of a long catch-up with a brilliant friend.” —New York Times

“One of the most talked-about books of the year.” —Gayle King

When you’re a woman of a certain age, you are only promised that everything will get worse. But what if everything you’ve been told is a lie?

Come to Paris, August 2021, when the City of... Read more

Between the World and Me

By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Length: 3 hours 35 minutes

“In this short and powerful book, Coates writes to his 15-year old son about his experience of being a black man in America. Cannot recommend enough! Read more

Eve

How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution

By: Cat Bohannon
Narrated by: Cat Bohannon
Length: 15 hours 54 minutes

An ambitious, eye-opening, myth-busting, and groundbreaking history of the evolution of the female body, by a brilliant new researcher and writer

Why do women live longer than men? Why do women have menopause? Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s? Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly... Read more

Between Two Kingdoms

A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

By: Suleika Jaouad
Narrated by: Suleika Jaouad
Length: 13 hours 2 minutes

“Wow, what a story. This was an extremely moving memoir about a devastating but successful fight with cancer and the toll it takes on your life and relationships. But more than that, it also bring you on a journey of moving on and re-learning how to live your life. Jaouad is a fabulous writer and really take the reader on the journey with her.... Read more

Cobalt Red

How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

By: Siddharth Kara
Narrated by: Peter Ganim
Length: 11 hours 20 minutes

“We cannot close our eyes to what is happening in our world even in 2023. Exposés like this force us to see and understand how our choices can affect people on the other side of the earth from us. Changes need to be made starting at the major corporations and then trickle down to the individual. Once we know what is happening we cannot un-know it. Read more

Solito

A Memoir

By: Javier Zamora
Narrated by: Javier Zamora
Length: 17 hours 8 minutes

“Solito follows the journey of nine-year-old Javier Zamora, a boy from El Salvador, as he attempts to cross into the United States on his own. Though Zamora is supported and loved by his family in El Salvador, they are unable to make the voyage with him, meaning that he must face the challenges and unfamiliar terrain with a group of strangers... Read more

All About Love

New Visions

By: bell hooks
Narrated by: January LaVoy
Length: 6 hours 9 minutes

A New York Times bestseller and enduring classic, All About Love is the acclaimed first volume in feminist icon bell hooks' ""Love Song to the Nation"" trilogy.  All About Love reveals what causes a polarized society, and how to heal the divisions that cause suffering. Here is the truth about love, and inspiration to help us instill caring,... Read more

In My Time of Dying

How I Came Face to Face With the Idea of an Afterlife

By: Sebastian Junger
Narrated by: Sebastian Junger
Length: 4 hours 34 minutes

A near-fatal health emergency leads to this powerful reflection on death—and what might follow—by the bestselling author of Tribe and The Perfect Storm.

For years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger traveled to many front lines and frequently put his life at risk. And yet the closest he ever came to death was the summer of 2020... Read more

Guns, Germs, and Steel

The Fates of Human Societies

By: Jared Diamond
Narrated by: Doug Ordunio
Length: 16 hours 19 minutes

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history.
 
Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary... Read more

Fire Weather

A True Story from a Hotter World

By: John Vaillant
Narrated by: Alan Carlson
Length: 14 hours 17 minutes

“Fire Weather is a gripping masterpiece of climate change journalism. On its face, it tells the haunting story of the burning of Fort McMurray in British Columbia in 2016, and the frantic evacuation of 80,000 people from the region’s largest tar oil boom city. The deeply personal stories he unearths about the fire are terrifying, but Vaillant... Read more

Off the Edge

Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything

By: Kelly Weill
Narrated by: Xe Sands
Length: 7 hours 13 minutes

“This book might not answer the 'How-Do-I-Continue-Loving-Friends-and-Family-Whose-Politics-Are-Making-Them-(And-By-Extention-Me)-Crazy' question which has haunted our Facebook profiles and Thanksgiving dinners for the past few years, but it did give me hope that there might be a way. While interviewing a Flat-Earth proponent for The Daily Beast,... Read more

The Gifts of Imperfection: 10th Anniversary Edition

Features a new foreword

By: Brené Brown
Narrated by: Brené Brown
Length: 4 hours 31 minutes

“Brown's book concentrates on self-compassion and cultivating: resilient spirit, creativity, calm, & stillness, just to name a few. Read more

Me and White Supremacy

Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

By: Layla F. Saad
Narrated by: Layla F. Saad
Length: 5 hours 19 minutes

“Want to learn how to be a good ancestor? Need to address your privilege and feel uncomfortable about talking about racism? You need to read and work through Me and White Supremacy. Read more

Invisible Rulers

The People Who Turn Lies into Reality

By: Renee DiResta
Narrated by: Anna Caputo
Length: 15 hours

A brilliant, original analysis of the radical shift in the dynamics of power and influence, revealing how the machinery that powered the Big Lie works to create bespoke realities revolutionizing politics, culture, and society.

Renée DiResta’s powerful, original investigation into the way power and influence have been profoundly transformed... Read more

The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition

The Power of Radical Self-Love

By: Sonya Renee Taylor
Narrated by: Sonya Renee Taylor
Length: 5 hours 11 minutes

New York Times bestseller! "To build a world that works for everyone, we must first make the radical decision to love every facet of ourselves. . . . 'The body is not an apology' is the mantra we should all embrace."
—Kimberlé Crenshaw, legal scholar and founder and Executive Director, African American Policy Forum

Humans are a varied and... Read more

Disability Intimacy

Essays on Love, Care, and Desire

By: Alice Wong
Narrated by: Full Cast
Length: 11 hours 21 minutes

The much-anticipated follow up to the groundbreaking anthology Disability Visibility: another revolutionary collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience, and intimacy in all its myriad forms.

What is intimacy? More than sex, more than romantic love, the pieces in this stunning and illuminating... Read more

Knife

Meditations After an Attempted Murder

By: Salman Rushdie
Narrated by: Salman Rushdie
Length: 6 hours 22 minutes

“Markedly human and open. Rushdie reads us vulnerably into his experience and ponders about our broken and somehow beautiful world. Read more