Help
Every year, the National Book Critics Circle presents awards for the finest books published in English.
1-20of33results PREVIOUS12NEXT
  • Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh | John Lahr
    Audiobook
    Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh
    UNABRIDGED
    Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

    Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

    • UNABRIDGED (26 hrs and 32 mins)
    • By John Lahr
    • Narrated By Elizabeth Ashley
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (128)
    Performance
    (117)
    Story
    (113)
    View full details >

    Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh gives intimate access to the mind of one of the most brilliant dramatists of his century, whose plays reshaped the American theater and the nation's sense of itself. This astute, deeply researched biography sheds a light on Tennessee Williams's warring family, his guilt, his creative triumphs and failures, his sexuality and numerous affairs, his misreported death, even the shenanigans surrounding his estate.

    Tojo says: "A question for the audio engineers"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Biography, 2014
  • Lila: A Novel | Marilynne Robinson
    Audiobook
    Lila: A Novel
    UNABRIDGED
    Lila: A Novel

    Lila: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 57 mins)
    • By Marilynne Robinson
    • Narrated By Maggie Hoffman
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (652)
    Performance
    (563)
    Story
    (557)
    View full details >

    Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church - the only available shelter from the rain - and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the life that preceded her newfound security. Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood.

    Stevon says: "Life is what it is...."
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Fiction, 2014
  • Citizen: An American Lyric | Claudia Rankine
    Audiobook
    Citizen: An American Lyric
    UNABRIDGED
    Citizen: An American Lyric

    Citizen: An American Lyric

    • UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 37 mins)
    • By Claudia Rankine
    • Narrated By Allyson Johnson
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (107)
    Performance
    (92)
    Story
    (90)
    View full details >

    Claudia Rankine's bold new audiobook recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in 21st-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV - everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive.

    Vincent O says: "Powerfully moving all round."
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Poetry, 2014
  • Americanah | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
    Audiobook
    Americanah
    UNABRIDGED
    Americanah

    Americanah

    • UNABRIDGED (17 hrs and 28 mins)
    • By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
    • Narrated By Adjoa Andoh
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (4083)
    Performance
    (3662)
    Story
    (3656)
    View full details >

    As teenagers, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love in a Nigeria under military dictatorship. The self-assured Ifemelu departs for America, where Obinze hopes to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, after so long apart and so many changes, will they find the courage to meet again, face to face?

    Anna-Bo-Banana says: "Dazzling, Romantic, and Witty"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Fiction, 2013
  • Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital | Sheri Fink
    Audiobook
    Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
    UNABRIDGED
    Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

    Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

    • UNABRIDGED (17 hrs and 33 mins)
    • By Sheri Fink
    • Narrated By Kirsten Potter
    Overall
    (1011)
    Performance
    (876)
    Story
    (885)
    View full details >

    In the tradition of the best writing on medicine, physician and reporter Sheri Fink reconstructs five days at Memorial Medical Center and draws the listener into the lives of those who struggled mightily to survive and to maintain life amidst chaos. After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several health professionals faced criminal allegations that they deliberately injected numerous patients with drugs to hasten their deaths. Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting, unspools the mystery of what happened in those days.

    Kali says: "Struggle for survival at post-Katrina hospital"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, General Nonfiction, 2013
  • Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World | Leo Damrosch
    Audiobook
    Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World
    UNABRIDGED
    Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World

    Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World

    • UNABRIDGED (20 hrs and 42 mins)
    • By Leo Damrosch
    • Narrated By David Stifel
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (22)
    Performance
    (18)
    Story
    (17)
    View full details >

    Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric fantasy that quickly became a classic and has remained in print for nearly three centuries. Yet Swift also wrote many other influential works, was a major political and religious figure in his time, and became a national hero, beloved for his fierce protest against English exploitation of his native Ireland. What is really known today about the enigmatic man behind these accomplishments? Can the facts of his life be separated from the fictions?

    CHET YARBROUGH says: "JOHNATHAN SWIFT AND POWER OF THE PEN"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Biography, 2013
  • Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk: A Novel | Ben Fountain
    Audiobook
    Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk: A Novel
    UNABRIDGED
    Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk: A Novel

    Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 39 mins)
    • By Ben Fountain
    • Narrated By Oliver Wyman
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (619)
    Performance
    (553)
    Story
    (554)
    View full details >

    A ferocious firefight with Iraqi insurgents - caught on tape by an embedded Fox News crew - has transformed the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad into America's most sought-after heroes. For the past two weeks, the Bush administration has sent them on a media-intensive nationwide victory tour to reinvigorate public support for the war. Now, on this chilly and rainy Thanksgiving, the Bravos are guests of a Dallas football team, slated to be part of the halftime show.

    Mel says: "Oh-ooo Say, Can We See?"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Fiction, 2012
  • Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity | Andrew Solomon
    Audiobook
    Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity
    UNABRIDGED
    Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity

    Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity

    • UNABRIDGED (40 hrs and 41 mins)
    • By Andrew Solomon
    • Narrated By Andrew Solomon
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (769)
    Performance
    (657)
    Story
    (656)
    View full details >

    A brilliant and utterly original thinker, Andrew Solomon's journey began from his experience of being the gay child of straight parents. He wondered how other families accommodate children who have a variety of differences: families of people who are deaf, who are dwarfs, who have Down syndrome, who have autism, who have schizophrenia, who have multiple severe disabilities, who are prodigies, who commit crimes, who are transgender.

    C. Beaton says: "A Gripping Masterpiece"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, General Nonfiction, 2012
  • The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson | Robert A. Caro
    Audiobook
    The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
    UNABRIDGED
    The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

    The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

    • UNABRIDGED (32 hrs and 45 mins)
    • By Robert A. Caro
    • Narrated By Grover Gardner
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (1329)
    Performance
    (1123)
    Story
    (1117)
    View full details >

    The Passage of Power follows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and the most triumphant periods of his career - 1958 to 1964. It is a time that would see him trade the extraordinary power he had created for himself as Senate Majority Leader for what became the wretched powerlessness of a Vice President in an administration that disdained and distrusted him. Yet it was, as well, the time in which the presidency, the goal he had always pursued, would be thrust upon him in the moment it took an assassin’s bullet to reach its mark.

    Abdur Abdul-Malik says: "From Powerful to Powerless"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Biography, 2012
  • The Memory Palace | Mira Bartok
    Audiobook
    The Memory Palace
    UNABRIDGED
    The Memory Palace

    The Memory Palace

    • UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 9 mins)
    • By Mira Bartok
    • Narrated By Hillary Huber
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (58)
    Performance
    (40)
    Story
    (40)
    View full details >

    When piano prodigy Norma Herr was healthy, she was the most vibrant personality in the room. But as her schizophrenic episodes became more frequent and more dangerous, she withdrew into a world that neither of her daughters could make any sense of. After being violently attacked for demanding that Norma seek help, Mira Bartok and her sister changed their names and cut off all contact in order to keep themselves safe.

    Lil Pinchands says: "A little less than expected"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Autobiography, 2011
  • A Visit from the Goon Squad | Jennifer Egan
    Audiobook
    A Visit from the Goon Squad
    UNABRIDGED
    A Visit from the Goon Squad

    A Visit from the Goon Squad

    • UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 8 mins)
    • By Jennifer Egan
    • Narrated By Roxana Ortega
    Overall
    (1668)
    Performance
    (1191)
    Story
    (1207)
    View full details >

    Jennifer Egan brings her unique gifts as a novelist and short story writer to a compulsively listenable narrative that centers on Bennie Salazar, an aging punk rocker and record executive, and the beautiful Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs.

    Laurene says: "Excellent, subtle, moving"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Fiction, 2010
  • How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer | Sarah Bakewell
    Audiobook
    How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
    UNABRIDGED
    How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer

    How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer

    • UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 26 mins)
    • By Sarah Bakewell
    • Narrated By Davina Porter
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (182)
    Performance
    (153)
    Story
    (152)
    View full details >

    This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, perhaps the first recognizably modern individual. A nobleman, public official, and winegrower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. He called them essays, meaning “attempts” or “tries.” He put whatever was in his head into them: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog’s ears twitched when it was dreaming, as well as the religious wars....

    Darwin8u says: "Interesting and in parts Inspired."
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Biography, 2010
  • Half a Life: A Memoir | Darin Strauss
    Audiobook
    Half a Life: A Memoir
    UNABRIDGED
    Half a Life: A Memoir

    Half a Life: A Memoir

    • UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 10 mins)
    • By Darin Strauss
    • Narrated By Darin Strauss
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (57)
    Performance
    (50)
    Story
    (50)
    View full details >

    Acclaimed novelist Darin Strauss examines the far-reaching consequences of the tragic moment that has shadowed his whole life. In his last month of high school, he was behind the wheel of his dad's Oldsmobile, driving with friends, heading off to play mini-golf. Then: a classmate swerved in front of his car. The collision resulted in her death. With piercing insight and stark prose, Darin Strauss leads us on a deeply personal, immediate, and emotional journey.

    Philippa says: "Penance Finally And Thankfully Meets With Peace"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Autobiography, 2010
  • The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration | Isabel Wilkerson
    Audiobook
    The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
    UNABRIDGED
    The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

    The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

    • UNABRIDGED (22 hrs and 42 mins)
    • By Isabel Wilkerson
    • Narrated By Robin Miles, Ken Burns
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (2128)
    Performance
    (1828)
    Story
    (1826)
    View full details >

    In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to previously untapped data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.

    Lila says: "Superior non-fiction"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, General Nonfiction, 2010
  • Cheever: A Life | Blake Bailey
    Audiobook
    Cheever: A Life
    UNABRIDGED
    Cheever: A Life

    Cheever: A Life

    • UNABRIDGED (27 hrs and 59 mins)
    • By Blake Bailey
    • Narrated By Malcolm Hillgartner
    Overall
    (52)
    Performance
    (25)
    Story
    (23)
    View full details >

    John Cheever was a soul in conflict, a high-school dropout who published his first story at 18, a dire alcoholic who recovered to write the great novel Falconer, a secret bisexual who struggled with his longings and his fierce homophobia, whose groundbreaking work landed him on the covers of Time and Newsweek, a man who believed in the power of family love and sexual pleasure, a man whose desperate loneliness was never wholly offset by his faith in the joy of creation.

    susan says: "What feast for Cheever enthusiasts!"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Biography, 2009
  • Wolf Hall | Hilary Mantel
    Audiobook
    Wolf Hall
    UNABRIDGED
    Wolf Hall

    Wolf Hall

    • UNABRIDGED (24 hrs and 19 mins)
    • By Hilary Mantel
    • Narrated By Simon Slater
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (3162)
    Performance
    (2285)
    Story
    (2294)
    View full details >

    In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political powerEngland in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn.

    Tim says: "Divorced, beheaded, died..."
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Fiction, 2009
  • The Forever War | Dexter Filkins
    Audiobook
    The Forever War
    UNABRIDGED
    The Forever War

    The Forever War

    • UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 40 mins)
    • By Dexter Filkins
    • Narrated By Robertson Dean
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (318)
    Performance
    (162)
    Story
    (162)
    View full details >

    Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, we witness the chain of events that began with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continued with the attacks of 9/11, and moved on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Forever War allows us a visceral understanding of today's battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. It is a brilliant, fearless work, not just about America's wars after 9/11, but ultimately about the nature of war itself.

    Terry says: "A memorable "read""
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, General Nonfiction 2008
  • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | Junot Diaz
    Audiobook
    The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
    UNABRIDGED
    The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

    The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

    • UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 57 mins)
    • By Junot Diaz
    • Narrated By Jonathan Davis, Staci Snell
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (3600)
    Performance
    (2168)
    Story
    (2180)
    View full details >

    Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuku: the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.

    Kathleen says: "Fabulous listen"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Fiction, 2007
  • Brother, I'm Dying | Edwidge Danticat
    Audiobook
    Brother, I'm Dying
    UNABRIDGED
    Brother, I'm Dying

    Brother, I'm Dying

    • UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 51 mins)
    • By Edwidge Danticat
    • Narrated By Robin Miles
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (145)
    Performance
    (86)
    Story
    (84)
    View full details >

    Award-winning, best-selling author Edwidge Danticat taps her exceptional storytelling gifts for this memoir of the two men who raised her. When the author was only four years old, her parents emigrated from Haiti to New York in search of a better life, leaving their daughter in the care of her uncle Joseph. A peaceful pastor in Port-au-Prince, Joseph raised Edwidge with the love and devotion of a father, despite facing many hardships in politically turbulent Haiti.

    Chandra says: "A Superb Reflection"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Autobiography, 2007
  • The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century | Alex Ross
    Audiobook
    The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century
    UNABRIDGED
    The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century

    The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century

    • UNABRIDGED (23 hrs and 7 mins)
    • By Alex Ross
    • Narrated By Grover Gardner
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (291)
    Performance
    (137)
    Story
    (135)
    View full details >

    The Rest Is Noise takes the listener inside the labyrinth of modern music, from turn-of-the-century Vienna to downtown New York in the '60s and '70s. We meet the maverick personalities and follow the rise of mass culture on this sweeping tour of 20th-century history through its music.

    Paula says: "Learned so much!"
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Criticism, 2007
1-20of33results PREVIOUS12NEXT