Help
The Mission of the National Book Foundation and the National Book Awards is to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of good writing in America.
1-20of47results PREVIOUS123NEXT
  • Fortune Smiles: Stories | Adam Johnson
    Audiobook
    Fortune Smiles: Stories
    UNABRIDGED
    Fortune Smiles: Stories

    Fortune Smiles: Stories

    • UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 18 mins)
    • By Adam Johnson
    • Narrated By W. Morgan Sheppard, Johnathan McClain, Cassandra Campbell, and others
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (221)
    Performance
    (194)
    Story
    (194)
    View full details >

    Subtly surreal, darkly comic, both hilarious and heartbreaking, Fortune Smiles is a major collection of stories that gives voice to the perspectives we don't often hear while offering something rare in fiction: a new way of looking at the world. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his acclaimed novel about North Korea, The Orphan Master's Son, Adam Johnson is one of America's most provocative and powerful authors.

    Mel says: "Half Full or Half Empty"
    National Book Award Winner, Fiction, 2015
  • Between the World and Me | Ta-Nehisi Coates
    Audiobook
    Between the World and Me
    UNABRIDGED
    Between the World and Me

    Between the World and Me

    • UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 35 mins)
    • By Ta-Nehisi Coates
    • Narrated By Ta-Nehisi Coates
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (8256)
    Performance
    (7424)
    Story
    (7381)
    View full details >

    "This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it." In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race", a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men.

    T DeMon Spencer says: "A Heartfelt Self-aware Literary Masterpiece"
    National Book Award Winner, Nonfiction, 2015
  • Challenger Deep | Neal Shusterman
    Audiobook
    Challenger Deep
    UNABRIDGED
    Challenger Deep

    Challenger Deep

    • UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 13 mins)
    • By Neal Shusterman
    • Narrated By Michael Curran-Dorsano
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (115)
    Performance
    (104)
    Story
    (103)
    View full details >

    Caden Bosch is on a ship that's headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench. Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behavior.

    David says: "AMAZING NARRATOR"
    National Book Award Winner, Young People's Literature, 2015
  • Redeployment | Phil Klay
    Audiobook
    Redeployment
    UNABRIDGED
    • By Phil Klay
    • Narrated by Craig Klein
    • Length:7 hrs and 46 mins
    • Release Date: 03-04-14
    • 4.20  (552 ratings)
    Redeployment

    Redeployment

    • UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 46 mins)
    • By Phil Klay
    • Narrated By Craig Klein
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (552)
    Performance
    (469)
    Story
    (472)
    View full details >

    Phil Klay's Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos. Across nations and continents, Klay sets in devastating relief the two worlds a soldier inhabits: one of extremes and one of loss.

    G. House Sr. says: "A Must Read - Fantastic Heart Rendering Shorts"
    National Book Award Winner, Fiction, 2014
  • Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China | Evan Osnos
    Audiobook
    Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
    UNABRIDGED
    Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

    Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

    • UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 47 mins)
    • By Evan Osnos
    • Narrated By Evan Osnos, George Backman
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (758)
    Performance
    (659)
    Story
    (662)
    View full details >

    As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control.

    Neuron says: "Come back when you have a warrant!"
    National Book Award Winner, Nonfiction, 2014
  • Brown Girl Dreaming | Jacqueline Woodson
    Audiobook
    Brown Girl Dreaming
    UNABRIDGED
    Brown Girl Dreaming

    Brown Girl Dreaming

    • UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 55 mins)
    • By Jacqueline Woodson
    • Narrated By Jacqueline Woodson
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (208)
    Performance
    (189)
    Story
    (187)
    View full details >

    Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world.

    jbender says: "Wow!"
    National Book Award Winner, Young People's Literature, 2014
  • The Good Lord Bird | James McBride
    Audiobook
    The Good Lord Bird
    UNABRIDGED
    The Good Lord Bird

    The Good Lord Bird

    • UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 34 mins)
    • By James McBride
    • Narrated By Michael Boatman
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (592)
    Performance
    (527)
    Story
    (524)
    View full details >

    Henry Shackleford is a young slave living in the Kansas Territory in 1857, when the region is a battleground between anti- and pro-slavery forces. When John Brown, the legendary abolitionist, arrives in the area, an argument between Brown and Henry’s master quickly turns violent. Henry is forced to leave town - with Brown, who believes he’s a girl. Over the ensuing months, Henry - whom Brown nicknames Little Onion - conceals his true identity as he struggles to stay alive. Eventually Little Onion finds himself with Brown at the historic raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 - one of the great catalysts for the Civil War.

    A. Hatch says: "Abolition Huck Finn arouses interest in history"
    National Book Award Winner, Fiction, 2013
  • The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America | George Packer
    Audiobook
    The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
    UNABRIDGED
    The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

    The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

    • UNABRIDGED (18 hrs and 4 mins)
    • By George Packer
    • Narrated By Robert Fass
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (431)
    Performance
    (368)
    Story
    (376)
    View full details >

    In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.

    G. House Sr. says: "Nicely woven threads of contemporary history"
    National Book Award Winner, Nonfiction, 2013
  • The Round House: A Novel | Louise Erdrich
    Audiobook
    The Round House: A Novel
    UNABRIDGED
    The Round House: A Novel

    The Round House: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 39 mins)
    • By Louise Erdrich
    • Narrated By Gary Farmer
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (1600)
    Performance
    (1382)
    Story
    (1387)
    View full details >

    One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and 13-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

    Tony says: "MADE THE LISTS OF BEST BOOKS!"
    National Book Award Winner, Fiction, 2012
  • Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity | Katherine Boo
    Audiobook
    Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
    UNABRIDGED
    Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

    Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

    • UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 15 mins)
    • By Katherine Boo
    • Narrated By Sunil Malhotra
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (1224)
    Performance
    (1049)
    Story
    (1061)
    View full details >

    Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption.

    Dr. says: "An Antidote for Shantaram"
    National Book Award Winner, Nonfiction, 2012
  • Salvage the Bones: A Novel | Jesmyn Ward
    Audiobook
    Salvage the Bones: A Novel
    UNABRIDGED
    Salvage the Bones: A Novel

    Salvage the Bones: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 53 mins)
    • By Jesmyn Ward
    • Narrated By Cherise Boothe
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (301)
    Performance
    (264)
    Story
    (266)
    View full details >

    Best-selling author Jesmyn Ward won the National Book Award for this poignant and poetic novel. Unfolding over 12 days, the story follows a poor family living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. With Hurricane Katrina bearing down on them, the Batistes struggle to maintain their community and familial bonds amid the storm and the stark poverty surrounding them.

    Gillian says: "Beautiful With No Holds Barred"
    National Book Award Winner, Fiction, 2011
  • The Swerve: How the World Became Modern | Stephen Greenblatt
    Audiobook
    The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
    UNABRIDGED
    The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

    The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

    • UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 44 mins)
    • By Stephen Greenblatt
    • Narrated By Edoardo Ballerini
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (1542)
    Performance
    (1339)
    Story
    (1335)
    View full details >

    Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late 30s took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic by Lucretius—a beautiful poem containing the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles.

    Ethan M. says: "Very compelling history, a less compelling thesis"
    National Book Award Winner, Nonfiction, 2011
  • Lord of Misrule | Jaimy Gordon
    Audiobook
    Lord of Misrule
    UNABRIDGED
    Lord of Misrule

    Lord of Misrule

    • UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 10 mins)
    • By Jaimy Gordon
    • Narrated By Myra Lucretia Taylor
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (72)
    Performance
    (47)
    Story
    (47)
    View full details >

    At the rock-bottom end of the sport of kings sits the ruthless and often violent world of cheap horse racing, where trainers and jockeys, grooms and hotwalkers, loan sharks and touts are all struggling to take an edge, or prove their luck, or just survive. Equal parts Nathanael West, Damon Runyon and Eudora Welty, Lord of Misrule follows five characters -- scarred and lonely dreamers in the American grain -- through a year and four races at Indian Mound Downs, downriver from Wheeling, West Virginia.

    fmg says: "Worthy of the National Book Award"
    National Book Award Winner, Fiction, 2010
  • Just Kids | Patti Smith
    Audiobook
    Just Kids
    UNABRIDGED
    • By Patti Smith
    • Narrated by Patti Smith
    • Length:9 hrs and 54 mins
    • Release Date: 07-26-11
    • 4.40  (2062 ratings)
    Just Kids

    Just Kids

    • UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 54 mins)
    • By Patti Smith
    • Narrated By Patti Smith
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (2062)
    Performance
    (1839)
    Story
    (1826)
    View full details >

    Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late 60s and 70s and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists' ascent, a prelude to fame.

    Richard says: "Exceptional. Deeply honest and thoughtful."
    National Book Award Winner, Nonfiction, 2010
  • Mockingbird | Kathryn Erskine
    Audiobook
    Mockingbird
    UNABRIDGED
    Mockingbird

    Mockingbird

    • UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 20 mins)
    • By Kathryn Erskine
    • Narrated By Angela Jayne Rogers
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (105)
    Performance
    (86)
    Story
    (89)
    View full details >

    In Mockingbird—a poignant gem by acclaimed author Kathryn Erskine—a talented young artist struggles to overcome a disability. Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, 10-year-old Caitlin faces a range of social and emotional challenges. The unexpected death of her caring brother makes matters even worse, but will the memory of his words of wisdom and the help of a compassionate counselor be enough to enable her to connect with others?

    starlib says: "Wonderful story of Healing"
    National Book Award Winner, Young People's Literature, 2010
  • The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt | T.J. Stiles
    Audiobook
    The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
    UNABRIDGED
    The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

    The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

    • UNABRIDGED (28 hrs and 44 mins)
    • By T.J. Stiles
    • Narrated By Mark Deakins
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (475)
    Performance
    (352)
    Story
    (349)
    View full details >

    In The First Tycoon, Stiles offers the first complete, authoritative biography of this titan, and the first comprehensive account of the Commodore's personal life. It is a sweeping, fast-moving epic, and a complex portrait of the great man. Vanderbilt, Stiles shows, embraced the philosophy of the Jacksonian Democrats and withstood attacks by his conservative enemies for being too competitive. He was a visionary who pioneered business models.

    john says: "Great! If you can get through it..."
    National Book Award Winner, Nonfiction, 2009
  • Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice | Phillip Hoose
    Audiobook
    Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
    UNABRIDGED
    Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

    Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

    • UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 38 mins)
    • By Phillip Hoose
    • Narrated By Channie Waites
    Overall
    (30)
    Performance
    (23)
    Story
    (23)
    View full details >

    On March 2, 1955, a slim, bespectacled teenager refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Mont-gomery, Alabama. Shouting "It's my constitutional right!" as police dragged her off to jail, Claudette Colvin decided she'd had enough of the Jim Crow segregation laws that had angered and puzzled her since she was a young child.

    Talia says: "The funny yet touching story of women leders!"
    National Book Award Winner, Young People's Literature, 2009
  • Shadow Country: A New Rendering of the Watson Legend | Peter Matthiessen
    Audiobook
    Shadow Country: A New Rendering of the Watson Legend
    UNABRIDGED
    Shadow Country: A New Rendering of the Watson Legend

    Shadow Country: A New Rendering of the Watson Legend

    • UNABRIDGED (40 hrs and 25 mins)
    • By Peter Matthiessen
    • Narrated By Anthony Heald
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (474)
    Performance
    (227)
    Story
    (232)
    View full details >

    Inspired by a near-mythic event on the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the 20th century, Shadow Country re-imagines the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself relentlessly toward his own violent end at the hands of neighbors who mostly admired him, in a killing that obsessed his favorite son.

    John says: "Engrossing, Rich and Powerful"
    National Book Award Winner, Fiction, 2008
  • The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family | Annette Gordon-Reed
    Audiobook
    The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
    UNABRIDGED
    The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

    The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

    • UNABRIDGED (30 hrs and 40 mins)
    • By Annette Gordon-Reed
    • Narrated By Karen White
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (343)
    Performance
    (188)
    Story
    (187)
    View full details >

    This epic work tells the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president had been systematically expunged from American history until very recently. Now, historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family's dispersal after Jefferson's death in 1826. It brings to life not only Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson but also their children and Hemings's siblings, who shared a father with Jefferson's wife, Martha.

    Dianne says: "Fascinating"
    National Book Award Winner, Nonfiction, 2008
1-20of47results PREVIOUS123NEXT