Behind The Scenes with Retta, Narrator of Tinaca Jones

Audible Blog

Richard Armitage On Narrating 'Romeo And Juliet: A Novel'

A Conversation With Esther Perel

Don Katz At 'Jazz In The Key Of Ellison' 

In The Studio With Kevin Hart

As the Comedy Editor, Aaron always has an ear out for all things funny—but a good biography or history listen is always in his queue. He’s never broken a bone in his body, his favorite candy is Raisinets, and he’s currently trying to teach himself how to whistle but not really getting anywhere with it. He lives in Brooklyn, obviously. You can subscribe to his comedy newsletter [here](https://www.audible.com/blog/comedy-newsletter).

Aaron Schwartz

Comedian Gary Gulman imparts lessons on depression in "Misfit"

George Saunders’ “Liberation Day” Positively Stuns

On the Other Side of Grief with Ocean Vuong

Caleb Azumah Nelson's lyrical debut brings you inside the mind of a young British Black man discovering himself through love and art.

Inspired by Hip-Hop, ‘Open Water’ Introduces a Stunning New Voice on Vulnerability

Inspired by hip-hop, "Open Water" introduces a stunning new voice on vulnerability

Comedian and storyteller Mike Birbiglia talks about the universality of big life changes — like buying his first couch and having his first child — in 'The New One,' which he also co-wrote and co-narrated with his poet wife, J. Hope Stein.

Mike Birbiglia Tells the Deeper Story in ‘The New One’

Comedy Editor Aaron recommends 8 short comedy listens to keep you company during late nights.

Late Night Comedy Listens

Award-winning poet Ocean Vuong expounds on the complex themes of his deeply moving novel, ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’, touching on masculine identity, concepts of family, drug use, and more.

Ocean Vuong Takes His Gorgeous Writing From Poems To His Debut Novel 

For editor Aaron Schwartz, wanting to listen to more adoption narratives or make literary connections to his birth family was a search for community that never negated his joy with the life and family he gained.

Hearing About Adoption And A Specific Kind Of Otherness Helps To Round Out Some Life Stories

Actress and Comedian Lauren Lapkus sat down with editor Aaron Schwartz at the annual San Francisco Sketchfest and spoke about her role in the Audible Original 'Bad Reception' and her career in comedy.

Comedian Lauren Lapkus Shares Why Audio Improv Is Getting Far From A 'Bad Reception'

Stand-up is all well and good, but observational humor that’s funny and warm may work best in audiobooks. And Tom Papa, whose loyal audiences are packed with “date night” couples of all ages, has perfected the form. In We're All In This Together, Papa’s thirty-seven short essays tackle these universal American topics, among others: <ul> <li>Love for Your First Car (“To Buy or Lease”)</li> <li>The Truth about Personal Hygiene (“How You Know When It’s Time to Go”)</li> <li>Date Nights (“Will You Go Out with Me?”)</li> <li>Unfamiliar Hotel Rooms (“Why Nothing Works”)</li> <li>Pets (“Cats–Ancient Menace”)</li> <li>Drinking (“There’s no Cure for a Hangover”)</li> <li>Ducking your Family, even Though you Love Them (“The Lesson of Mark Twain’s Cigars”)</li> </ul> Tom Papa’s books make audiences laugh, but–crucially–feel better about themselves while doing it. And while there’s thematic overlap with Papa’s stand-up, with a couple of exceptions, all the writing here is fresh for our book.

We're All in This Together . . .

From the legendary music producer, a master at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book many years in the making that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us "A gorgeous and inspiring work of art on creation, creativity, the work of the artist. It will gladden the hearts of writers and artists everywhere, and get them working again with a new sense of meaning and direction. A stunning accomplishment.”—Anne Lamott “I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be.”—Rick Rubin Many famed music producers are known for a particular sound that has its day. Rick Rubin is known for something else: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. He has made a practice of helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable. Over the years, as he has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn’t, he has learned that being an artist isn’t about your specific output, it’s about your relationship to the world. Creativity has a place in everyone’s life, and everyone can make that place larger. In fact, there are few more important responsibilities. The Creative Act is a beautiful and generous course of study that illuminates the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It distills the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime’s work into a luminous listening experience that puts the power to create moments—and lifetimes—of exhilaration and transcendence within closer reach for all of us.

The Creative Act

For Your Brainy Brother: Brothers like biographies. I feel like with most generalizations, this one has to be true, right? And no one does bios better than Walter Isaacson, who’s previously turned his magnifying glass on Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs. Dude has a type! The brainer the better. But Isaacson’s insanely detailed research also gives you a rich well of knowledge in which to dive—and discuss—with your equally brainiac bro. Da Vinci was a study in contrasts, a master of both the left and right brains, and his unusual blend of art and science is what made him such a remarkable genius. Feeling tension at home? His ability to bridge gaps that were insurmountable to other people may inspire you in your familial relationships. Plus, the details are divine. Did you know da Vinci was a vegetarian who never killed a flea? And was the rare brilliant soul who was able to dream up the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper but was also very kind and generous and good-humored? If those details don’t jumpstart your sibling’s curiosity, just tell your bro that the book’s voiced by a Spider-Man villain. Alfred Molina was a great Doc Ock, but makes an even better Leo.

Leonardo da Vinci

The Nazi regime preached an ideology of physical, mental, and moral purity. But as Norman Ohler reveals in this gripping new history, the Third Reich was saturated with drugs. On the eve of World War II, Germany was a pharmaceutical powerhouse, and companies such as Merck and Bayer cooked up cocaine, opiates, and, most of all, methamphetamines, to be consumed by everyone from factory workers to housewives to millions of German soldiers. In fact, troops regularly took rations of a form of crystal meth - the elevated energy and feelings of invincibility associated with the high even help to explain certain German military victories. Drugs seeped all the way up to the Nazi high command and, especially, to Hitler himself. Over the course of the war, Hitler became increasingly dependent on injections of a cocktail of drugs - including a form of heroin - administered by his personal doctor. While drugs alone cannot explain the Nazis' toxic racial theories or the events of World War II, Ohler's investigation makes an overwhelming case that, if drugs are not taken into account, our understanding of the Third Reich is fundamentally incomplete. Carefully researched and rivetingly listenable, Blitzed throws surprising light on a history that, until now, has remained in the shadows.

Blitzed

Currently listening

Pinned Interview

A Best Book of 2020: <ul> <li>The Washington Post </li> <li>NPR </li> <li>Chicago Tribune </li> <li>Smithsonian </li> </ul> A "remarkable" (Los Angeles Times), "seductive" (The Wall Street Journal) debut from the new cohost of Radiolab, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a dark and astonishing tale of love, chaos, scientific obsession, and - possibly - even murder.​ "At one point, Miller dives into the ocean into a school of fish...comes up for air, and realizes she’s in love. That’s how I felt: Her book took me to strange depths I never imagined, and I was smitten." (The New York Times Book Review) David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake - which sent more than 1,000 discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered. Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish that he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world. When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool - a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet. Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a wondrous fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.

Why Fish Don't Exist

From the author of the best-selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, this is the exclusive biography of Steve Jobs....

Steve Jobs

Pulitzer Finalist, General Nonfiction, 2016. “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.

Between the World and Me

Hailed by the New York Times as "a marvel of storytelling," The Things They Carried’s portrayal of the boots-on-the-ground experience of soldiers in the Vietnam War is a landmark in war writing. Now, three-time Emmy Award-winner Bryan Cranston delivers an electrifying performance that walks the book’s hallucinatory line between reality and fiction and highlights the emotional power of the spoken word.