-
Strangers in the House
- A Prairie Story of Bigotry and Belonging
- Narrated by: Cynthia Potvin
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Strangers in the House
Buy for $21.02
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
How the Word Is Passed
- A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
- By: Clint Smith
- Narrated by: Clint Smith
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 3,524
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 3,153
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 3,139
Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the listener on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Sincerely grateful read
- By Kelvin Dixon on 06-08-21
By: Clint Smith
-
Necessary Trouble
- Growing Up at Midcentury
- By: Drew Gilpin Faust
- Narrated by: Drew Gilpin Faust
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 107
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
To grow up in the 1950s was to enter a world of polarized national alliances, nuclear threat, and destabilized social hierarchies. To be a privileged white girl in conservative, segregated Virginia was to be expected to adopt a willful blindness to the inequities of race and the constraints of gender. For young Drew Gilpin Faust, the acceptance of both female subordination and racial privilege proved intolerable and galvanizing. Urged to become “well adjusted" and to fill the role of a poised young lady that her upbringing imposed, she found resistance was the necessary price of survival.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
My Life written by Her.
- By Jacqueline L Larner on 09-03-23
-
Panosian
- A Story of God's Gracious Providence
- By: Chris Anderson
- Narrated by: Chris Anderson, Ed Panosian
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 18
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 17
Dr. Ed Panosian has dedicated his life to the study and teaching of world history. Yet, his own astounding story is relatively unknown. Panosian's grandparents, aunts, and uncles were among the 1,500,000 people killed by Islamic Turks during the Armenian genocide (1915-1918). His own parents narrowly - and providentially - escaped martyrdom, immigrating to the United States, living out the American Dream, and raising a son who became an iconic professor to nearly 30,000 students.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Required Reading
- By J.Brock on 07-17-21
By: Chris Anderson
-
Truth Be Told
- My Journey Through Life and the Law
- By: Beverley McLachlin
- Narrated by: Beverley McLachlin
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 19
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 19
With warmth, honesty, and deep wisdom, McLachlin invites us into her legal and personal life - into the hopes and doubts, the triumphs and losses on and off the bench. Through it all, her constant faith in justice remained her true north. In an age of division and uncertainty, McLachlin’s memoir is a reminder that justice and the rule of law remain our best hope for a progressive and bright future.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Impressive
- By Jean on 12-02-19
-
We Don't Know Ourselves
- A Personal History of Modern Ireland
- By: Fintan O'Toole
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 444
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 375
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 371
In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society - perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. O'Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Relentlessly Negative
- By John on 06-02-22
By: Fintan O'Toole
-
The School That Escaped the Nazis
- The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler
- By: Deborah Cadbury
- Narrated by: Julie Teal
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 33
By 1931, Anna Essinger had read Mein Kampf and knew that Hitler’s world view was violent, utterly destructive, and that many of her pupils in her small progressive school in Herrlingen, Germany were in terrible danger. She decided that in order to offer them a refuge, and a future, she must first move her school entirely out of the Nazis’ reach. So, she did just that, creating a safe haven in Kent, England.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Must Read
- By Amazon Customer on 07-19-23
By: Deborah Cadbury
-
How the Word Is Passed
- A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
- By: Clint Smith
- Narrated by: Clint Smith
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 3,524
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 3,153
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 3,139
Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the listener on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Sincerely grateful read
- By Kelvin Dixon on 06-08-21
By: Clint Smith
-
Necessary Trouble
- Growing Up at Midcentury
- By: Drew Gilpin Faust
- Narrated by: Drew Gilpin Faust
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 107
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
To grow up in the 1950s was to enter a world of polarized national alliances, nuclear threat, and destabilized social hierarchies. To be a privileged white girl in conservative, segregated Virginia was to be expected to adopt a willful blindness to the inequities of race and the constraints of gender. For young Drew Gilpin Faust, the acceptance of both female subordination and racial privilege proved intolerable and galvanizing. Urged to become “well adjusted" and to fill the role of a poised young lady that her upbringing imposed, she found resistance was the necessary price of survival.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
My Life written by Her.
- By Jacqueline L Larner on 09-03-23
-
Panosian
- A Story of God's Gracious Providence
- By: Chris Anderson
- Narrated by: Chris Anderson, Ed Panosian
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 18
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 17
Dr. Ed Panosian has dedicated his life to the study and teaching of world history. Yet, his own astounding story is relatively unknown. Panosian's grandparents, aunts, and uncles were among the 1,500,000 people killed by Islamic Turks during the Armenian genocide (1915-1918). His own parents narrowly - and providentially - escaped martyrdom, immigrating to the United States, living out the American Dream, and raising a son who became an iconic professor to nearly 30,000 students.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Required Reading
- By J.Brock on 07-17-21
By: Chris Anderson
-
Truth Be Told
- My Journey Through Life and the Law
- By: Beverley McLachlin
- Narrated by: Beverley McLachlin
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 19
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 19
With warmth, honesty, and deep wisdom, McLachlin invites us into her legal and personal life - into the hopes and doubts, the triumphs and losses on and off the bench. Through it all, her constant faith in justice remained her true north. In an age of division and uncertainty, McLachlin’s memoir is a reminder that justice and the rule of law remain our best hope for a progressive and bright future.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Impressive
- By Jean on 12-02-19
-
We Don't Know Ourselves
- A Personal History of Modern Ireland
- By: Fintan O'Toole
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 444
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 375
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 371
In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society - perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. O'Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Relentlessly Negative
- By John on 06-02-22
By: Fintan O'Toole
-
The School That Escaped the Nazis
- The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler
- By: Deborah Cadbury
- Narrated by: Julie Teal
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 33
By 1931, Anna Essinger had read Mein Kampf and knew that Hitler’s world view was violent, utterly destructive, and that many of her pupils in her small progressive school in Herrlingen, Germany were in terrible danger. She decided that in order to offer them a refuge, and a future, she must first move her school entirely out of the Nazis’ reach. So, she did just that, creating a safe haven in Kent, England.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Must Read
- By Amazon Customer on 07-19-23
By: Deborah Cadbury
-
Finding Samuel Lowe
- China, Jamaica, Harlem
- By: Paula Williams Madison
- Narrated by: Paula Williams Madison
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
Thanks to her spiteful, jealous Jamaican mother, Nell Vera Lowe was cut off from her Chinese father, Samuel, when she was just a baby, after he announced that he was taking a Chinese bride. By the time Nell was old enough to travel to her father's shop in St. Anne's Bay, he'd taken his family back to China, never learning what became of his eldest daughter. Bereft, Nell left Jamaica for New York to start a new life.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating
- By ayodele higgs on 01-27-16
-
West of the West
- Dreamers, Believers, Builders, and Killers in the Golden State
- By: Mark Arax
- Narrated by: Mark Arax
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 20
Teddy Roosevelt once exclaimed, "When I am in California, I am not in the West. I am west of the West", and in this book, Mark Arax spends four years travelling up and down the Golden State to explore its singular place in the world. This is California beyond the clichés. This is California as only a native son, deep in the dust, could draw it.
By: Mark Arax
-
When We Were Arabs
- A Jewish Family's Forgotten History
- By: Massoud Hayoun
- Narrated by: Massoud Hayoun
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 49
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 47
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 47
There was a time when being an "Arab" didn't mean you were necessarily Muslim. It was a time when Oscar Hayoun, a Jewish Arab, strode along the Nile in a fashionable suit, long before he and his father arrived at the port of Haifa to join the Zionist state only to find themselves hosed down with DDT and then left unemployed on the margins of society. In that time, Arabness was a mark of cosmopolitanism, of intellectualism.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
painful to read.
- By Eli Cukierman on 03-13-20
By: Massoud Hayoun
-
Deepest South of All
- By: Richard Grant
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 205
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 178
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 179
Natchez, Mississippi, once had more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in America, and its wealth was built on slavery and cotton. Today it has the greatest concentration of antebellum mansions in the South, and a culture full of unexpected contradictions. Prominent White families dress up in hoopskirts and Confederate uniforms for ritual celebrations of the Old South, yet Natchez is also progressive enough to elect a gay Black man for mayor with 91 percent of the vote.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Condescending and Carcinogenic
- By W Perry Hall on 09-19-21
By: Richard Grant
-
Amsterdam
- A History of the World's Most Liberal City
- By: Russell Shorto
- Narrated by: Russell Shorto
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 585
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 525
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 522
In this effortlessly erudite account, Russell Shorto traces the idiosyncratic evolution of Amsterdam, showing how such disparate elements as herring anatomy, naked Anabaptists parading through the streets, and an intimate gathering in a 16th-century wine-tasting room had a profound effect on Dutch - and world - history. Weaving in his own experiences of his adopted home, Shorto provides an ever-surprising, intellectually engaging story of Amsterdam from its golden age to the present.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Worth Reading - Highly Recommended
- By Whit B on 05-12-14
By: Russell Shorto
-
Sign My Name to Freedom
- A Memoir of a Pioneering Life
- By: Betty Reid-Soskin
- Narrated by: Betty Reid-Soskin
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
In Betty Reid Soskin’s 96 years of living, she has been a witness to a grand sweep of American history. When she was born in 1921, the lynching of African-Americans was a national epidemic, blackface minstrel shows were the most popular American form of entertainment, white women had only just won the right to vote, and most African-Americans in the Deep South could not vote at all. From her great-grandmother, who had been enslaved until her mid-20s, Betty heard stories of slavery and the times of terror and struggle for Black folk that followed.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
How she stressed Creole, but I guess it was a badge if honor not being regular black.
- By Satisfied customer on 05-21-24
-
How Iceland Changed the World
- The Big History of a Small Island
- By: Egill Bjarnason
- Narrated by: Einar Gunn
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 277
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 245
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 243
The history of Iceland began 1,200 years ago, when a frustrated Viking captain and his useless navigator ran aground in the middle of the North Atlantic. Suddenly, the island was no longer just a layover for the Arctic tern. Instead, it became a nation whose diplomats and musicians, sailors and soldiers, volcanoes and flowers, quietly altered the globe forever. How Iceland Changed the World takes readers on a tour of history, showing them how Iceland played a pivotal role in events as diverse as the French Revolution, the Moon Landing, and the foundation of Israel.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Brilliant
- By Ian D. Jones on 06-01-21
By: Egill Bjarnason
-
Self Made
- Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker
- By: A'Lelia Bundles
- Narrated by: A'Lelia Bundles
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 115
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 100
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
The daughter of slaves, Madam C.J. Walker was orphaned at seven, married at 14, and widowed at 20. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then - with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for Black women - everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: Building a storied beauty empire from the ground up that would be run by four generations of Walker women until its sale in 1985.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Please read the book and not rely on the Netflix series
- By Sweet Pea's Mommy on 04-27-20
By: A'Lelia Bundles
-
My Father's Paradise
- A Son's Search For His Family's Past
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The narrative is compelling, unique and yet universal for those displaced
- By Anonymous User on 05-19-24
By: Ariel Sabar
-
The Other Madisons
- The Lost History of a President's Black Family
- By: Bettye Kearse
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
In The Other Madisons, Bettye Kearse - a descendant of a slave named Coreen and, according to oral tradition, President James Madison - finally shares her family story, exploring legacy, race, and the powerful consequences of telling the whole truth.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Enlightening
- By D C on 08-24-20
By: Bettye Kearse
-
South to America
- A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
- By: Imani Perry
- Narrated by: Imani Perry
- Length: 16 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 416
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 366
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 365
We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge. In South to America, Imani Perry shows that the meaning of American is inextricably linked with the South, and that our understanding of its history and culture is the key to understanding the nation as a whole.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An incredible achievement
- By Tom on 02-16-22
By: Imani Perry
-
Master Slave Husband Wife
- An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
- By: Ilyon Woo
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 371
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 314
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 313
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Necessary story well told!
- By Marc W Rhoades on 01-19-23
By: Ilyon Woo
Publisher's summary
A renowned author investigates the dark and shocking history of her prairie house.
When researching the first occupant of her Saskatoon home, Candace Savage discovers a family more fascinating and heartbreaking than she expected.
Napoléon Sureau dit Blondin built the house in the 1920s, an era when French-speakers like him were deemed “undesirable” by the political and social elite, who sought to populate the Canadian prairies with WASPs only. In an atmosphere poisoned first by the Orange Order and then by the Ku Klux Klan, Napoléon and his young family adopted anglicized names and did their best to disguise their “foreignness”.
In Strangers in the House, Savage scours public records and historical accounts and interviews several of Napoléon’s descendants, including his youngest son, to reveal a family story marked by challenge and resilience. In the process, she examines a troubling episode in Canadian history, one with surprising relevance today.
Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Critic reviews
"The book’s charm lies in its first-person narrative, which poignantly conjures the Blondin family’s challenges along with the author’s reactions to historical events." (Publishers Weekly)
"Riveting and poignant. Savage captures the tragedy and tenacity that define the history of Québec and its diaspora across North America. A rare sympathetic view from an Anglo-Canadian." (David Vermette, A Distinct Alien Race: The Untold Story of Franco-Americans)
"Beautifully written and impeccably researched, Strangers in the House is a remarkable achievement." (Roy MacGregor, Canadians: A Portrait of a Country and Its People)
Related to this topic
-
Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All
- A New Zealand Story
- By: Christina Thompson
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 64
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 53
Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All is the story of the cultural collision between Westerners and the Maoris of New Zealand, told partly as a history of the complex and bloody period of contact between Europeans and the Maoris in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and partly as the story of Christina Thompson's marriage to a Maori man.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
a beautiful story
- By Pumpkin99 on 12-24-22
-
Where I Was From
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 163
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 139
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 136
In her moving and insightful new book, Joan Didion reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history and ours. A native Californian, Didion applies her scalpel-like intelligence to the state’s ethic of ruthless self-sufficiency in order to examine that ethic’s often tenuous relationship to reality. Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, Where I Was From explores California’s romances with land and water; its unacknowledged debts to railroads, aerospace, and big government; the disjunction between its code of individualism and its fetish for prisons.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
California belongs to Joan Didion.
- By Darwin8u on 11-04-15
By: Joan Didion
-
Master Slave Husband Wife
- An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
- By: Ilyon Woo
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 371
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 314
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 313
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Necessary story well told!
- By Marc W Rhoades on 01-19-23
By: Ilyon Woo
-
Finding Samuel Lowe
- China, Jamaica, Harlem
- By: Paula Williams Madison
- Narrated by: Paula Williams Madison
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
Thanks to her spiteful, jealous Jamaican mother, Nell Vera Lowe was cut off from her Chinese father, Samuel, when she was just a baby, after he announced that he was taking a Chinese bride. By the time Nell was old enough to travel to her father's shop in St. Anne's Bay, he'd taken his family back to China, never learning what became of his eldest daughter. Bereft, Nell left Jamaica for New York to start a new life.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating
- By ayodele higgs on 01-27-16
-
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
- A Memoir
- By: Ai Weiwei, Allan H. Barr - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 175
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 149
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 148
Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as “Little Siberia,” where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This book changed my life
- By Johnny Nopolis on 08-16-22
By: Ai Weiwei, and others
-
My Father's Paradise
- A Son's Search For His Family's Past
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The narrative is compelling, unique and yet universal for those displaced
- By Anonymous User on 05-19-24
By: Ariel Sabar
-
Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All
- A New Zealand Story
- By: Christina Thompson
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 64
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 53
Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All is the story of the cultural collision between Westerners and the Maoris of New Zealand, told partly as a history of the complex and bloody period of contact between Europeans and the Maoris in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and partly as the story of Christina Thompson's marriage to a Maori man.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
a beautiful story
- By Pumpkin99 on 12-24-22
-
Where I Was From
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 163
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 139
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 136
In her moving and insightful new book, Joan Didion reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history and ours. A native Californian, Didion applies her scalpel-like intelligence to the state’s ethic of ruthless self-sufficiency in order to examine that ethic’s often tenuous relationship to reality. Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, Where I Was From explores California’s romances with land and water; its unacknowledged debts to railroads, aerospace, and big government; the disjunction between its code of individualism and its fetish for prisons.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
California belongs to Joan Didion.
- By Darwin8u on 11-04-15
By: Joan Didion
-
Master Slave Husband Wife
- An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
- By: Ilyon Woo
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 371
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 314
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 313
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Necessary story well told!
- By Marc W Rhoades on 01-19-23
By: Ilyon Woo
-
Finding Samuel Lowe
- China, Jamaica, Harlem
- By: Paula Williams Madison
- Narrated by: Paula Williams Madison
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
Thanks to her spiteful, jealous Jamaican mother, Nell Vera Lowe was cut off from her Chinese father, Samuel, when she was just a baby, after he announced that he was taking a Chinese bride. By the time Nell was old enough to travel to her father's shop in St. Anne's Bay, he'd taken his family back to China, never learning what became of his eldest daughter. Bereft, Nell left Jamaica for New York to start a new life.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating
- By ayodele higgs on 01-27-16
-
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
- A Memoir
- By: Ai Weiwei, Allan H. Barr - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 175
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 149
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 148
Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as “Little Siberia,” where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This book changed my life
- By Johnny Nopolis on 08-16-22
By: Ai Weiwei, and others
-
My Father's Paradise
- A Son's Search For His Family's Past
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The narrative is compelling, unique and yet universal for those displaced
- By Anonymous User on 05-19-24
By: Ariel Sabar
-
Slaves in the Family
- By: Edward Ball
- Narrated by: Edward Ball
- Length: 20 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 177
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 157
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 157
The Ball family hails from South Carolina - Charleston and thereabouts. Their plantations were among the oldest and longest-standing plantations in the South. Between 1698 and 1865, close to 4,000 Black people were born into slavery under the Balls or were bought by them. In Slaves in the Family, Edward Ball recounts his efforts to track down and meet the descendants of his family's slaves.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Gives a good insight for moving forward today
- By Wendy Wood on 05-05-19
By: Edward Ball
-
Into the Forest
- A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love
- By: Rebecca Frankel
- Narrated by: Natalie Pela
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 267
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 230
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 232
In the summer of 1942, the Rabinowitz family narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. They miraculously survived two years in the woods—through brutal winters, Typhus outbreaks, and merciless Nazi raids—until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944. After the war, they trekked across the Alps into Italy, where they settled as refugees before eventually immigrating to the United States.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great story with an added benefit
- By Scottsville Stu on 12-30-21
By: Rebecca Frankel
-
The Other Madisons
- The Lost History of a President's Black Family
- By: Bettye Kearse
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
In The Other Madisons, Bettye Kearse - a descendant of a slave named Coreen and, according to oral tradition, President James Madison - finally shares her family story, exploring legacy, race, and the powerful consequences of telling the whole truth.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Enlightening
- By D C on 08-24-20
By: Bettye Kearse
-
The Address Book
- What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power
- By: Deirdre Mask
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 245
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 197
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 199
An exuberant and insightful work of popular history of how streets got their names, houses their numbers, and what it reveals about class, race, power, and identity. When most people think about street addresses, if they think of them at all, it is in their capacity to ensure that the postman can deliver mail or a traveler won’t get lost. But street addresses were not invented to help you find your way; they were created to find you. In many parts of the world, your address can reveal your race and class.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Simply OK
- By CJFLA on 07-18-20
By: Deirdre Mask
-
West of the West
- Dreamers, Believers, Builders, and Killers in the Golden State
- By: Mark Arax
- Narrated by: Mark Arax
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 20
Teddy Roosevelt once exclaimed, "When I am in California, I am not in the West. I am west of the West", and in this book, Mark Arax spends four years travelling up and down the Golden State to explore its singular place in the world. This is California beyond the clichés. This is California as only a native son, deep in the dust, could draw it.
By: Mark Arax
-
When We Were Arabs
- A Jewish Family's Forgotten History
- By: Massoud Hayoun
- Narrated by: Massoud Hayoun
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 49
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 47
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 47
There was a time when being an "Arab" didn't mean you were necessarily Muslim. It was a time when Oscar Hayoun, a Jewish Arab, strode along the Nile in a fashionable suit, long before he and his father arrived at the port of Haifa to join the Zionist state only to find themselves hosed down with DDT and then left unemployed on the margins of society. In that time, Arabness was a mark of cosmopolitanism, of intellectualism.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
painful to read.
- By Eli Cukierman on 03-13-20
By: Massoud Hayoun
-
Travels with George
- In Search of Washington and His Legacy
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 282
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 255
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 254
Does George Washington still matter? Best-selling author Nathaniel Philbrick argues for Washington’s unique contribution to the forging of America by retracing his journey as a new president through all 13 former colonies, which were now an unsure nation. Travels with George marks a new first-person voice for Philbrick, weaving history and personal reflection into a single narrative.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Fun listen but too much about slavery
- By Paul W. Brazis on 09-19-21
-
The S.S. Officer's Armchair
- Uncovering the Hidden Life of a Nazi
- By: Daniel Lee
- Narrated by: Alex Wyndham
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 101
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 87
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
One night at a dinner party in Florence, historian Daniel Lee was told about a remarkable discovery. An upholsterer in Amsterdam had found a bundle of swastika-covered documents inside the cushion of an armchair he was repairing. They belonged to Dr. Robert Griesinger, a lawyer from Stuttgart, who joined the S.S. and worked at the Reich's Ministry of Economics and Labor in Nazi-occupied Prague during the war.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
good book; strange voice...
- By S. Hall on 11-15-20
By: Daniel Lee
-
The Cubans
- Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times
- By: Anthony DePalma
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Anthony DePalma
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 43
Cubans today, most of whom have lived their entire lives under the Castro regime, are hesitantly embracing the future. In his new book, Anthony DePalma, a veteran reporter with years of experience in Cuba, focuses on a neighborhood across the harbor from Old Havana to dramatize the optimism as well as the enormous challenges that Cubans face: a moving snapshot of Cuba with all its contradictions as the new regime opens the gate to the capitalism that Fidel railed against for so long.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The real Cuba
- By Tinkerbell on 10-11-20
By: Anthony DePalma
-
Mitka’s Secret
- A True Story of Child Slavery and Surviving the Holocaust
- By: Steven W. Brallier, Joel N. Lohr, Lynn G. Beck
- Narrated by: Trevor Thompson
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
This is Mitka’s account of facing the past, confronting his captors, connecting with lost relatives, and finding peace in the rediscovery of his origins. For Mitka, this also meant reclaiming his Jewish heritage - a journey that gave him a new sense of purpose and freedom from the lingering effects of trauma that had filled his life to that point. By the end, Mitka’s Secret is less a story of survival and more one of redemption and transformation - from hidden suffering to abundant joy.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This should be a movie!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 09-11-21
By: Steven W. Brallier, and others
-
Inge's War
- A German Woman's Story of Family, Secrets, and Survival Under Hitler
- By: Svenja O'Donnell
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Growing up in Paris, the daughter of a German mother and an Irish father, Svenja O'Donnell knew little of her family's German past. In this transporting and illuminating audiobook, the award-winning journalist vividly reconstructs the story of her grandmother Inge's life from the rise of the Nazis through the brutal postwar years, from falling in love with a man who was sent to the Eastern Front just after she became pregnant with his child, to spearheading her family's flight as the Red Army closed in, her young daughter in tow.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Compelling story, superb narrator
- By Someone who knows on 01-16-24
By: Svenja O'Donnell
-
Stealing Home
- Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between
- By: Eric Nusbaum
- Narrated by: David Owen Nelson
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 351
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 298
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 296
Dodger Stadium is an American icon. But the story of how it came to be goes far beyond baseball. The hills that cradle the stadium were once home to three vibrant Mexican American communities. In the early 1950s, those communities were condemned to make way for a utopian public housing project. Then, in a remarkable turn, public housing in the city was defeated amidst a Red Scare conspiracy.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Once Upon a Time at Dodger Stadium
- By James Gamble on 03-06-21
By: Eric Nusbaum
Love Books? You'll Love Audible.
Transform your day
Replace endless scrolling with endless listening. Chores can be fun.
Listen everywhere
Download titles to listen offline, wherever you are in the world.
Carry your entire Library
Your stories go where you go. Audiobooks don’t weigh a thing.
Listen and learn
Discover stories that can change your mind, your well-being, and your life.
Reach your reading goals
You can’t turn pages while you drive—but you can press play.
Find your niche
WIth thousands of titles to explore, there’s something for everyone.