In Force of Beauty, Mikki Taylor, editor-at-large of Essence magazine and longtime activist, introduces us to her gifted grandmother, Bessie, her glamorous mother, Modina, and how Modina’s friendship with the legendary Sarah Vaughan shaped Mikki’s childhood. Taylor’s mini-memoir is a tribute to Newark in the '50s and '60s, of cool jazz clubs and close-knit neighborhoods, a handsome house on Avon Avenue, and one family’s tale of perseverance and ingenuity in a city they all loved. 

The Sound Inside follows Bella Baird, an accomplished English professor at an Ivy League university who prizes her solitude. But when she faces a challenge she cannot tackle alone, she allies herself with a brilliant and mysterious student, Christopher. 

Patti Smith: Words and Music features live audio of performances captured over three evenings at the Minetta Lane Theatre, woven into a single, one-of-a-kind audio event.

Lydia (Aja Naomi King) and Henry (Jason Butler Harner)’s dinner guests (Madeline Brewer and William Jackson Harper) are about to arrive when Henry’s spontaneous marriage proposal threatens to burn the evening to a crisp. Wine bottles and years of unspoken tensions are uncorked, and before the evening is through, Lydia must confront her long-held fears and feelings if she’s going to commit to a future with Henry. 

In 2010, the Upper Big Branch mine explosion in West Virginia killed 29 men and tore a hole in the lives of countless others. Now you can hear the first-person accounts from survivors and family members. In this riveting, emotionally stunning new work, Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, award-winning writers of The Exonerated, and three-time Grammy Award-winning country/folk legend Steve Earle dig deep into the repercussions of the most deadly mining disaster in recent US history.   

It’s 1949 in Detroit’s Black Bottom neighborhood, and there’s no better place to hear or play jazz than Paradise Club. Blue (Emmy and Grammy Award winner Blair Underwood), club owner and trumpeter, can wail like no other, but as forces outside the club conspire to irreparably change life inside and outside Paradise’s walls, he must decide whether to stay or sell. Beholden to his girlfriend (Grammy Award winner Kristolyn Lloyd) and fellow bandmates (André Holland and Keith Randolph Smith), Blue faces an uncertain future as he reckons with his troubled past.

Russell Brand takes a deep, earnest, yet witty dive into the meaning of life, death, and the sacred space in between in this compelling Audible Original. 

Comedian Kate Willett was married to a woman and thought she'd never have to deal with men again. That is, until she found herself dumped, suddenly single, and mystifyingly...mostly attracted to dudes. Like any good comic, she was inspired to investigate, and thus ensued her hilarious, sometimes high-stakes personal research into the world of men, culminating in a beautiful, difficult romance.        

In 1955, an American farming couple saw a film about the thousands of Korean children orphaned by the Korean War. Through a special act of Congress, they were authorized to adopt eight of these children - which marked the advent of international adoption. Since that time, there have been over 170,000 children adopted out of Korea to more than 30 countries. Korean adoptee Glenn Morey and his wife, Julie Morey, spent six years interviewing 100 Korean adoptees from around the world. This stunning Audible Original is comprised of 15 first-person accounts....

Now a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and host of The Amber Ruffin Show, Amber Ruffin lives in New York, where she is no one's first Black friend and everyone is, as she puts it, "stark raving normal". But Amber's sister Lacey? She's still living in their home state of Nebraska, and trust us, you'll never believe what happened to Lacey.  

In the spring of 1980, the British colony of Rhodesia became the independent nation of Zimbabwe. Tonderai Munyevu, a born-free, was part of the hopeful next generation from a new country with a new leader, Robert Gabriel Mugabe. While exploring Tonderai’s personal story and his relationship with his father, Mugabe, My Dad and Me charts the rise and fall of one of the most controversial politicians of the 20th century.  

New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline's world is forever changed when Hitler's army invades Poland in September 1939 - and then sets its sights on France. An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she is drawn deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement.

In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive.

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated.

After a staged terrorist attack kills the President and most of Congress, the government is deposed and taken over by the oppressive and all-controlling Republic of Gilead. Offred is a Handmaid serving in the household of the enigmatic Commander and his bitter wife. She can remember a time when she lived with her husband and daughter and had a job, before she lost even her own name.