Audiobooks that Go Behind the Headlines

Long before #BlackLivesMatter became a rallying cry for this generation, Alicia Garza had spent the better part of two decades learning and unlearning some hard lessons about organizing. The lessons she offers are different from the “rules for radicals” that animated earlier generations of activists, and diverge from the charismatic, patriarchal model of the American civil rights movement. She reflects instead on how making room amongst the woke for those who are still awakening can inspire and activate more people to fight for the world we all deserve. This is the story of one woman’s lessons through years of bringing people together to create change.

On December 29, 2019, historian Timothy Snyder fell gravely ill. Over the next few days, as he clung to life and the first light of a new year came through his window, he found himself reflecting on the fragility of health, not recognized in America as a human right but without which all rights and freedoms have no meaning. In this eye-opening cri de coeur, Snyder traces the societal forces that led us here and outlines the lessons we must learn to survive.

Millions of Americans have lost confidence in our political and economic system. With the characteristic clarity and passion that has made him a central civil voice, Robert B. Reich shows how wealth and power have interacted to install an elite oligarchy, eviscerate the middle class, and undermine democracy. Reich’s objective is not to foster cynicism, but rather to demystify the system so that we might instill fundamental change and demand that democracy works for the majority once again.

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more.

Taking listeners beyond the candid daily briefings that became must-see TV across the globe, and providing a dramatic, day-by-day account of the catastrophe as it unfolded, American Crisis presents the intimate and inspiring thoughts of a leader at an unprecedented historical moment. In his own voice, Andrew Cuomo chronicles the ingenuity and sacrifice required of so many to fight the pandemic, sharing the decision-making that shaped his policy as well as his frank accounting and assessment of his interactions with the federal government, the White House, and other state and local political and health officials.