Social Science Audiobooks | Non-Fiction

The Way That Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico City's Anexos

The Way That Leads Among the Lost reveals a hidden place where care and violence are impossible to separate: the anexos of Mexico City. The prizewinning anthropologist Angela Garcia takes us deep into the world of these small rooms, informal treatment centers for alcoholism, addiction, and mental illness, spread across Mexico City’s tenements and reaching into the United States. Run and inhabited by Mexico’s most marginalized populations, they are controversial for their illegality and their use of coercion. Yet for many Mexican families desperate to keep their loved ones safe, these rooms offer something of a refuge from what lies beyond them—the intensifying violence surrounding the drug war. This is the first book ever written on the anexos. Garcia, who spent a decade conducting anthropological fieldwork in Mexico City, draws readers into their many dimensions, casting light on the mothers and their children who are entangled in this hidden world. Following the stories of its denizens, she asks what these places are, why they exist, and what they reflect about Mexico and the wider world. With extraordinary empathy and a sharp eye for detail, Garcia attends to the lives that the anexos both sustain and erode, wrestling with the question of why mothers turn to them as a site of refuge even as they reproduce violence. Woven into these portraits is Garcia’s own powerful story of family, childhood, homelessness, and drugs—a blend of ethnography and memoir converging on a set of fundamental questions about the many forms and meanings that violence, love, care, family, and hope may take. Infused with profound ethnographic richness and moral urgency, The Way That Leads Among the Lost is a stunning work of narrative nonfiction, a book that will leave a deep mark on readers.

Angela Garcia (Author), Inés Del Castillo, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion

Agnes Arnold-Forster (Author), Agnes Arnold-Forster, Tbd (Narrator)

Audiobook

Dear Bi Men: A Black Man's Perspective on Power, Consent, Breaking Down Binaries, and Combating Eras

An unapologetic guide for readers who are Black, masc, and bi-unlearning biphobia, coming out, combatting erasure, and embodying your whole self Through cutting social analysis, personal stories, and need-to-know advice, Dear Bi Men reclaims bi+ visibility in a culture of erasure-and unapologetically centers Blackness in a practical and deeply researched guide to navigating life, work, and relationships as a Black bi+ man. Popular representation of bi and pansexual men is growing, but we're not there yet: It's mostly white. It collapses bisexual identity into tired, hypersexualized tropes. And it fails to interrogate the deeply entrenched stereotypes that insist: You're confused. You just don't know you're gay. You're greedy. You must be great in bed. Author, peer counselor, and creator of #bisexualmenspeak J.R. Yussuf pushes back against these stigmas and misconceptions, exploring how white supremacy reinforces biphobia and dictates what society thinks it means to "be a man." He contextualizes discourse around queerness and bisexuality within a larger framework that honors readers' intersecting identities. And he offers deeply practical advice, sharing how to: - Unlearn internalized biphobia and homophobia - Navigate an increasingly hostile digital landscape - Think about coming out: who to tell, why to tell them, and how to do it - Fight back against erasure and stigma - Navigate sex, dating, partnerships, marriage, friendship, and work - Understand your bi+ sexuality through a political lens - Process Black bi+ representation Rich with personal narratives, insightful analysis, and practical advice, this book is a powerful resource for Black bi+ men to reclaim their identity, counter biphobia, and get empowered-and an offering to all readers looking to fight back against the erasure and dehumanization wrought by patriarchy. From TI 9781623179687 TR.

J.R. Yussuf (Author), J.R. Yussuf (Narrator)

Audiobook

Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community

An embodied guide to being with grief individually and in community-practical exercises, decolonized rituals, and Earth-based medicines for healing and processing loss We live in a culture that suppresses our ability to truly feel our grief-deeply, safely, and on our own terms. But each person's experience is as unique as the grief itself. Here, Camille Barton's take on grief speaks directly to the ways that BIPOC and queer readers disproportionately experience unique constellations of loss. Deeply practical and easy to use in times of confusion, trauma, and pain, Tending Grief includes rituals, reflection prompts, and exercises that help us process and metabolize our grief-without bypassing or pushing aside what comes to the fore. Barton includes exercises that can be done both alone and in community, including: - Altar practices to honor and connect with ancestors known and unknown - Locating, holding, and dancing your grief - Sharing circles for processing communal loss - Water, fire, and nature-based rituals - Honoring the survival utility of numbness-and knowing when it's time to release it - Peer support and integration - Herbal medicines and plant-based healing Barton honors each and every experience: The loss of displacement from homelands, from severed lineages and ancestral ways of knowing. The grief of colonization and theft. The deep heaviness that burrows into our bodies when society tells us our bodies are wrong. Practical tools and rituals help readers feel into their grief, honor what comes up, and move forward in healing. Written specifically to center and hold the grief of BIPOC readers, Tending Grief is an invitation to reconnect to what we've lost, to find community in our grief, and to tend to our own suffering for our individual and collective wellbeing. From TI 9781623179946 TR.

Camille Sapara Barton (Author), Camille Sapara Barton (Narrator)

Audiobook

We've Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health--Stories and Research Challenging the Biom

25 unflinching stories and essays from the front lines of the radical mental health movement Overmedication, police brutality, electroconvulsive therapy, involuntary hospitalization, traumas that lead to intense altered states and suicidal thoughts: these are the struggles of those labeled "mentally ill." While much has been written about the systemic problems of our mental-health care system, this book gives voice to those with personal experience of psychiatric miscare often excluded from the discussion, like people of color and LGBTQ+ communities. It is dedicated to finding working alternatives to the "Mental Health Industrial Complex" and shifting the conversation from mental illness to mental health.

L.D. Green (Author), Dara Brown, Tba, Vivica Mccrary (Narrator)

Audiobook

Techno-Capitalism: The Rise of the New Robber Barons and the Fight for the Common Good

The respected Italian economist and journalist offers a bold and provocative argument that the speed of technological transformation is threatening our future At the dawn of the digital revolution, the internet was going to be the great equalizer, a global democratic force. Instead, Wall Street ended up funding a new breed of serial capitalists, the Techtitans, who embraced rapid, transformational change while stripping their workers of rights and enriching themselves beyond anybody's wildest imagination; and the Space Barons, who mine new frontiers for precious resources. Tech pioneers like Google, Facebook, Apple, Uber, and Microsoft never had any intention of spreading democracy. Those who control and own the technology are the absolute masters. As artificial intelligence enters the labor market, companies like Uber are able to cut labor costs to the barest of minimums, by squeezing workers' privileges and rights. Technological transformation is occurring at a speed that is existentially unbearable for most of us. We must fight for our common good to address today's real challenges of global warming and militarism and the soulessness of capitalist endeavor. Napoleoni shows us how.

Loretta Napoleoni (Author), Wendy Tremont King (Narrator)

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Before It's Gone: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small Town America

In the vein of This Changes Everything and Saving Us, a character-driven and shocking up-close look at the way climate change is affecting America, right now, and a call to action to protect the people and places we stand to lose if nothing is done to preserve our planet. Discussion of the climate crisis has always suffered from a problem of abstraction. Data points and warnings of an overheated future struggle to break through the noise of everyday life. Deniers often portray climate solutions as inconvenient, expensive, and unnecessary. And many politicians, cloistered by status and focused always on their next election, do not yet see climate as a winning issue in the short run, so they don't take any action at all. But climate change, and its devastating consequences, has kept apace whether we want to pay attention or not. CBS News national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti has seen that crisis unfold for himself, spending nearly two decades reporting across the United States (and the world) documenting the people, communities, landmarks, and traditions we've already surrendered. Vigliotti shares with urgency and personal touch the story of an America on the brink. Before It's Gone traces Vigliotti's travels across the country, taking him to the frontlines of climate disaster and revealing the genuine impacts of climate change that countless Americans have already been forced to confront. From massive forest fires in California to hurricanes in Louisiana, receding coastlines in Massachusetts and devastated fisheries in Alaska, we learn that warnings of a future impacted by climate are no more; the climate catastrophe is already here. This is the story of America, and Americans, on the edge, and a powerful argument that radical action on climate change with a respect for its people and traditions is not only possible, but also the only way to preserve what we love.

Jonathan Vigliotti (Author), Jonathan Vigliotti (Narrator)

Audiobook

I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World

What can we hope for at the end of the world? What can we trust in when community has broken our hearts? What would it mean to pursue justice without violence? How can we love in the absence of faith? In a heartbreaking yet hopeful collection of personal essays and prose poems, blending the confessional, political, and literary, Kai Cheng Thom dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today. With the author's characteristic eloquence and honesty, I Hope We Choose Love proposes heartfelt solutions on the topics of violence, complicity, family, vengeance, and forgiveness. Taking its cues from contemporary thought leaders in the transformative justice movement such as adrienne maree brown and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, this provocative book is a call for nuance in a time of political polarization, for healing in a time of justice, and for love in an apocalypse.

Kai Cheng Thom (Author), Nicky Endres (Narrator)

Audiobook

Rural Hours: The Country Lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann

Brought to you by Penguin. 1917. Virginia Woolf arrives at Asheham, on the Sussex Downs, immobilized by nervous exhaustion and creative block. 1930. Feeling jittery about her writing career, Sylvia Townsend Warner spots a modest workman’s cottage for sale on the Dorset coast. 1941. Rosamond Lehmann settles in a Berkshire village, seeking a lovers’ retreat, a refuge from war, and a means of becoming ‘a writer again’. Rural Hours tells the story of three very different women, each of whom moved to the country and were forever changed by it. We encounter them at quiet moments – pausing to look at an insect on the windowsill; jotting down a recipe; or digging for potatoes, dirt beneath their nails. Slowly, we start to see transformations unfold. Invigorated by new landscapes, and the daily trials and small pleasures of making homes, they emerge from long periods of creative uncertainty and private disappointment; they embark on new experiments in form, in feeling and in living. In the country, each woman finds her path: to convalescence and recovery; to sexual and political awakening; and, above all, to personal freedom and creative flourishing. Graceful, fluid, and enriched by previously untouched archival material, Rural Hours is both a paean to the bravery and vision of three pioneering writers, and a passionate invitation to us all: to recognize the radical potential of domestic life and rural places, and find new enchantment in the routines and rituals of each day. ©2024 Harriet Baker (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Harriet Baker (Author), Harriet Baker, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Influence: Understand it, Use it, Resist it

One of the government’s former behavioural scientists reveals how you can do what you want, whilst everybody tries to influence you into doing what they want. Influence makes you think what you think and do as you do. You use it to change the thoughts and behaviours of others – just as others use it change yours. We have been perfecting our influence for millions of years, but in the last 20 years digital technologies have revolutionised how influence works. We are now connected to old school friends and niche interest groups – but unwittingly also to organised criminals, terrorists and hostile states who infiltrate our societies. The course of history is being shaped: elections have been hijacked, lies spread about pandemics and the rapidly heating climate, and information has become as important as bullets and bombs to winning wars. More than ever, influence has become the crucial currency for commercial and political gain: If you don’t understand it, you will likely become its victim. Written by a former government behavioural scientist working at the cutting edge of this field, Influence is a groundbreaking guide to the chaotic and murky world we live in. Through examining five key factors we are taken on a tour from the past to our real-world present, to build a picture of the major role influence plays in everyday life. Influence provides a simple personal plan illustrating how you can use influence to achieve your goals – whether gaining that promotion, getting your friends to a music festival, or your children to eat their greens. But by understanding the nature of influence, you will also see how it is changing in the information age, enabling dangerous adversaries to gain power, leaving our societies in peril. Most importantly, by using the tools of influence you will be empowered to play your part in protecting us – it will be down to you and everyone you know. Influence is a fascinating guide to how you can help by understanding it, using it and resisting it.

Justin Hempson-Jones (Author), Elliot Fitzpatrick, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Storm’s Edge: Life, Death and Magic in the Islands of Orkney

From Peter Marshall, winner of the Wolfson Prize 2018, Storm’s Edge is a new history of the Orkney Islands that dives deep into island politics, the evolution of folklore, and community memory on the geographical edge of Britain. Peter Marshall was born in Orkney, his ancestors were farmers and farm labourers on the northern island of Sanday – where, in 1624, one of them was murdered by a witch. Merging his local experience with wider historical expertise, Marshall looks afresh at a small group of islands that has been treated as a mere footnote, remote and peripheral, and in doing so invites us to think differently about key events of British history. With Orkney as our point of departure, Marshall traverses three centuries of dramatic religious, political and economic upheaval; a time during which what we think of as modern Scotland, and then modern Britain, was being forged and tested. What happens to our understanding of Scotland and Britain when they are viewed from the perspective of their island edge?

Peter Marshall (Author), Kenny Blyth, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Take It To The Grave: Adventures with secrets, cults and influencers

From the host of award-winning podcast On the Edge with Andrew Gold comes Take It to the Grave, a bizarre, surprising and thrilling deep dive into the psychology of secrecy. We all keep secrets. 97 per cent of us are hiding a secret right now, and on average we each hold thirteen at any one time. There's a one-in-two chance that those secrets involve a breach of trust, a lie or a financial impropriety. They are the stuff of gossip, of novels and of classic dramas; secrets form a major part of our hidden inner lives. Podcaster Andrew Gold knows this better than anyone. A public persona, he found himself the (unwitting) recipient of hundreds of strangers' most private revelations. This set him on a journey to understand this critical part of our societies and lives. Why do we keep secrets? Why are we fascinated by those of others? What happens to our mind when we confess? Drawing from psychology, history, social science, philosophy and personal interviews, Take It to the Grave is a rollicking journey through the history of secrecy, bringing us in touch with cult leaders, murderers, psychopaths - and even you.

Andrew Gold (Author), Andrew Gold, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Social Science Audiobooks in Non-Fiction