Social Science Audiobooks | Non-Fiction

Brought to you by Penguin. In December 1935, Zdenek Koubek, one of the most famous sprinters in European women’s sports, declared he was now living as a man. Around the same time, the celebrated British field athlete Mark Weston, also assigned female at birth, announced that he, too, was a man. Periodicals and radio programs across the world carried the news; both became global celebrities. A few decades later, they were all but forgotten. And in the wake of their transitions, what could have been a push toward equality became instead, through a confluence of bureaucracy, war, and sheer happenstance, the exact opposite: the now all-too-familiar panic around trans, intersex, and gender nonconforming athletes. In The Other Olympians, Michael Waters uncovers, for the first time, the gripping true stories of Koubek, Weston, and other pioneering trans and intersex athletes from their era. With dogged research and cinematic flair, Waters also tracks how International Olympic Committee members ignored Nazi Germany’s atrocities in order to pull off the Berlin Games, a partnership that ultimately influenced the IOC’s nearly century-long obsession with surveilling and cataloging gender. Immersive and revelatory, The Other Olympians is a groundbreaking, hidden-in-the-archives marvel, an inspiring call for equality, and an essential contribution toward understanding the contemporary culture wars over gender in sports. ©2024 Michael Waters (P) 2024 Penguin Audio

Michael Waters (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World

Brought to you by Penguin. Homo sapiens is a maker of unnatural history. For countless millennia, evolution has shaped our behaviour. But over just a few millennia, that behaviour has reshaped the world: building sprawling cities, global faiths, states, and empires. Nature made humanity, and humanity remade nature. Here, one of the world's leading anthropologists reveals how our evolutionary past informed the birth and rise of global civilisation. Unveiling a visionary new way of studying human history - one that stunningly weaves together experimental psychology, anthropology and quantitative social science - Harvey Whitehouse uncovers the three evolutionary biases that shape our social behaviour: conformism, religiosity and tribalism. And he reveals how these biases were harnessed and extended to produce the greatest revolutions in human history, from the transition to agriculture to the rise of the first bureaucracies and organised religions. Above all, he argues that only by understanding our natural biases can we hope to survive the challenges of our unnatural present - from violent criminality to environmental meltdown. The result is a landmark study of the past and future of the world we made. It transforms our understanding of who we are and who we can be. ©2024 Harvey Whitehouse (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Harvey Whitehouse (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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What Are Children For?: On Ambivalence and Choice

A modern argument, grounded in philosophy and cultural criticism, about childbearing ambivalence and how to overcome it Becoming a parent, once the expected outcome of adulthood, is increasingly viewed as a potential threat to the most basic goals and aspirations of modern life. We seek self-fulfillment; we want to liberate women to find meaning and self-worth outside the home; and we wish to protect the planet from the ravages of climate change. Weighing the pros and cons of having children, Millennials and Zoomers are finding it increasingly difficult to judge in its favor. With lucid argument and passionate prose, Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman offer the guidance necessary to move beyond uncertainty. The decision whether or not to have children, they argue, is not just a women’s issue but a basic human one. And at a time when climate change worries threaten the very legitimacy of human reproduction, Berg and Wiseman conclude that neither our personal nor collective failures ought to prevent us from embracing the fundamental goodness of human life—not only in the present but, in choosing to have children, in the future.

Anastasia Berg, Rachel Wiseman (Author), Jennifer Pickens, Kirsten Potter, TBD, Zura Johnson (Narrator)

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Everything and Nothing at Once: A Black Man's Reimagined Soundtrack for the Future

For Readers of Heavy, Punch Me Up to The Gods, and A Little Devil in America, a beautiful, painful, and soaring tribute to everything that Black men are and can be. Growing up in the Bronx, Joél Leon was taught that being soft, being vulnerable, could end your life. Shaped by a singular view of Black masculinity espoused by the media, by family and friends, and by society, he learned instead to care about the gold around his neck and the number of bills in his wallet. He absorbed the “facts” that white was always right and Black men were seen as threatening or great for comic relief but never worthy of the opening credits. It wasn’t until years later that Joél understood he didn’t have to be defined by these things. Now, in a collection of wide-ranging essays, he takes readers from his upbringing in the Bronx to his life raising two little girls of his own, unraveling those narratives to arrive at a deeper understanding of who he is as a son, friend, partner, and father. Traversing both the serious and lighthearted, from contemplating male beauty standards and his belly to his decision to seek therapy to the difficulties of making co-parenting work, Joél cracks open his heart to reveal his multitudes. “I learned that being Black is an all-encompassing everything...To be Black, to be a Black man in the era I grew up in, was easily everything and nothing at once.” Crafted like an album, each essay is a single that stands alone yet reverberates throughout the entire collection. Pieces like “How to Make a Black Friend.” consider challenging, delightful and absurd moments in relationships, while others like “Sensitive Thugs All Need Hugs” and “All Gold Everything” ponder the collective harms of society's lens. With incisive, searing prose, Everything and Nothing at Once deconstructs what it means to be a Black man in America.

Joél Leon (Author), Joél Leon, TBD (Narrator)

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The Myth of Making It: A Workplace Reckoning

We can bury the girlboss, but what comes next? The former executive editor of Teen Vogue tells the story of her personal workplace reckoning and argues for collective responsibility to reimagine work as we know it. "As I sat in the front row that day, I was 80 percent faking it with a 100-percent-real Gucci bag." Samhita Mukhopadhyay had finally made it: she had her dream job, dream clothes-dream life. But time and time again, she found herself sacrificing time with family and friends, paying too much for lattes, and limping home after working twelve hours a day. Success didn't come without costs, right? Or so she kept telling herself. And Mukhopadhyay wasn't alone: Far too many of us are taught that we need to work ourselves to the bone to live a good life. That we just need to climb up the corporate ladder, to "lean in" and "hustle," to enact change. But as Mukhopadhyay shows, these definitions of success are myths-and they are seductive ones. Mukhopadhyay traces the origins of these myths, taking us from the sixties to the present. She forms a critical overview of workplace feminism, looking at stories from her own professional career, analysis from activists and experts, and of course, experiences of workers at different levels. As more individuals continue to question whether their professional ambitions can lead to happiness and fulfillment in the first place, Mukhopadhyay asks, What would it mean to have a liberated workplace? Mukhopadhyay emerges with a vision for a workplace culture that pays fairly, recognizes our values, and gives people access to the resources they need. A call to action to redefine and reimagine work as we know it, The Myth of Making It is a field guide and manifesto for all of us who are tired, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of hustle culture.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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We Are the Evidence: A Handbook for Finding Your Way After Sexual Assault

A necessary, reassuring guide for all sexual assault survivors in need of immediate emotional and legal support post assault, and in the months and years after. We Are the Evidence is the first comprehensive resource for survivors of sexual assault. Written with conviction and compassion by Cheyenne Wilson, a registered nurse and survivor of sexual assault, this handbook contains everything victims and advocates need to know to navigate the tumultuous times that follow an assault. Within, there's advice for: - The appropriate steps to take immediately after an assault - Disclosing your assault how and when you choose - How to pursue justice and navigate the legal system - Beginning the healing process and reclaiming your power Throughout, you'll find exercises, opportunities to rest, and invaluable guidance from experts like attorneys, detectives and therapists. Voices from other sexual assault survivors also lend their support. Meant to be easily accessible, everything is organized for you to go right to the topic you most need guidance for, no matter where you are on your healing journey. You deserve to be heard, believed, and supported.

Cheyenne Wilson (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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Ownership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield

Sean Mcgever (Author), Tyler Boss (Narrator)

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Holding It Together: How Women Became America's Safety Net

Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women. Holding It Together chronicles the causes and dire consequences. America runs on women-women who are tasked with holding society together at the seams and fixing it when things fall apart. In this tour de force, acclaimed Sociologist Jessica Calarco lays bare the devastating consequences of our status quo. Holding It Together draws on five years of research in which Calarco surveyed over 4000 parents and conducted more than 400 hours of interviews with women who bear the brunt of our broken system. A widowed single mother struggles to patch together meager public benefits while working three jobs; an aunt is pushed into caring for her niece and nephew at age fifteen once their family is shattered by the opioid epidemic; a daughter becomes the backstop caregiver for her mother, her husband, and her child because of the perceived flexibility of her job; a well-to-do couple grapples with the moral dilemma of leaning on overworked, underpaid childcare providers to achieve their egalitarian ideals. Stories of grief and guilt abound. Yet, they are more than individual tragedies. Tracing present-day policies back to their roots, Calarco reveals a systematic agreement to dismantle our country's social safety net and persuade citizens to accept precarity while women bear the brunt. She leads us to see women's labor as the reason we've gone so long without the support systems that our peer nations take for granted, and how women's work maintains the illusion that we don't need a net. Weaving eye-opening original research with revelatory sociological narrative, Holding It Together is a bold call to demand the institutional change that each of us deserves, and a warning about the perils of living without it.

Jessica Calarco (Author), Jessica Calarco, Karen Murray, TBD (Narrator)

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The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum and the US-Mexican Border and Beyond

Arnovis couldn't stay in El Salvador. If he didn't leave, a local gangster promised that his family would dress in mourning-that he would wake up with flies in his mouth. 'It was like a bomb exploded in my life,' Arnovis said. The Dispossessed tells the story of a twenty-four-year-old Salvadoran man, Arnovis, whose family's search for safety shows how the United States-in concert with other Western nations-has gutted asylum protections for the world's most vulnerable. Crisscrossing the border and Central America, John Washington traces one man's quest for asylum. Arnovis is separated from his daughter by US Border Patrol agents and struggles to find security after being repeatedly deported to a gang-ruled community in El Salvador, traumatic experiences relayed by Washington with vivid intensity. Adding historical, literary, and current political context to the discussion of migration today, Washington tells the history of asylum law and practice through ages to the present day. Packed with information and reflection, The Dispossessed is more than a human portrait of those who cross borders-it is an urgent and persuasive case for sharing the country we call home.

John Washington (Author), Zac Aleman (Narrator)

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The Our Island Stories: Country Walks through Colonial Britain

Brought to you by Penguin. The countryside is almost sacred to many Britons. There is a depth of feeling about rural places, the moors and lochs, valleys and mountains, cottages and country houses. Yet the British countryside, so integral to our national identity, is rarely seen as having anything to do with British colonialism. In Our Island Stories, historian Corinne Fowler brings rural life and colonial rule together with transformative results. Through ten country walks with varied companions, Fowler combines local and global history, connecting the Cotswolds to Calcutta, Dolgellau to Virginia, and Grasmere to Canton. Empire transformed rural lives: whether in Welsh sheep farms or Cornish copper mines, it offered both opportunity and exploitation. Fowler shows how the booming profits of overseas colonial activities directly contributed to enclosure, land clearances and dispossession. These histories, usually considered apart, continue to link the lives of their descendants now. To give an honest account, to offer both affection and criticism, is a matter of respect: we should not knowingly tell half a history. This new knowledge of our island stories, once gained, can only deepen Britons' relationship with their beloved landscape. ©2023 Corinne Fowler (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Corinne Fowler (Author), Corinne Fowler, TBD (Narrator)

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Fear Itself

Tammy Bruce (Author), Tammy Bruce, Tbd (Narrator)

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The Giant on the Skyline: On Home, Belonging and Learning to Let Go

Brought to you by Penguin. What is it that makes a home? What is a home without the roots that tie you to a place? What is a home when a family is split? Clover's eldest children are leaving home for university. Her husband Pete's work is in America. The only way for Clover and the younger children to live with him is to uproot, leave their rural life near the ancient Ridgeway in Oxfordshire and move to Washington DC. Forced to leave the home she loves and consider these questions, Clover sets out to explore the place where she lives, walk the Ridgway, understand a little of the history of her landscape and work out why it is that it is so hard for her to go. In doing so she paints a beautifully layered portrait of family, community and of belonging in a landscape that has drawn people to it for generation after generation. 'Clover Stroud is a fearless explorer of the human heart, and a writer of incomparable grace and passion.' Elizabeth Gilbert 'Clover's writing is sensationally beautiful.' Laura Cumming 'Stroud's writing is knife-sharp, beautiful and profound.' Madeline Miller ©2024 Clover Stroud (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Clover Stroud (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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Social Science Audiobooks in Non-Fiction