
The Best American Essays 2024
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Narrated by:
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Emily Rankin
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Cary Hite
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Jeanette Illidge
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Robert Fass
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Nancy Wu
About this listen
A collection of the year’s best essays, selected by Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Wesley Morris and series editor Kim Dana Kupperman.
“Imparting some piece of yourself—any part—is arduous and warrants some kind of commendation,” writes guest editor Wesley Morris in his introduction. Both personal and personable, the essayists in this volume use their own vulnerability to guide listeners on excursions that unfold on uncomfortable edges. From contemplating the nuances of memory to exploring the complexities of family, romance, gender identity, illness, and death, Morris’s selection of essays presents a roundup of the thinkers who masterfully grapple with the issues of our time.
The Best American Essays 2024 includes TEJU COLE • MICHAEL W. CLUNE • YIYUN LI • JAMES McAULEY • RÉMY NGAMIJE • JENNIFER SENIOR • SALLIE TISDALE • JERALD WALKER • JENISHA WATTS and others
©2024 Wesley Morris and Kim Dana Kupperman (P)2024 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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By: Vivian Gornick, and others
-
The Best American Short Stories 2024
- By: Lauren Groff, Heidi Pitlor
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine, Vikas Adam, Joniece Abbott-Pratt, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
“There have never been as many exquisitely built stories in existence than there are now,” proclaims guest editor Lauren Groff in her introduction. This abundance led to a volume of robust stories with the nerve to push against narrative expectations. The Best American Short Stories 2024 boasts a collection of twenty stories that “buzz with their own strange logic.” Daring and resonant, the stories in this volume invite in Groff “a feeling that both the author and I were simultaneously discovering something together.”
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Another great collection of short stories
- By Michael on 02-25-25
By: Lauren Groff, and others
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The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024
- By: Bill McKibben, Jaime Green
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens, Stephen Graybill, Lee Osorio, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Award-winning environmentalist, author, and journalist Bill McKibben selects twenty science and nature essays that represent the best examples of the form published in the previous year. ” The selections in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024 reveal a trying year for our planet—from the Lahaina wildfire tragedy to the lush Amazon jungle slowly turning to savanna—while also celebrating the earth’s beautiful and mysterious ways—from the largest beaver dam on earth to the heroic innovation to prevent birds from crashing into Chicago’s expanse of glass buildings.
By: Bill McKibben, and others
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The Best American Essays 2022
- By: Alexander Chee
- Narrated by: Robert Atwan, Iva-Marie Palmer, Ewan Chung, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Alexander Chee, an essayist of “virtuosity and power” (Washington Post), selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.
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Best of this series ever
- By Melissa on 02-28-23
By: Alexander Chee
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The Best Short Stories 2024
- The O. Henry Prize Winners
- By: Amor Towles - editor, Jenny Minton Quigley - editor
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Kristen DiMercurio, Blair Young, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The prestigious annual story anthology, featuring prize-winning stories by Kate DiCamillo, Jess Walter, Dave Eggers, Allegra Goodman, Jai Chakrabarti, Francisco Gonzalez, and more.
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First several are Bleak, downers
- By Otis Lake on 04-07-25
By: Amor Towles - editor, and others
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The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024
- By: S.A. Cosby, Steph Cha
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez, Bill Andrew Quinn, John Pirhalla, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In his introduction, guest editor S. A. Cosby observes that writing short stories is “a special skill that combines brevity with wit and cleverness and the hint of the existential malaise that imbues crime fiction with its gravitas.” The stories in this collection overflow with gravitas in the most unexpected ways: a cryptic note left on a windshield, a murder for hire meets a game of Mouse Trap, a swipe right on a dating app goes horribly wrong.
By: S.A. Cosby, and others
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The Best American Essays 2023
- Best American
- By: Vivian Gornick, Robert Atwan
- Narrated by: Will Tulin, Marie Hoffman, Elena Rey, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In her introduction to this year’s The Best American Essays, guest editor Vivian Gornick states that her selections “contribute materially to the long and honorable history of the personal essay by way of the value they place on lived experience.” Provocative, daring, and honest at a time when many writers are deliberately silencing themselves in the face of authoritarian and populist censorship movements, the twenty-one essays collected here reflect their authors’ unapologetic observations of the world around them.
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Loved It
- By Marcel on 10-24-23
By: Vivian Gornick, and others
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The Best American Short Stories 2024
- By: Lauren Groff, Heidi Pitlor
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine, Vikas Adam, Joniece Abbott-Pratt, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“There have never been as many exquisitely built stories in existence than there are now,” proclaims guest editor Lauren Groff in her introduction. This abundance led to a volume of robust stories with the nerve to push against narrative expectations. The Best American Short Stories 2024 boasts a collection of twenty stories that “buzz with their own strange logic.” Daring and resonant, the stories in this volume invite in Groff “a feeling that both the author and I were simultaneously discovering something together.”
-
-
Another great collection of short stories
- By Michael on 02-25-25
By: Lauren Groff, and others
-
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024
- By: Bill McKibben, Jaime Green
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens, Stephen Graybill, Lee Osorio, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning environmentalist, author, and journalist Bill McKibben selects twenty science and nature essays that represent the best examples of the form published in the previous year. ” The selections in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024 reveal a trying year for our planet—from the Lahaina wildfire tragedy to the lush Amazon jungle slowly turning to savanna—while also celebrating the earth’s beautiful and mysterious ways—from the largest beaver dam on earth to the heroic innovation to prevent birds from crashing into Chicago’s expanse of glass buildings.
By: Bill McKibben, and others
-
The Best American Essays 2022
- By: Alexander Chee
- Narrated by: Robert Atwan, Iva-Marie Palmer, Ewan Chung, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alexander Chee, an essayist of “virtuosity and power” (Washington Post), selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.
-
-
Best of this series ever
- By Melissa on 02-28-23
By: Alexander Chee
-
The Best Short Stories 2024
- The O. Henry Prize Winners
- By: Amor Towles - editor, Jenny Minton Quigley - editor
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Kristen DiMercurio, Blair Young, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The prestigious annual story anthology, featuring prize-winning stories by Kate DiCamillo, Jess Walter, Dave Eggers, Allegra Goodman, Jai Chakrabarti, Francisco Gonzalez, and more.
-
-
First several are Bleak, downers
- By Otis Lake on 04-07-25
By: Amor Towles - editor, and others
-
The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024
- By: S.A. Cosby, Steph Cha
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez, Bill Andrew Quinn, John Pirhalla, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his introduction, guest editor S. A. Cosby observes that writing short stories is “a special skill that combines brevity with wit and cleverness and the hint of the existential malaise that imbues crime fiction with its gravitas.” The stories in this collection overflow with gravitas in the most unexpected ways: a cryptic note left on a windshield, a murder for hire meets a game of Mouse Trap, a swipe right on a dating app goes horribly wrong.
By: S.A. Cosby, and others
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The Best American Essays 2025
- By: Jia Tolentino, Kim Dana Kupperman
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction, and it is the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. Jia Tolentino, critically acclaimed essayist, editor, and New Yorker staff writer, selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.
By: Jia Tolentino, and others
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The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024
- By: Hugh Howey, John Joseph Adams
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston, Frankie Corzo, David Lee Huynh, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
“These are dangerous stories. The kind that warp reality and threaten to change the world” warns guest editor Hugh Howey in his introduction. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 promises a treasure trove of audacious characters, daring worldbuilding, and twisted realties. A sibling duo of supernatural hitmen. A traveling spellbreaker and his trusty alligator mount. Superheroes registering for work. Sentient spaceships with an AI-human interface grow up together with their human pilots.
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The treasures in here are worth the ticket price.
- By Anonymous User on 03-01-25
By: Hugh Howey, and others
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The Best American Short Stories 2023
- By: Min Jin Lee, Heidi Pitlor
- Narrated by: Laura Copland, Jeena Yi, Pascale Armand, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
“Without stories, we cannot live well,” shares guest editor Min Jin Lee, describing how storytelling affects and nurtures readers. The Best American Short Stories 2023 features twenty pieces of short fiction that reflect a world full of fractured relationships, but also wondrous hope. A lifelong friendship may become a casualty of the Russia-Ukraine war. Rejected by his lover, a man seeks to reconcile with his family. Twitter users miraculously muster enough empathy to help a lost cat find a forever home.
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Another Great Year of Shorts
- By Michael on 01-18-24
By: Min Jin Lee, and others
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The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2022
- Best American
- By: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson - editor, Jaime Green - series editor
- Narrated by: Tracey Leigh, Jennifer Aquino, Ulka Simone Mohanty, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, renowned marine biologist and co-founder of the All We Can Save climate initiative, compiles the best science and nature writing of the year.
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The worst book in the series I have read.
- By O on 06-19-23
By: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson - editor, and others
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The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One
- By: Neil Clarke - editor
- Narrated by: Amy Tallmadge, Jeremy Arthur
- Length: 28 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Neil Clarke has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year's writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome "sensawunda" that the genre has to offer.
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Hit and Miss; Many more misses than hits
- By Terrence Feenstra on 09-15-16
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The Best American Food and Travel Writing 2024
- By: Padma Lakshmi, Jaya Saxena
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong, Soneela Nankani, Ali Nasser, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
“Food and travel are natural companions,” writes guest editor Padma Lakshmi. From this pairing comes “the possibility of seeing anew, of examining how we make and assign meaning.” The essays in this year’s Best American Food and Travel Writing circle the world—from Dakar in Senegal, to Michoacán in south-central Mexico, to the Camino de Santiago in Spain—and deepen our understanding of our place in it.
By: Padma Lakshmi, and others