Listen free for 30 days
-
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton, Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 29 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £28.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Night Watchman
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1953. Thomas Wazhushk is the night watchman at the first factory to open near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a prominent Chippewa Council member, trying to understand a new bill that is soon to be put before Congress. The US Government calls it an 'emancipation' bill but it isn't about freedom - it threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land, their very identity. How can he fight this betrayal?
-
-
My favourite read of 2022
- By Michelle on 14-05-22
-
Violeta
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known.
-
-
Such a waste of time
- By Heidi on 08-04-22
-
Great Circle
- By: Maggie Shipstead
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Alex McKenna
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the night she is rescued as a baby out of the flames of a sinking ship, to the day she joins a pair of daredevil pilots looping and diving over the rugged forests of her childhood, to the thrill of flying Spitfires during the war, the life of Marian Graves has always been marked by a lust for freedom and danger. In 1950, she embarks on her life's dream - to fly a Great Circle around the globe, pole to pole. But after a crash landing, she finds herself stranded on the Antarctic ice without enough fuel.
-
-
Fly. Fly to the horizon
- By JoolsR on 21-06-21
-
The Valley
- The Valley Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Helen Bryan
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 21 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Left suddenly penniless, the Honorable Sophia Grafton, a viscount's orphaned daughter, sails to the New World to claim the only property left to her name: a tobacco plantation in the remote wilds of colonial Virginia. Enlisting the reluctant assistance of a handsome young French spy - at gunpoint - she gathers an unlikely group of escaped slaves and indentured servants, each seeking their own safe haven in the untamed New World.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Siobhan Taylor on 23-02-21
-
To Paradise
- By: Hanya Yanagihara
- Narrated by: BD Wong, Catherine Ho, Edoardo Ballerini, and others
- Length: 28 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an alternate version of 1893 America, The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist's damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him - and solve the mystery of her husband's disappearances.
-
-
Wow, I can’t believe it’s over
- By Rika on 19-01-22
-
The Sweetness of Water
- By: Nathan Harris
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the dying days of the American Civil War, newly freed brothers Landry and Prentiss find themselves cast into the world without a penny to their names. Forced to hide out in the woods near their former Georgia plantation, they're soon discovered by the land's owner, George Walker, a man still reeling from the loss of his son in the war. When the brothers begin to live and work on George's farm, the tentative bonds of trust and union begin to blossom between the strangers.
-
-
A great read! 👏🏾👏🏾
- By BlackGurlReads on 18-01-22
-
The Night Watchman
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1953. Thomas Wazhushk is the night watchman at the first factory to open near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a prominent Chippewa Council member, trying to understand a new bill that is soon to be put before Congress. The US Government calls it an 'emancipation' bill but it isn't about freedom - it threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land, their very identity. How can he fight this betrayal?
-
-
My favourite read of 2022
- By Michelle on 14-05-22
-
Violeta
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known.
-
-
Such a waste of time
- By Heidi on 08-04-22
-
Great Circle
- By: Maggie Shipstead
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Alex McKenna
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the night she is rescued as a baby out of the flames of a sinking ship, to the day she joins a pair of daredevil pilots looping and diving over the rugged forests of her childhood, to the thrill of flying Spitfires during the war, the life of Marian Graves has always been marked by a lust for freedom and danger. In 1950, she embarks on her life's dream - to fly a Great Circle around the globe, pole to pole. But after a crash landing, she finds herself stranded on the Antarctic ice without enough fuel.
-
-
Fly. Fly to the horizon
- By JoolsR on 21-06-21
-
The Valley
- The Valley Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Helen Bryan
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 21 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Left suddenly penniless, the Honorable Sophia Grafton, a viscount's orphaned daughter, sails to the New World to claim the only property left to her name: a tobacco plantation in the remote wilds of colonial Virginia. Enlisting the reluctant assistance of a handsome young French spy - at gunpoint - she gathers an unlikely group of escaped slaves and indentured servants, each seeking their own safe haven in the untamed New World.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Siobhan Taylor on 23-02-21
-
To Paradise
- By: Hanya Yanagihara
- Narrated by: BD Wong, Catherine Ho, Edoardo Ballerini, and others
- Length: 28 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an alternate version of 1893 America, The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist's damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him - and solve the mystery of her husband's disappearances.
-
-
Wow, I can’t believe it’s over
- By Rika on 19-01-22
-
The Sweetness of Water
- By: Nathan Harris
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the dying days of the American Civil War, newly freed brothers Landry and Prentiss find themselves cast into the world without a penny to their names. Forced to hide out in the woods near their former Georgia plantation, they're soon discovered by the land's owner, George Walker, a man still reeling from the loss of his son in the war. When the brothers begin to live and work on George's farm, the tentative bonds of trust and union begin to blossom between the strangers.
-
-
A great read! 👏🏾👏🏾
- By BlackGurlReads on 18-01-22
-
Olga Dies Dreaming
- By: Xochitl Gonzalez
- Narrated by: Almarie Guerra, Armando Riesco, Inés del Castillo
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro 'Prieto' Acevedo, are bold-faced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying, Latinx neighbourhood in Brooklyn, while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan's power brokers. Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the one per cent, but she can't seem to find her own...until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets.
-
-
insight into US puerto rican experience + history
- By Georgina Hirsch on 14-03-22
-
When We Were Birds
- By: Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
- Narrated by: Sydney Darius, Wendell Manwarren
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Darwin is a down-on-his-luck gravedigger, newly arrived in the Trinidadian city of Port Angeles to seek his fortune, young and beautiful and lost. Estranged from his mother and the Rastafari faith she taught him, he is convinced that the father he never met may be waiting for him somewhere amid these bustling streets. Meanwhile in an old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide's mother is dying.
-
-
like listening to a friend
- By Claudine Ogilvie on 28-04-22
-
Black Cake
- By: Charmaine Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Lynnette Freeman, Simone McIntyre
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eleanor Bennett won't let her own death get in the way of the truth. So when her estranged children - Byron and Benny - reunite for her funeral in California, they discover a puzzling inheritance. First, a voice recording in which everything Byron and Benny ever knew about their family is upended. Their mother narrates a tumultuous story about a headstrong young woman who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder, a story that cuts right to the heart of the rift that's separated Byron and Benny. Second, a traditional Caribbean black cake made from a family recipe.
-
-
Black Cake? What recipe!
- By jss on 01-03-22
-
The Travelers
- By: Regina Porter
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin, Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As America recovers from the Second World War, two families’ journeys begin. James Vincent, born in 1942 to an Irish American family, escapes his parents’ turbulent marriage and attends law school in New York, where he moves up the social ladder as a prosperous and bright attorney. Meanwhile, Agnes Miller, a beautiful black woman on a date with a handsome suitor, is pulled over by the police on a rural road in Georgia. The terrible moments that follow make her question her future and pivot her into a hasty marriage and new life in the Bronx.
-
Nightcrawling
- By: Leila Mottley
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kiara Johnson does not know what it is to live as a normal seventeen-year-old. With her mother in a rehab facility and an older brother who devotes his time and money to a recording studio, she fends for herself—and for nine-year-old Trevor, whose own mother is prone to disappearing for days at a time. As the landlord of their apartment block threatens to raise their rent, Kiara finds herself walking the streets after dark, determined to survive in a world that refuses to protect her.
-
-
A tragic but beautifully written story
- By i e matthews on 22-06-22
-
Love Marriage
- By: Monica Ali
- Narrated by: Ayesha Dharker
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yasmin Ghorami has a lot to be grateful for: a loving family, a fledgling career in medicine and a charming, handsome fiancé, fellow doctor Joe Sangster. But as the wedding day draws closer and Yasmin's parents get to know Joe's firebrand feminist mother, both families must confront the unravelling of long-held secrets, lies and betrayals. As Yasmin dismantles her own assumptions about the people she holds most dear, she's also forced to ask herself what she really wants in a relationship and what a 'love marriage' actually means.
-
-
Really Something Different
- By sue tid on 21-02-22
-
Honor
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Indian American journalist Smita returns to India to write the story of a young widow Meena and the murder of her husband, it’s Smita’s first time back since her family left when she was a child. Both Smita and Meena were raised in a culture where a woman exercising a basic human right - the right to love and marry whoever she chooses - is met with brutal punishment. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita must reckon with the privilege that becoming an American has given her, as well as face the trauma that shaped her as a child and led to her family leaving.
-
-
10stars
- By Debbie on 16-01-22
-
Intimacies
- By: Katie Kitamura
- Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An interpreter has come to The Hague to escape New York and work at the International Court. A woman of many languages and identities, she is looking for a place to finally call home. She's drawn into simmering personal dramas: her lover, Adriaan, is separated from his wife but still entangled in his marriage. Her friend Jana witnesses a seemingly random act of violence, a crime the interpreter becomes increasingly obsessed with as she befriends the victim's sister.
-
-
Beautifully layered story
- By Rahel on 28-09-21
-
The Best Short Stories 2021
- The O. Henry Prize Winners
- By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - editor, Jenny Minton Quigley - editor
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin, Frankie Corzo, Gary Furlong, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now entering its second century, the prestigious annual story anthology has a new title, a new look, and a new guest editor. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has brought her own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and young emerging voices. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Adichie, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction.
-
-
Fantastic reading
- By Ian Davidson on 24-11-21
-
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
- By: Dawnie Walton
- Narrated by: Priya Ayyar, Matthew Lloyd Davies, David Sadzin, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A queen of punk before her time. A duo on the brink of stardom. A night that will define their story for ever. Opal is a fiercely independent young woman pushing against the grain in her style and attitude, a Black punk artist before her time. Despite her unconventional looks, Opal believes she can be a star. So when the aspiring British singer/songwriter Neville Charles discovers her one night, she takes him up on his offer to make rock music together.
-
-
Interminable
- By Peter Richardson on 06-04-22
-
Some Sing, Some Cry
- By: Ntozake Shange, Ifa Bayeza
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 26 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Audible presents the multigenerational epic Some Sing, Some Cry. Created by Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza, this audiobook takes listeners on a journey through Reconstruction, two world wars, the Harlem renaissance, and Vietnam to modern day America.Some Sing, Some Cry begins at the threshold of one family’s freedom. We meet Betty Mayfield, newly emancipated from Sweet Tamarind, a lush and haunted rice plantation off the Carolina coast.
-
-
Some Sing Some Cry
- By Evie on 05-06-12
-
The Mothers
- A Novel
- By: Brit Bennett
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, 17-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is 21, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance - and the subsequent cover-up - will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth.
-
-
Abortion thread felt pro-life and 1-dimensional
- By Dohm64 on 15-09-20
Summary
A top 10 New York Times best seller
An Oprah book club pick
One of Barack Obama’s favourite books of the year
A Washington Post best audiobook of 2021
A Glamour best audiobook of 2021
An Audiofile best audiobook of 2021
A breath-taking debut novel that chronicles the journey of generations of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade to our own tumultuous era.
Ailey Pearl Garfield grows up between the City in the north and summers spent in her mother’s small hometown of Chicasetta, Georgia. From an early age, she finds herself in a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hurt in her past, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.
To come to terms with her identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself.
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION • SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN LITERARY PRIZE
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Critic reviews
"Astonishing.... I lived in this novel for three weeks. It is long. It is a journey. It is something so remarkable I’m not sure we collectively ever even dreamed it." (Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple)
"Deeply moving.... it is magnificent." (Sarah Winman, author of Still Life)
"An exceptional, absolutely transfixing audio version of a monumental work." (Washington Post)
More from the same
Narrator
What listeners say about The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cassie H
- 29-12-21
An extraordinary read
Despite the laborious 29+ hours read, I managed to consume it over only four days, the reason? My inability to stop listening. The realness of the various voices of all the characters and the depth of the feelings stirred up in me at the indignity of the treatment of the slaves meant I had to see it through. Then there was the humour mixed with unutterably vile descriptions of brutality of the slave master,lead me on a roller coaster of emotions I’d have preferred not to have been stirred towards,nonetheless I am grateful for the
honesty and bravery it must have taken the author to write. CH
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Chrisanthi Nallaiah
- 21-05-22
Slow burner but worth every minute
Slow burner but well worth persevering. It’s shines a light on current days issues but at the same time shows how these issues have remained consistent throughout history. Thought provoking and full of feeling.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kate
- 31-03-22
Did not want this to be over
Really enjoyed this book. Well written and informative as well as an amazing story. Also so we’ll preformed.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Miss D.
- 31-03-22
A must read
This book, an historical novel draws on multiple factual resources and as such a an important text for anyone wanting to understand the impact of slavery and the removal of indigenous people. You have taught me so much Ms Jeffers. Thank you.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- amazing game one of the best
- 22-02-22
Completely enthralling!
I adored this epic book! Beautiful narration of an amazing family history - I devoured this!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kasia
- 22-01-22
Great story!
I was immersed in this story for a month and got used to the main characters thanks to the great narration as they felt quite close and likeable. Yes, it takes 29 hours to listen the whole audiobook but it is worth your time.