
Bibliophobia
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Traci Kato-Kiriyama
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By:
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Sarah Chihaya
About this listen
“A wise, tremendously moving exploration of what it means to seek companionship and understanding, in books and in life.”—Hua Hsu, author of Stay True
“[A] stirring and sparkling new memoir.”—The Washington Post
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE MONTH: Time, Los Angeles Times, Cosmopolitan
Books can seduce you. They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect “Life Ruiners”.
Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race exposed Sarah’s deepest feelings about being Japanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland. But Sarah had always lived through her books, seeking escape, self-definition, and rules for living. She built her life around reading, wrote criticism, and taught literature at an Ivy League University. Then she was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, and the world became an unreadable blank page. In the aftermath, she was faced with a question. Could we ever truly rewrite the stories that govern our lives?
Bibliophobia is an alternately searing and darkly humorous story of breakdown and survival told through books. Delving into texts such as Anne of Green Gables, Possession, A Tale for the Time Being, The Last Samurai, Chihaya interrogates her cultural identity, her relationship with depression, and the intoxicating, sometimes painful, ways books push back on those who love them.
©2025 Sarah Chihaya (P)2025 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“A seriously sharp and nuanced look at the impact books can have on us as readers, and our identities . . . If you read one non-fiction book this month, make it this.”—Cosmopolitan
“[Bibliophobia] is a reminder that instead of searching for a story that explains everything, we might do well to embrace the uncertainty of the unwritten pages still before us.”—The Atlantic
“[Bibliophobia] crackles with the electrical charge of a broken taboo. . . A reading experience as haunting as the ones it describes.”—The New Republic
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Story
Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz–just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy–collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk.
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Uninspired, mediocre writing.
- By C. Tyler on 03-04-25
By: Geraldine Brooks
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A Matter of Complexion
- The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt
- By: Tess Chakkalakal
- Narrated by: Diana Blue
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Tess Chakkalakal gives listeners the first comprehensive biography of Charles W. Chesnutt. A complex and talented man, Chesnutt was born in 1858 in Cleveland to parents who were considered "mixed race." Though light-skinned, Chesnutt remained a member of the black community throughout his life. He studied among students at the State Colored Normal School who were formerly enslaved. He became a teacher in rural North Carolina during Reconstruction. His life in the South of those years, the issue of race, and how he himself identified as Black informed much of his later writing.
By: Tess Chakkalakal
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Shattered
- A Memoir
- By: Hanif Kureishi
- Narrated by: Art Malik
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In late 2022, in Rome, Hanif Kureishi had a fall. When he came to, he realized he could no longer walk. He could do nothing without the help of others and required constant care in a hospital. So began a yearlong odyssey through the medical systems of Rome and Italy, with the hope of somehow being able to return home to his house in London.
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Honesty
- By margie marsted on 03-26-25
By: Hanif Kureishi
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Reading the Waves
- A Memoir
- By: Lidia Yuknavitch
- Narrated by: Lidia Yuknavitch
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Drawing on her background—her father's abuse, her complicated dynamic with her disabled mother, the death of her child, her sexual relationships with men and women—and her creative life as an author and teacher, Yuknavitch has come to understand that by using the power of literature and storytelling to reframe her memories, she can loosen the bonds that have enslaved her emotional growth. Armed with this insight, she allows herself to look with the eye of an artist at the wounds she suffered and come to understand the transformational power this has to restore her soul.
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Excruciating Honesty
- By Charrise Mccrorey on 02-10-25
By: Lidia Yuknavitch
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Alphabetical Diaries
- By: Sheila Heti
- Narrated by: Kate Berlant
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Sheila Heti kept a record of her thoughts over a ten-year period, then arranged the sentences from A to Z. Passionate and reflective, joyful and despairing, these are her alphabetical diaries.
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Audio format amplifies the ruminative experience of/through time. An incredible, must-listen audiobook.
- By Anonymous User on 12-01-24
By: Sheila Heti
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Mutual Interest
- By: Olivia Wolfgang-Smith
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
At the turn of the 20th century, Vivian Lesperance is determined to flee her origins in Utica, New York, and avoid repeating her parents’ dull, limited life. When she meets Oscar Schmidt, a middle manager at a soap company, Vivian finds a partner she can guide to build the life she wants—not least because, more interested in men himself, Oscar will leave Vivian to tend to her own romances with women.
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Memorial Days
- A Memoir
- By: Geraldine Brooks
- Narrated by: Geraldine Brooks
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz–just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy–collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk.
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Uninspired, mediocre writing.
- By C. Tyler on 03-04-25
By: Geraldine Brooks
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A Matter of Complexion
- The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt
- By: Tess Chakkalakal
- Narrated by: Diana Blue
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Tess Chakkalakal gives listeners the first comprehensive biography of Charles W. Chesnutt. A complex and talented man, Chesnutt was born in 1858 in Cleveland to parents who were considered "mixed race." Though light-skinned, Chesnutt remained a member of the black community throughout his life. He studied among students at the State Colored Normal School who were formerly enslaved. He became a teacher in rural North Carolina during Reconstruction. His life in the South of those years, the issue of race, and how he himself identified as Black informed much of his later writing.
By: Tess Chakkalakal
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Roots and Rhythm
- A Life in Music
- By: Charlie Peacock
- Narrated by: Charlie Peacock
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this artful memoir, Grammy Award-winning music producer Charlie Peacock flexes his literary chops and gives listeners the gritty backstage stories they crave: biographical anecdotes, geeky trivia, and how the hits were written and recorded (from jazz to rock and pop). Threaded throughout is Peacock’s unique ancestral and spiritual story—the roots. Like Coltrane, Dylan, and Bono before him, Peacock reveals a Christ-affection while refusing genres too small for his music.
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Thoughtful, vulnerable and spiritual
- By Doug Romaine on 02-09-25
By: Charlie Peacock
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Gliff
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Eliot Sumner
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
An uncertain near-future. A story of new boundaries drawn between people daily. A not-very brave new world. Add two children. And a horse. From a Scottish word meaning a transient moment, a shock, a faint glimpse, Gliff explores how and why we endeavour to make a mark on the world. In a time when western industry wants to reduce us to algorithms and data—something easily categorizable and predictable—Smith shows us why our humanity, our individual complexities, matter more than ever.
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No other author comes close!
- By Franki on 02-08-25
By: Ali Smith
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Seeking Shelter
- A Working Mother, Her Children, and a Story of Homelessness in America
- By: Jeff Hobbs
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Jeff Hobbs
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 2018, poverty and domestic violence cast Evelyn and her children into the urban wilderness of Los Angeles, where she avoids the family crisis network that offers no clear pathway for her children to remain together and in a decent school. For the next five years, Evelyn works full time as a waitress yet remains unable to afford legitimate housing or qualify for government aid. All the while she strives to provide stability, education, loving memories, and college aspirations for her children even as they sleep in motels and in her car.
By: Jeff Hobbs
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Pure Innocent Fun
- Essays
- By: Ira Madison III
- Narrated by: Ira Madison III
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In Pure Innocent Fun, Madison explores the key cultural moments that inspired his career as a critic and guided his coming of age as a Black gay man in Milwaukee. In this hilarious, full-throttle trip through the ’90s and 2000s, he recounts learning about sex from Buffy the Vampire Slayer; facing the most heartbreaking election of his youth (not George W. Bush’s win, but Jennifer Hudson losing American Idol); and how never getting his driver’s license in high school made him just like Cher Horowitz in Clueless: “a virgin who can’t drive.”
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A fun and hilarious memoir from one of my favorites
- By Jenn O on 04-15-25
By: Ira Madison III
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Dark Way Down
- By: Lauren Parker
- Narrated by: Lauren Parker
- Length: 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Dark Way Down, a road trip in verse, is a speculative continuation of David Bowie's album, Station to Station, featuring the iconic David Bowie character, the Thin White Duke. The collection explores gender, addiction, occultism, and toxic queer masculinity through the lens of the Duke’s lesbian daughter, a mixed-up queering of bygone relics and Casanova. From Lauren Parker's pensive daydreams out of Dodge, the Daughter of the Duke drives a rickey Chevelle from Bel Air to the Mesas of New Mexico seeking the place where her father was last seen. This is the story of what she found.
By: Lauren Parker
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Jane Austen's Bookshelf
- A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
- By: Rebecca Romney
- Narrated by: Rebecca Romney
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen’s books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more. But Austen wasn’t a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers—and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen’s work.
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Is you enjoy a Lucy Worsley book or deep dive documentary, you’ll love Jane Austen’s Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney.
- By J. B. on 02-20-25
By: Rebecca Romney
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Alligator Tears
- A Memoir in Essays
- By: Edgar Gomez
- Narrated by: Edgar Gomez
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In Florida, one of the first things you’re taught as a child is that if you’re ever chased by a wild alligator, the only way to save yourself is to run away in zigzags. It’s a lesson on survival that has guided much of Edgar Gomez’s life. Alligator Tears is a fiercely defiant memoir-in-essays charting Gomez’s quest to claw his family out of poverty by any means necessary, and learning to see the archetype of the humble poor person for what it is: a scam that insists we remain quiet and servile while we wait for a prize that will always be out of reach.
By: Edgar Gomez
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You Didn't Hear This from Me
- (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip
- By: Kelsey McKinney
- Narrated by: Kelsey McKinney
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As the pandemic forced us to socialize at a distance, Kelsey McKinney was mourning the juicy updates and jaw-dropping stories she’d typically collect over drinks with friends—and from her hunger, the blockbuster Normal Gossip podcast was born. With listenership in the millions, Kelsey found herself thinking more critically about gossip as a form, and wanting to better understand the role it plays in our culture. In You Didn't Hear This From Me, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling.
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Thought Provoking and Endlessly Entertaining
- By Marie on 04-03-25
By: Kelsey McKinney
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Cerebral Entanglements
- How the Brain Shapes Our Public and Private Lives
- By: Allan J. Hamilton
- Narrated by: Tom Beyer
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It took a brain surgeon who's spent a lifetime in the operating room experiencing the brain's union of form and function to write this book. Cerebral Entanglements, unlike most books on the brain, looks at the intimate and vital emotions in our lives, and shows as well, how neuroimaging studies can transform our understanding of crucial emotional or mental health concerns.
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Fearless and Free
- A Memoir
- By: Josephine Baker, Ijeoma Oluo - foreword, Sophie Lewis
- Narrated by: Anam Zafar, Sophie R. Lewis, Ijeoma Oluo, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Published in the US for the first time, Fearless and Free is the memoir of the fabulous, rule-breaking, one-of-a-kind Josephine Baker, the iconic dancer, singer, spy, and Civil Rights activist. After stealing the spotlight as a teenaged Broadway performer during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, Josephine then took Paris by storm, dazzling audiences across the Roaring Twenties. In her famous banana skirt, she enraptured royalty and countless fans—Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso among them.
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Oh la la!
- By Adie on 04-09-25
By: Josephine Baker, and others
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The Echoes
- A Novel
- By: Evie Wyld
- Narrated by: Sebastian Humphreys, Vivien Carter
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died. Now, as a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he is still here, he watches his girlfriend, Hannah, lost in grief in the apartment they shared and begins to realize how much of her life was invisible to him. In the weeks and months before Max’s death, Hannah was haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seemed to offer the potential of a fresh new chapter, but the past refused to stay hidden.
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Nothing to keep me interested.
- By Cari Brotherton on 03-07-25
By: Evie Wyld
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Talk to Me
- Lessons from a Family Forged by History
- By: Rich Benjamin
- Narrated by: Rich Benjamin
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Rich Benjamin’s mother, Danielle Fignolé, grew up the eldest in a large family living a comfortable life in Port-au-Prince. Her mother was a schoolteacher, her father a populist hero—a labor leader and politician. The first true champion of the black masses, he eventually became the country’s president in 1957. But two weeks after his inauguration, that life was shattered. Soldiers took Danielle’s parents at gunpoint and put them on a plane to New York, a coup hatched by the Eisenhower administration. Danielle and her siblings were kidnapped, and ultimately smuggled out of the country.
By: Rich Benjamin