
Girl on Girl
How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $20.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Sophie Gilbert
-
By:
-
Sophie Gilbert
About this listen
Named a most anticipated book of Spring by Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Bustle, LitHub, Our Culture, Kirkus, AV Club and WNYC
From Atlantic critic and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sophie Gilbert, a blazing critique of early aughts pop culture
What happened to feminism in the twenty-first century? This question feels increasingly urgent in a moment of cultural and legislative backlash, when widespread uncertainty about the movement’s power, focus, and currency threatens decades of progress.
Sophie Gilbert identifies an inflection point in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the energy of third-wave and “riot grrrl” feminism collapsed into a regressive period of hyper-objectification, sexualization, and infantilization. Mining the darker side of nostalgia, Gilbert trains her keen analytic eye on the most revealing cultural objects of the era, across music, film, television, fashion, tabloid journalism, and more. What she recounts is harrowing, from the leering gaze of the paparazzi to the gleeful cruelty of early reality TV and a burgeoning internet culture vicious toward women in the spotlight and damaging for those who weren’t. Gilbert tracks many of the period’s dominant themes back to the rise of internet porn, which gained widespread influence as it began to pervade our collective consciousness.
The result is a devastating portrait of a time when a distinctly American blend of excess, materialism, and power worship collided with the culture’s reactionary, puritanical, and chauvinistic currents. Amid a collective reconsideration of the way women are treated in public, Girl on Girl is a blistering indictment of the matrix of misogyny that undergirded the cultural production of the early twenty-first century, and continues to shape our world today.
©2025 Sophie Gilbert (P)2025 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
When the Going Was Good
- An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines
- By: Graydon Carter, James Fox - contributor
- Narrated by: Graydon Carter
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Graydon Carter was offered the editorship of Vanity Fair in 1992, he knew he faced an uphill battle—how to make the esteemed and long-established magazine his own. Not only was he confronted with a staff that he perceived to be loyal to the previous regime, but he arrived only a few years after launching Spy magazine, which gloried in skewering the celebrated and powerful—the very people Vanity Fair venerated.
-
-
A lucky man
- By Dassha1 on 03-30-25
By: Graydon Carter, and others
-
The Project
- How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America
- By: David A. Graham
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Project, award-winning journalist David A. Graham offers much-needed context and distills the essential elements of this sprawling document. Breaking down the Project’s strategy for transforming—and radically empowering—the executive branch, Graham then explains what the architects behind Project 2025 would do with that power: restoring traditional gender norms and the supremacy of the nuclear family, decimating the civil service, performing mass deportations, reducing corporate regulation and worker protections, and more.
-
-
very informative
- By Laura on 04-26-25
By: David A. Graham
-
The Book of Alchemy
- A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life
- By: Suleika Jaouad
- Narrated by: Suleika Jaouad, Vidish Athavale, Fabian Cook Jr., and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the time she was young, Suleika Jaouad has kept a journal. She’s used it to mark life's biggest occasions and to weather its most ferocious storms. Journaling has buoyed her through illness, heartbreak, and the deepest uncertainty. And she is not alone: for so many people, keeping a journal is an essential tool for navigating both the personal peaks and valleys and the collective challenges of modern life. More than ever, we need a space for puzzling through.
By: Suleika Jaouad
-
Revenge
- The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power
- By: Alex Isenstadt
- Narrated by: Alan Peterson
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of the last four years, the American public looked on as the former president faced a series of daunting obstacles to return to the White House. The lingering cloud of January 6, a shadow effort within the Republican establishment to defeat him in the primary, multiple indictments, assassination attempts, and an 11th hour change of his opponent all threatened to derail his return to power at any moment.
-
-
if you followed the election, you already know most of it, but it's still a great listen.
- By Tony on 03-22-25
By: Alex Isenstadt
-
Victorian Psycho
- By: Virginia Feito
- Narrated by: Anna Burnett
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze.
-
-
meh
- By Pamela Y. S. on 02-13-25
By: Virginia Feito
-
Wild Faith
- How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America
- By: Talia Lavin
- Narrated by: Talia Lavin
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From school boards to the Supreme Court, Christian theocracy is ascendant in America—and only through exploring its motivations and impacts can we understand the crisis we face. In Wild Faith, Lavin fearlessly confronts whether our democracy can survive an organized, fervent theocratic movement, one that seeks to impose its religious beliefs on American citizens.
-
-
Rough listen
- By Nick on 12-10-24
By: Talia Lavin
-
When the Going Was Good
- An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines
- By: Graydon Carter, James Fox - contributor
- Narrated by: Graydon Carter
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Graydon Carter was offered the editorship of Vanity Fair in 1992, he knew he faced an uphill battle—how to make the esteemed and long-established magazine his own. Not only was he confronted with a staff that he perceived to be loyal to the previous regime, but he arrived only a few years after launching Spy magazine, which gloried in skewering the celebrated and powerful—the very people Vanity Fair venerated.
-
-
A lucky man
- By Dassha1 on 03-30-25
By: Graydon Carter, and others
-
The Project
- How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America
- By: David A. Graham
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Project, award-winning journalist David A. Graham offers much-needed context and distills the essential elements of this sprawling document. Breaking down the Project’s strategy for transforming—and radically empowering—the executive branch, Graham then explains what the architects behind Project 2025 would do with that power: restoring traditional gender norms and the supremacy of the nuclear family, decimating the civil service, performing mass deportations, reducing corporate regulation and worker protections, and more.
-
-
very informative
- By Laura on 04-26-25
By: David A. Graham
-
The Book of Alchemy
- A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life
- By: Suleika Jaouad
- Narrated by: Suleika Jaouad, Vidish Athavale, Fabian Cook Jr., and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the time she was young, Suleika Jaouad has kept a journal. She’s used it to mark life's biggest occasions and to weather its most ferocious storms. Journaling has buoyed her through illness, heartbreak, and the deepest uncertainty. And she is not alone: for so many people, keeping a journal is an essential tool for navigating both the personal peaks and valleys and the collective challenges of modern life. More than ever, we need a space for puzzling through.
By: Suleika Jaouad
-
Revenge
- The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power
- By: Alex Isenstadt
- Narrated by: Alan Peterson
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of the last four years, the American public looked on as the former president faced a series of daunting obstacles to return to the White House. The lingering cloud of January 6, a shadow effort within the Republican establishment to defeat him in the primary, multiple indictments, assassination attempts, and an 11th hour change of his opponent all threatened to derail his return to power at any moment.
-
-
if you followed the election, you already know most of it, but it's still a great listen.
- By Tony on 03-22-25
By: Alex Isenstadt
-
Victorian Psycho
- By: Virginia Feito
- Narrated by: Anna Burnett
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze.
-
-
meh
- By Pamela Y. S. on 02-13-25
By: Virginia Feito
-
Wild Faith
- How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America
- By: Talia Lavin
- Narrated by: Talia Lavin
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From school boards to the Supreme Court, Christian theocracy is ascendant in America—and only through exploring its motivations and impacts can we understand the crisis we face. In Wild Faith, Lavin fearlessly confronts whether our democracy can survive an organized, fervent theocratic movement, one that seeks to impose its religious beliefs on American citizens.
-
-
Rough listen
- By Nick on 12-10-24
By: Talia Lavin
-
No Fault
- A Memoir of Romance and Divorce
- By: Haley Mlotek
- Narrated by: Haley Mlotek
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Divorce was everything for Haley Mlotek. As a child, she listened to her twice-divorced grandmother tell stories about her “husbands.” As a pre-teen, she answered the phones for her mother’s mediation and marriage counseling practice and typed out the paperwork for couples in the process of leaving each other. She grew up with the sense that divorce was an outcome to both resist and desire. But when she herself went on to marry—and then divorce—the man she had been with for twelve years, suddenly, she had to reconsider her generation’s inherited understanding of the institution.
-
-
When we are divorced, it is still happening.
- By Anonymous User on 03-29-25
By: Haley Mlotek
-
Saving Five
- A Memoir of Hope
- By: Amanda Nguyen
- Narrated by: Sura Siu
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A brave and imaginative memoir by the Nobel Peace Prize nominee Amanda Nguyen, detailing her healing journey and groundbreaking activism in the aftermath of her rape at Harvard.
-
-
Beautifully written!
- By Amazon Customer on 03-05-25
By: Amanda Nguyen
-
Ambition Monster
- A Memoir
- By: Jennifer Romolini
- Narrated by: Jennifer Romolini
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After years of relentlessly racing up the professional ladder, Jennifer Romolini reached the kind of success many crave: a high-profile, C-suite dream job, a book well-received enough that reporters wanted to know the secrets to her success, and a gig traveling around the country giving speeches on “making it.” She had a handsome and clever husband, a precocious child. But beneath this polished surface was a powder keg of unresolved trauma and chronic overwork. It was all about to blow.
-
-
Love love love
- By James on 06-07-24
-
The Quiet Damage
- QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family
- By: Jesselyn Cook
- Narrated by: Jesselyn Cook
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Quiet Damage, celebrated reporter Jesselyn Cook unfolds the heartbreaking stories of five representative families from couples young and old to rural white parents to urban Black siblings, to show how QAnon shattered bonds once believed unbreakable. Cook paints a portrait of American suffering, of the vulnerabilities that have left people susceptible to outrageous theories promising order and control in a world where both are increasingly in short supply.
-
-
Engaging story telling
- By Joshua M. Kuo on 09-30-24
By: Jesselyn Cook
-
Girlhood
- By: Melissa Febos
- Narrated by: Melissa Febos
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When her body began to change at 11 years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she’d been told about herself and the habits and defences she’d developed over years of trying to meet others’ expectations.
-
-
Great read, audio needs editing
- By Niurka Maldonado on 04-02-21
By: Melissa Febos
-
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
- By: Omar El Akkad
- Narrated by: Omar El Akkad
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege.
-
-
Outstanding - Should be required reading
- By Steve Siegmund on 03-19-25
By: Omar El Akkad
Critic reviews
“Amid pervasive rollbacks to women’s rights in America, Gilbert . . . mounts a powerful argument that millennial pop culture ‘turned a generation of women against themselves.’”—The New York Times
“The book takes a hard look at the pop culture of the late ‘90s and early 2000s—the explosion of tabloid photography, increasingly cruel and ceaseless commentary on celebrity blogs, sexualization of young women by the media, etc.—and the lasting damage it has done to modern women and, possibly, the feminist movement itself. It's a book that will make you think, and want to discuss.”—Glamour
“Add this book to the list of titles that urgently provide context and answers to the hell storm that is [vaguely waves around] everything going on right now . . .Gilbert unmasks the collective regression that continues to influence our views on misogyny, feminism, and womanhood today.”—Harper’s Bazaar
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Enemy Feminisms
- TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation
- By: Sophie Lewis
- Narrated by: Helen Phillips
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In recent years, "white feminism" and girlboss feminism have taken a justified beating. We know that leaning in won't make our jobs any more tolerable and that white women have proven to be, at best, unreliable allies. But in a time of rising fascism, ceaseless attacks on reproductive justice, and violent transphobia, we need to reckon with what Western feminism has wrought if we have any hope of building the feminist world we need.
-
-
brilliant writer, robot reader
- By Jeannine Tang on 04-17-25
By: Sophie Lewis
-
The Lilac People
- By: Milo Todd
- Narrated by: Max Meyers
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1932 Berlin, Bertie, a trans man, and his friends spend carefree nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin’s thriving queer community. An employee of the renowned Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual Science, Bertie works to improve queer rights in Germany and beyond, but everything changes when Hitler rises to power. The institute is raided, the Eldorado is shuttered, and queer people are rounded up. Bertie barely escapes with his girlfriend, Sofie, to a nearby farm. There they take on the identities of an elderly couple and live for more than a decade in isolation.
By: Milo Todd
-
Exit Zero
- Stories
- By: Marie-Helene Bertino
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Death-shaped entities—with all of their humor and strangeness—haunt the twelve stories in Exit Zero. Vampires, ghost girls, fathers, blank spaces, day-old peaches, and famous paintings all pierce through their world into ours, reminding us to pay attention! and look alive! and offering many other flashes of wisdom from the oracle and author of Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino.
-
The Float Test
- A Novel
- By: Lynn Steger Strong
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Kenner siblings are at odds. Jenn is a harried mom struggling under the weight of family obligations. Fred is a novelist who can’t write, maybe because she’s lost faith in storytelling itself. Jude is a recovering corporate lawyer with her own story to tell, and a grudge against her former favorite sister, Fred. George, the baby, is estranged from his wife and harboring both a secret about his former employer and an ill-advised crush on one of his sisters’ friends. Gathered after a major loss, each sibling needs the others more than ever—if only they could trust each other.
-
The Original Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Jemimah Wei
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in working-class Bedok, Genevieve is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead. As the two girls grow closer, they must navigate the intensity of life in a place where the urgent insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice. As the two girls grow closer, they must navigate the intensity of life in a place where the urgent insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice.
By: Jemimah Wei
-
The Traitor of Sherwood Forest
- A Novel
- By: Amy S. Kaufman
- Narrated by: Grace Gray
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jane Crowe is an ordinary peasant girl who never dreamed she would work for the infamous Lord of the Greenwood. But when she’s forced out of her home, she has no choice but to turn to Robin Hood for help—and he makes her an irresistible offer. He needs a pair of eyes in the King’s Houses, and quiet, unassuming Jane—who has spent her whole life going unnoticed—will be the perfect spy. At first, Jane’s work for Robin seems straightforward. She whispers to him about the nobles at King’s Houses and all their secrets, including the new Sheriff of Nottingham.
By: Amy S. Kaufman
-
Enemy Feminisms
- TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation
- By: Sophie Lewis
- Narrated by: Helen Phillips
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In recent years, "white feminism" and girlboss feminism have taken a justified beating. We know that leaning in won't make our jobs any more tolerable and that white women have proven to be, at best, unreliable allies. But in a time of rising fascism, ceaseless attacks on reproductive justice, and violent transphobia, we need to reckon with what Western feminism has wrought if we have any hope of building the feminist world we need.
-
-
brilliant writer, robot reader
- By Jeannine Tang on 04-17-25
By: Sophie Lewis
-
The Lilac People
- By: Milo Todd
- Narrated by: Max Meyers
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1932 Berlin, Bertie, a trans man, and his friends spend carefree nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin’s thriving queer community. An employee of the renowned Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual Science, Bertie works to improve queer rights in Germany and beyond, but everything changes when Hitler rises to power. The institute is raided, the Eldorado is shuttered, and queer people are rounded up. Bertie barely escapes with his girlfriend, Sofie, to a nearby farm. There they take on the identities of an elderly couple and live for more than a decade in isolation.
By: Milo Todd
-
Exit Zero
- Stories
- By: Marie-Helene Bertino
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Death-shaped entities—with all of their humor and strangeness—haunt the twelve stories in Exit Zero. Vampires, ghost girls, fathers, blank spaces, day-old peaches, and famous paintings all pierce through their world into ours, reminding us to pay attention! and look alive! and offering many other flashes of wisdom from the oracle and author of Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino.
-
The Float Test
- A Novel
- By: Lynn Steger Strong
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Kenner siblings are at odds. Jenn is a harried mom struggling under the weight of family obligations. Fred is a novelist who can’t write, maybe because she’s lost faith in storytelling itself. Jude is a recovering corporate lawyer with her own story to tell, and a grudge against her former favorite sister, Fred. George, the baby, is estranged from his wife and harboring both a secret about his former employer and an ill-advised crush on one of his sisters’ friends. Gathered after a major loss, each sibling needs the others more than ever—if only they could trust each other.
-
The Original Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Jemimah Wei
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in working-class Bedok, Genevieve is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead. As the two girls grow closer, they must navigate the intensity of life in a place where the urgent insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice. As the two girls grow closer, they must navigate the intensity of life in a place where the urgent insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice.
By: Jemimah Wei
-
The Traitor of Sherwood Forest
- A Novel
- By: Amy S. Kaufman
- Narrated by: Grace Gray
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jane Crowe is an ordinary peasant girl who never dreamed she would work for the infamous Lord of the Greenwood. But when she’s forced out of her home, she has no choice but to turn to Robin Hood for help—and he makes her an irresistible offer. He needs a pair of eyes in the King’s Houses, and quiet, unassuming Jane—who has spent her whole life going unnoticed—will be the perfect spy. At first, Jane’s work for Robin seems straightforward. She whispers to him about the nobles at King’s Houses and all their secrets, including the new Sheriff of Nottingham.
By: Amy S. Kaufman
-
The World of Nancy Kwan
- A Memoir by Hollywood's Asian Superstar
- By: Nancy Kwan, Deborah Davis - contributor, Kevin Kwan - foreword
- Narrated by: Nancy Kwan, Kevin Kwan
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Never allowing show business to change her, Kwan persevered in an industry where everything was stacked against her, breaking through barriers and becoming a beacon of hope to generations of Asians who aspired to be seen. The World of Nancy Kwan is a multi-faceted personal history of an iconic actress whose triumphant rise and resilience illuminates the broader history of Hollywood and how the only way forward is to stay true to oneself.
By: Nancy Kwan, and others
-
What Comes After
- By: Katie Bayerl
- Narrated by: Emma Galvin
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No one could be more disappointed about Mari’s sudden death than Mari, herself. And if she ever thought about the afterlife, she certainly didn’t think it would be a suburban enclave called Paradise Gate or that the biggest problem to plague her in life would follow her into the great beyond: her recently deceased mother, Faye. But that is exactly who greets her when Mari opens her eyes in the In Between—where the newly dead with no religious affiliation come to work out the unfinished business of their lives so they can ascend to whatever’s next.
By: Katie Bayerl
-
The Golden Hour
- A Story of Family and Power in Hollywood
- By: Matthew Specktor
- Narrated by: Matthew Specktor
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now, with The Golden Hour, Specktor blends memoir, cultural criticism, and narrative history to tell the story of the modern motion picture industry—illuminating the conflict between art and business that has played out over the last seventy-five years in Hollywood. Braiding his own story with that of his father, mother (a talented screenwriter whose career was cut short), and figures ranging from Jack Nicholson to CAA’s Michael Ovitz, Specktor reveals how Hollywood became a laboratory for the eternal struggle between art, labor, and capital.
By: Matthew Specktor
-
Black Power Scorecard
- Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It
- By: Andre M. Perry
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Historically, Black Americans’ quest for power has been understood as an attempt to gain equal protections under the law. But power in America requires more than basic democratic freedoms. It is inextricably linked with economic influence and ownership—of one’s self, home, business, and creations. Andre M. Perry draws on extensive research and analysis to quantify how much power Black Americans actually have.
By: Andre M. Perry
-
Little Bosses Everywhere
- How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America
- By: Bridget Read
- Narrated by: Nikki Massoud
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Little Bosses Everywhere, journalist Bridget Read tells the gripping story of multilevel marketing in full for the first time, winding from sunny postwar California, where a failed salesman started a vitamin business, through the devoutly religious suburbs of Michigan, where the industry built its political influence, to stadium-size conventions where today’s top sellers preach to die-hard recruits. MLM has enriched powerful people, like the DeVos and Van Andel families, Warren Buffett, and President Donald Trump, all while eroding public institutions and the social safety net.
By: Bridget Read
-
Awakened
- By: A.E. Osworth
- Narrated by: A.E. Osworth
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a morning much like any other, 30-something queer Brooklynite Wilder makes a miraculous discovery: suddenly, as if by magic, they can understand every language in the world. Dazed and disconnected, Wilder is found and taken in by a small coven of trans witches who have all become Awakened with mystical powers of their own.
By: A.E. Osworth
-
Searches
- Selfhood in the Digital Age
- By: Vauhini Vara
- Narrated by: Vauhini Vara, Anastasia Davidson
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When it was released to the public in November 2022, ChatGPT awakened the world to a secretive project: teaching AI-powered machines to write. Its creators had a sweeping ambition—to build machines that could not only communicate, but could do all kinds of other activities, better than humans ever could. But was this goal actually achievable? And if reached, would it lead to our liberation or our subjugation?
-
-
Brilliant!
- By Lisa on 04-19-25
By: Vauhini Vara
-
Things Left Unsaid
- A Novel
- By: Sara Jafari
- Narrated by: Honor Gilles, Majid Mehdizadeh-Valoujerdy
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When twenty-six year old Shirin Bayat bumps into Kian at a house party in London, she is taken aback by the immediate feelings that resurface. It’s been a decade since they were close friends at school, before painful events pulled them apart, suddenly and seemingly forever. Ever since, Shirin has lived with the aching weight of things left unsaid between them. Now they're back in each other's lives, at a time when Shirin needs someone she can trust the most.
By: Sara Jafari
-
The Evin Prison Bakers’ Club
- Surviving Iran's Most Notorious Prisons in 16 Recipes
- By: Sepideh Gholian
- Narrated by: Ashraf Shirazi
- Length: 3 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How do you cheer up a woman who has spent hours cleaning prison toilets with a broken mop? The secret is in a tres leches cake. In Iran’s prisons, women endure horrors: they are beaten, interrogated, and humiliated in a thousand ways. Even a whisper to a fellow inmate can be punished. Yet—in spite of anything and everything—they resist: they bake. They console each other, cry together, dance together. The Evin Prison Bakers’ Club is a call to stand up for Woman, Life, Freedom by a woman still fighting for a free Iran.
By: Sepideh Gholian
-
Say Hello to the Bad Guys
- How Professional Wrestling's New World Order Changed America
- By: Marc Raimondi
- Narrated by: Marc Raimondi
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1996, professional wrestling was one of the most watched sports on cable television, with more than 5 million people tuning in every week. And in the late 1990s, pro-wrestling was the hottest thing in American pop culture, with companies making millions in action figures, video games, and simple black t-shirts emblazoned with three little letters: NWO. The NWO, or New World Order, became a business like no other, and was responsible for the explosive ratings and rabid fanbase.
By: Marc Raimondi
-
The Golden Road
- How Ancient India Transformed the World
- By: William Dalrymple
- Narrated by: William Dalrymple
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Golden Road, revered historian William Dalrymple corrects the record, telling the captivating story of ancient India’s ascent through a swift and breathtaking tour of the ideas and places Indians created. Treks into the sunless depths of cave monasteries illuminate the origins and spread of Buddhism. Far-flung archaeological expeditions—from the sand-blown Red Sea coast of Egypt, to Afghan mountain refuges, to verdant Cambodian jungles—reveal the impact of Indian commerce.
-
Vanishing World
- A Novel
- By: Sayaka Murata
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a girl, Amane realizes with horror that her parents “copulated” in order to bring her into the world, rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. Amane strives to get away from what she considers an indoctrination in this strange “system” by her mother, but her infatuations with both anime characters and real people have a sexual force that is undeniable.
-
-
Excellent
- By Chris Reich on 04-28-25
By: Sayaka Murata