
Pym
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 $21.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
J.D. Jackson
-
By:
-
Mat Johnson
About this listen
Acclaimed novelist Mat Johnson is the winner of the prestigious Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. After being sacked, American literature professor Chris Jaynes discovers a slave manuscript that seemingly confirms the existence of an “island of pure and utter blackness” as described in Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Soon Jaynes and a rag-tag crew embark on an epic adventure to discover the truth.
©2011 Mat Johnson (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
-
Invisible Things
- A Novel
- By: Mat Johnson
- Narrated by: Nicole Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When sociologist Nalini Jackson joins the SS Delany for the first manned mission to Jupiter, all she wants is a career opportunity: the chance to conduct the first field study of group dynamics on long-haul cryoships. But what she discovers instead is an entire city encased in a bubble on Europa, Jupiter’s largest moon.
-
-
Disappointing Story Line
- By J. E. N. on 07-10-22
By: Mat Johnson
-
Kindred
- By: Octavia E. Butler
- Narrated by: Kim Staunton
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning White boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes she's been given a challenge.
-
-
The Past of Slavery Still Moves and Wounds Us
- By Jefferson on 12-05-10
-
The Wishing Pool and Other Stories
- By: Tananarive Due
- Narrated by: Jasmin Walker, William DeMeritt
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American Book Award-winning author Tananarive Due's second collection of stories ranges from horror to science fiction to suspense. From the mysterious, magical town of Gracetown to the aftermath of a pandemic to the reaches of the far future, Due's stories all share a sense of dread and fear balanced with heart and hope. In some of these stories, the monster is racism itself; others address the monster within, or other universal struggles set against the supernatural or surreal. All of them are written with Due's trademark attention to detail and deep characterization.
-
-
Loved these stories!
- By Jackie on 04-21-23
By: Tananarive Due
-
Playing in the Dark
- Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 3 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Morrison shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence, depended on the existence of a black population that was manifestly unfree--and that came to serve white authors as embodiments of their own fears and desires. According to the Chicago Tribune, Morrison "reimagines and remaps the possibility of America." Her brilliant discussions of the "Africanist" presence in the fiction of Poe, Melville, Cather, and Hemingway leads to a dramatic reappraisal of the essential characteristics of our literary tradition.
-
-
My goodness..get ready to be challenged
- By keishie23 on 05-13-20
By: Toni Morrison
-
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
- By: Edgar Allan Poe
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This rousing sea adventure follows New England boy Pym, who stows away on a whaling ship with its captain’s son, Augustus. The two boys repeatedly find themselves on the brink of death or discovery and witness many terrifying events, including mutiny, cannibalism and frantic pursuits. Poe imbued this deliberately popular tale with such allegorical richness, biblical imagery and psychological insights that the tale has come to influence writers as various as Melville, James, Verne and Nabokov.
-
-
The ending was classic
- By Lynn Zdilla on 05-02-24
By: Edgar Allan Poe
-
Parable of the Sower
- By: Octavia E. Butler
- Narrated by: Lynne Thigpen
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
God is change. That is the central truth of the Earthseed movement, whose unlikely prophet is 18-year-old Lauren Olamina. The young woman's diary entries tell the story of her life amid a violent 21st-century hell of walled neighborhoods and drug-crazed pyromaniacs - and reveal her evolving Earthseed philosophy. Against a backdrop of horror emerges a message of hope: if we are willing to embrace divine change, we will survive to fulfill our destiny among the stars.
-
-
Dystopia before dystopia was cool...
- By Amber on 05-28-14
-
Invisible Things
- A Novel
- By: Mat Johnson
- Narrated by: Nicole Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When sociologist Nalini Jackson joins the SS Delany for the first manned mission to Jupiter, all she wants is a career opportunity: the chance to conduct the first field study of group dynamics on long-haul cryoships. But what she discovers instead is an entire city encased in a bubble on Europa, Jupiter’s largest moon.
-
-
Disappointing Story Line
- By J. E. N. on 07-10-22
By: Mat Johnson
-
Kindred
- By: Octavia E. Butler
- Narrated by: Kim Staunton
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning White boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes she's been given a challenge.
-
-
The Past of Slavery Still Moves and Wounds Us
- By Jefferson on 12-05-10
-
The Wishing Pool and Other Stories
- By: Tananarive Due
- Narrated by: Jasmin Walker, William DeMeritt
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American Book Award-winning author Tananarive Due's second collection of stories ranges from horror to science fiction to suspense. From the mysterious, magical town of Gracetown to the aftermath of a pandemic to the reaches of the far future, Due's stories all share a sense of dread and fear balanced with heart and hope. In some of these stories, the monster is racism itself; others address the monster within, or other universal struggles set against the supernatural or surreal. All of them are written with Due's trademark attention to detail and deep characterization.
-
-
Loved these stories!
- By Jackie on 04-21-23
By: Tananarive Due
-
Playing in the Dark
- Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 3 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Morrison shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence, depended on the existence of a black population that was manifestly unfree--and that came to serve white authors as embodiments of their own fears and desires. According to the Chicago Tribune, Morrison "reimagines and remaps the possibility of America." Her brilliant discussions of the "Africanist" presence in the fiction of Poe, Melville, Cather, and Hemingway leads to a dramatic reappraisal of the essential characteristics of our literary tradition.
-
-
My goodness..get ready to be challenged
- By keishie23 on 05-13-20
By: Toni Morrison
-
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
- By: Edgar Allan Poe
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This rousing sea adventure follows New England boy Pym, who stows away on a whaling ship with its captain’s son, Augustus. The two boys repeatedly find themselves on the brink of death or discovery and witness many terrifying events, including mutiny, cannibalism and frantic pursuits. Poe imbued this deliberately popular tale with such allegorical richness, biblical imagery and psychological insights that the tale has come to influence writers as various as Melville, James, Verne and Nabokov.
-
-
The ending was classic
- By Lynn Zdilla on 05-02-24
By: Edgar Allan Poe
-
Parable of the Sower
- By: Octavia E. Butler
- Narrated by: Lynne Thigpen
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
God is change. That is the central truth of the Earthseed movement, whose unlikely prophet is 18-year-old Lauren Olamina. The young woman's diary entries tell the story of her life amid a violent 21st-century hell of walled neighborhoods and drug-crazed pyromaniacs - and reveal her evolving Earthseed philosophy. Against a backdrop of horror emerges a message of hope: if we are willing to embrace divine change, we will survive to fulfill our destiny among the stars.
-
-
Dystopia before dystopia was cool...
- By Amber on 05-28-14
-
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
- By: Edgar Allan Poe
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Poe's only full novel, is one of his most unusual works. A riveting story, toldl in the first person, it tells of a disastrous sea voyage involving storms, mutiny, starvation, thirst - and a mysterious conclusion. Jorge Luis Borges and Baudelaire were among those who rated it highly. This recording was timed to mark the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth.
-
-
Hard to Describe...
- By Joel D Offenberg on 11-11-11
By: Edgar Allan Poe
-
Out There Screaming
- An Anthology of New Black Horror
- By: Jordan Peele – Intro / Editor, John Joseph Adams – Editor, N. K. Jemisin – Contributor, and others
- Narrated by: Jordan Peele, full cast
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The visionary writer and director of Get Out, Us, and Nope, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions, curates this groundbreaking anthology of all-new stories of Black horror, exploring not only the terrors of the supernatural but the chilling reality of injustice that haunts our nation. Featuring an introduction by Peele and an all-star roster of beloved writers and new voices, Out There Screaming is a master class in horror, and—like his spine-chilling films—its stories prey on everything we think we know about our world . . . and redefine what it means to be afraid.
-
-
Wondrous dark collection
- By Trav on 10-04-24
By: Jordan Peele – Intro / Editor, and others
-
The Changeling
- A Novel
- By: Victor LaValle
- Narrated by: Victor LaValle
- Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Apollo Kagwa's father disappeared, all he left his son were strange recurring dreams and a box of books stamped with the word improbabilia. Now Apollo is a father himself - and as he and his wife, Emma, are settling into their new lives as parents, exhaustion and anxiety start to take their toll. Apollo's old dreams return and Emma begins acting odd.
-
-
Fractured Fairytale
- By Diane on 08-07-17
By: Victor LaValle
-
Enter Ghost
- By: Isabella Hammad
- Narrated by: Nadia Albina
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After years away from her family's homeland, and healing from an affair with an established director, stage actress Sonia Nasir returns to Palestine to visit her older sister Haneen. Though the siblings grew up spending summers at their family home in Haifa, Sonia hasn't been back since the second intifada and the deaths of her grandparents. While Haneen stayed and made a life commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her burgeoning acting career and now dissolute marriage.
-
-
Outstanding
- By Elizabeth on 02-07-25
By: Isabella Hammad
-
All the Sinners Bleed
- A Novel
- By: S. A. Cosby
- Narrated by: Adam Lazarre-White
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes.
-
-
Visceral, gripping, thrilling and entertaining
- By Victor @ theAudiobookBlog dot com on 06-26-23
By: S. A. Cosby
-
The Reformatory
- A Novel
- By: Tananarive Due
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.
-
-
Worth a listen
- By LadyLove on 11-07-23
By: Tananarive Due
-
The Sellout
- A Novel
- By: Paul Beatty
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality: the black Chinese restaurant.
-
-
Appreciated it, but didn't like it
- By Eugenia on 04-14-16
By: Paul Beatty
-
Ring Shout
- By: P. Djèlí Clark
- Narrated by: Channie Waites
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1915, The Birth of a Nation casts a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.
-
-
The best story from a master mythmaker
- By Felicia J on 10-22-20
By: P. Djèlí Clark
-
Sea of Tranquility
- A Novel
- By: Emily St. John Mandel
- Narrated by: John Lee, Dylan Moore, Arthur Morey, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core.
-
-
An excellent listen.
- By Mark on 04-11-22
-
Interior Chinatown
- A Novel
- By: Charles Yu
- Narrated by: Joel de la Fuente
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: He’s merely Generic Asian man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but he is always relegated to a prop. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy - the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. At least that’s what he has been told.
-
-
Kong Fu Guy
- By JCY on 01-30-20
By: Charles Yu
-
The Last White Man
- A Novel
- By: Mohsin Hamid
- Narrated by: Mohsin Hamid
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One morning, a man wakes up to find himself transformed. Overnight, Anders’s skin has turned dark, and the reflection in the mirror seems a stranger to him. At first he shares his secret only with Oona, an old friend turned new lover. Soon, reports of similar events begin to surface. Across the land, people are awakening in new incarnations, uncertain how their neighbors, friends, and family will greet them. As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different shading: a chance at a kind of rebirth—an opportunity to see ourselves, face to face, anew.
-
-
Flat
- By L. Rauch on 08-07-22
By: Mohsin Hamid
-
Afterlives
- A Novel
- By: Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Narrated by: Damian Lynch
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When he was just a boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents on the coast of East Africa by German colonial troops. After years away, fighting against his own people, he returns home to find his parents gone and his sister, Afiya, abandoned into de facto slavery. Hamza, too, returns home from the war, scarred in body and soul and with nothing but the clothes on his back—until he meets the beautiful, undaunted Afiya.
-
-
A Compelling book in every way
- By Edward Hower on 11-03-22
Critic reviews
What listeners say about Pym
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- michael
- 04-17-24
Shaggy dog
A contrived, meandering parable. Labored writing. Read a review that said this was funny book — not in the least. Bogged down with corny racial stereotypes and didactic “lessons.”
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- S. Yates
- 11-30-17
Interesting but strange
3.5 stars. This was a strange book. Part SF, part satire, part exploration of race relations, I found myself interested in where the book was going but also sort of apart from it. It is a bizarre mix and likely an acquired taste. Interesting ideas, interesting execution, intellectual, but odd.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Penda K
- 07-20-15
I would recommend this book to a friend.
Loved the book and narration. Book will be discussed at a Black Professionals Book Club.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Josh McGinnis
- 04-17-21
The imagination of this book is great
There is so much great stuff in the book. The adventure was fascinating. Mat Johnson knows how to tell a cinematic story and this sort of adventure story infused with literary critique is very interesting. While there are many parts of the story I perhaps disagreed with, whatever that means, there's no doubt that Pym is still an intellectual masterpiece with a premise only a creative genius could conceive of. This is truly a book I will not forget about reading for a long time. I recommend this book to anyone who has read and liked books such as At the Mountain of Madness or the Lost World but is sensitive to the fact that these white authors of yore, who were no doubt talented and helped set the stage for Pym, held backwards notions of race. The reading performance is also very high quality.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jordan
- 08-21-15
A new take on Pym
I stumbled upon the canon of Arthur Gordon Pym by accident--I listened to Loving Day and this book was recommended I decided to go back and listen to the books in chronological order, and this while equally far-fetched has the added interest of an analysis of race both in the previous books and In contemporary America. Definitely worthwhile.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Travis
- 11-23-22
Great story
Fun, funny and insightful. Good writing with commentary on race, humanity and an intriguing story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sandra M.
- 11-29-11
Worse book I have ever had to endure.
Hideously pretentious; poorly written; boring; tedious. GHASTLY! Our whole Book Club was livid we'd made the mistake of choosing Pym.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful