-
Real American
- A Memoir
- Narrated by: Julie Lythcott-Haims
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
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
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $14.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
This program is read by the author.
A fearless debut audiobook memoir in which beloved and bestselling How to Raise an Adult author Julie Lythcott-Haims pulls no punches in her recollections of growing up a biracial black woman in America.
Bringing a poetic sensibility to her prose to stunning effect, Lythcott-Haims briskly and stirringly evokes her personal battle with the low self-esteem that American racism routinely inflicts on people of color. The only child of a marriage between an African-American father and a white British mother, she shows indelibly how so-called "micro" aggressions in addition to blunt force insults can puncture a person's inner life with a thousand sharp cuts. Real American expresses also, through Lythcott-Haims’s path to self-acceptance, the healing power of community in overcoming the hurtful isolation of being incessantly considered "the other."
The author of the New York Times bestselling anti-helicopter parenting manifesto How to Raise an Adult, Lythcott-Haims offers listeners a different kind of story this time out, but one that will nevertheless resonate with the legions of students, educators and parents to whom she is now well known, by whom she is beloved, and to whom she has always provided wise and necessary counsel about how to embrace and nurture their best selves. Real American is an affecting memoir, an unforgettable cri de coeur, and a clarion call to all of us to live more wisely, generously and fully.
“Courageous, achingly honest."
—Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
“A compelling, incisive and thoughtful examination of race, origin and what it means to be called an American. Engaging, heartfelt and beautifully written, Lythcott-Haims explores the American spectrum of identity with refreshing courage and compassion.”
—Bryan Stevenson, New York Times bestselling author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
How to Raise an Adult
- Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success
- By: Julie Lythcott-Haims
- Narrated by: Julie Lythcott-Haims
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In How to Raise an Adult, Julie Lythcott-Haims draws on research; on conversations with admissions officers, educators, and employers; and on her own insights as a mother and as a student dean to highlight the ways in which overparenting harms children, their stressed-out parents, and society at large.
-
-
Target Audience- Upper-Middle Class
- By Savy shopper on 06-02-16
-
Your Turn
- How to Be an Adult
- By: Julie Lythcott-Haims
- Narrated by: Julie Lythcott-Haims
- Length: 20 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to be an adult? In the 20th century, psychologists came up with five markers of adulthood: finish your education, get a job, leave home, marry, and have children. Since then, every generation has been held to those same markers. Yet so much has changed about the world and living in it since that sequence was formulated. All of those markers are choices, and they’re all valid, but any one person’s choices along those lines do not make them more or less an adult.
-
-
Not the book that was advertised
- By M. Rogers on 04-13-21
-
Black AF History
- The Un-Whitewashed Story of America
- By: Michael Harriot
- Narrated by: Michael Harriot
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie. In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history.
-
-
LOVE It!
- By KMB on 09-29-23
By: Michael Harriot
-
Breath, Eyes, Memory
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of 12, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti - to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people.
-
-
Amazing Narrator
- By Luis on 04-03-16
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
The Light We Carry
- Overcoming in Uncertain Times
- By: Michelle Obama
- Narrated by: Michelle Obama
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers to life’s big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with listeners, considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build enduring and honest relationships? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt or helplessness? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much?
-
-
Very Disappointing—Too Ego-filled
- By Patricia Webb on 11-29-22
By: Michelle Obama
-
The Water Dancer (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Joe Morton
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North.
-
-
We Must Always Remember
- By Cammie on 09-28-19
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
-
How to Raise an Adult
- Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success
- By: Julie Lythcott-Haims
- Narrated by: Julie Lythcott-Haims
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In How to Raise an Adult, Julie Lythcott-Haims draws on research; on conversations with admissions officers, educators, and employers; and on her own insights as a mother and as a student dean to highlight the ways in which overparenting harms children, their stressed-out parents, and society at large.
-
-
Target Audience- Upper-Middle Class
- By Savy shopper on 06-02-16
-
Your Turn
- How to Be an Adult
- By: Julie Lythcott-Haims
- Narrated by: Julie Lythcott-Haims
- Length: 20 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to be an adult? In the 20th century, psychologists came up with five markers of adulthood: finish your education, get a job, leave home, marry, and have children. Since then, every generation has been held to those same markers. Yet so much has changed about the world and living in it since that sequence was formulated. All of those markers are choices, and they’re all valid, but any one person’s choices along those lines do not make them more or less an adult.
-
-
Not the book that was advertised
- By M. Rogers on 04-13-21
-
Black AF History
- The Un-Whitewashed Story of America
- By: Michael Harriot
- Narrated by: Michael Harriot
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie. In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history.
-
-
LOVE It!
- By KMB on 09-29-23
By: Michael Harriot
-
Breath, Eyes, Memory
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of 12, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti - to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people.
-
-
Amazing Narrator
- By Luis on 04-03-16
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
The Light We Carry
- Overcoming in Uncertain Times
- By: Michelle Obama
- Narrated by: Michelle Obama
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers to life’s big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with listeners, considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build enduring and honest relationships? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt or helplessness? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much?
-
-
Very Disappointing—Too Ego-filled
- By Patricia Webb on 11-29-22
By: Michelle Obama
-
The Water Dancer (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Joe Morton
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North.
-
-
We Must Always Remember
- By Cammie on 09-28-19
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
-
Somebody's Daughter
- A Memoir
- By: Ashley C. Ford
- Narrated by: Ashley C. Ford
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Through poverty, adolescence, and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley Ford wishes she could turn to her father for hope and encouragement. There are just a few problems: he’s in prison, and she doesn’t know what he did to end up there. She doesn’t know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men. In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates.
-
-
It gives words to the journey of so many brown girls.
- By Kenyon Martin on 06-06-21
By: Ashley C. Ford
-
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
- A Memoir
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.
-
-
Beautiful, relatable, profound
- By Betty Blue on 04-16-23
By: Maggie Smith
-
Take My Hand
- By: Dolen Perkins-Valdez
- Narrated by: Lauren J. Daggett
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend intends to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she hopes to help women shape their destinies, to make their own choices for their lives and bodies.
-
-
Page Turner Based off True Events
- By LATOYA LEWIS on 06-10-22
-
Surviving the White Gaze
- A Memoir
- By: Rebecca Carroll
- Narrated by: Rebecca Carroll
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rebecca Carroll grew up the only Black person in her rural New Hampshire town. Adopted at birth by artistic parents who believed in peace, love, and zero population growth, her early childhood was loving and idyllic - and yet she couldn’t articulate the deep sense of isolation she increasingly felt as she grew older. Everything changed when she met her birth mother, a young White woman, who consistently undermined Carroll’s sense of her blackness and self-esteem.
-
-
Outstanding
- By Steve Shirley on 02-08-21
By: Rebecca Carroll
-
My Seven Black Fathers
- A Young Activist's Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole
- By: Will Jawando
- Narrated by: Will Jawando
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Will Jawando tells a deeply affirmative story of hope and respect for men of color. As a boy growing up outside DC, Will, who went by his Nigerian name, Yemi, never quite fit in. He was a Black kid with a divorced white mother, a frayed relationship with his biological father, and teachers who scolded him for being disruptive in class. Eventually, he became close to Kalfani, a kid he looked up to. Years after he got the call that Kalfani was dead, another casualty of gun violence, Will looks back on the extraordinary mentors that enabled him to thrive.
-
-
A Must Read Narrative
- By BarryCappa on 10-25-22
By: Will Jawando
-
Becoming
- By: Michelle Obama
- Narrated by: Michelle Obama
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it - in her own words and on her own terms.
-
-
Didn't know what I was getting into
- By Kenneth Woodward on 12-05-18
By: Michelle Obama
-
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- As Told to Alex Haley
- By: Malcolm X, Alex Haley
- Narrated by: Laurence Fishburne
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
-
-
it's Nearly perfect
- By Kerry on 09-16-20
By: Malcolm X, and others
-
Between the World and Me
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race”, a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of Black women and men - bodies exploited through slavery and segregation and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a Black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son.
-
-
A Heartfelt Self-aware Literary Masterpiece
- By T Spencer on 07-30-15
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
-
Dinners with Ruth
- A Memoir of Friendship
- By: Nina Totenberg
- Narrated by: Nina Totenberg
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Four years before Nina Totenberg was hired at NPR, where she cemented her legacy as a prizewinning reporter, and nearly twenty-two years before Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court, Nina called Ruth. A reporter for The National Observer, Nina was curious about Ruth’s legal brief, asking the Supreme Court to do something revolutionary: declare a law that discriminated “on the basis of sex” to be unconstitutional. That call launched a remarkable, nearly fifty-year friendship.
-
-
Not quite what I expected
- By Debra Malone on 09-23-22
By: Nina Totenberg
-
White Fear
- How the Browning of America Is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds
- By: Roland S. Martin
- Narrated by: Roland S. Martin
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For two centuries, the deep-seated fear that many White people feel—of losing power, of losing economic standing, of losing a particular “way of life”—has been the driving force behind American politics and culture. And as we approach a future where White people will become a racial minority in the US, something estimated to occur as early as 2043, that fear is only intensifying, festering, and becoming more visible. Are we destined for a violent clash? What can we do to step into our country’s inevitable future, without tearing ourselves apart in the process?
-
-
an interesting and informative lesson
- By Mo Shaabazz on 09-14-22
By: Roland S. Martin
-
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
-
Stay with Me
- A Novel
- By: Ayobami Adebayo
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yejide and Akin have been married since they met and fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: Polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage - after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures - Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time - until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin's second wife.
-
-
Do better
- By Adetoun Kolapo on 01-29-18
By: Ayobami Adebayo
Critic reviews
"Lythcott-Haims is not a tragic figure. From the first chapter, she jabs a finger at the listener while issuing an invitation to listen. This is a growth story, one only the writer can deliver. She knows where to place the emotion--in the pride and love she feels for her father and in the pain of what her Midwestern neighbors really thought of the family. This academic has heart." —AudioFile
“A bold, impassioned memoir that . . . riveting[ly] and deeply . . . sheds fresh light on race and discrimination in American society.” —Publishers Weekly
“Breaks the silence on what it means to grow up mixed-race in America. Her spare but powerful prose has an emotional rawness that will profoundly resonate with all readers and help many feel a little less alone.” —Heidi W. Durrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
Related to this topic
-
In the Country We Love
- My Family Divided
- By: Diane Guerrero, Michelle Burford
- Narrated by: Diane Guerrero
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Diane Guerrero, the television actress from the megahit Orange Is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, was just 14 years old on the day her parents were detained and deported while she was at school. Born in the US, Guerrero was able to remain in the country and continue her education, depending on the kindness of family friends who took her in and helped her build a life and a successful acting career for herself, without the support system of her family.
-
-
Moves very slowly
- By Laura S. on 07-23-16
By: Diane Guerrero, and others
-
The Song and the Silence
- A Story About Family, Race, and What Was Revealed in a Small Town in the Mississippi Delta While Searching for Booker Wright
- By: Yvette Johnson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Have to keep that smile", said Booker Wright in the 1966 NBC documentary Mississippi: A Self-Portrait. At the time Wright was a waiter in a Whites-only restaurant and a local business owner who would become an unwitting icon of the civil rights movement. For he did the unthinkable: Before a national audience, he described what life was truly like for the Black people of Greenwood, Mississippi.
-
-
Exceeded every expectation
- By ZeeJ84 on 05-23-21
By: Yvette Johnson
-
Redefining Realness
- My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More
- By: Janet Mock
- Narrated by: Janet Mock
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With unflinching honesty and moving prose, Janet Mock relays her experiences of growing up young, multiracial, poor, and trans in America, offering listeners accessible language while imparting vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of a marginalized and misunderstood population.
-
-
A Wonderful Memoir
- By Jo on 01-24-16
By: Janet Mock
-
A Chance in the World
- An Orphan Boy, a Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home
- By: Steve Pemberton
- Narrated by: Steve Pemberton
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Chance in the World is the unbelievably true story of a wounded and broken boy destined to become a man of resilience, determination, and vision. Through it all, Steve's story teaches us that no matter how broken our past, no matter how great our misfortunes, we have it in us to create a new beginning and to build a place where love awaits.
-
-
Good Book
- By Amazon Customer on 08-19-20
By: Steve Pemberton
-
Ordinary Light
- A Memoir
- By: Tracy K. Smith
- Narrated by: Tracy K. Smith
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tracy K. Smith has a fairly typical upbringing in suburban California: the youngest in a family of five children raised with limitless affection and a firm belief in God by a stay-at-home mother and an engineer father. But after spending a summer in Alabama at her grandmother's home, she returns to California with a new sense of what it means for her to be Black: from her mother's memories of picking cotton as a girl in her father's field for pennies a bushel to her parents' involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.
-
-
Simply spoken - poetic
- By CarolynneRHarris on 04-27-15
By: Tracy K. Smith
-
Dreams from My Father
- A Story of Race and Inheritance
- By: Barack Obama
- Narrated by: Barack Obama
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a Black African father and a White American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a Black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father - a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man - has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey - first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family.
-
-
Powerful
- By Gene R. on 10-26-21
By: Barack Obama
-
In the Country We Love
- My Family Divided
- By: Diane Guerrero, Michelle Burford
- Narrated by: Diane Guerrero
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Diane Guerrero, the television actress from the megahit Orange Is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, was just 14 years old on the day her parents were detained and deported while she was at school. Born in the US, Guerrero was able to remain in the country and continue her education, depending on the kindness of family friends who took her in and helped her build a life and a successful acting career for herself, without the support system of her family.
-
-
Moves very slowly
- By Laura S. on 07-23-16
By: Diane Guerrero, and others
-
The Song and the Silence
- A Story About Family, Race, and What Was Revealed in a Small Town in the Mississippi Delta While Searching for Booker Wright
- By: Yvette Johnson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Have to keep that smile", said Booker Wright in the 1966 NBC documentary Mississippi: A Self-Portrait. At the time Wright was a waiter in a Whites-only restaurant and a local business owner who would become an unwitting icon of the civil rights movement. For he did the unthinkable: Before a national audience, he described what life was truly like for the Black people of Greenwood, Mississippi.
-
-
Exceeded every expectation
- By ZeeJ84 on 05-23-21
By: Yvette Johnson
-
Redefining Realness
- My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More
- By: Janet Mock
- Narrated by: Janet Mock
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With unflinching honesty and moving prose, Janet Mock relays her experiences of growing up young, multiracial, poor, and trans in America, offering listeners accessible language while imparting vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of a marginalized and misunderstood population.
-
-
A Wonderful Memoir
- By Jo on 01-24-16
By: Janet Mock
-
A Chance in the World
- An Orphan Boy, a Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home
- By: Steve Pemberton
- Narrated by: Steve Pemberton
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Chance in the World is the unbelievably true story of a wounded and broken boy destined to become a man of resilience, determination, and vision. Through it all, Steve's story teaches us that no matter how broken our past, no matter how great our misfortunes, we have it in us to create a new beginning and to build a place where love awaits.
-
-
Good Book
- By Amazon Customer on 08-19-20
By: Steve Pemberton
-
Ordinary Light
- A Memoir
- By: Tracy K. Smith
- Narrated by: Tracy K. Smith
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tracy K. Smith has a fairly typical upbringing in suburban California: the youngest in a family of five children raised with limitless affection and a firm belief in God by a stay-at-home mother and an engineer father. But after spending a summer in Alabama at her grandmother's home, she returns to California with a new sense of what it means for her to be Black: from her mother's memories of picking cotton as a girl in her father's field for pennies a bushel to her parents' involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.
-
-
Simply spoken - poetic
- By CarolynneRHarris on 04-27-15
By: Tracy K. Smith
-
Dreams from My Father
- A Story of Race and Inheritance
- By: Barack Obama
- Narrated by: Barack Obama
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a Black African father and a White American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a Black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father - a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man - has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey - first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family.
-
-
Powerful
- By Gene R. on 10-26-21
By: Barack Obama
-
Accident of Birth
- By: Heather Neff
- Narrated by: Myra Lucretia Taylor
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reba Freeman has loved two men in her life. Her current husband, Carl, has supported her through their 20-year marriage and given her all the material wealth a suburban wife could hope for. Reba is comfortable, if not necessarily content, in her life with Carl and their blossoming teenage daughter, Marisa, until she learns that her first love and first husband, Joseph Thomas, has been detained by the World Court of Human Rights.
-
-
Good Listen
- By Tricia on 02-24-08
By: Heather Neff
-
Born Bright
- A Young Girl's Journey from Nothing to Something in America
- By: C. Nicole Mason
- Narrated by: Robin Eller
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born Bright, C. Nicole Mason's powerful memoir, is a story of reconciliation, constrained choices, and life on the other side of the tracks. Born in the 1970s in Los Angeles, California, Mason was raised by a beautiful but volatile 16-year-old single mother. Early on, she learned to navigate between an unpredictable home life and school, where she excelled. By high school, Mason was seamlessly straddling two worlds.
-
-
Solid Book
- By Daryl on 11-06-16
By: C. Nicole Mason
-
A Mighty Long Way
- My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School
- By: Carlotta Walls LaNier, Lisa Frazier Page, Bill Clinton - foreword
- Narrated by: Carlotta Walls LaNier
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When 14-year-old Carlotta Walls walked up the stairs of Little Rock Central High School on September 25, 1957, she and eight other Black students only wanted to make it to class. But the journey of the “Little Rock Nine”, as they came to be known, would lead the nation on an even longer and much more turbulent path, one that would challenge prevailing attitudes, break down barriers, and forever change the landscape of America.
-
-
Disappointing
- By SWF in Minneapolis on 04-27-24
By: Carlotta Walls LaNier, and others
-
An Uncomplicated Life
- A Father's Memoir of His Exceptional Daughter
- By: Paul Daugherty
- Narrated by: Robert McCollum
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A father’s exhilarating and funny love letter to his daughter with Down syndrome whose vibrant and infectious approach to life has something to teach all of us about how we can better live our own. Jillian Daugherty was born with Down syndrome. On the day Paul and Kerry, her parents, brought her home from the hospital they were flooded with worry and uncertainty, but also overwhelming love, which they channeled to “the job of building the better Jillian”. While their daughter had special needs, they refused to allow her to grow up needy - “expect, don’t accept” became their mantra.
-
-
A Story on the Beauties of DS
- By Matthew on 04-16-23
By: Paul Daugherty
-
The Longest Trip Home
- By: John Grogan
- Narrated by: John Grogan
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the highly anticipated follow-up to Marley & Me, John Grogan again works his magic, bringing us the story of what came first. Before there was Marley, there was a gleefully mischievous boy growing up in a devout Catholic home outside Detroit in the 1960s and '70s. Despite his loving parents' best efforts, John's attempts to meet their expectations failed spectacularly.
-
-
As real as it gets
- By bclmb on 12-06-08
By: John Grogan
-
Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin
- A Memoir
- By: Nicole Hardy
- Narrated by: Nicole Hardy
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Nicole Hardy’s eye-opening "Modern Love" column appeared in the New York Times, the response from readers was overwhelming. Hardy’s essay, which exposed the conflict between being true to herself as a woman and remaining true to her Mormon faith, struck a chord with women coast-to-coast. Now in her funny, intimate, and thoughtful memoir, Nicole Hardy explores how she came, at the age of 35, to a crossroads regarding her faith and her identity.
-
-
This Book Spoke to Me
- By Allison on 04-08-14
By: Nicole Hardy
-
Finding Fish
- A Memoir
- By: Antwone Q. Fisher
- Narrated by: Thomas Penny
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Baby Boy Fisher was raised in institutions from the moment of his birth in prison to a single mother. He ultimately came to live with a foster family, where he endured near-constant verbal and physical abuse. In his midteens he escaped and enlisted in the navy, where he became a man of the world, raised by the family he created for himself. Finding Fish shows how, out of this unlikely mix of deprivation and hope, an artist was born.
-
-
This book will not disappoint you.
- By Joseph on 10-16-16
-
Saving Alex
- When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That's When My Nightmare Began
- By: Alex Cooper
- Narrated by: Luci Christian Bell
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Days after Alex Cooper told her parents she was gay, they drove Alex from their home in Southern California to Utah, where they signed over guardianship to fellow Mormons who promised to save Alex from her homosexuality. For eight harrowing months, Alex was held captive in an unlicensed "residential treatment program" modeled on the many "therapeutic" boot camps scattered across Utah.
-
-
I'm a Christian straight, divorced man, with 2 kids that lives in the heart of the Bible Belt.... Alabama
- By Ronald on 03-30-16
By: Alex Cooper
-
A Hope in The Unseen
- An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League
- By: Ron Suskind
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling investigative journalist Ron Suskind based this book on his Pulitzer Prize winning articles about Cedric Jennings, a Black youth struggling to survive one of D.C.'s toughest school districts. A moving portrait of inner city life, A Hope in the Unseen offers a view of life through the eyes of someone trying desperately to make his way up from the bottom.
-
-
Great Story
- By Adam Evans on 12-25-10
By: Ron Suskind
-
Daring
- My Passages - A Memoir
- By: Gail Sheehy
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Candid, insightful, and powerful, Daring: My Passages is the story of the unconventional life of a writer who dared - to walk New York City streets with hookers and pimps to expose violent prostitution; to march with civil rights protesters in Northern Ireland as British paratroopers opened fire; to seek out Egypt's president Anwar Sadat when he was targeted for death after making peace with Israel.
-
-
Enjoyed unexpectedly
- By Corinne O'Rourke on 09-06-23
By: Gail Sheehy
-
Native Country of the Heart
- A Memoir
- By: Cherríe Moraga
- Narrated by: Cherríe Moraga
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Native Country of the Heart is the writer and activist Cherrie Moraga's love letter to her "unlettered" mother. It begins with her mother, Elvira Isabel Moraga, who as a child, along with her siblings, was hired out by her own father to pick cotton in California's Imperial Valley. The lives of Cherrie and her mother, and of their people, are woven together in a story of critical reflection and deep personal revelation as Moraga charts her own coming to consciousness alongside the heartbreaking story of her mother's decline.
-
-
a must read for all chicanx
- By Rachel Barnett on 04-28-19
By: Cherríe Moraga
-
Life in Motion
- An Unlikely Ballerina
- By: Misty Copeland
- Narrated by: Lisa Reneé Pitts
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the only African-American soloist dancing with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre, Misty Copeland has made history. But when she first placed her hands on the barre at an after-school community center, no one expected the undersized, anxious 13-year-old to become a groundbreaking ballerina. Life in Motion is a story of passion and grace for anyone who has dared to dream of a different life.
-
-
Has Copeland heard this narration? Has Audible?
- By Debbie on 08-02-15
By: Misty Copeland
What listeners say about Real American
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- josh haselkorn
- 05-19-20
Beautiful, vulnerable, real
This is my first time writing a book review for Audible, despite going through dozens of books a year. This is also the first time I have ever read a book that reflected back to me so much of my own experience and inner life as a Black American woman who is also of mixed parentage and who was raised in relative privilege in white spaces in this country, now married to a white Jewish man. This memoir filled a need I didn’t realize I still had to see that I’m not alone in my experiences, or pain, or shame, or hope, or my continued desire and effort to connect more deeply with the broader Black community in America, and to love myself and us in the face of history and so much ongoing hatred. Lythcott-Haims writes beautifully, with courageous vulnerability and honesty, and I was frequently moved to tears by her words and her reading delivery. I am eternally thankful to the author for sharing her life story, and cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jenn
- 06-17-20
first audible
I loved it. The story line is great and the delivery was even better.
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
- K. Tricarico
- 04-28-19
I'm a better American for having listened to this.
It was particularly moving to hear her powerful words spoken by her own captivating voice. So much heart, vulnerability and strength in her story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ronell
- 10-01-18
Insightful
Great memoir that gets at the heart of the challenges we have with inclusion in this country.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Suzanne McFadden
- 12-21-20
Powerful, well told & worth every minute and dollar
I deeply appreciate this exploration of what it means to be a Black woman in America. The author’s own voice telling the story makes it especially intimate - you hear her voice crack at some painful moments and she tries to rush through others. She is doing this for all of us, so we can better understand ourselves and those around us. I’ll be giving this book as a holiday gift.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Pam Wilkinson
- 05-05-23
Defining what it takes to be
Well written expressed thoughts and dreams of an individual at the forefront of historical and antidotal events.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 07-16-18
Must read
Lythcott-Haims really opened my eyes and heart to the essential meaning of “Black Lives Matter,”. This should be required reading for all Americans, especially white - like me. As a hospice volunteer I also thought her writing about end-of -life at the end of the book was among the most beautiful I have read.
Ms Lythcott-Haims Thank you for writing and reading your story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Born2serve
- 01-03-20
Audacious introspective journey that turns a light on for many!
Some may understand and it will click, some may refuse to, but either way Julie Lyncott-Haims tells several truths. Some being her own from the depths of a dark subconsciousness. Others being truths not readily admitted by a US society that has refused to fully acknowledge the deep looming wrongs of the past that have now taunted our present. This book lured me in and took me through a range of emotions. Some forced me to look at concepts or ideals my eyes were unable to perceive. Even about myself. So thank you for being brave, naked and taking the lid off and pouring out your reality so that it saturates deeply into us. Thanks for using your voice. Literally and figuratively.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Stephanie M. Bryan
- 10-13-18
Should be on the reading list for every high school student.
A compelling story about what it means to grow up as a minority in the United States. Any thinking person who does not understand what it means to be a minority in our country would benefit from being educated by this book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ronald A. Lester
- 08-27-18
Bravo!
This was a deep dive into the emotional insecurities of a black woman born out of place. Surrounded by people who didn't look like her or understand her but carrying around her neck the yolk of the inhuman treatment that we people of color have known since slavery. In this, I see her come out the other side finally knowing beyond a shadow of doubt, she is black and proud even with all the baggage and future fights destined to come. She reminds me of my 16 year old daughter, born from a Nigerian mother and me, a black man born in Macon, GA. I too can track my ancestors into the depths of slavery: From a slave plantation in Haddock, Georgia to me, the famly's first Doctor. And now I see my daughter who, unlike me, is raised in a neighborhood filled with nationalities and races different from hers. She is overflowing with talent and with a brilliant mind but not entirely sure where she fits in. Yes, she is in Jack and Jill. But even with the advantage of two black parents, she struggles to relate at times to many of the shades of blackness she is now exposed to. She is finally coming into her own. I see her finally claiming her space in our diaspora and I am both proud and afraid. Man, I feel this book! I brought my daughter a copy. I know she will feel it too. Bravo.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!