The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
An Oprah’s Book Club Novel
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Narrated by:
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Adenrele Ojo
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Karen Chilton
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Prentice Onayemi
About this listen
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB SELECTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION • A FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION • SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE
A New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year • A Time Must-Read Book of the Year • A Washington Post 10 Best Books of the Year • An Oprah Daily Top 20 Books of the Year • A BookPage Best Fiction Book of the Year • A Booklist 10 Best First Novels of the Year • A Kirkus 100 Best Novels of the Year • A Parade Pick • A Chicago Public Library Top 10 Best Books of the Year
An Instant Washington Post, USA Today, and Indie Bestseller
"Epic…. I was just enraptured by the lineage and the story of this modern African-American family…. A combination of historical and modern story—I’ve never read anything quite like it. It just consumed me." —Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Book Club Pick
An Indie Next Pick • A New York Times Book Everyone Will Be Talking About • A People 5 Best Books of the Summer • A Good Morning America 15 Summer Book Club Picks • An Essence Best Book of the Summer • A Washington Post 10 Books of the Month • A CNN Best Book of the Month • A Time 11 Best Books of the Month • A Ms. Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A Goodreads Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A BookPage Writer to Watch • A USA Today Book Not to Miss • A Chicago Tribune Summer Must-Read • An Observer Best Summer Book • A Millions Most Anticipated Book • A Ms. Book of the Month • A Well-Read Black Girl Book Club Pick • A BiblioLifestyle Most Anticipated Literary Book of the Summer • A Deep South Best Book of the Summer • Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
The 2020 NAACP Image Award-winning poet makes her fiction debut with this National Book Award-longlisted, magisterial epic—an intimate yet sweeping novel with all the luminescence and force of Homegoing; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and The Water Dancer—that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era.
The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s problem on her shoulders.
Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother’s family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.
To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African-American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s "lost" Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales.
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Great Writer - Great Reader
- By Avid Listener on 09-09-20
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The Furrows
- A Novel
- By: Namwali Serpell
- Narrated by: Kristen Ariza, Ryan Vincent Anderson, Dion Graham
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Cassandra Williams is twelve; her little brother, Wayne, is seven. One day, when they’re alone together, there is an accident and Wayne is lost forever. His body is never recovered. The missing boy cleaves the family with doubt. Their father leaves, starts another family elsewhere. But their mother can’t give up hope and launches an organization dedicated to missing children. As C grows older, she sees her brother everywhere: in bistros, airplane aisles, subway cars.
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Appreciate the effort, but not a fan
- By N.Williams on 02-26-23
By: Namwali Serpell
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That Bird Has My Wings
- The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row
- By: Jarvis Jay Masters
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1990, while serving a sentence in San Quentin for armed robbery, Jarvis Jay Masters was implicated as an accessory in the murder of a prison guard. A 23-year-old Black man, Jarvis was sentenced to death in the gas chamber. While in the maximum security section of Death Row, using the only instrument available to him—a ball-point pen filler—Masters's astounding memoir is a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit and the talent of a fine writer.
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Amazing books !
- By HD on 12-12-22
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River Sing Me Home
- By: Eleanor Shearer
- Narrated by: Debra Michaels, Eleonor Shearer
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. As of the following day, the Emancipation Act of 1834 will come into effect. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs.
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Good debut.. with a few quarrels in my opinion
- By Alize on 07-24-23
By: Eleanor Shearer
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The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
- By: Ernest J. Gaines
- Narrated by: Tonya Jordan
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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This is a novel in the guise of the tape-recorded recollections of a black woman who has lived 110 years, who has been both a slave and a witness to the black militancy of the 1960s. Miss Jane Pittman has "endured," has seen almost everything and foretold the rest.
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At great listen
- By Susan on 11-11-08
By: Ernest J. Gaines
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Nightcrawling
- A Novel
- By: Leila Mottley
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are barely scraping by in a squalid East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has more than doubled—and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed.
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Metaphors - getcher Metaphors
- By Nicole Del Sesto on 08-09-22
By: Leila Mottley
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Crusade for Justice
- The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells
- By: Ida B. Wells, Alfreda M. Duster - editor
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Ida B. Wells is an American icon of truth telling. Born to slaves, she was a pioneer of investigative journalism, a crusader against lynching, and a tireless advocate for suffrage, both for women and for African Americans. She cofounded the NAACP, started the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, and was a leader in the early civil rights movement. This engaging memoir relates Wells’ private life as a mother as well as her public activities as a teacher, lecturer, and journalist in her fight for equality and justice.
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Important person, sing-song narration
- By Judith Evans on 03-05-22
By: Ida B. Wells, and others
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Joe Jones
- By: Anne Lamott
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Jessie's Cafe is a staging place for a group of amusing, entertaining, sometimes raucous but always very real people. Each character is wildly unique yet their human yearnings and shortcomings unite them in a common, and uncommonly strong, bond. This unlikely family includes Jessie, the gorgeous, 79 year-old who owns the waterfront dive. Louise is the cook. Willie is Jessie's gay grandson. And Joe Jones is the deeply devoted and continually unfaithful lover whom Louise tries hard to live without.
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Rich, Funny and Worth the Listen
- By Gayle on 01-15-04
By: Anne Lamott
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Abolition
- Politics, Practices, Promises, Vol. 1
- By: Angela Y. Davis
- Narrated by: Angela Y. Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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For over fifty years, Angela Y. Davis has been at the forefront of collective movements for abolition and feminism and the fight against state violence and oppression. Abolition: Politics, Practices, Promises, the first of two important new volumes, brings together an essential collection of Davis’s essays, and speeches over the years, showing how her thinking has sharpened and evolved even as she has remained uncompromising in her commitment to collective liberation.
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Required reading
- By lotte torgersen on 04-16-24
By: Angela Y. Davis
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Black Liturgies
- Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human
- By: Cole Arthur Riley
- Narrated by: Cole Arthur Riley
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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For years, Cole Arthur Riley was desperate for a spirituality she could trust. Amid ongoing national racial violence, the isolation of the pandemic, and a surge of anti-Black rhetoric in many Christian spaces, she began dreaming of a more human, more liberating expression of faith. She went on to create Black Liturgies, a digital project that connects spiritual practice with Black emotion, Black memory, and the Black body.
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Format
- By Joyce on 03-12-24
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Say You're One of Them
- By: Uwem Akpan
- Narrated by: Robin Miles, Dion Graham, Kevin R. Free
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few listeners will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.
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Save your Money!
- By Michal A. Joyner on 11-20-09
By: Uwem Akpan
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The Water Dancer (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Joe Morton
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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We Must Always Remember
- By Cammie on 09-28-19
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
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Island Queen
- A Novel
- By: Vanessa Riley
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 21 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Born into slavery on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, Doll bought her freedom from her Irish planter father and built a legacy of wealth and power as an entrepreneur, merchant, hotelier, and planter that extended from the marketplaces and sugar plantations of Dominica and Barbados to a glittering luxury hotel in Demerara on the South American continent. Vanessa Riley’s novel brings Doll to vivid life as she rises above the harsh realities of slavery and colonialism by working the system and leveraging the competing attentions of the men in her life
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BRILLIANT
- By PJMcGhee on 07-11-21
By: Vanessa Riley
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The Sweetness of Water (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Nathan Harris
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Equal parts beauty and terror, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.
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Masterful storytelling and an exceptional audio performance
- By Pamela on 06-18-21
By: Nathan Harris
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All Her Little Secrets
- A Novel
- By: Wanda M. Morris
- Narrated by: Susan Dalian
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Ellice Littlejohn seemingly has it all: an Ivy League law degree, a well-paying job as a corporate attorney in midtown Atlanta, great friends, and a “for fun” relationship with a rich, charming executive, who just happens to be her White boss. But everything changes one cold January morning when Ellice arrives in the executive suite and finds him dead with a gunshot to his head.
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Could barely finish this book
- By Boston Book Obsessed on 11-08-21
By: Wanda M. Morris
What listeners say about The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kindle Customer
- 03-19-22
A engrossing multilayered tale
If you are looking for a straightforward story of a family, this is not the book for you. This story weaves across generations, intertwining families, relationships, conflicts, secrets and sorrows along the way. Additionally, if you generally like your books under 300 pages, this is not a book for you. But, if you want depth of character and great storytelling, you will be rewarded for your perseverance by selecting this book. I completed the Audible version and loved every minute of it. I found myself at points laughing out loud, crying, and actually talking to the narrator. As the story progresses, you are moved by the characters plight or angered by their behavior. The story evokes an emotional reaction with its telling, but good storytelling should.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-15-21
Excellent, Exceptional, Extraordinary MUST READ
I am absolutely blown away and speechless by this talented author. Honoree Fanonne Jeffers takes writing and storytelling to the highest levels. The characters are deeply developed, the story is expertly told from multiple viewpoints while keeping a cohesive plot that transports you to so many times and places in American history. The passion is so palatable you can't help but be swept up into the intimate lives of these complex men and women who are struggling with their own demons and conflicts. Don't even hesitate because of the length of the book, I promise you won't want it to end.
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- Valerie Da Silva
- 10-05-21
American History at its Best!
This book brings together a n example of a nation 's history that has been kept quiet and ignored by the United States of America: African American/ Native American/ American history. It brings to us a saga about a family that has many secrets that has plagues generations from the Native Americans of the land, the African slaves who toiled the land, and the Caucasian Americans that took the land and its peoples to make them their possession. It shows all their histories, and how it belongs to the present new generation; she contacts all sides of her family. The beauty of their history; the voices that were ignored are finally able to speak to the present generation; she visits all the family, African American, Native American and Caucasian American. This book should be in every household, and taught in the classroom. It gives hope for people to find themselves, and where they are needed in society. Excellent!
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- Barbara M.
- 10-23-21
Excellent novel!
I loved this novel even if was 800 pages long. It is a must read.
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- Anonymous User
- 01-07-22
What a wonderful work of fiction!
I truly enjoyed this book. The author did a beautiful job of storytelling with its the different characters and historical reflections. I would recommend this book for freshman course reading.
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- TKA
- 01-05-22
I feel honored
Wow, my heart feels full in appreciation for the imagination, creativity, research, artistry, and skill that went into this book. A glorious, sweeping, magnificent opus.
Terrific narration; I imagine at some point audio books will have several narrators to cover various characters, which will add to the richness.
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- Anne Hohnstein
- 01-23-22
Must listen
Fabulous audiobook. Incredibly informative while also beautiful written. Narrator did a wonderful job. Character development was on point. Highly recommend.
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- karolyn liljeberg
- 05-16-22
Total Experience
Reading the The Songs of W. E. B. DuBois was an amazing experience. Breaking down any particular part would take away from the entire journey. I appreciate the time, love and energy it took to create it.
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- DEE
- 06-21-22
Narration is annoying
Not sure how great or not this book is because I couldn’t stand the reader. The voices in the sample are beautiful but the narration of the kids voice is grating. I was hoping for more of Prentice but it never happened.
Hoping to read the print copy.
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- amazonluver
- 05-22-22
Excellent in every way!
Couldn't stop thinking about this story, if I can call it that. This literary experience feels like so much more than that small five-letter word.
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