
Toni at Random
The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship
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Narrated by:
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Deanna Anthony
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By:
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Dana A. Williams
About this listen
NPR SPRING PICK
An insightful exploration that unveils the lesser-known dimensions of this legendary writer and her legacy, revealing the cultural icon’s profound impact as a visionary editor who helped define an important period in American publishing and literature.
A multifaceted genius, Toni Morrison transcended her role as an author, helping to shape an important period in American publishing and literature as an editor at one of the nation’s most prestigious publishing houses. While Toni Morrison's literary achievements are widely celebrated, her editorial work is little known. Drawing on extensive research and firsthand accounts, this comprehensive study discusses Morrison's remarkable journey from her early days at Random House to her emergence as one of its most important editors. During her tenure in editorial, Morrison refashioned the literary landscape, working with important authors, including Toni Cade Bambara, Leon Forrest, and Lucille Clifton, and empowering cultural icons such as Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali to tell their stories on their own terms.
Toni Morrison herself had great enthusiasm about Dana Williams's work on this story, generously sharing memories and thoughts with the author over the years, even giving her the book's title. From the manuscripts she molded, the authors she nurtured, and the readers she inspired, Toni at Random demonstrates how Toni Morrison has influenced American culture beyond the individual titles or authors she published. Morrison’s contribution as an editor transformed the broader literary landscape and deepened the cultural conversation. With unparalleled insight and sensitivity, Toni at Random charts this editorial odyssey.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2025 Dana Williams (P)2025 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
On an ordinary summer morning, the world is changed by the appearance of seven mysterious doors that seemingly lead to another world. People are, of course, mesmerized and intrigued: A new dimension filled with beauty and resources beckons them to step into an adventure. But, perhaps inevitably, people soon learn that what looks like paradise may very well be filled with danger.
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I really wanted to like this book but its just not as deep as it thinks it is
- By chris allmon on 06-09-25
By: Megan Giddings
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These Heathens
- A Novel
- By: Mia McKenzie
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Where do you get an abortion in 1960 Georgia, especially if your small town’s midwife goes to the same church as your parents? For seventeen-year-old Doris Steele, the answer is Atlanta, where her favorite teacher, Mrs. Lucas, calls upon her brash, wealthy childhood best friend, Sylvia, for help. While waiting to hear from the doctor who has agreed to do the procedure, Doris spends the weekend scandalized by, but drawn to, the people who move in and out of Sylvia’s orbit.
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love this author!
- By Shenelle Williams on 06-26-25
By: Mia McKenzie
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How to Dodge a Cannonball
- A Novel
- By: Dennard Dayle
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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How to Dodge a Cannonball is funnier than the Civil War should ever be. It follows Anders, a teenage idealist who enlists and reenlists to shape the American Future—as soon as he figures out what that is, who it includes, and why everyone wants him to die for it. Escaping his violently insane mother is a bonus. Anders finds honor as a proud Union flag twirler—until he’s captured. Then he tries life as a diehard Confederate—until fate asks him to die hard for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. Barely alive, Anders limps into a Black Union regiment in a stolen uniform.
By: Dennard Dayle
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The Genius Myth
- A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea
- By: Helen Lewis
- Narrated by: Helen Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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You can tell what a society values by who it labels as a genius. You can also tell who it excludes, who it enables, and what it is prepared to tolerate. In The Genius Myth, Helen Lewis unearths how this one word has shaped (and distorted) our ideas of success and achievement. Ultimately, argues Lewis, the modern idea of genius—a single preternaturally gifted individual, usually white and male, exempt from social niceties and sometimes even the law—has run its course.
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Author has many opinions, not hesitant to share them
- By Hawaiian 54 on 06-28-25
By: Helen Lewis
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So Far Gone
- A Novel
- By: Jess Walter
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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A few weeks after the 2016 election, at Thanksgiving with his daughter’s family, Rhys Kinnick snapped. After an escalating fight about politics, he hauled off and punched his conspiracy theorist son-in-law. Horrified by what he'd done, by the state of the country and by his own spiraling mental health, Rhys chucked his smartphone out a car window and fled for a cabin in the woods, off the grid and with no one around—except a pack of hungry raccoons. Now, seven years later, Kinnick’s old life is about to land right back on his crumbling doorstep.
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Masterful characters; gripping story.
- By LFR on 06-24-25
By: Jess Walter
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Murder Takes a Vacation
- A Novel
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When Mrs. Blossom finds a winning ticket in a parking lot, everything changes...including Mrs. Blossom. She is determined to see the world that sometimes feels as if it’s passing her by. But when Mrs. Blossom booked her cruise through France on the MS Solitaire, she did not expect to meet Allan on her transatlantic flight. He is the first man who’s sparked something inside her since her beloved husband passed. She also didn’t expect Allan to be found, dead, twenty-four hours later in Paris, a city he wasn’t supposed to be in.
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I love Laura Lipman books
- By JAK on 06-25-25
By: Laura Lippman
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We Might Just Make It After All
- By: Elyce Arons
- Narrated by: Elyce Arons
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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We Might Just Make It After All brings us on the rollercoaster of adventures (and misadventures) that the best friends embarked on, from transferring colleges on a whim, to falling in and out of love with suitors, cramming into roach-infested Hell’s Kitchen apartments, and eventually designing the chic, simple bag that would launch the pair to global fame. Through it all, Katy and Elyce’s friendship remained unshakeable.
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So distracted that I couldn't finish
- By Jenni Gile on 06-30-25
By: Elyce Arons
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How to Lose Your Mother
- A Daughter's Memoir
- By: Molly Jong-Fast
- Narrated by: Molly Jong-Fast
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Molly Jong-Fast is the only child of a famous woman, writer Erica Jong, whose sensational book Fear of Flying launched her into second-wave feminist stardom. She grew up yearning for a connection with her dreamy, glamorous, just out of reach mother, who always seemed to be heading somewhere that wasn’t with Molly. When, in 2023, Erica was diagnosed with dementia just as Molly’s husband discovered he had a rare cancer, Jong-Fast was catapulted into a transformative year.
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Pause and rewind
- By Harkins5 on 06-09-25
By: Molly Jong-Fast
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King of Ashes
- A Novel
- By: S. A. Cosby
- Narrated by: Adam Lazarre-White
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.
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True Noir
- By Steven Lifland on 06-22-25
By: S. A. Cosby
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The Poppy Fields
- A Novel
- By: Nikki Erlick
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland, Dan Bittner, Stacey Glemboski, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to the Poppy Fields, where there’s hope for even the most battered hearts to heal. Here, in a remote stretch of the California desert, lies an experimental and controversial treatment center that allows those suffering from the heartache of loss to sleep through their pain...and keep on sleeping. After patients awaken from this prolonged state of slumber, they will finally be healed. But only if they’re willing to accept the potential shadowy side effects. On a journey to this mystical destination are four very different strangers and one little dog.
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Thought provoking
- By Jerry Proctor on 07-04-25
By: Nikki Erlick
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Death of the Author
- A Novel
- By: Nnedi Okorafor
- Narrated by: Liz Femi, Anthony Oseyemi, Jason Culp, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In this exhilarating tale by New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor, a disabled Nigerian American woman pens a wildly successful Sci-Fi novel, but as her fame rises, she loses control of the narrative—a surprisingly cutting, yet heartfelt drama about art and love, identity and connection, and, ultimately, what makes us human. This is a story unlike anything you’ve seen before.
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Her best yet?
- By Emily on 01-22-25
By: Nnedi Okorafor
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The Phoenix Pencil Company
- A Novel
- By: Allison King
- Narrated by: Carolyn Kang, Jodi Long, Sura Siu, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Monica Tsai spends most days on her computer, journaling the details of her ordinary life and coding for a program that seeks to connect strangers online. A self-proclaimed recluse, she's always struggled to make friends and, as a college freshman, finds herself escaping into a digital world, counting the days until she can return home to her beloved grandparents. They are now in their nineties, and Monica worries about them constantly—especially her grandmother, Yun, who survived two wars in China before coming to the States, and whose memory has begun to fade.
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The One Who and the One Who Stayed
- By QueeneB21 on 07-01-25
By: Allison King