If it weren’t for Emma Johnson, Caryn Johnson would have never become Whoopi Goldberg. Emma gave her children the loving care and wisdom they needed to succeed in life, always encouraging them to be true to themselves. When Whoopi lost her mother in 2010—and then her older brother, Clyde, five years later—she felt deeply alone; the only people who truly knew her were gone. Emma raised her children not just to survive, but to thrive. In this intimate and heartfelt memoir, Whoopi shares many of the deeply personal stories of their lives together for the first time.

Separated by 10 years, 3,000 miles, and the unrelenting stresses of adulthood, best friends Janet and Serena plan a 40th birthday girls’ trip to reconnect. But after a massive crash, they’re the only survivors to wash ashore on an uncharted Caribbean Island. Armed with only the clothes on their backs and zero survival skills, they fight to overcome hunger, thirst, deadly wildlife—and most terrifyingly—decades of accrued resentment. Can they find their way home, or will they kill each other first?

Oakland-bred LaVeesha “Vee” Gilliam (Coco Jones) is a determined single mother of an autistic son and a gifted aspiring coder. When Vee loses her job as a food-services worker at the onsite restaurant at Grapengine, a large Silicon Valley tech company, she’s unable to pay for her son’s much-needed specialized education. By a twist of fate, mistaken identity, and her tech skills, Vee meets Troy Wilson (Keith Powers), the company’s wealthy founder and CEO and a wunderkind in the tech industry, who believes that Vee is a college-educated techie who works at his company.

Ne'a comes from a tough childhood and just wants to be loved properly. She's selfless, nurturing, and dealing with codependency at home. The issues she has are like a stain in her life that she wants to wipe away permanently.

Welcome to a comedic trip through the life of one of the country’s most exciting comedians. Meet Dulcé Sloan, whose life has been an incredible journey filled with lessons and laughter. In addition to doing stand-up around the world, Dulcé is a trained actor, singer, and has been a correspondent on The Daily Show. Dulcé's first memoir is organized into essays from her life. From a childhood moving between cities, starting her own business selling toys at a Miami flea market, to being a Black kid in a predominately White school, she’s always used her masterful wit to challenge the status quo.

I don’t believe in objectifying men. I don’t catcall men. I don’t ogle the bodies of men. I don’t view men as objects of my affection rather than complex people with feelings, wants, and needs of their own. I don’t treat men the way society often treats women. I treat men the way I want to be treated as a woman - with respect! So, when Carlos ran into me while I was reviewing my interview questions in the park, it surprised me to see my photography classmate out of class. I was also surprised to see as much of him as I did.

Aaliyah is determined to celebrate her thirtieth birthday with a boyfriend. And after a failed blind date, the local bartender, Ahmad, suggests she joins a dating app. Filled with lies, catfish, and fetishizing, the wild world of online dating makes Aaliyah think she’s in over her head. And she is. But with her two best friends and a protective bartender by her side, what could go wrong?

Publicist. NBA player. Career ending Injury. Family Secrets. Undeniable attraction.

After a hectic school year with her classroom of first graders, Nova Grant is desperate for a break. So when her best friend invites her to spend the summer down in Miami, taking the vacation is a no-brainer. The only thing is, her best friend’s husband had the same idea, inviting his friend Guy Thompson to stay in the condo Nova was already guaranteed.

Justice Beth Garner (Sanaa Lathan) just landed the appointment of a lifetime—a seat on the Supreme Court. Now a mysterious company is blackmailing her for her vote on a landmark case. Caught up in the checkered past of her hero and mentor, Chief Justice Clayton Erlenborn, Beth must cunningly maneuver through a dangerous web of secrets, deception, and cold-blooded murder. Armed with only her moral compass and unflinching nerve, she’s up against a sinister world full of undercover agents, domestic terrorists, and black ops assassins—all of whom want her to comply or die.

I wasn’t looking for a man. I was looking for a mentor. When renowned photographer Luca Romano returned home to teach a photo storytelling workshop, Hamilton University was buzzing. But a campus-wide email warned us not to approach Luca if we weren’t selected to participate—and I wasn’t selected.

Stable, safe, predictable—all words that aptly describe Professor Nadia Day’s life. An existence she’s carefully crafted for herself despite her unconventional upbringing and what, to her, is an unseemly past. The last thing she would ever do is rock the boat when it comes to her life and livelihood. When retired football player and single dad, Nathan Moore, walks into her psychology classroom, all fine and dreadlocked, he does more than rock her boat—he rocks her world and causes her to question her buttoned-up existence.

It’s been a minute since listeners last sat down with Tiffany Haddish. Since The Last Black Unicorn, Haddish has catapulted to A-List fame as the breakout star of Girls Trip. She’s walked the Oscars red carpet, released a hit stand-up special with Netflix, and made history as the first black female comedian to host Saturday Night Live and Shark Week.

A remarkable talent far ahead of her time, Diane Oliver died in 1966 at the age of 22, leaving behind these crisply told and often chilling tales that explore race and racism in 1950s and 60s America. In this first and only collection by a masterful storyteller finally taking her rightful place in the canon, Oliver’s insightful stories reverberate into the present day.

Generations of Montrose women—Augusta, Victoria, Willow—have lived together in their quaint two-story bungalow in California for years. They keep to themselves, never venture far from home, and their collection of tinctures and spells is an unspoken bond between them. But when seventeen-year-old Nickie Montrose brings home a boy for the first time, their quiet lives are thrown into disarray. For the other women have been withholding a secret from Nickie that will end her relationship before it’s even begun: the decades-old family curse that any person they fall in love with dies.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Separated by 10 years, 3,000 miles, and the unrelenting stresses of adulthood, best friends Janet and Serena plan a 40th birthday girls’ trip to reconnect. But after a massive crash, they’re the only survivors to wash ashore on an uncharted Caribbean Island. Armed with only the clothes on their backs and zero survival skills, they fight to overcome hunger, thirst, deadly wildlife—and most terrifyingly—decades of accrued resentment. Can they find their way home, or will they kill each other first?

A bad best man’s speech can ruin a wedding. Why do we plan every detail of a perfect day and then give the groom’s idiot best friend five minutes of total power? Enter Nate (Glen Powell), a speechwriter-for-hire who helps people write incredible best man speeches. To keep the best man from embarrassing himself (and the newlyweds), Nate uses his list of don’ts: Don’t mention the exes, don’t be rated R, and don’t bum everyone out. Nate’s system never fails. That is, until he meets Dan (Nicholas Braun).

In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.

Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).

Award-winning author and human rights activist Ishmael Beah brings us The Door to Tamba, a powerful story centered on a mining village in West Africa where the destruction of earth and pollution of life impacts the mind, body, and soul of communities. Hindolo, a storyteller, returns to his hometown after 30 years and recalls the solitary and formidable old man who opened his home to him and introduced a world of literature and imagination, which for many years, was his only escape. Hindolo begins writing the stories down on paper stolen from a nearby mine to share with his classmates.

It’s the middle of the night in Tehran when Michael arrives at the apartment of his ex-girlfriend, Shima. He finds her anxiously awaiting a mysterious visitor and fears he’s interrupted a tryst, only to gradually learn that the truth is much stranger and more sinister. What follows is a series of cunning detours in this atmospheric and elusive odyssey that challenges expectations and assumptions at every turn.

Òdòdó's hometown of Timbuktu has been conquered by the warrior king of Yorùbáland. Already shunned as social pariahs, living conditions for Òdòdó and the other women in her blacksmith guild grow even worse under Yorùbá rule.Then Òdòdó is abducted. She is whisked across the Sahara to the capital city of Ṣàngótẹ̀, where she is shocked to discover that her kidnapper is none other than the vagrant who had visited her guild just days prior. But now that he is swathed in riches rather than rags, Òdòdó realizes he is not a vagrant at all.

As a precocious kid who took Broadway by storm at the age of 18, Laura Benanti spent her formative years playing grown-ups onstage, but it took her a while to figure out how to be one in real life. With her razor-sharp wit and unapologetic candor, Benanti shares her hard-won insights on topics like marriage, motherhood, perimenopause, female friendship, and making peace with the younger versions of ourselves.

Enjoy the observations of a wise old tree from season to season through generations in this Audible Sleep story narrated by Sterling K. Brown. Let the tree’s tale of travelling with her leaves, spending afternoons with entire families, and sitting through snow and rain lull you into a peaceful slumber.

When a recently widowed woman in rural Wisconsin notices her husband’s toolbox is missing, she calls the authorities—and unwittingly starts a chain of events that will forever change her community. What begins as a disarmingly simple mystery blooms into an exploration of loss, the fragility of the environment, and what it means to connect and heal.

A bad best man’s speech can ruin a wedding. Why do we plan every detail of a perfect day and then give the groom’s idiot best friend five minutes of total power? Enter Nate (Glen Powell), a speechwriter-for-hire who helps people write incredible best man speeches. To keep the best man from embarrassing himself (and the newlyweds), Nate uses his list of don’ts: Don’t mention the exes, don’t be rated R, and don’t bum everyone out. Nate’s system never fails. That is, until he meets Dan (Nicholas Braun).

Oakland-bred LaVeesha “Vee” Gilliam (Coco Jones) is a determined single mother of an autistic son and a gifted aspiring coder. When Vee loses her job as a food-services worker at the onsite restaurant at Grapengine, a large Silicon Valley tech company, she’s unable to pay for her son’s much-needed specialized education. By a twist of fate, mistaken identity, and her tech skills, Vee meets Troy Wilson (Keith Powers), the company’s wealthy founder and CEO and a wunderkind in the tech industry, who believes that Vee is a college-educated techie who works at his company.

The fiercely talented and versatile stage and screen performer Solea Pfeiffer (Hamilton, Almost Famous, The Light in the Piazza, and Evita) brings her powerhouse vocals and gift of storytelling to create a deeply personal musical narrative. Armed with her immense versatility as a vocalist, the Zimbabwe-born performer explores what it means to be a mixed-race person in America today and takes us on her journey toward self-discovery, self-love, and ultimately self-celebration.

Separated by 10 years, 3,000 miles, and the unrelenting stresses of adulthood, best friends Janet and Serena plan a 40th birthday girls’ trip to reconnect. But after a massive crash, they’re the only survivors to wash ashore on an uncharted Caribbean Island. Armed with only the clothes on their backs and zero survival skills, they fight to overcome hunger, thirst, deadly wildlife—and most terrifyingly—decades of accrued resentment. Can they find their way home, or will they kill each other first?

As they recount the events surrounding the disappearance of their toddler—one with a tendency to bite—two parents cope with grief in vastly different ways. While the father wrestles with feelings of guilt, the mother is convinced she’s spotted the boy in frightening TV news reports...though let’s just say he looks nothing like the precocious little boy they remember from a decade ago.

A bonding adventure goes horribly wrong in this gripping story of trust, survival, and motherly instincts. Karla and her stepdaughter Olivia are alone on a remote family camping trip when news of a mysterious outbreak in nearby San Francisco begins to trickle in. With little information to go on, the two women must identify the biggest threat to their safety: the supposedly deadly virus, the stranger who stumbles into their campsite, or each other.

Fresh off the success of her groundbreaking first play, A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window tells the tragicomic story of a young bohemian couple in New York's Greenwich Village, struggling to do what's right in a world that rewards everything that's wrong. Sidney is a dreamer who wants his own Walden Pond; Iris is a budding actress whose own backstory is a performance. They're caught in a moment where, "the world is about to crack right down the middle," as the play tackles racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, liberal complacency, and more.

"If this is one of those robocalls, please delete my number,” orders Reinalda Paraíso, a painter whose work lies at the heart of C. Quintana’s new play, The 126-Year-Old Artist. On the other end of the line is Yésica Ortega, a young, queer, Latine curator who “discovers” Reinalda's work at a flea market and becomes obsessively determined to make a name for them both.

When college friends Bob Schenkkan (Santino Fontana) and Jean McKenzie (Betsy Wolfe) reunited in New York City in 1941, lightning struck. However, with Bob shipping off to the Pacific War as a bomb disposal officer and Jean touring the nation as a USO actor, keeping this new flame alive while thousands of miles apart was a challenge.