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How to Live Free in a Dangerous World
- A Decolonial Memoir
- Narrated by: Shayla Lawson
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
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Publisher's summary
“Phenomenal.... A memoir that opens into the world, with brilliance, courage, and elegant prose.... This is a book to read, read again, and remember.”—Imani Perry, New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award winner South to America
Poet and journalist Shayla Lawson follows their National Book Critics Circle finalist This Is Major with these daring and exquisitely crafted essays, where Lawson journeys across the globe, finds beauty in tumultuous times, and powerfully disrupts the constraints of race, gender, and disability.
One of Esquire's Best Memoirs of 2024
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Elle, Them, Book Riot, LitHub, Stylecaster, and Chicago Review of Books
In their new book, Shayla Lawson reveals how traveling can itself be a political act, when it can be a dangerous world to be Black, femme, nonbinary, and disabled. With their signature prose, at turns bold, muscular, and luminous, Shayla Lawson travels the world to explore deeper meanings held within love, time, and the self.
Through encounters with a gorgeous gondolier in Venice, an ex-husband in the Netherlands, and a lost love on New Year’s Eve in Mexico City, Lawson’s travels bring unexpected wisdom about life in and out of love. They learn the strength of friendships and the dangers of beauty during a narrow escape in Egypt. They examine Blackness in post-dictatorship Zimbabwe, then take us on a secretive tour of Black freedom movements in Portugal.
Through a deeply insightful journey, Lawson leads listeners from a castle in France to a hula hoop competition in Jamaica to a traditional theater in Tokyo to a Prince concert in Minnesota and, finally, to finding liberation on a beach in Bermuda, exploring each location—and their deepest emotions—to the fullest. In the end, they discover how the trials of marriage, grief, and missed connections can lead to self-transformation and unimagined new freedoms.
Critic reviews
“Lawson is an insightful and unfailingly open-handed writer: eager to share what they’ve learned, sharp but never jaded, honest about their trials, unafraid to be vulnerable. Though their book is structured like a travel memoir, it defies easy categorization. Bursting with humor and life, it will do more than transport readers; for many, it will be transformative.”—Esquire, Best Memoirs of 2024 (So Far)
“Phenomenal. Shayla Lawson’s How to Live Free in a Dangerous World is luminously intimate. It is a memoir that opens into the world, with brilliance, courage, and elegant prose. Lawson is at once marvelously and unapologetically Black, incisive, and vulnerable. They are an unflinching observer of the world who takes us on a journey that is both wide and deep. This is a book to read, read again, and remember.”—Imani Perry, New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award winner South to America
“Some writers have the gift of talent. Some writers’ talent is a gift to others, namely the reader. Then there are those writers who fall into both categories. Shayla Lawson is one such author. Thought provoking, raw, honest, funny, moving. This book is a treasure. Shayla is a marvel. I’m so grateful for what they and the book have given us.”—Phoebe Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of You Can’t Touch My Hair
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Absolutely Incredible & Worth Every Page!!
- By Ely B on 04-25-24
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Dinner on Monster Island
- Essays
- By: Tania De Rozario
- Narrated by: Tania De Rozario
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Tania De Rozario was just twelve years old when she was gay-exorcised. Convinced that her boyish style and demeanor were a sign of something wicked, her mother and a pair of her church friends tried to “banish the evil” from Tania. That day, the young girl realized that monsters weren’t just found in horror tales. They could lurk anywhere—including your own family and community—and look just like you. Dinner on Monster Island is Tania’s memoir of her life and childhood in Singapore—where she discovered how difference is often perceived as deviant, damaged, disobedient, and sometimes, demonic.
By: Tania De Rozario
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Landlines
- The Remarkable Story of a Thousand-Mile Journey Across Britain
- By: Raynor Winn
- Narrated by: Raynor Winn
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The Cape Wrath Trail is hundreds of miles of grueling terrain through Scotland's remotest mountains and lochs. But the lure of the wilderness and the beguiling beauty of the awaiting glens draw them northwards. Being one with nature saved them in their darkest hour years earlier—and their hope is that this experience can work its magic again.
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Inspirational and Thought Provoking
- By A. Burks on 05-11-24
By: Raynor Winn
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The Other Significant Others
- Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center
- By: Rhaina Cohen
- Narrated by: Rhaina Cohen
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Why do we assume romantic relationships are more important than friendships? What do we lose when we expect a spouse to meet all our needs? And what can we learn about commitment, love, and family from people who put deep friendship at the center of their lives? In The Other Significant Others, NPR's Rhaina Cohen invites us into the lives of people who have defied convention by choosing a friend as a life partner—these are friends who are home co-owners, co-parents or each other’s caregivers.
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Best book I’ve read in a while, and I will definitely recommend it!
- By Destiny DiMattei on 02-24-24
By: Rhaina Cohen
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A Love Song for Ricki Wilde
- By: Tia Williams
- Narrated by: Mela Lee, Preston Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn’t one of them. As the impulsive artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she’s the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they’re long-stemmed roses, she’s a dandelion: an adorable bloom that’s actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her. When regal nonagenarian Ms. Della invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning.
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New age fairytale
- By Shoshana Y on 02-14-24
By: Tia Williams
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Splinters
- Another Kind of Love Story
- By: Leslie Jamison
- Narrated by: Leslie Jamison
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Leslie Jamison has become one of our most beloved contemporary voices, a scribe of the real, the true, the complex. But while Jamison has never shied away from challenging material—scouring her own psyche and digging into our most unanswerable questions across four books—Splinters enters a new realm. In her first memoir, Jamison turns her unrivaled powers of perception on some of the most intimate relationships of her life: her consuming love for her young daughter, a ruptured marriage once swollen with hope, and the shaping legacy of her own parents’ complicated bond.
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Remarkable, powerful narrative
- By Melster on 05-20-24
By: Leslie Jamison
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Be a Revolution
- How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World—and How You Can, Too
- By: Ijeoma Oluo
- Narrated by: Ijeoma Oluo
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In the #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want To Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo offered a vital guide for how to talk about important issues of race and racism in society. In Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, she discussed the ways in which white male supremacy has had an impact on our systems, our culture, and our lives throughout American history. But now that we better understand these systems of oppression, the question is this: What can we do about them?
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Easy, attainable ways to make change!
- By Homeostasis on 02-04-24
By: Ijeoma Oluo
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Acts of Forgiveness
- A Novel
- By: Maura Cheeks
- Narrated by: Jade Wheeler
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Almost a decade ago, Willie Revel gave up her burgeoning journalism career in New York to help run her father’s struggling construction company in Philadelphia. An ambitious single mother, Willie has reluctantly put family first without being able to forget who she might have become. Now, as the president of the United States prepares to pass the Forgiveness Act, a bill that would allow Black families to claim reparations if they can prove they are the descendants of slaves, Willie delves deeper into her family’s history, while also trying to keep the family from going into bankruptcy.
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Thought Provoking, Well-Written story
- By L. Pickford on 03-08-24
By: Maura Cheeks
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Smoke and Ashes
- Opium's Hidden Histories
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Ranjit Madgavkar
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis trilogy ten years ago, he was startled to learn how the lives of the nineteenth-century sailors and soldiers he wrote about were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising of all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history were swept up in the story. Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir, and an essay in history, drawing on decades of archival research.
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Interesting Research, Terrible Reading
- By Paula de la Cruz on 03-09-24
By: Amitav Ghosh
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The Kamogawa Food Detectives
- A Kamogawa Food Detectives Novel, Book 1
- By: Hisashi Kashiwai, Jesse Kirkwood - translator
- Narrated by: Hanako Footman
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that's not the main reason customers stop by. The father-daughter duo are 'food detectives'. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories—dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility.
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Combines two of my favorite things
- By Anonymous on 03-25-24
By: Hisashi Kashiwai, and others
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Greta & Valdin
- A Novel
- By: Rebecca K Reilly
- Narrated by: Natalie Beran, Jackson Bliss, Eilidh Beaton, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s been a year since his ex-boyfriend dumped him and moved from Auckland to Buenos Aires, and Valdin is doing fine. He has a good flat with his sister Greta, a good career where his colleagues only occasionally remind him that he is the sole Maaori person in the office, and a good friend who he only sleeps with when he’s sad. But when work sends him to Argentina and he’s thrown back in his former lover’s orbit, Valdin is forced to confront the feelings he’s been trying to ignore—and the future he wants.
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strange narrating choices
- By Barbara S on 02-21-24
By: Rebecca K Reilly
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Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
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Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
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This Is the Honey
- An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets
- By: Kwame Alexander
- Narrated by: Mahogany L. Brown, Joel Damany Steingold
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In this comprehensive and vibrant poetry anthology, bestselling author and poet Kwame Alexander curates a collection of contemporary anthems at turns tender and piercing and deeply inspiring throughout.
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A thoughtful collection 
- By Amazon Customer on 03-12-24
By: Kwame Alexander
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What listeners say about How to Live Free in a Dangerous World
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Matthew Bowles
- 03-11-24
An Extraordinary Travel Memoir
This is a truly extraordinary travel memoir that I've been recommending all my friends read immediately. Written with exquisite prose, it will grab you on page 1, draw you into its world, and take you on a incredible journey that will leave you thinking about the book for quite a while afterwards. Having traveled to 50+ countries, Shayla's vivid travel stories of experiencing the world through the lens of being Black, Femme, Nonbinary, and Disabled leads to uniquely profound insights on race, femininity, pronoun usage, privilege, solidarity, decolonizing ourselves, seeking liberation in the world, and the emotional inner journey towards self love. Highly recommended!
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