Try free for 30 days
-
A Sitting in St. James
- Narrated by: Machelle Williams
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $26.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
Caul Baby
- By: Morgan Jerkins
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Laila desperately wants to become a mother, but each of her previous pregnancies has ended in heartbreak. This time has to be different, so she turns to the Melancons, an old and powerful Harlem family known for their caul, a precious layer of skin that is the secret source of their healing power. When a deal for Laila to acquire a piece of caul falls through, she is heartbroken, but when the child is stillborn, she is overcome with grief and rage. What she doesn't know is that a baby will soon be delivered—by her niece, Amara—and delivered to the Melancons to raise as their own.
-
P.S. Be Eleven
- By: Rita Williams-Garcia
- Narrated by: Sisi Aisha Johnson
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Things are changing in the Gaither household. After soaking up a "power to the people" mind-set over the summer, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern return to Brooklyn with a newfound streak of independence. Pa has a girlfriend. Uncle Darnell is home from Vietnam, but he's not the same. And a new singing group called the Jackson Five has the girls seeing stars. But the one thing that doesn't change? Big Ma still expects Delphine to keep everything together.
-
Fallen Grace
- Blaze Collection
- By: Sadeqa Johnson
- Narrated by: Channie Waites
- Length: 1 hr and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With a newborn in tow, Bubbles Jones escapes a brutal sanctuary for “wayward girls” to confront the hypocritical shame of her pastor father and the betrayal of a lover. But Bubbles is accompanied by a woman who offers her shelter and a dream. Forging an unpredictable path ahead, Bubbles will not yield and will not hide in her unwavering commitment to make a big life real in a world determined to keep her small.
-
Stony the Road
- Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow
- By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A profound new rendering of the struggle by African Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counterrevolution that resubjugated them, as seen through the prism of the war of images and ideas that have left an enduring racist stain on the American mind.
-
Fire Shut Up in My Bones
- A Memoir
- By: Charles M. Blow
- Narrated by: Charles M. Blow
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A gorgeous, moving memoir of how one of America's most innovative and respected journalists found his voice by coming to terms with a painful past. New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow mines the compelling poetry of the out-of-time African-American Louisiana town where he grew up - a place where slavery's legacy was felt astonishingly close, reverberating in the elders' stories and in the near-constant wash of violence.
-
Mother Swamp
- A Point in Time collection
- By: Jesmyn Ward
- Narrated by: Kimberly Woods
- Length: 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Afice is the last of nine generations of women who have survived enslavement, sickness, and hunger. Alone at age seventeen, she sets out through the Louisiana swamps to follow the trail of her ancestors and hear their songs anew. On this journey, Afice must decide how to honor her ancestors while embracing her own future.
-
Caul Baby
- By: Morgan Jerkins
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Laila desperately wants to become a mother, but each of her previous pregnancies has ended in heartbreak. This time has to be different, so she turns to the Melancons, an old and powerful Harlem family known for their caul, a precious layer of skin that is the secret source of their healing power. When a deal for Laila to acquire a piece of caul falls through, she is heartbroken, but when the child is stillborn, she is overcome with grief and rage. What she doesn't know is that a baby will soon be delivered—by her niece, Amara—and delivered to the Melancons to raise as their own.
-
P.S. Be Eleven
- By: Rita Williams-Garcia
- Narrated by: Sisi Aisha Johnson
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Things are changing in the Gaither household. After soaking up a "power to the people" mind-set over the summer, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern return to Brooklyn with a newfound streak of independence. Pa has a girlfriend. Uncle Darnell is home from Vietnam, but he's not the same. And a new singing group called the Jackson Five has the girls seeing stars. But the one thing that doesn't change? Big Ma still expects Delphine to keep everything together.
-
Fallen Grace
- Blaze Collection
- By: Sadeqa Johnson
- Narrated by: Channie Waites
- Length: 1 hr and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With a newborn in tow, Bubbles Jones escapes a brutal sanctuary for “wayward girls” to confront the hypocritical shame of her pastor father and the betrayal of a lover. But Bubbles is accompanied by a woman who offers her shelter and a dream. Forging an unpredictable path ahead, Bubbles will not yield and will not hide in her unwavering commitment to make a big life real in a world determined to keep her small.
-
Stony the Road
- Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow
- By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A profound new rendering of the struggle by African Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counterrevolution that resubjugated them, as seen through the prism of the war of images and ideas that have left an enduring racist stain on the American mind.
-
Fire Shut Up in My Bones
- A Memoir
- By: Charles M. Blow
- Narrated by: Charles M. Blow
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A gorgeous, moving memoir of how one of America's most innovative and respected journalists found his voice by coming to terms with a painful past. New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow mines the compelling poetry of the out-of-time African-American Louisiana town where he grew up - a place where slavery's legacy was felt astonishingly close, reverberating in the elders' stories and in the near-constant wash of violence.
-
Mother Swamp
- A Point in Time collection
- By: Jesmyn Ward
- Narrated by: Kimberly Woods
- Length: 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Afice is the last of nine generations of women who have survived enslavement, sickness, and hunger. Alone at age seventeen, she sets out through the Louisiana swamps to follow the trail of her ancestors and hear their songs anew. On this journey, Afice must decide how to honor her ancestors while embracing her own future.
-
Where You See Yourself
- By: Claire Forrest
- Narrated by: Ali Stroker
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time Effie Galanos starts her senior year, it feels like she’s already been thinking about college applications for an eternity—after all, finding a college that will be the perfect fit and be accessible enough for Effie to navigate in her wheelchair presents a ton of considerations that her friends don’t have to worry about. What Effie hasn’t told anyone is that she already knows exactly what school she has her heart set on: a college in NYC with a major in Mass Media & Society that will set her up perfectly for her dream job in digital media.
-
Not So Pure and Simple
- By: Lamar Giles
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Del has had a crush on Kiera Westing since kindergarten. And now, during their junior year, she’s finally available. So when Kiera volunteers for an opportunity at their church, Del’s right behind her. Though he quickly realizes he’s inadvertently signed up for a Purity Pledge. His dad thinks his wires are crossed, and his best friend, Qwan, doesn’t believe any girl is worth the long game. But Del’s not about to lose his dream girl, and that’s where fellow pledger Jameer comes in.
-
The Sweetest Remedy
- By: Jane Igharo
- Narrated by: Sandra Okuboyejo
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a woman travels to Nigeria to attend the funeral of the father she never knew, she meets her extravagant family for the first time, a new and inspiring love interest, and discovers parts of herself she didn't know were missing, from Jane Igharo, the acclaimed author of Ties That Tether.
-
Things Past Telling
- A Novel
- By: Sheila Williams
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in West Africa in the mid-eighteenth century, Maryam Prescilla Grace—a.k.a “Momma Grace” will live a long, wondrous life marked by hardship, oppression, opportunity, and love. Though she will be “gifted” various names, her birth name is known to her alone. Over the course of 100-plus years, she survives capture, enslavement by several property owners, the Atlantic crossing when she is only eleven years of age, and a brief stint as a pirate’s ward, acting as both a spy and a translator.
-
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey
- By: Walter Mosley
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A masterful, moving novel about age, memory, and family from one of the literary icons of our time. Ptolemy Grey is 91 years old and has been all but forgotten - by his family, his friends, even himself - as he sinks into a lonely dementia. His grand-nephew, Ptolemy's only connection to the outside world, was recently killed in a drive-by shooting, and Ptolemy is too suspicious of anyone else to allow them into his life. Until he meets Robyn, his niece's 17-year-old lodger and the only one willing to take care of an old man at his grandnephew's funeral.
-
Saints of the Household
- By: Ari Tison
- Narrated by: Timothy Pabon, Alejandro Ruiz
- Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Max and Jay have always depended on one another for their survival. Growing up with a physically abusive father, the two Bribri American brothers have learned that the only way to protect themselves and their mother is to stick to a schedule and keep their heads down. But when they hear a classmate in trouble in the woods, instinct takes over and they intervene, breaking up a fight and beating their high school's star soccer player to a pulp. This act of violence threatens the brothers' dreams for the future and their beliefs about who they are.
-
Pumpkin
- By: Julie Murphy
- Narrated by: Chad Burris
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Waylon Russell Brewer is a fat, openly gay boy stuck in the small West Texas town of Clover City. His plan is to bide his time until he can graduate, move to Austin with his twin sister, Clementine, and finally go Full Waylon so that he can live his Julie-the-hills-are-alive-with-the-sound-of-music-Andrews truth.
-
The Land
- By: Mildred D. Taylor
- Narrated by: Ruben Santiago-Hudson
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ever since running away at the age of fourteen, Paul-Edward, the son of a white landowner and a black slave, has had one dream: to own land every bit as good as his daddy's. While growing up, Paul-Edward loved, and feared, his father, but he loved the land unconditionally. Then, after a rash act of youthful rebellion, he leaves his family behind and vows to succeed on his own. However, for anyone black coming of age in 1880's Mississippi, this is no simple goal.
-
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega
- By: Crystal Maldonado
- Narrated by: Carla Vega
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat. People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it's hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn't help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter. But there's one person who's always in Charlie's corner: her best friend Amelia.
-
The Two Lives of Sara
- By: Catherine Adel West
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sara King has nothing, save for her secrets and the baby in her belly, as she boards the bus to Memphis, hoping to outrun her past in Chicago. She is welcomed with open arms by Mama Sugar, a kindly matriarch and owner of the popular boardinghouse The Scarlet Poplar. Like many cities in early 1960s America, Memphis is still segregated, but change is in the air. News spreads of the Freedom Riders. Across the country, people like Martin Luther King Jr. are leading the fight for equal rights.
-
The City Beautiful
- By: Aden Polydoros
- Narrated by: Maxwell Glick
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chicago, 1893. For Alter Rosen, this is the land of opportunity, and he dreams of the day he’ll have enough money to bring his mother and sisters to America, freeing them from the oppression they face in his native Romania. But when Alter’s best friend, Yakov, becomes the latest victim in a long line of murdered Jewish boys, his dream begins to slip away. While the rest of the city is busy celebrating the World’s Fair, Alter is now living a nightmare: Possessed by Yakov’s dybbuk, he is plunged into a world of corruption and deceit.
-
-
The exact kind of book I’ve been searching for!!
- By Anonymous User on 10-05-2023
-
Sister Mother Warrior
- A Novel
- By: Vanessa Riley
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh, Robin Miles
- Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed author of Island Queen Vanessa Riley brings listeners a vivid, sweeping novel of the Haitian Revolution based on the true-life stories of two extraordinary women: the first Empress of Haiti, Marie-Claire Bonheur, and Gran Toya, a West African-born warrior who helped lead the rebellion that drove out the French and freed the enslaved people of Haiti.
Publisher's Summary
Winner of the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award!
7 starred reviews! "Monumental." —Booklist (starred review) * "A marathon masterpiece."—Kirkus (starred review) * "Necessary."—SLJ (starred review) * "Shocking and dramatic."—Shelf Awareness (starred review) * "Mesmerizing, confounding and vividly rendered."—Book Page (starred review) * "Williams-Garcia’s storytelling is magnificent; her voice honest and authentic."—Horn Book (starred review)
This astonishing novel from three-time National Book Award finalist Rita Williams-Garcia about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork—empathetic, brutal, and entirely human—and essential reading for both teens and adults grappling with the long history of American racism.
1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilbert has decided, in spite of her family’s objections, to sit for a portrait.
While Madame plots her last hurrah, stories that span generations—from the big house to out in the fields—of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and the tangled bonds of descendants and enslaved, come to light to reveal a true portrait of the Guilberts.
More from the same
What listeners say about A Sitting in St. James
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Susan Read
- 14-11-2022
New favourite author
I loved everything about this and learnt so much. I’ve only ever read her YA books and this is so different but brilliant in it’s own way.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!