Service Alert
CD service concludes July 31, 2025
CELA's audiobooks and magazines are available in Direct to Player and downloadable formats. We no longer mail out CDs. Please contact us for more information.
Title search results
Showing 1 - 4 of 4 items
DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Biography, Essays, Customs and cultures, Anthologies
Human-narrated audio
In her “witty and searing” first essay collection, award-winning poet Morgan Parker examines “the cultural legacy of Black womanhood and…
the meaning of finding ‘well-being’ in a world that wasn’t built for you” ( Vogue ). Dubbed a voice of her generation, poet and writer Morgan Parker has spent much of her adulthood in therapy, trying to square the resonance of her writing with the alienation she feels in nearly every aspect of life, from her lifelong singleness to a battle with depression. She traces this loneliness to an inability to feel truly safe with others and a historic hyperawareness stemming from the effects of slavery. In a collection of essays as intimate as being in the room with Parker and her therapist, Parker examines America’s cultural history and relationship to Black Americans through the ages. She touches on such topics as the ubiquity of beauty standards that exclude Black women, the implications of Bill Cosby’s fall from grace in a culture predicated on acceptance through respectability, and the pitfalls of visibility as seen through the mischaracterizations of Serena Williams as alternately iconic and too ambitious. With piercing wit and incisive observations, You Get What You Pay For is ultimately a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness and its effects on mental well-being in America today. Weaving unflinching criticism with intimate anecdotes, this devastating memoir-in-essays paints a portrait of one Black woman’s psyche—and of the writer’s search to both tell the truth and deconstruct it
DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Essays, Humour, Anthologies, Journals and memoirs
Human-narrated audio
Writer, actor, and director Desiree Akhavan shares the stories she was told to shut up about—hilarious, horny, heartbreaking tales of…
a life in pursuit of art, love, and a better haircut. “Hilariously raw, relatable, and—dare I even say—sexy.”—Jessi Klein When it comes to shame, Desiree Akhavan knows what she’s talking about—whether it’s winning the title of the Ugliest Girl at her high school, acquiescing to the nose job she was lovingly forced into by her Iranian parents, or losing her virginity to a cokehead she met in a support group for cutters. In You’re Embarrassing Yourself, Akhavan goes to the rawest places—the lifelong struggle to be at peace in one’s body, the search for home as the child of immigrants, the anxious underbelly of artistic ambition—in pursuit of wisdom, catharsis, and lolz. Equal parts funny and heartfelt, these seventeen essays chart an artist’s journey from outcast to overnight indie darling, to (somewhat) self-aware adult woman. The result is a collection that captures the pathetic lows and euphoric highs of our youth—and how to survive them
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Biography, Essays, Customs and cultures
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
The award-winning author of Magical Negro traces the difficulty and beauty of existing as a Black woman through American history,…
from the foundational trauma of the slave trade all the way up to Serena Williams and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina&“An engrossing journey through Parker&’s expansive and gifted mind.&”—Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is PassedDubbed a voice of her generation, poet and writer Morgan Parker has spent much of her adulthood in therapy, trying to square the resonance of her writing with the alienation she feels in nearly every aspect of life, from her lifelong singleness to a battle with depression. She traces this loneliness to an inability to feel truly safe with others and a historic hyperawareness stemming from the effects of slavery.In a collection of essays as intimate as being in the room with Parker and her therapist, Parker examines America&’s cultural history and relationship to Black Americans through the ages. She touches on such topics as the ubiquity of beauty standards that exclude Black women, the implications of Bill Cosby&’s fall from grace in a culture predicated on acceptance through respectability, and the pitfalls of visibility as seen through the mischaracterizations of Serena Williams as alternately iconic and too ambitious.With piercing wit and incisive observations, You Get What You Pay For is ultimately a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness and its effects on mental well-being in America today. Weaving unflinching criticism with intimate anecdotes, this devastating memoir-in-essays paints a portrait of one Black woman&’s psyche—and of the writer&’s search to both tell the truth and deconstruct it.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Biography, LGBTQ+ biography, Essays
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
A cheeky how-to guide, as raunchy as it is heartfelt, from a bright new literary voice.A bold and vulnerable collection…
from a new, young voice, How to Fuck Like a Girl is a daring mash-up of pillow book, grimoire, and manifesto by writer Vera Blossom. From hooking up to trans witchcraft, petty crime, capitalism, friendships, divorce, and survival, Blossom brings wit and melancholy, grandeur and smarts, debuting a bright literary voice as raunchy as it is heartfelt. A cheeky how-to guide that earnestly asks if it is possible to fuck oneself into girlhood, How to Fuck Like a Girl is a cult classic in the making.