I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

The classic, searing autobiography of one of America's greatest writers.
Published in 1970, the classic I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first installment of Angelou’s six-volume autobiography. With equal parts wit and grace, Angelou draws us into her childhood in ’30s and ’40s-era black America, from the sticky heat of the cotton fields in the deep south, to the sizzling urban life of San Francisco. This searing work has garnered both success and controversy, often targeted for censorship due to graphically candid depictions of sex, sexual development and rape. In 1995 Bantam Books honored Angelou for being the African-American author with the longest residency on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.

"To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power or the climbing falling colors of a rainbow," Angelou writes about her first meeting with her mother in St. Louis; it's an apt description for the author herself. I began listening to this audiobook, read in the author’s own inimitable soothing alto timbre, during a hike near my hometown in northern California. Long before the steep hills had their chance to wind me, the beauty of Angelou’s words, combined with the gentle but forceful cadence of her voice, took my breath away.