Biography & Memoir audiobooks

The Man Who Sold America

By: Arthur W. Schultz & Jeffrey L. Cruikshank

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

Length: 16 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

MEET THE MAN BEHIND SOME OF OUR BEST KNOWN BRANDS
We live in an age of mass persuasion. Leaders and institutions of every kind—public and private, large
and small—must compete in a rowdy marketplace of images and messages seeming to come at us from all directions—in print, on radio and television, and on the Web.

It wasn’t always so. In the early... Read more

The Twelve Caesars

By: Suetonius

Narrated by: Clive Chafer

Length: 17 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

As private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, the scholar Suetonius had access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eyewitness accounts) to produce one of the most colorful biographical works in history. The Twelve Caesars chronicles the public careers and private lives of the men who wielded absolute power over Rome, from the... Read more

Thomas Paine

By: Craig Nelson

Narrated by: Paul Hecht

Length: 15 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

John Adams told Thomas Jefferson that "history is to ascribe the American Revolution to Thomas Paine." Thomas Edison called him "the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible." He was a founder of both the United States and the French Revolution. He invented the phrase, "The United States of America." He rose from abject poverty in... Read more

A Tramp Abroad

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 14 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

In April 1878, Mark Twain and his family traveled to Europe. Overloaded with creative ideas, Twain had hoped that the sojourn would spark his creativity enough to bring at least one of the books in his head to fruition. Instead, he wrote of his walking tour of Europe, describing his impressions of the Black Forest, the Matterhorn, and other... Read more

Comrades

By: Stephen E. Ambrose

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

Length: 4 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

From the author of Undaunted Courage and D-Day comes this celebration of male friendship, taken both from the pages of history and from Ambrose’s own life.

Acclaimed historian Stephen Ambrose begins his examination with a glance inward—he starts this book with his brothers, his first and forever friends, and the shared experiences that join them... Read more

Benjamin Franklin

By: Walter Isaacson

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

Length: 24 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

In this authoritative and engrossing full-scale biography, Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Einstein and Steve Jobs, shows how the most fascinating of America's founders helped define our national character.

Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us, the one who seems made of flesh rather than marble. In a sweeping narrative... Read more

Rocket Boys

By: Homer Hickham

Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte

Length: 13 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir that inspired the film October Sky, Rocket Boys is a uniquely American memoir—a powerful, luminous story of coming of age at the dawn of the 1960s, of a mother's love and a father's fears, of a group of young men who dreamed of launching rockets into outer space...and who made those dreams come true.

With... Read more

The Company We Keep

By: Robert Baer & Dayna Baer

Narrated by: Robert Baer, Dayna Baer & Richard McGonagle

Length: 8 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

Robert Baer was known inside the CIA as perhaps the best operative working the Middle East. But if his career was all that a spy might aspire to, his personal life was a brutal illustration of everything a spy is asked to sacrifice.

Dayna Williamson thought of herself as just an ordinary California girl. But she was always looking to get closer... Read more

Truman

By: David McCullough

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

Length: 54 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

The Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry S. Truman, whose presidency included momentous events from the atomic bombing of Japan to the outbreak of the Cold War and the Korean War, told by America’s beloved and distinguished historian.

The life of Harry S. Truman is one of the greatest of American stories, filled with vivid... Read more

The Source of All Things

By: Tracy Ross

Narrated by: Tracy Ross

Length: 7 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Called “brave and heartbreaking” by Elle and “an extraordinary journey” by People, Tracy Ross’s riveting memoir about abuse, survival, and healing is now available in paperback.

Tracy Ross’s adult life has been defined by her determination to push herself to the physical limits of what a person can endure. In The Source of All Things, she... Read more

Pujols

By: Scott Lamb & Tim Ellsworth

Narrated by: Wes Bleed

Length: 8 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

After a decade starring for the St. Louis Cardinals, Albert Pujols is already compared with names in the highest reaches of baseball’s pantheon: Ruth, Gehrig, Aaron, Mays. Slugging his way toward the Hall of Fame, Pujols has raised the game’s standard for greatness almost beyond any statistical measure. But the standard by which Pujols measures... Read more

Malcolm X

By: Manning Marable

Narrated by: G. Valmont Thomas

Length: 21 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year Years in the making-the definitive biography of the legendary black activist.

Of the great figure in twentieth-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a... Read more

Wait Til Next Year

By: Doris Kearns Goodwin

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

Length: 7 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

By the award-winning author of Team of Rivals and The Bully Pulpit, Wait Till Next Year is Doris Kearns Goodwin’s touching memoir of growing up in love with her family and baseball.

Set in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, Wait Till Next Year re-creates the postwar era, when the corner store was a place to share stories and neighborhoods were... Read more

Willie Mays

By: James S. Hirsch

Narrated by: Adam Grupper

Length: 27 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

The New York Times bestselling, authorized, “enormously entertaining and wide-ranging” (The Seattle Times) biography of the late, great Willie Mays.

Willie Mays (1931–2024) was arguably the greatest player in baseball history, revered for the passion he brought to the game. He began as a teenager in the Negro Leagues, became a cult hero in New... Read more

The Devil Soldier

By: Caleb Carr

Narrated by: George Wilson

Length: 12 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

This is a story that imperial China never wanted you to hear. It is the astonishing true tale of Frederick Townsend Ward, an American soldier of fortune who changed the course of Chinese history by leading one of the most extraordinary military campaigns the world has ever seen. Generations of anti-Americanism and political turmoil in China have... Read more

Hollywood

By: Larry McMurtry

Narrated by: Henry Strozier

Length: 4 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry follows up Books and Literary Life with this final installment in his memoir trilogy. Tinged with his wry humor and Texas swagger, Hollywood is McMurtry's anecdote-filled take on Tinseltown from the year his Horseman, Pass By was adapted into Hud (1963) to the year he wrote the... Read more

Behind the Black Door

By: Sarah Brown

Narrated by: Sarah Brown

Length: 14 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

'Today, Gordon's words are simple and heartfelt. He promises, as his own school motto said, "to do his utmost". I know that the same will go for me, too. We turn to the door, greeting the policeman on duty. It is time to play our part in contributing to what happens next in government and a new life behind the black door.'

In this personal memoir... Read more

West End Girls - Abridged

By: Barbara Tate

Narrated by: Kate O'Sullivan

Length: 6 hours

Abridged: Yes

Now a Top Ten bestseller. Barbara Tate was 17 when she heard the whispered word that would change her life: Soho. It would take four years for Barbara to escape her loveless home but when she finally made it to the forbidden streets of Soho - just as London was recovering from the trauma of the second world war - things would never be the same... Read more

Blood, Bones & Butter

By: Gabrielle Hamilton

Narrated by: Gabrielle Hamilton

Length: 10 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
 
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Miami Herald • Newsday • The Huffington Post • Financial Times • GQ • Slate • Men’s Journal • Washington Examiner • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews • National Post • The Toronto Star • BookPage • Bookreporter

“I wanted the lettuce and... Read more

An Improvised Life

By: Alan Arkin

Narrated by: Alan Arkin

Length: 4 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

In this insightful memoir, Oscar-winning actor Alan Arkin reflects back on finding his place as an actor and on what theater—specifically the improvisational sort—has taught him about the craft and life.Alan Arkin knew he was going to be an actor from the age of five. From this early age, he recognized that “every film I saw, every play, every... Read more

My Korean Deli

By: Ben Ryder Howe

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot

Length: 8 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

This sweet and funny tale of a preppy editor buying a Brooklyn deli with his Korean in-laws is about family, culture clash, and the quest for authentic experiences.It starts with a gift. When Ben Ryder Howe’s wife, the daughter of Korean immigrants, decides to repay her parents’ self-sacrifice by buying them a store, Howe, an editor at the... Read more

People Like Us

By: Sandra Harnisch-Lacey & Steve Stickley

Narrated by: Abby Guinness, Sandra Lacy, Steve Stickley, Chr...

Length: 8 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

“I want to die fully alive so my soul’s got extended capacity for heaven.”—Rob LaceyPeople Like Us is the story of Rob Lacey, poet, actor, and award-winning author of The Street Bible. It is so much more than Rob Lacey’s biography.People Like Us is the passionate and poetic account of an artistic soul enamored with God, and of the woman who... Read more

Untied

By: Meredith Baxter

Narrated by: Meredith Baxter

Length: 7 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

“I remember Sarah asking me, when I’d just begun therapy with her, what I looked for in a man.  After a few moments of silent, tense deliberation I had it.  ‘Hair,’ I blurted. ‘He has to have hair.’”
 
Meredith Baxter is a beloved and iconic television actress, most well-known for her enormously popular role as hippie mom, Elyse Keaton, on Family... Read more

On Gold Mountain

By: Lisa See

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Length: 18 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

From the bestselling author of The Island of Sea Women, here is the true story of the one-hundred-year-odyssey of the author’s Chinese-American family, combining years of research with “fascinating family anecdotes, imaginative details, and the historical details of immigrant life” (Amy Tan, bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club).

"As... Read more