Biography & Memoir audiobooks

Scientist And The Romantic, The (BBC Radio 3 Documentary)

By: Richard Mabey

Narrated by: Richard Mabey

Length: 1 hour 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Nature writer Richard Mabey reflects on his lifelong relationship with science and the natural world in this collection of episodes originally broadcast on Radio 4 in September 2009 and repeated as part of The Essay series on Radio 3 in April 2010.

In Episode 1, 'The Greenhouse and the Field', Richard talks about his very first laboratory - his... Read more

Lives of the Presidents

By: Kathleen Krull

Narrated by: John C. Brown & William Dufris

Length: 3 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Which president barked likes a dog—and why did another bark like a seal? Who threw lavish dinner parties with twenty-nine courses—and who was so disliked that his parties were boycotted? Which president had eighty pairs of pants? And which liked to remove his pants (and everything else) for a dip in the pool, expecting everyone around him to... Read more

Confession

By: Leo Tolstoy

Length: 2 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

At this time I began to write, from vanity, greed, and pride. In my writings I did exactly as in life. In order to possess the glory and the wealth for whose sake I wrote, it was necessary to conceal the good, and to display the bad. And so I did.Tolstoy's autobiographical essay is a dissection of his soul, a study of his life's movement away... Read more

He Shoots, He Scores!

By: Blake Sebring

Narrated by: Bob Chase

Length: 1 hour

Abridged: No

For 59 years, Bob Chase has been an institution as the voice of the Fort Wayne Komets, one of the premier franchises in minor league sports. Here are some of Bob’s favorite and most hilarious stories from calling Komets’ games across America. Read more

Franz Schubert, sa vie son oeuvre

By: Claude Dufresne

Narrated by: Jean Topart & Claude Laydu

Length: 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Né d'un instituteur, Franz Schubert a pour premiers professeurs son père pour le violon et son frère pour le piano. Il reçoit également l'enseignement du maître de chapelle de la paroisse, qui lui transmet l'art du chant et les techniques de l'orgue. Puis, il rentre sur concours au 'stadkonvikt' où il reçoit l'enseignement de Salieri. Admirateur... Read more

Franz Liszt, sa vie son oeuvre

By: José Bruyr

Narrated by: Jacques Dacqmine

Length: 40 minutes

Abridged: No

L'inventeur du poème symphonique, considéré comme le pianiste virtuose du millénaire, peut être érigé en symbole de l'exaltation de la période romantique : alors que dans sa jeunesse, ses liaisons défrayent la chronique, notamment avec Marie d'Agoult, Franz Liszt vit dans l'opulence et côtoie les plus grands - prenant des cours avec Czerny,... Read more

Twin

By: Allen Shawn

Narrated by: William Hughes

Length: 7 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

A heartbreaking yet deeply hopeful memoir about life as a twin in the face of autismWhen Allen Shawn and his twin sister, Mary, were two years old, Mary began exhibiting signs of what would be diagnosed years later as autism. Understanding Mary and making her life a happy one appeared to be impossible for the Shawns. With almost no warning, her... Read more

Alan Lomax

By: John Szwed

Narrated by: Scott Sowers

Length: 20 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

The remarkable life and times of the man who popularized American folk music and created the science of songFolklorist, archivist, anthropologist, singer, political activist, talent scout, ethnomusicologist, filmmaker, concert and record producer, Alan Lomax is best remembered as the man who introduced folk music to the masses. Lomax began his... Read more

Disaster Preparedness

By: Heather Havrilesky

Narrated by: Karen White

Length: 7 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

This is a stunningly perceptive, hilarious memoir of the transformative humiliation of childhood—and adulthood—from a truly original, already beloved voice.When Heather Havrilesky was a kid in the seventies, it seemed there were only disaster movies. Burning towers, devouring earthquakes, careening airliners, alien pod invasions. To be prepared,... Read more

Unplanned

By: Abby Johnson

Narrated by: Abby Clark

Length: 8 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

Retailers Choice Award winner, 2012
Abby Johnson quit her job in October 2009. That simple act became a national news story because Abby was the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas who, after participating in her first actual abortion procedure, crossed the line to join the Coalition for Life.
Unplanned is a heartstopping personal... Read more

His Way

By: Kitty Kelley

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 21 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

This is the book Frank Sinatra failed to stop,  the unauthorized biography of one of the most  elusive public figures of our time. Celebrated  journalist Kitty Kelley spent three years researching  government documents (Mafia-related material, wiretaps  and secret testimony) and interviewing more than  800 people in Sinatra's life (family,... Read more

American Rose

By: Karen Abbott

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 11 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

With the critically acclaimed Sin in the Second City, bestselling author Karen Abbott “pioneered sizzle history” (USA Today). Now she returns with the gripping and expansive story of America’s coming-of-age—told through the extraordinary life of Gypsy Rose Lee and the world she survived and conquered.

America in the... Read more

365 Thank Yous

By: John Kralik

Narrated by: John Kralik

Length: 4 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

One recent December, at age 53, John Kralik found his life at a terrible, frightening low: his small law firm was failing; he was struggling through a painful second divorce; he had grown distant from his two older children and was afraid he might lose contact with his young daughter; he was living in a tiny apartment where he froze in the... Read more

Roughing It

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Length: 17 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Originally published over one hundred years ago, Roughing It is Mark Twain's second major work, after the success of his 1869 travel book, Innocents Abroad. This humorous travel book, based on Twain's stagecoach journey through the American West and his adventures in the Pacific islands, is full of colorful caricatures of outlandish locals and... Read more

Life on the Mississippi

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 15 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

A brilliant amalgam of remembrance and reportage, by turns satiric, celebratory, nostalgic, and melancholy, Life on the Mississippi evokes the great river that Mark Twain knew as a boy and young man and the one he revisited as a mature and successful author. Written between the publication of his two greatest novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer... Read more

Let Me Go

By: Helga Schneider

Narrated by: Anne Dover

Length: 4 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

When Helga Schneider was four, her mother, Traudi, abandoned her to pursue her career. In 1998, Helga received a letter asking her to visit Traudi, now 90-years old, before she dies. Mother and daughter have met only once after Traudi left, on a disastrous visit where Helga first learnt the terrible secret of her mother's past.

Traudi was as an... Read more

Castles In The Air

By: Judy Corbett

Narrated by: Charlotte Strevens

Length: 8 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Castles in the Air is a beautifully written, autobiographical story of rescuing an ancient mansion. Gwydir Castle was inhabited by ravers and rats until Judy Corbett and her husband Peter Welford found and acquired this 500-year-old house mouldering in the foothills of Snowdonia. Despite the toads, strange smells and squatters, they decided to... Read more

Don't Forget to Write

By: Pam Hobbs

Narrated by: Penelope Freeman

Length: 8 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

'Dad walked determinedly down the path, joined by two neighbours with five children between them. As we reached the corner of Kent Avenue, I looked back for one last wave. But Mum had buried her head in her pinny and it was a year before I saw her again.'

In June 1940, 10-year-old Pam Hobbs and her sister Iris took the long journey from their... Read more

Head On - Ian Botham: The Autobiography

By: Ian Botham

Narrated by: John Telfer

Length: 12 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Ian Botham, voted the cricketer of the 20th century by the fans, was a genuine all-rounder who, when on form, was simply unstoppable. In his miraculous early career, he broke all the records: the fastest ever all-rounder to achieve the magical test doubles of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets, 2,000 runs and 200 wickets, and 3,000 runs and 300 wickets.... Read more

Command and Control

By: Mark Polelle

Narrated by: Mark Polelle

Length: 7 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

Professor Mark R. Polelle examines great military leaders in history, beginning with George Washington and moving on to Napoleon, U.S. Grant, Pershing, MacArthur, and Schwarzkopf, among others. The course also addresses the politics of military history and leadership and illustrates the circumstances that enable the rise of great leaders.... Read more

The World of George Orwell

By: Michael Shelden

Narrated by: Michael Shelden

Length: 7 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Big Brother Is Watching You: The words are inextricably associated with the classic dystopian novel 1984 and with its revered author, George Orwell. The Modern Scholar series continues its exploration of great authors with this course from esteemed professor Michael Shelden. In these lectures Orwell, who also penned the epitome of the political... Read more

Poser

By: Claire Dederer

Narrated by: Christine Williams

Length: 11 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

“The studio was decorated in the style of Don’t Be Afraid, We’re Not a Cult. All was white and blond and clean, as though the room had been designed for surgery, or Swedish people. The only spot of color came from the Tibetan prayer flags strung over the doorway into the studio. In flagrant defiance of my longtime policy of never entering a... Read more

Secret Historian

By: Justin Spring

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Length: 17 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

Drawn from the secret, never-before-seen diaries, journals, and sexual records of the novelist, poet, and university professor Samuel M. Steward, Secret Historian is a sensational reconstruction of one of the more extraordinary hidden lives of the twentieth century. An intimate friend of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Thornton Wilder,... Read more

Una etapa dificil: Mi lucha contra el cancer

By: Mayte Prida

Narrated by: Mayte Prida

Length: 6 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Es dificil explicar como la palabra cancer puede cambiarnos la vida de una manera tan drastica. En el momento en que me diagnosticaron cancer de seno, me sentia llena de vida; pero, sin saberlo, dentro de mi cuerpo se multiplicaba y crecia ese mal que me acercaba a la muerte. Mi lucha contra el cancer me ha hecho una mujer mas fuerte, mas... Read more