Biography & Memoir audiobooks

The Boys' Crusade

By: Paul Fussell

Narrated by: Joel Leffert

Length: 4 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

National Book Award Winner Paul Fussell tells the breathtaking story of WWII from the young soldiers' points of view. WWII was not the glorified picture it is often depicted to be. For the American soldier it was a tiring, emotional, and gruesome experience. Fussell's extensive details and insight help to make this story come alive. Read more

Cabin Pressure

By: Josh Wolk

Narrated by: Johnny Heller

Length: 9 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

Entertainment Weekly scribe Josh Wolk has also had his work appear in other major publications such as the New York Times. Faced with the ultimate step into adulthood, Wolk returns to the summer camp of his youth before walking down the aisle. His beloved campgrounds have remained remarkably the same, but Wolk finds that he has grown bafflingly... Read more

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

By: Benjamin Franklin

Narrated by: Adrian Cronauer

Length: 5 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

"From the poverty and obscurity in which I was born I have raised myself up." In his own words Benjamin Franklin steps off the pages of history, brimming with candor, bright ideas, and common sense, and with something of an eye for the ladies. Read more

Benjamin Franklin

By: Benjamin Franklin

Narrated by: Adrian Cronauer

Length: 4 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

He was a publisher, printer, scientist and inventor, but Ben Franklin's greatest success lay in his work as a diplomat. In this unique recording of his account of his experiences as a spokesman for the Colonies, we listen in on the secret political transactions and undercover dealings of colonial America, filtered through Franklin's inimitable wit. Read more

Tom Cruise - Abridged

By: Andrew Morton

Narrated by: John Hinch

Length: 6 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In 2006 Forbes magazine ranked Tom Cruise as the most powerful celebrity in the world. With three Golden Globe awards, three Academy Award nominations, and 27 films with an average box office gross of nearly $100 million, People Magazine's choice for the "Sexest Man Alive" in 1990 is unquestionably one of the biggest movie stars of our time.

He... Read more

The Amateur Emigrant

By: Robert Louis Stevenson

Narrated by: Donal Donnelly

Length: 4 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

This is the sparkling record of the haphazard six-thousand-mile odyssey that twenty-five-year-old Stevenson made in pursuit of his future wife, Fanny. The two had met and fallen in love during a trip to France, but when Fanny's first husband called her home to California, Stevenson soon followed from Scotland. The sickly Stevenson first made a... Read more

Gang Leader for a Day

By: Sudhir Venkatesh

Narrated by: Reg Rogers & Stephen J. Dubner

Length: 8 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

The story of the young sociologist who studied a Chicago crack-dealing gang from the inside captured the world's attention when it was first described in Freakonomics. Gang Leader for a Day is the fascinating full story of how Sudhir Venkatesh managed to gain entrée into the gang, what he learned, and how his method revolutionized the academic... Read more

The Middle Place

By: Kelly Corrigan

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

Length: 7 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

For Kelly Corrigan, family is everything. At thirty-six, she had a marriage that worked, two funny, active kids, and a weekly newspaper column. But even as a thriving adult, Kelly still saw herself as the daughter of garrulous Irish-American charmer George Corrigan. She was living deep within what she calls the Middle Place—“that sliver of time... Read more

Trail of Crumbs

By: Kim Sunee

Narrated by: Justine Eyre

Length: 12 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

Kim Sunée was three years old when her mother took her to a crowded marketplace and left her on a bench with only a fistful of food. Three terrifying days and nights later a policeman discovered Kim, who was clutching what was now only a handful of crumbs.

Nearly twenty years later, Kim’s life is unrecognizable. Adopted by a family in New... Read more

Searching for Bobby Fischer

By: Fred Waitzkin

Narrated by: Lloyd James

Length: 8 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Fred Waitzkin became smitten with chess during the historic Fischer-Spassky championship in 1972. When Fischer disappeared from public view, Waitzkin’s interest waned—until his own son, Josh, emerged as a chess prodigy.Searching for Bobby Fischer is the story of Fred Waitzkin and his son, from the moment six-year-old Josh first sits down at a... Read more

Cold Tangerines

By: Shauna Niequist

Narrated by: Shauna Niequist

Length: 5 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Shauna Niequist calls us to see the beauty, hope, and dimension in our ordinary days through the life-giving practice of celebration. Cold Tangerines is beautiful narration of Shauna's journey as a young writer, wife, and mom making peace with herself and crafting a life that celebrates the extraordinary moments hidden in the everyday.... Read more

Inheriting the Trade

By: Thomas Norman DeWolf

Narrated by: Thomas Norman DeWolf

Length: 8 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

A trailblazing memoir about one family's quest to face its slave-trading past, and an urgent call for reconciliationIn 2001, Thomas DeWolf discovered that he was related to the most successful slave-trading family in U.S. history, responsible for transporting at least ten thousand Africans. This is his memoir of the journey in which ten family... Read more

Our Hearts Were Young and Gay

By: Cornelia Otis Skinner & Emily Kimbrough

Narrated by: Celeste Lawson

Length: 7 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

"To know Emily is to enhance one's days with gaiety, charm and occasional terror."—Cornelia Otis Skinner of her coauthor, Emily KimbroughActress Cornelia Otis Skinner and journalist Emily Kimbrough offer a lighthearted, hilarious memoir of their European tour in the 1920s, when they were fresh out of college from Bryn Mawr. Some of the more... Read more

Donald Davis Live from Fearrington Village

By: Donald Davis

Narrated by: Donald Davis

Length: 48 minutes

Abridged: No

For 16 years, Donald Davis has performed during the Christmas season at Fearrington Village, a unique destination community near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Hundreds of people fill the seats in this historic barn, now converted for use as an events venue. Recorded live at Davis's December 15, 2007 performance, this audio captures the familiar... Read more

Generals in Bronze

By: William B. Styple

Narrated by: John Lescault

Length: 15 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

In the decades that followed the American Civil War, artist James E. Kelly (1855–1933) conducted in-depth interviews with more than forty Union generals in an effort to accurately portray them in their greatest moment of glory. “I had always felt a great lack of certain personal details,” Kelly explained. “I made up my mind to ask from the... Read more

The Time Machine

By: Donald Davis

Narrated by: Donald Davis

Length: 52 minutes

Abridged: No

When Donald Davis walked into his 45th high-school reunion, he had two startling visions. The first was that the only signage he saw read, WELCOME HARLEY RIDERS.After discovering that he and his classmates would be sharing space with the bikers, Davis had his second surprise: "I was amazed to see how many parents had come." In The Time Machine,... Read more

Tweak

By: Nic Sheff

Narrated by: Richard Powers

Length: 12 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Nic Sheff was drunk for the first time at age eleven. In the years that followed, he regularly smoked pot, did cocaine and ecstasy, and developed addictions to crystal meth and heroin. Even so, he felt like he would always be able to quit and put his life together whenever he needed to. It took a violent relapse one summer in California to... Read more

Her Last Death

By: Susanna Sonnenberg

Narrated by: Susanna Sonnenberg

Length: 8 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Her Last Death begins as the phone rings early one morning in the Montana house where Susanna Sonnenberg lives with her husband and two young sons. Her aunt is calling to tell Susanna her mother is in a coma after a car accident. She might not live. Any daughter would rush the thousands of miles to her mother's bedside. But Susanna cannot bring... Read more

The Recollections of Rifleman Harris - Abridged

By: Rifleman Harris

Narrated by: Jason Salkey

Length: 53 minutes

Abridged: Yes

This audiobook is read by Jason Salkey, who played Harris in the SHARPE films, with sound effects provided by the 95th Rifles Re-enactment Society. A musical score by Adam Wakeman adds to this lavish production. A great deal of time and care has been spent creating an audiobook which truly honours the rifleman of the Peninsula. Read more

Touch and Go

By: Sydney Lewis & Studs Terkel

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 9 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

At nearly ninety-five, Studs Terkel has written about everyone's life, it seems, but his own. In Touch and Go, he offers a memoir that—embodying the spirit of the man himself—is youthful, vivacious, and enormous fun.

Terkel begins by taking us back to his early childhood with his father, mother, and two older brothers, describing the hectic... Read more

Jane Boleyn

By: Julia Fox

Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor

Length: 12 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

In a life of extraordinary drama, Jane Boleyn was catapulted from relative obscurity to the inner circle of King Henry VIII. As powerful men and women around her became victims of Henry’s ruthless and absolute power, including her own husband and sister-in-law, Queen Anne Boleyn, Jane’s allegiance to the volatile monarchy was sustained and... Read more

My Life as a Traitor

By: Zarah Ghahramani

Narrated by: Marjanne Dorée

Length: 7 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

Zarah Ghahramani was born in Tehran in 1981, two years after Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran to establish the Islamic Republic. Her life changed suddenly in 2001 when, after having taken part in student demonstrations, she was arrested—literally snatched off the street by secret police—and charged with "inciting crimes against the people of... Read more

Jane Boleyn - Abridged

By: Julia Fox

Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin

Length: 6 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In a life of extraordinary drama, Jane Boleyn was catapulted from relative obscurity to the inner circle of King Henry VIII. As powerful men and women around her became victims of Henry’s ruthless and absolute power, including her own husband and sister-in-law, Queen Anne Boleyn, Jane’s allegiance to the volatile monarchy was sustained and... Read more

The Fighting 69th

By: Sean Michael Flynn

Narrated by: Erik Steele

Length: 10 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

On the eve of September 11, 2001, New York City’s famous National Guard regiment, the fighting 69th Infantry, was not fit for duty. Most of its soldiers were immigrant kids with no prior military experience, their uniforms were incomplete, and their equipment was derelict. The thought of deploying such a unit was laughable. Sean Flynn, himself a... Read more