Biography & Memoir audiobooks

Daughter of the Queen of Sheba - Abridged

By: Jacki Lyden

Narrated by: Jacki Lyden

Length: TBA

Abridged: Yes

As an adult, National Public Radio foreign correspondent Jacki Lyden has spent her life on the front lines of some of the world's most dangerous war zones. As a child, she lived in a war zone of a different kind. Her mother, Dolores, suffered from what is now called manic depression; but when Jacki was growing up in a small Midwestern town,... Read more

Under the Tuscan Sun - Abridged

By: Frances Mayes

Narrated by: Frances Mayes

Length: 6 hours 1 minute

Abridged: Yes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The beloved memoir of self-discovery set against the spectacular Tuscan countryside that inspired the major motion picture starring Diane Lane—now in a twentieth-anniversary edition featuring a new afterword
 
“This beautifully written memoir about taking chances, living in Italy, loving a house and, always, the... Read more

Seabiscuit - Abridged

By: Laura Hillenbrand

Narrated by: Campbell Scott

Length: 5 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: Yes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of the runaway phenomenon Unbroken comes a universal underdog story about the horse who came out of nowhere to become a legend.

Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more coverage than ... Read more

Into Thin Air - Abridged

By: Jon Krakauer

Narrated by: Jon Krakauer

Length: 5 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: Yes

When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top.  No one had... Read more

Interview with Anne Rice - Abridged

By: Anne Rice & Michael Riley

Narrated by: Michael Riley & Anne Rice

Length: 1 hour 26 minutes

Abridged: Yes

This conversation with Anne Rice shows how she emerged from high school determined not to get married unless she could complete her education and achieve creative freedom. Responding to interviewer Riley's questions, Rice discusses how her religious background influenced her work, which she describes as a spiritual quest. In fact, the ghosts she... Read more

Howard Hughes

By: Peter Harry Brown & Pat H. Broeske

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 18 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

In this luminous memoir, Rita Moreno shares her remarkable journey from a young girl with simple beginnings in Puerto Rico to Hollywood legend—and one of the few performers, and the only Hispanic, to win an Oscar, Grammy, Tony and two Emmys.

Born Rosita Dolores Alverio in the idyll of Puerto Rico, Moreno, at age five, embarked on a harrowing sea... Read more

Herman Melville

By: Elizabeth Hardwick

Narrated by: Karen White

Length: 4 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

A single novel, an eternal classic, established him as a founding father of American literature. Now, a century after his death, a new popular surge of interest in Herman Melville calls for Elizabeth Hardwick's rich analysis of "the whole of Melville's works, uneven as it is, and the challenging shape of his life . . . a story of the creative... Read more

Rosa Parks

By: Douglas Brinkley

Narrated by: Karen White

Length: 7 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

In 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American seamstress, had no idea she was changing history when, fed up and tired, she refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a bus in segregated Alabama. Today, she is immortalized for the defiance that sent her to jail and triggered a bus boycott that catapulted Martin Luther King Jr. into the... Read more

Dalai Lama

By: Diki Tsering

Narrated by: Arabella Hong

Length: 4 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

Born to humble but prosperous peasants in 1901, the Year of the Ox, Diki Tsering grew up a simple girl with a simple life and the ordinary ambition to be a good wife and mother. When faith and fate led her son Lhamo Dhondup to be recognized as the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, her world altered completely.
In Dalai Lama, My Son she recounts her own... Read more

The Camino - Abridged

By: Shirley MacLaine

Narrated by: Shirley MacLaine

Length: 4 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: Yes

It has been nearly five decades since Shirley MacLaine commenced her brave and public commitment to chronicling her personal quest for spiritual understanding. Now Shirley is back -- with her most breathtakingly powerful and unique book yet.

The Camino is the story of a riveting odyssey that began with a pair of anonymous handwritten letters... Read more

This House of Sky - Abridged

By: Ivan Doig

Narrated by: Ivan Doig

Length: 3 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Masterfully crafted with lyrical and haunting language, Doig’s memoir remains an enduring classic, a story to be savored by anyone who has ever loved a parent or been shaped by the land around them. Read more

A Beautiful Mind

By: Sylvia Nasar

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 18 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

This is the powerful, dramatic biography of math genius John Nash, who overcame serious mental illness and schizophrenia to win the Nobel Prize. This book is the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly and directed by Ron Howard.“How could you, a mathematician, believe that extraterrestrials... Read more

Anton Chekhov

By: Donald Rayfield

Narrated by: Fred Williams

Length: 28 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

Anton Chekhov’s life was short, intense, and dominated by battles, both with his dependents and with the tuberculosis that killed him at age forty-four. The traditional image of Chekhov is that of the restrained artist torn between medicine and literature, but Donald Rayfield’s biography reveals the life long hidden behind the noble facade. Here... Read more

Woodrow Wilson

By: Louis Auchincloss

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 3 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Woodrow Wilson sheds new light on Wilson’s upbringing and career and shows the grim determination that carried him to the presidency just before World War I. From the dynamic figure whose ringing speeches hypnotized vast crowds, to the gentle voice reading poetry to his children, to the rising academic and president of Princeton who made the... Read more

Joan of Arc

By: Mary Gordon

Narrated by: Mari Devon

Length: 5 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

Celebrated novelist Mary Gordon brings Joan of Arc alive as a complex figure full of contradictions and desires, as well as spiritual devotion. A humble peasant girl, Joan transformed herself into the legendary Maid of Orléans, knight, martyr, and saint. Following the voice of God, she led an army to victory and crowned the king of France, only... Read more

Papa Bravo Romeo - Abridged

By: Wynn Goldsmith

Narrated by: Eric Conger

Length: 1 hour 56 minutes

Abridged: Yes

"Our mission was independent, no-holds-barred combat against a stubborn enemy in the enemy's backyard."                

In Vietnam, river warfare was often conducted in the dark. It was always dangerous, sometimes fatal--especially in the eastern end of the Cong-plagued Mekong Delta. In 1967, U.S. Navy Lt. Wynn Goldsmith was the "river rat" who... Read more

Life Stories

By: David Remnick

Narrated by: Amy Irving, Philip Bosco & Alton Fitzgerald White

Length: 9 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

One of art's purest challenges is to translate a human being into words. The New Yorker has met this challenge more successfully and more originally than any other modern American journal. It has indelibly shaped the genre known as the Profile. Starting with light-fantastic evocations of glamorous and idiosyncratic figures of the... Read more

Les plus belles Histoires de Haim - Vol 1

By: Yossef Brami & Haim Nisenbaum

Narrated by: Yossef Brami

Length: 1 hour

Abridged: No

Vivez comme si vous y étiez de merveilleuses histoires juives jouées pour vous par des comédiens professionnels.Onkelos - Le miroir aux richesses - Les héritiers - Le Cadi de Mogador - Le petit grand-père Read more

Mao Zedong

By: Jonathan Spence

Narrated by: Alexander Adams

Length: 5 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Born in rural China in 1893, Mao Zedong led his country through "a long-drawn-out adventure in upheaval." In the process, he became one of the monumental figures of the twentieth century. He died in 1976, just as China was entering a détente with the United States. This excellent biography illuminates Mao's family life, his early years as a... Read more

Life Is So Good - Abridged

By: George Dawson & Richard Glaubman

Narrated by: LeVar Burton

Length: 5 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: Yes

George Dawson was a slave's grandson who learned to read at age 98 and lived to the age of 103. In this remarkable memoir, he reflects on his life and shares valuable lessons in living, as well as a fresh, firsthand view of America during the entire sweep of the twentieth century. Dawson's irresistible voice and view of the world are captured... Read more

Selznick - Abridged

By: Bob Thomas

Narrated by: Carl Reiner

Length: 5 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: Yes

It was the triumph and the tragedy of his life. As a producer, he had reached the pinnacle of success; there was nowhere else to go. In this biography, noted Hollywood chronicler Bob Thomas reveals the stormy career of a shrewd, self-confident intellectual whiz kid who today personifies the image of a studio head during the Golden Age of movies.... Read more

The Greatest Generation Speaks

By: Tom Brokaw

Narrated by: Tom Brokaw

Length: 7 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful selection of the letters Tom Brokaw received in response to his towering #1 bestseller The Greatest Generation.
 
“When I wrote about the men and women who came out of the Depression, who won great victories and made lasting sacrifices in World War II and then returned home to begin building the world we have... Read more

WWII Airmen

By: Multiple Authors

Narrated by: Various

Length: 2 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

These amazing accounts of airmen recorded during the war include stories of air combat, music of the time, and recordings made on bomb runs over Europe and Japan.

Eagles over Europe: (1) Introduction; (2) AAF Intro; (3) Bomb run over Germany, A-26; (4) Lt. Gilman, AT-9 Trainer; (5) Lt. Anderson, AT-7 Trainer; (6) Jack the Ripper air raid; (7)... Read more

Life of Samuel Johnson (Unabridged)

By: James Boswell

Narrated by: Jonathan Oliver

Length: 66 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered James Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the... Read more