Memoirs Audiobooks | Biography & Memoir

"A hilarious guide to life from a man who has "lived large and fallen hard--lost every job I ever had, messed up everybody I've ever dated, been kicked out of every institution I've ever been in"--and still survived; offering observations on courage ("Lots of guys brag they'd fight off anything to save their woman. Yeah, right--there is no sense in both us dying"), discipline ("If you've got to get whupped, your father is the man. Mothers don't stop until you're bleeding to death"), money ("Before computers, checks were great...local ones took fourteen days to clear"), men and women ("If there were no women in the world, men would be naked, driving trucks, living in dirt"), underwear ("Women, do not buy your men bikini underpants"), love ("If you can get a car with no money down, you can get a boyfriend or girlfriend"), marriage ("There is no compromise, you either go to the basketball game or you go to a movie you hate"), divorce ("there are no Betty Ford clinics for strung-out lovers. You have to go cold turkey"), dieting ("I would be hanging out at McDonald's, tapping on the window: 'Don't throw out those fries!'"), parenting ("When they caught Jeffrey Dahmer, his mom was protective: 'He always had a healthy appetite...'"), technology, and much more."

Sinbad (Author), Sinbad (Narrator)

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Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

"Precociously intelligent, imaginative, energetic, and ambitious, Marya Hornbacher grew up in a comfortable middle-class American home. At the age of five, she returned home from ballet class one day, put on a enormous sweater, curled up on her bed, and cried--because she thought she was fat. By age nine she was secretly bulimic, throwing up at home after school, while watching Brady Bunch reruns on television and munching Fritos. She added anorexia to her repetoire a few years later and took great pride in her ability to starve. Marya's story gathers intensity with each passing year. By the time she is in college and working for a wire news service in Washington, D.C., she is in the grip of a bout of anorexia so horrifying that it will forever put to rest the romance of wasting away. Down to fifty-two pounds and counting, Marya becomes a battlefield: her powerful death instinct at war with the will to live. Why would a talented young girl go through the looking glass and step into a netherworld where up is down, food is greed, and death is honor? Why enter into a love affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Marya sustained both anorexia and bulimia through five lengthy hospitalizations, endless therapy, the loss of family, friends, jobs, and, ultimately, any sense of what it means to be "normal." In this vivid, emotionally wrenching memoir, she recreates the experience and illuminates the tangle of personal, family and cultural causes unlying eating disorders. Wasted is the story of one woman's travels to the darker side of reality, and her decision to find her way back again--on her own terms."

Marya Hornbacher (Author), Marya Hornbacher (Narrator)

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This House of Sky

Ivan Doig (Author), Ivan Doig (Narrator)

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Life Stories: Profiles from The New Yorker

"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 twenties and thirties, such as Henry Luce and Isadora Duncan, and continuing to the present, with complex pictures of such contemporaries as Mikhail Baryshnikov and Richard Pryor, this collection of New Yorker Profiles presents readers with a portrait gallery of some of the most prominent figures of the twentieth century. These Profiles are literary-journalistic investigations into character and accomplishment, motive and madness, beauty and ugliness, and are unrivalled in their range, their variety of style, and their embrace of humanity. Including these twenty-eight profiles: "Mr. Hunter's Grave" by Joseph Mitchell "Secrets of the Magus" by Mark Singer "Isadora" by Janet Flanner "The Soloist" by Joan Acocella "Time . . . Fortune . . . Life . . . Luce" by Walcott Gibbs "Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody" by Ian Frazier "The Mountains of Pi" by Richard Preston "Covering the Cops" by Calvin Trillin "Travels in Georgia" by John McPhee "The Man Who Walks on Air" by Calvin Tomkins "A House on Gramercy Park" by Geoffrey Hellman "How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?" by Lillian Ross "The Education of a Prince" by Alva Johnston "White Like Me" by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. "Wunderkind" by A. J. Liebling "Fifteen Years of The Salto Mortale" by Kenneth Tynan "The Duke in His Domain" by Truman Capote "A Pryor Love" by Hilton Als "Gone for Good" by Roger Angell "Lady with a Pencil" by Nancy Franklin "Dealing with Roseanne" by John Lahr "The Coolhunt" by Malcolm Gladwell "Man Goes to See a Doctor" by Adam Gopnik "Show Dog" by Susan Orlean "Forty-One False Starts" by Janet Malcolm "The Redemption" by Nicholas Lemann "Gore Without a Script" by Nicholas Lemann "Delta Nights" by Bill Buford"

David Remnick (Author), Alton Fitzgerald White, Amy Irving, Philip Bosco (Narrator)

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Life Is So Good: One Man's Extraordinary Journey through the 20th Century and How He Learned to Read

"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 here as he offers insights into humanity, history, hardships, and happiness. From segregation and civil rights to many other defining moments in history, George Dawson's account and assessment of the last century inspires readers with the message that sustained him through it all: 'Life is so good. I do believe it's getting better.'"

George Dawson (Author), LeVar Burton (Narrator)

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The Greatest Generation Speaks: Letters and Reflections

"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 today—the people I called the Greatest Generation—it was my way of saying thank you. But I was not prepared for the avalanche of letters and responses touched off by that book. I had written a book about America, and now America was writing back.”—Tom Brokaw In the phenomenal bestseller The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw paid affecting tribute to those who gave the world so much—and who left an enduring legacy of courage and conviction. The Greatest Generation Speaks collects the vast outpouring of letters Brokaw received from men and women eager to share their intensely personal stories of a momentous time in America’s history. Some letters tell of the front during the war, others recall loved ones in harm’s way in distant places. They offer first-hand accounts of battles, poignant reflections on loneliness, exuberant expressions of love, and somber feelings of loss. As Brokaw notes, “If we are to heed the past to prepare for the future, we should listen to these quiet voices of a generation that speaks to us of duty and honor, sacrifice and accomplishment. I hope more of their stories will be preserved and cherished as reminders of all that we owe them and all that we can learn from them.”"

Tom Brokaw (Author), Tom Brokaw (Narrator)

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[Swedish] - Samuel August från Sevedstorp och Hanna i Hult

"Arrendatorn Samuel August Ericsson (1875-1969) och Hanna Jonsson (1879-1961) träffades 1888. De gifte sig 1905 och bosatte sig på gården Näs i utkanten av Vimmerby. I juli 1906 fick de sonen Gunnar som blev riksdagsman för Bondeförbundet, och i november 1907 föddes Astrid Anna Emilia. Familjen utökades med två döttrar till, Stina och Ingegerd. Under hela sitt liv älskade de två varandra innerligt. Boken är Astrid Lindgrens personliga hyllning till sina föräldrar och kärleken. Historien blev av Sveriges Radios lyssnare vald till årtusendets kärlekssaga 1999."

Astrid Lindgren (Author), Astrid Lindgren (Narrator)

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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

"Uncertain of his date of birth or the identity of his father, Frederick Douglass came into the world with one surety: he was born a slave, and would die a slave. But as he grew up, Douglass determined that he would teach himself to read and write, and that one day he would be free from slavery. In 1832, Douglass was sent to a plantation in St. Michael's, where he would live and work as a field hand for more than seven years. According to Douglass, this life was so dispiriting and exhausting, that at times thoughts of freedom all but disappeared from his mind. His journey out of bondage was mental, as well as physical. Douglass would go on to be one of the abolition movement's most persuasive speakers, and would eventually become a strong proponent for women's rights. His famous autobiography, the Narrative, reads like the impassioned plea of an abolitionist tract, compelling in its honest and forceful eloquence. Later Douglass would serve as minister to Haiti and would fight against the southern practice of lynching without benefit of trial by jury. After his first wife's death, he would startle his associates and friends by marrying a white woman, one of the most publicized interracial marriages in America. Douglass died in 1895. He was buried in Rochester, New York."

Frederick Douglass (Author), Charles Turner (Narrator)

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Out of Africa

"'When I was a young girl, it was very far from my thoughts to go to Africa, nor did I dream then that an African farm should be the place in which I should be perfectly happy.' After the failure of her coffee farm, Karen Blixen returned to Denmark, where she wrote this classic account of her experiences. Out of Africa is a celebration of her life there and her friendship with the various peoples of the area. Her sympathetic response to the landscape and animals are drawn with warmth and unusual clarity."

Isak Dinesen (Author), Julie Harris (Narrator)

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They Made a Monkee Out of Me: The Only Authorized Story

"Aiming to cash in on the success of The Beatles, American television producers created a television show that featured a quartet of fun-loving musicians, achieving instant success with The Monkees. Davy Jones, a young, aspiring actor was cast in the series, which aired for the first time on September 12th, 1966. Within two months, the show had moved into the Top 20, and the Monkees first single and album both soared to #1 on the charts. Pop culture, pop music, and Davy Jones would never be the same. In this lively and entertaining memoir, Jones recounts his life and career—from The Monkees' beginnings to the 1980s reunion and revival—with funny, nostalgic, and revealing memories of the glamorous people and high-rolling deals that lie behind the scenes of show business."

Davy Jones (Author), Davy Jones (Narrator)

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Been There, Done That: An Autobiography

"By the time he was 21 years old, Eddie Fisher was one of America's most popular entertainers. But for Eddie, that was only the beginning of a two-decade affair with fame and fortune that made him more popular than Frank Sinatra, turned out more consecutive hit records than the Beatles, and earned him millions of dollars. He married America's sweetheart, Debbie Reynolds, then left her for the world's most glamorous woman, Elizabeth Taylor. In between it all there were wild parties with Sinatra and the Rat Pack, meetings with Sam Giancana, and high-rolling escapades in Las Vegas. With honesty and wit, Fisher re-creates one of America's most colorful eras, along with the roller-coaster ride that was his life— including recollections that were too steamy for his previous memoir."

Eddie Fisher (Author), Eddie Fisher (Narrator)

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A Jerk on One End: Reflections of a Mediocre Fisherman

"For Robert Hughes fishing was a lifelong obsession and the pastime that he loved best. In A Jerk on One End he brings the wit and insight that have characterized his art criticism to the subjects of fish and fishing. He traces his love of fishing to his boyhood on Sydney Harbour and recounts the high and low points of his career with rod and reel, from his first catch to hair-raising tales of shark hunts he has picked up from other fishermen. Mixing memoir and history with folklore and anecdote, this audiobook is a celebration of the delights and beauties of fishing as well as a powerful and reasoned plea for the protection of the ecology of the ocean."

Robert Hughes (Author), Peter Renaday (Narrator)

Audiobook

Memoirs Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir

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