Biography & Memoir Audiobooks

The Finnish Front Line: Kekkonen, Kennedy, and Khrushchev’s Cold War Showdown

"The Finnish Front Line is a historical biography of Urho Kekkonen, the eighth and longest-serving president of Finland. Gordon F. Sander focuses on Kekkonen's pivotal first term as president, which was bracketed by two crises that together formed the template for both Finland's relationship with the Soviet Union from 1956 through the fall of the USSR, and Kekkonen's own 'special' relationship with Moscow: the Night Frost crisis of 1957, which derived from the Kremlin's desire to exert greater influence on Finnish politics, and the Note Crisis of 1961, which coincided with the great Berlin crisis of 1961, and occurred when Moscow suddenly invoked the clause in the 1948 Finnish-Soviet treaty that entitled the Kremlin to call for mutual discussions between the Finnish and Soviet militaries and was perceived as a threat to Finnish independence. Thinking this might presage a Soviet invasion of Finland, a distressed Kekkonen was able to resolve the crisis by flying to Siberia to meet with his erstwhile friend Nikita Khrushchev—who may well have precipitated the crisis in order to insure Kekkonen's reelection. This book centers on an overlooked chapter of the Cold War as well as a revealing chapter of the presidency of John Kennedy and his secret offer to help Kekkonen, which he later rejected, ultimately to avoid making Finland into the next front of the Cold War."

Gordon F. Sander (Author), Rich Miller (Narrator)

Audiobook

Fifty Percent of Mountaineering is Uphill: The Life of Canadian Mountain Rescue Pioneer Willi Pfiste

"Winner of the Alberta Readers' Choice Award! Fifty Percent of Mountaineering Is Uphill is the enthralling true story of Jasper's Willi Pfisterer, a legend in the field of mountaineering and safety in the Rocky Mountains. For more than thirty years, Willi was an integral part of Jasper's alpine landscape, guiding climbers up to the highest peaks, and rescuing them from perilous situations. Originally from Austria, this mountain man came to Canada in the 1950s to assail the Rockies, and stayed to become an integral part of mountain safety in Western Canada and the Yukon. His daughter, Susanna Pfisterer, has shaped his stories and lectures as an engaging and educational adventure story. Accompanied by the humorous wisdom of the 'Sidehillgouger,' listeners will traverse an historical and spectacular terrain."

Susanna Pfisterer (Author), Keith Brown (Narrator)

Audiobook

One Up on Wall Street: How to Use What You Already Know to Make Money in the Market

"More than one million copies have been sold of this seminal book on investing in which legendary mutual-fund manager Peter Lynch explains the advantages that average investors have over professionals and how they can use these advantages to achieve financial success. America's most successful money manager tells how average investors can beat the pros by using what they know. According to Lynch, investment opportunities are everywhere. From the supermarket to the workplace, we encounter products and services all day long. By paying attention to the best ones, we can find companies in which to invest before the professional analysts discover them. When investors get in early, they can find the "tenbaggers," the stocks that appreciate tenfold from the initial investment. A few tenbaggers will turn an average stock portfolio into a star performer. Lynch offers easy-to-follow advice for sorting out the long shots from the no-shots by reviewing a company's financial statements and knowing which numbers really count. He offers guidelines for investing in cyclical, turnaround, and fast-growing companies. As long as you invest for the long term, Lynch says, your portfolio can reward you. This timeless advice has made One Up on Wall Street a #1 bestseller and a classic book of investment know-how."

Peter Lynch (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Venture Everywhere: Travel, Entrepreneurship and a Roadmap for Life

"Embark on a journey into the heart of entrepreneurship and exploration with world-traveling venture capitalist Jenny Fielding as she decodes the secrets to success—in business and in life—from entrepreneurs building startups around the globe. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned business leader seeking new perspectives, or simply fascinated by the world of startups, Venture Everywhere offers a fresh perspective on what it takes to thrive in today's dynamic world. With Jenny's expert guidance and boundless enthusiasm, you'll discover how to harness the power of the Everywhere Mindset—a transformative approach to business and life that embraces elasticity, conviction, kineticism, moxie, macrovision, and systematic frameworks. Through tales of global escapades and candid interviews with the world’s most innovative entrepreneurial minds, Jenny invites you to join her on a journey of discovery, growth, and endless possibilities. Each chapter offers insights and actionable guidance to fuel your entrepreneurial spirit, taking you from the bustling streets of New York City to the hidden gems of far-flung destinations like Rio, Beijing, and Cairo. Prepare to be inspired, liberated, and empowered to venture beyond the confines of convention. Your journey starts here—where will it take you?"

Jenny Fielding (Author), Amy McFadden (Narrator)

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The Book of Kin: On Absence, Love, and Being There

"A remarkable debut that explores the imperfect ways we care for one another, and how we seek repair when care fails. “What’s our obligation to each other?” asks Jennifer Eli Bowen in this propulsive exploration of community, solitude, and love. Drawing on her experiences as a mother, daughter, and founder of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, the country’s largest and most enduring prison-based literary organization, she examines the wild spectrum of shapes that care can take. She investigates the role of community across the world and in her own neighborhood, driven by a curiosity to uncover what might be gleaned from various vanishments in her own life: the shadow of her father, disappeared backyard chickens, a Moleskine notebook that passes in and out of her Little Free Library. Tracing both connection and its lack, Bowen uncovers what happens when it’s missing, how we find it, and how it heals individuals, communities, and systems—from the incarcerated caretakers of newborn foals in Norway to the time-bending drama of watching children grow into adults. And through this winding quest to understand love, she moves readers out of their complacency not only about the state of American incarceration, but about what we owe ourselves and society. Unflinching, vulnerable, and surprisingly funny, The Book of Kin encourages us not to abandon each other, reminding us that “harm is shared, and healing is too.”"

Jennifer Eli Bowen (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Caroline Kennedy Nonfiction

Caroline Kennedy (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Insomnia

"Brought to you by Penguin. The rock legend tells the story of his wild ride with Martin Scorsese – as friends, adventure-seekers, and boundary-pushing collaborators – with all the heart of his New York Times bestselling memoir Testimony For four decades, Robbie Robertson produced music for Martin Scorsese's films, a relationship that began when Robertson convinced Scorsese to direct The Last Waltz, the iconic film of the Band's farewell performance at the Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving 1976. The closing of the Band's story with that landmark concert thrust Robertson into a new and uncertain world. With his relationship with his bandmates deteriorating and his marriage collapsing, Robertson arrived on Scorsese’s Beverly Hills doorstep only to find his friend in similar straits. Before the night was out, Scorsese had invited him to move in. Both men, already culture-transforming stars before the age of thirty-five, stood at a creative precipice, searching for the beginning of a new phase of life and work. As their friendship deepened into a career-altering collaboration, their shared journey would take them around the world and down the rabbit hole of American culture in the long hangover of the seventies. Buffeted on either side by temptation and paranoia, veering closer to self-destruction than either wanted to admit, together they had devoted themselves to a partnership defined by equal parts admiration and ambition. With a cast of characters featuring Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Federico Fellini, Sophia Loren, Sam Fuller, Liza Minelli, Tuesday Weld, and many more, Insomnia is an intimate portrait of a remarkable creative friendship between two titans of American arts, one that would explore the outer limits of excess and experience before returning to tell the tale. © Robbie Robertson 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025"

Robbie Robertson (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Ozzy & Me: Life Lessons, Wild Stories, and Unexpected Epiphanies from Forty Years of Friendship with

"An entertaining, heartwarming memoir detailing the adventures and valuable life lessons learned from the author's four decades of friendship with Ozzy Osbourne and the Osbourne family. Stephen Rea was born in Northern Ireland in 1969, the same year "The Troubles" began. Violence was everywhere. His grandmother was nearly killed when gunmen opened fire on the wrong house, leaving young Stephen to pick at the bullet holes in the walls. He found refuge from this turmoil in heavy metal—especially the music of Ozzy Osbourne. As a pre-internet teenager, he hunted down dozens of live concert bootlegs—corresponding by mail with collectors around the world—and devoured every music magazine he could find. In late 1984, when Stephen was fifteen, he read about a huge festival in Rio de Janeiro that January called "Rock In Rio" whose bill included AC/DC, Queen, and Osbourne. As a lark, he mentioned it to his dad, and was stunned when he said they should go. He was even more shocked when his mother, looking for information about how to get tickets, began a correspondence with Osbourne's secretary, who scored the family VIP passes and introduced them to Osbourne in Brazil. Thus began a friendship with Ozzy, his wife Sharon and the rest of the Osbourne family that has continued for decades. While traveling on tour in the mid-nineties, Ozzy gifted Stephen a pair of fancy leather notebooks and told him to keep a record of their adventures and conversations. The result is Ozzy & Me: a beautiful behind-the-scenes memoir that proves the life-affirming, soul-nourishing power of music—and disproves the notion that you should never meet your heroes."

Stephen Rea (Author), Unknown (Narrator)

Audiobook

Hope in Action: A Memoir from the Former Prime Minister of Finland About the Courage to Lead

"When Sanna Marin became Prime Minister of Finland at just thirty-four years old, she captivated the world's attention with her progressive ideas and her boldness amidst major crises. In her powerful personal memoir Hope in Action, she shares the extraordinary journey of her trailblazing career, and her vision for a new kind of leadership. Marin's story is one of resilience and hope. The first in her family to attend university, she broke barriers to become a global icon of progressive leadership. Her term as prime minister - the youngest in the world at the time - saw historic milestones, as she led Finland through the COVID-19 pandemic, and her government implemented many progressive reforms addressing climate change, social justice and equality. She helped the country navigate neighbouring Russia's devastating full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Finland's rapid joining of NATO - the swiftest entry for any country in the alliance's history. Through vivid retellings of her experiences, Marin shares how she overcame significant political challenges, and how she coped with her personal life becoming public, including the incident that sparked a media frenzy and prompted women, including Hillary Clinton and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to express their support. Hope in Action is much more than a memoir - it's a call to action as Marin urges the next generation of leaders to bring their full, authentic selves to the job. Her story is an empowering testament to the opportunities we have to affect real change in our worlds."

Sanna Marin (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Philosopher in the Valley: Alex Karp, Palantir and the Rise of the Surveillance State

"In the age of big data, no company embodies its promise and its perils more than Palantir. This software firm sells some of the most powerful and dangerous technology in the world, ingesting huge quantities of data and spotting patterns, trends, and connections that would likely elude most people. Apart from Facebook, you'd be hard-pressed to find another tech company that's making as big of a splash - or fraught with more potential pitfalls. Founded in 2003 to help the US government in the war on terror, Palantir now has more than thirty federal agencies as clients. From climate change and terrorism to poverty to immigration, money laundering, and the future of warfare, Palantir is at the nexus of the most critical issues of the 21st century. At its helm is cofounder and CEO Alex Karp, an atypical tech boss with a law degree from Stanford and a doctorate in social theory from Germany's Goethe University, yet no background in either computer science or business. Now, in The Philosopher in the Valley, journalist Michael Steinberger delves deeply into Karp and the company he's leading, highlighting the risks to privacy and civil liberties that come with big data. Can we get the good without the bad and if not, what are the trade-offs? Karp's unique political and philosophical views put him and the company at odds with fellow cofounder Peter Thiel, a big supporter of Donald Trump in Silicon Valley. The technology they created has the potential to shape the global power dynamic and the way individuals interact with governments. Urgent and important, this illuminating work shows us what this future might look like. "

Michael Steinberger (Author), Unknown (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bottom of the Pyramid: A Memoir of Persevering, Dancing for Myself, and Starring in My Own Life

"When you've been told over and over that you belong at the bottom, how do you come out on top? Dance Moms star and triple threat Nia Sioux shows the way via her story of resilience, triumph, and defining success for herself. Young dancer Nia Sioux was only nine years old when she stepped into stardom as one of the original cast members of Lifetime's reality TV show Dance Moms. Nia learned new choreography week after week and competed against dancers from across the country as well as at her own studio. Perhaps her greatest obstacle was suffering through her dance teacher's ranking of the girls against each other in her infamous pyramid, where Nia spent the majority of her time on the bottom-all in front of an audience of millions. But there was much that viewers didn't see. How her experiences in the studio went far beyond what made it into the show. How she was ostracized for not fitting into an aesthetic that wasn't designed for girls like her. How her friendships and her mental health crumbled under the strain of the show. How she lost control of her story and her voice. But don't be fooled-this is a story about resilience. Nia is not looking for pity, sympathy, or validation as she reflects on her experiences. Instead, she is choosing to use her story as a celebration of triumph. Nia finally gets to tell her story in her own way and in her own words. In this captivating memoir, Nia reclaims both the spotlight and her narrative. In addition to going behind the scenes of the seven seasons of Dance Moms, she shows how she fought against the negative perceptions that dominated her tween and teen years and emerged as a confident young woman secure in her talents and her direction. Anyone who has ever felt misunderstood, overlooked, or stuck at the bottom of the pyramid will be inspired by Nia's story of overcoming. "Despite barriers and constant naysayers, assumptions and criticisms, only you know who you are inside and out," Nia says. "And you have the power to create your own narrative, your own level of success.""

Nia Sioux (Author), Nia Sioux (Narrator)

Audiobook

Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art

"New York Times Notable Book “A smart, crackling chronicle of fast game, the ’80s art market, [and] the attraction of destruction.”— Village Voice A bold and vivid biography that chronicles the dazzling rise and tragic death of Neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In less than a decade, Jean-Michel Basquiat went from being a teenage graffiti artist to an international art star. His meteoric rise to fame coincided with the outrageous excess of the heady ’80s art boom. A fixture of the downtown scene, with its explosive mix of music, fashion, art, and drugs, he soon became involved with some of its most celebrated personalities, including Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Madonna. Basquiat fulfilled that cynical aphorism: Die young and leave a beautiful corpse. But Basquiat did more than that: he left a beautiful corpus. With each passing year, the remarkable energy, perspicacity and originality of his work increases in power. In a world where Black Lives Matter and the imperative need for diversity are among the driving forces of our time, Basquiat’s success in the 1980s white art world, and his ongoing universal celebrity, have made him a significant role model for generation of artists to come. From the rise and fall of the graffiti movement, to the East Village art scene, to the art dealers and out-of-control auction houses, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art, the definitive biography of the young painter, is a vivid portrait of both the artist and his time. Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art includes 12-14 photographs."

Phoebe Hoban (Author), Ron Butler (Narrator)

Audiobook