Biography & Memoir Audiobooks

Searching for the Sound: My Life in the Grateful Dead

Phil Lesh (Author), Phil Lesh (Narrator)

Audiobook

Pat Summitt, the all-time winningest coach in NCAA basketball history aad bestselling author of Reach for the Summitt and Raise The Roof, tells for the first time her remarkable story of victory and resilience as well as facing down her greatest challenge: early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Pat Summitt was only 21 when she became head coach of the Tennessee Vols women's basketball team. For 38 years, she has broken records, winning more games than any NCAA team in basketball history. She has coached an undefeated season, co-captained the first women's Olympic team, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and has been named Sports Illustrated 'Sportswoman of the Year'. She owes her coaching success to her personal struggles and triumphs. She learned to be tough from her strict, demanding father. Motherhood taught her to balance that rigidity with communication and kindness. She is a role model for the many women she's coached; 74 of her players have become coaches. Pat's life took a shocking turn in 2011, when she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, an irreversible brain condition that affects 5 million Americans. Despite her devastating diagnosis, she led the Vols to win their sixteenth SEC championship in March 2012. Pat continues to be a fighter, facing this new challenge the way she's faced every other--with hard work, perseverance, and a sense of humor.

Pat Head Summitt, Sally Jenkins (Author), Sally Jenkins (Narrator)

Audiobook

Waylon: An Autobiography

Lenny Kaye, Waylon Jennings (Author), Waylon Jennings (Narrator)

Audiobook

I Forgot to Die

Khalil Rafati went to Los Angeles in the 1990s and had it all. He was working with Hollywood movie stars and legendary rock musicians, but it wasn't long before he found his way into the dark underbelly of the City of Angels. When he hit rock bottom-addicted to heroin and cocaine, overtaken by paranoia and psychosis, written off by his friends and family-he grabbed a shovel and kept digging. At thirty-three, Khalil was 109 pounds, a convicted felon, high school dropout, and homeless junkie living on the infamous Skid Row in downtown L.A. So how does someone with nothing, who feels like they deserve nothing, and who just wants to end it all turn their life around? I Forgot to Die is an incredible true story of pain, suffering, addiction, and redemption-and how one man ultimately conquered his demons and wrote himself a new life story.

Khalil Rafati (Author), Khalil Rafati (Narrator)

Audiobook

Make Something Good Today: A Memoir

From Ben and Erin Napier, the stars of the hit HGTV show Home Town, comes Make Something Good Today, a memoir that tells us all to seek out the good in life, celebrate the beauty of family and friends, and prosper within our communities because everything we need in life to be happy, is within our grasp. Long before their hugely popular TV show, an expanding family, or demolition day on their dream home, Erin began keeping a daily online journal to help her stay focused on the positive and count her blessings in life. She never expected that her depictions of small-town life in the tiny swath of Mississippi where she Ben call home would catch the eye of a television producer and set them off on the journey of a lifetime. Make Something Good Today offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the struggles and triumphs of a couple that America has come to know and love for their easy humor, adoring relationship, and ability to utterly transform a place into something beautiful and personal. This is the poignant story of how Erin and Ben took a small, tight-knit town into their own hands (literally) and used ingenuity, community, and authenticity to rebuild a once-thriving American Main Street. And how, by combining Ben's carpentry skills with Erin's design eye, Home Town is making it clear to us all that small-town living can feel as big as you make it. Complete with family photographs, Erin's hand-painted sketches, and never-before-heard personal stories, this inspirational memoir reminds us all not to give up hope that great love stories are possible, big things can bloom in small towns, and there is always magic in the ordinary if you know where to look for it.

Ben Napier, Erin Napier (Author), Ben Napier, Erin Napier (Narrator)

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A Dream Called Home: A Memoir

From bestselling author Reyna Grande—whose remarkable memoir The Distance Between Us has become required reading in schools across the country—comes an inspiring account of one woman’s quest to find her place in America as a first-generation Latina university student and aspiring writer determined to build a new life for her family one fearless word at a time. When Reyna Grande was nine-years-old, she walked across the US–Mexico border in search of a home, desperate to be reunited with the parents who had left her behind years before for a better life in the City of Angels. What she found instead was an indifferent mother, an abusive, alcoholic father, and a school system that belittled her heritage. With so few resources at her disposal, Reyna finds refuge in words, and it is her love of reading and writing that propels her to rise above until she achieves the impossible and is accepted to the University of California, Santa Cruz. Although her acceptance is a triumph, the actual experience of American college life is intimidating and unfamiliar for someone like Reyna, who is now once again estranged from her family and support system. Again, she finds solace in words, holding fast to her vision of becoming a writer, only to discover she knows nothing about what it takes to make a career out of a dream. Through it all, Reyna is determined to make the impossible possible, going from undocumented immigrant of little means to “a fierce, smart, shimmering light of a writer” (Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild); a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist “speak[ing] for millions of immigrants whose voices have gone unheard” (Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street); and a proud mother of two beautiful children who will never have to know the pain of poverty and neglect. Told in Reyna’s exquisite, heartfelt prose, A Dream Called Home demonstrates how, by daring to pursue her dreams, Reyna was able to build the one thing she had always longed for: a home that would endure.

Reyna Grande (Author), Yareli Arizmendi (Narrator)

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The Reporter Who Knew Too Much:The Mysterious Death of What's My Line TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy

Was What's My Line TV Star, media icon, and crack investigative reporter and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen murdered for writing a tell-all book about the JFK assassination? If so, is the main suspect in her death still at large? These questions and more are answered in former CNN, ESPN, and USA Today legal analyst Mark Shaw's twenty-fifth book, The Reporter Who Knew Too Much. Through discovery of never-before-seen videotaped eyewitness interviews with those closest to Kilgallen and secret government documents, Shaw unfolds a "whodunit" murder mystery featuring suspects including Frank Sinatra, J. Edgar Hoover, Mafia Don Carlos Marcello, and a "mystery man" who may have silenced Kilgallen. All while by presenting through Kilgallen's eyes the most compelling evidence about the JFK assassinations since the House Select Committee on Assassination's investigation in the 1970s. Called by the New York Post "the most powerful female voice in America" and by acclaimed author Mark Lane "the only serious journalist in America who was concerned with who killed John Kennedy and getting all of the facts about the assassination," Kilgallen's official cause of death, reported as an overdose of barbiturates combined with alcohol, has always been suspect since no investigation occurred despite the death scene having been staged. Shaw proves Kilgallen, a remarkable woman who broke the "glass ceiling" before the term became fashionable, was denied the justice she deserved-until now.

Mark Shaw (Author), Gabra Zackman (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Last Lion, Vol 1: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume I: Visions of Glory 1874-1932

Winston Churchill is perhaps the most important political figure of the twentieth century. His great oratory and leadership during World War II were only part of his huge breadth of experience and achievement. Studying his life is a fascinating way to imbibe the history of his era and gain insight into key events that have shaped our time. "Manchester is not only a master of detail but also of 'the big picture'....I daresay most Americans reading The Last Lion will relish it immensely."-National Review

Eric Garner, William Manchester (Author), Frederick Davidson (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Last Lion, Vol 2: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume II: Alone, 1932-1940

In the second of his three-volume biography, Manchester challenges the assumption that Churchill's finest hour was as a wartime leader. During the years 1932-1940, Churchill stood almost alone against Nazi aggression and the British and French pusillanimous policy of appeasement. "Manchester is not only a master of detail but also of 'the big picture'....I daresay most Americans reading The Last Lion will relish it immensely."-National Review

Eric Garner, William Manchester (Author), Richard Brown (Narrator)

Audiobook

Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley

Careless Love is the full, true, and mesmerizing story of Elvis Presley's last two decades, in the long-awaited second volume of Peter Guralnick's masterful two-part biography. Last Train to Memphis, the first part of Guralnick's two-volume life of Elvis Presley, was acclaimed by the New York Times as "a triumph of biographical art." This concluding volume recounts the second half of Elvis' life in rich and previously unimagined detail, and confirms Guralnick's status as one of the great biographers of our time. Beginning with Presley's army service in Germany in 1958 and ending with his death in Memphis in 1977, Careless Love chronicles the unravelling of the dream that once shone so brightly, homing in on the complex playing-out of Elvis' relationship with his Machiavellian manager, Colonel Tom Parker. It's a breathtaking revelatory drama that for the first time places the events of a too-often mistold tale in a fresh, believable, and understandable context. Elvis' changes during these years form a tragic mystery that Careless Love unlocks for the first time. This is the quintessential American story, encompassing elements of race, class, wealth, sex, music, religion, and personal transformation. Written with grace, sensitivity, and passion, Careless Love is a unique contribution to our understanding of American popular culture and the nature of success, giving us true insight at last into one of the most misunderstood public figures of our times.

Peter Guralnick (Author), Kevin Stillwell (Narrator)

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A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America

Liberals love to hate Ted Cruz. The outspoken Texas Senator has a knack for getting under their skin. His quotable remarks - and even more, his principled stands on numerous national issues -- have made him a political lightning rod and the most googled man in Washington. There is a simple reason Senator Cruz has dominated so much of the national conversation. Since his election to the Senate in 2012 he has refused to go along with the established way of doing business in Washington. As a result, he has become a voice for millions of Americans frustrated with governmental corruption and gridlock. Telling the truth is a radical act in our nation's capital - a city dominated by empty promises, meaningless "show votes," and a self-protection racket designed to get politicians re-elected rather than heeding the demands of the American people. Cruz has told the truth - about Washington collusion, a corrupted political process, and the institutional barriers to actually fixing the enormous challenges we face. In A Time For Truth, his first book, Cruz tells his story as a Cuban immigrant's son who made it to the Ivy League, to the Supreme Court bar, and eventually the U.S. Senate. It's a deeply personal journey that begins with Cruz's father experiencing brutality in a Cuban prison and ends with Cruz's discovery that Washington has neither the courage nor the desire to preserve the freedom and opportunities that gave hope to his father, and millions like him. Pulling back the curtain on the backroom deals between Republicans, Democrats, and the lobbyists who keep them in office (instead of keeping them accountable to their constituents), Cruz offers an inside look at what has gone wrong in our nation's capital. He argues that the need for change is urgent, and that the only way to bring about real change is to revitalize the Constitutional principles that made our country great. It's a book that will win Ted Cruz few friends in Washington. Then again, that isn't why he went there in the first place.

Ted Cruz (Author), Jason Culp, Ted Cruz (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Romford Pelé: It's only Ray Parlour's autobiography

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER The Trophies ... The Tuesday Club ... The Prawn Crackers ... Marc Overmars may have given him the nickname, but the Romford Pele is a legend in his own right. Over 16 action-packed years, from a trainee scrubbing the boots of the first XI, to a record-breaking 333 Premier League appearances, Ray Parlour's never-say-die performances, curly locks and mischievous sense of humour have gone down in Arsenal history. Battling tirelessly on the pitch, often in the shadows of his star-name teammates, Parlour won three premier league titles and four FA Cup trophies with the Gunners. But he was also the heart and soul of the dressing room, the training ground and the after work drink. From nights out with Tony Adams, to teaching Thierry Henry cockney rhyming slang, from playing golf with Dennis Bergkamp to trading Inspector Clouseau jokes with Arsène Wenger, this wonderfully funny and candid autobiography looks back on a golden age of the beautiful game, reliving the banter, the stories and the success. Ray Parlour is an Arsenal legend. During his 16-year career he won 3 Premier League titles, 4 FA Cups and the UEFA Cup. One of the most underrated players of his generation, he was also part of Arsenal's famous Invincible team of 2003/4, which went the entire Premier League season unbeaten. He is now a regular pundit for TalkSport and Sky Sports. He enjoys a short back and sides.

Ray Parlour (Author), Arsène Wenger, Paul Thornley (Narrator)

Audiobook