Biography & Memoir Audiobooks

Just About Coping: A real life drama from the psychotherapist's chair

At the psychologist's clinic of an NHS hospital, Noah needs help with procrastination, Bill compulsively lies, Steph is coping with rejection and their therapist, Dr Natalie, is dealing with her own emotional crisis, breathing into a paper bag between patient sessions. In this lively and honest memoir of training to be a psychotherapist, we meet the patients grappling with mental health issues, from OCD and addiction to self-deception and self-harming, and see how Dr Natalie helps them understand and change these attempts to self-soothe. Funny, poignant and full of 'aha' moments, Just About Coping is a journey into our inner worlds, where the drama of our break-ups, breakdowns and breakthroughs takes place. In times of stress and suffering, Dr Natalie reveals, we are all just about coping. None of us is immune - not even your therapist.

Natalie Cawley (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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A Season for That: Lost and Found in the Other Southern France

An American food writer moves his family of unlikely expats to the French countryside, where the locals upend everything he knows about cooking and winemaking, in this delightful memoir from a winner of the James Beard M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. Steve Hoffman is a perfectly comfortable middle-aged Minnesotan man who has always been desperately, pretentiously in love with France, more specifically with the idea of France. To follow that love, he and his family move, nearly at random, to a small, rural, scratchy-hot village in the south of the country, and he immediately thinks he's made a terrible mistake. Life here is not holding your cigarette chest-high while walking to the cafe and pulling off the trick of pretending to be French, it's getting into fights with your wife because you won't break character and introduce your very American family to the locals, who can smell you and your perfect city-French from a mile away. But through cooking what the local grocer tells him to cook, he feels more of this place. A neighbor leads him into the world of winemaking, where he learns not as a pedantic oenophile, but bodily, as a grape picker and winemaker's apprentice. Along the way, he lets go of the abstract ideas he'd held about France, discovering instead the beauty of a culture that is one with its landscape, and of becoming one with that culture. It's a story told in transporting writing, humor, and delicious detail.

Steve Hoffman (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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Why Can't I Just Enjoy Things?: A Neurodivergent Guy in a Neurotypical World

During a stand-up gig, Pierre received a heckle from a neurodiverse audience member which prompted him to investigate how his own brain worked and at the age of 31, eventually led to him being diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The diagnosis unravelled his world, explained his struggles and answered questions he's had throughout his life: why were people in primary school obsessed with Britney Spears and not The Goon Show like him? Why would anyone do the washing-up little and often when they could go full 'Crime Scene Clean Up' for the entire day? And why on earth is everyone chewing so loudly? Through observational comedy, Pierre gives the reader an insight into the autist's brain and demystifies some of the daily quirks that those with ASD experience, whilst highlighting a general lack of education about the disorder.

Pierre Novellie (Author), Pierre Novellie, Unknown (Narrator)

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Drop In: The Gender Rebels Who Changed the Face of Skateboarding

A bad*ss story of the female, queer, bi, and nonbinary skaters who charted a path to the Olympics and changed the face of skateboarding. Who gets to tell the story of skateboarding? Drop In is the first book to recognize and historicize the female, queer, bi, and nonbinary humans who blazed the path that led to today’s more equitable skate culture. It wasn’t easy getting here. Like the rest of the world, skateboarding has long been patriarchal. In the 70s, it personified the punk rock, lock-up-your-daughters, middle-finger-to-the-man ethos. In the 80s, it was Miami Vice soundtracks and parachute pants, neon graphics and fingerless gloves. In the 90s it was New York City—graffiti, hip-hop, and skating in the street. Rarely did you see a woman’s name in a skate video—either on a deck or behind the lens. The four skateboarders at the heart of Drop In defied expectations of gender, talent, physical ability, and mental capacity to fight the status quo: Alana as the first openly nonbinary athlete in Olympic history; Vanessa as a trailblazing runaway, dominating contests while drinking to excess; Marbie as an accidental boundary-breaking trans icon; and Victoria as the skate rookie turned social media sensation. Drop In spotlights their paths from rebellious outsiders to recognized pioneers on the historic stage of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where skateboarding made its historic debut. Their experiences reveal a side of skateboarding that’s never been recorded, amplifying voices that have, for too long, gone unheard.

Deborah Stoll (Author), Daru Oda, Deborah Stoll, Tbd (Narrator)

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The Lucky Ones: A Memoir

A moving memoir by a survivor of anti-Muslim violence in contemporary India that delicately weaves political and family histories in a tribute to India's vibrant multiethnic society and the resilience of its women and minorities, especially in the face of growing religious extremism "A warning, thrown to the world, and a stunning debut-Chowdhary is a much-needed new voice.'-Alexander Chee In 2002, Zara Chowdhary was sixteen years old and living with her family in Ahmedabad, one of India's fastest-growing metropolises, when a gruesome anti-Muslim pogrom upended her world. Instead of taking her school exams, she was put under a three-month lockdown with thousands of others, fearing for their community and their lives. The chief minister in the state at the time, Narendra Modi, accused of fomenting anti-Muslim violence, would become prime minister of India and lead a government committed to eroding the rights of India's 220 million Muslims. In The Lucky Ones, Chowdhary weaves the past and the present of her multigenerational Muslim family, juxtaposing the horrific violence of rising fascistic forces on the streets with the more mundane violence of patriarchal Indian joint families at the dinner table. Through the stories of sisters, daughters, and mothers raising each other, Chowdhary shows how women hold this world together with their ability to forgive, find laughter, and offer grace even as the world they know, and their place in it, is falling apart. With lyrical clarity and intimacy, The Lucky Ones is a poetic remembrance of how a country's promise of a multiethnic secular democracy can so easily dissolve and descend into extremism. Chowdhary's story is a protest against the erasure of India's Muslims, a testimony of a lost girlhood, and a testament to her family and country's entwined lives.

Zara Chowdhary (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within

A renowned climber and National Geographic photographer shares his incredible adventures-and the early trauma that drove him to seek such heights-in a vivid memoir that spans the summit of Everest to the darkest corners of the soul. "In order to escape madness, I will live madly. I will risk my life in order to save it." Growing up in the mountains of Utah, Cory Richards was constantly surrounded by the outdoors. His father, a high school teacher and ski patroller, spent years teaching Cory and his brother how to ski, climb, mountaineer, and survive in the wild. Despite a seemingly idyllic childhood, the Richards home was fraught with violence, grief, and mental illness. After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and dropping out of high school, Cory subsumed himself in the worlds of photography and climbing, seeking out the farthest reaches of the world to escape the darkness. Suddenly though, in the midst of a wildly successful career in adventure photography, a catastrophic avalanche changed everything, forcing Cory to confront the trauma of his past, evaluate his own mental health and learn to rewrite his own story. The Color of Everything is a thrilling tale of risk and adventure, written by a man who has done it all: he's stood at the top of the world, climbed imposing mountain faces alone in the dark and become the only American to summit an 8,000-meter peak in winter. But it is also the story of a tumultuous life--a stirring, lyrical memoir that captures the profound musings of a brilliant and unquiet mind grappling with the meaning of success, the cost of fame, addiction, and whether it is possible to outrun your demons. With exquisite prose and disarming candor, accompanied by stunning photos from his career, Richards excavates the psychological roots and effects of trauma and shares what it took for him to climb out.

Cory Richards (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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If By Some Impossible Miracle: Coming of Age in Underground New York

An award-winning artist who was featured in Humans of New York, conveys his life experience in a bold collection of essays addressing family trauma, addiction, poverty-and how a passion to create art moved him beyond his struggles. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1963, Patrick grew up in the midst of some of the most turbulent and culturally impactful periods of NYC's history. Often neglected as a child by his parents-a father who struggled with alcohol addiction and an overworked mother who struggled to make ends meet-he learned to fend for himself. Now a renowned visual artist, musician, actor and writer, Dougher brings to the page his memories, his struggles, personal revelations, and a life intimately tied to the realities of growing up Black and disenfranchised on the streets of one of the most remarkable cities in the world. If by Some Impossible Miracle is tragic and triumphant, gritty and hard, poetic and outrageously funny. Told in Dougher's brutally raw and courageously honest voice, these stories act as snapshots of a life lived in extremes; from gangsters to God, street style to sexuality, fights and broken bones, to recovery from drug addiction and alcoholism. He tells of his adventures as a pre-hip hop "hard rock' and an original Black punk rocker surviving during the dangerous days of the crack and AIDS epidemic in NYC, while also sharing tales of racism, homelessness, and his many brushes with fame and death. Audacious, unique, and sometimes surprising, If by Some Impossible Miracle is an unmatched collection offering stories from a life filled with laughter and tears that came together to create an artist.

Patrick Dougher (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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The Shape of My Eyes: A Memoir of Race, Faith, and Finding Myself

A touching, humorous account of the author's cultural reckoning with his Korean heritage and hidden family secrets. A surprising diagnosis of PTSD led Dave Gibbons to look to his past for clues to explain the unexpected result. Born to an American soldier and a Korean mother in the wake of the Korean War, Dave has spent his life struggling to blend his Korean roots and his very American upbringing. The family joins a conservative church that embraces a strict, rule-based faith, and they try to navigate life as one of the few mixed-raced families in their community. But when tragedy strikes, tearing the family apart, Dave is forced to face long- buried secrets that he can no longer ignore. As he explores his family's difficult past, he confronts his own pain and the persistent feelings of not quite fitting in either in America or his mother's home country. And when a DNA test ultimately reveals a truth that shatters everything he understood about his history, he begins the journey to reconcile his American upbringing with his deep Korean roots, and he is forced to confront the traumas he unknowingly carried. The Shape of My Eyes beautifully weaves historic reference points of the oppression and discrimination against Asian Americans with Dave's own personal story. Dave's wrestling with belonging in his family, in America, and in the church creates a raw, thought-provoking memoir about race, religion and finding home.

Dave Gibbons (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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Desolation: A Heavy Metal Memoir

A gritty, revealing heavy metal memoir by Lamb of God's lead guitarist and co-lyricist, which explores both his life in music and his tumultuous path through addiction and into recovery. DESOLATION is the story of Morton's lifelong quest for clarity and self-acceptance, and shows how the pressures of career success and personal battles eventually came into conflict with Morton's dedication to the creative process. Intertwined with addiction, self-destruction, and the path to eventual surrender and recovery, Morton also reveals the greatest personal tragedy of his life: the death of his two-day old daughter, plunging Morton further into hopelessness. Surrounded by bandmates living their wildest dreams, Morton wanted nothing more than to disappear, ingesting potentially lethal cocktails of drugs and alcohol into his system on a daily basis. And yet, amidst the harrowing heartbreak, there were moments of triumph, hope, and incredible personal connection. Morton developed close relationships with his bandmates and crew members, sharing experiences that have made for some strange and hilarious tales. He's also gained a greater sense of purpose through interactions with his fans, who remind him that his work reaches people on a deeply personal level. Through the highs and the lows, Morton learns how to find presence and gratitude where he once found fear and resentment, a process that he considers a gift of spiritual awakening. DESOLATION is, at its core, about Morton's journey as a musician navigating self doubt, anxiety and the progressive disease of addiction, and ultimately finding relative serenity. Perfect for fans, new and old, as well as anyone who has ever been tested and brought to their limits, DESOLATION is a highly-satisfying, full-throttle investigation of the human experience.

Mark Morton (Author), Mark Morton, TBD (Narrator)

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Herod and Mary: The True Story of the Tyrant King and the Mother of the Risen Savior

Explore the interwoven lives of King Herod and Mary, Mother of Jesus as New York Times bestselling author Kathie Lee Gifford brings these biblical figures into a new light. Follow Herod from boyhood as he strives and fails throughout his life to become a beloved king. Walk in the steps of Mary of Nazareth as she navigates the repercussions of Herod's deadly obsession. Delve into the complex history of Herod the Great-his rise to power and ultimate fall in pursuit to be the 'King of the Jews.' Under a flourishing yet tumultuous background of Jerusalem, consider Mary of Nazareth's place under Herod's rule and the promise of a Messiah to free her people. Kathie Lee Gifford with Bryan M. Litfin, Ph.D. deftly weave a truthful historical narrative full of accurate details and sweeping prose that ushers in the true King and glorifies God's powerful plan to bring a savior into the world through unlikely means. A coda between the authors, full of honest revelation and insightful meaning, follows each chapter for added in-depth reading. The first installment in the Ancient Evil, Living Hope series, Herod and Mary begins with the tragic life of King Herod-Christianity's first true persecutor. As an impressionable boy, he is forever marked by the raw power of Rome. Throughout the course of Herod's career, he gains power, fame, and riches beyond belief. Yet murderous intrigues stalk this man-and infect his own dark soul. Under the rule of King Herod, Jerusalem becomes a prominent city of wealth and prosperity, but Mary saw the struggle of her people under a tyrant. Like all Jewish women, she knew the promises of Torah and longed for a deliverer. But no one could have prepared her for what the angel of God revealed: that the Messiah wouldn't arrive with the blaring of trumpets, the clash of arms, or the fanfare of a mighty host. He would arrive as an infant within her own womb. The light of the world was born in a cave: not a king who maims and destroys, but the gentle King of the Jews. This riveting narrative nonfiction work reveals deep insight to how Herod came to power, how corruption and an ancient evil threatened the stability of a nation, and how a teenage Mary was called to traverse these obstacles to bring the Savior, Jesus, our living hope, into the world.

Kathie Lee Gifford (Author), Bryan M. Litfin, Kathie Gifford, TBD (Narrator)

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Perfect Bound

Part memoir, part manifesto for living from the woman who redefined how-to titles for the 21st century Having suffered the unimaginable loss of her first husband and child, Lindsay Nicholson worked her way up to become the most successful lifestyle magazine editor in Britain. But when a would-be suicide ran in front of her car, the pages of her picture-perfect life fell apart once more. In just one year, Lindsay lost her marriage, job and home, and was even arrested. Suicidal and suffering from profound PTSD, she tried medication, therapy and New Age courses – until she found the answers she was looking for in the pages of her former magazine. Following the wisdom they dispensed, Lindsay came to realise that life isn’t about being perfect. It’s the mess of friendship, laughter and the little things that truly matter. By turns deeply moving, inspiring and sharply funny, Perfect Bound is an unforgettable story about resilience, recovery and remembering what really makes life worth living.

Lindsay Nicholson (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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Iconic: My life in 50 objects

Ella Alexander, Zandra Rhodes (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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