Biography & Memoir audiobooks

Great and Horrible News

By: Blessin Adams

Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble

Length: 7 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

‘Grimly fascinating … engrossing’ Daily Mail NINE HISTORIC CRIMES. ONE FAMILIAR OBSESSION. In early modern England, murder truly was most foul. Trials were gossipy events packed to the rafters with noisome spectators. Executions were public proceedings which promised not only gore, but... Read more

Normal Women

By: Philippa Gregory

Narrated by: Philippa Gregory, Clare Corbett, Tania Rodrigue...

Length: 27 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

“Lively, timely and gloriously energetic. Each page bursts with life, and every chapter swirls with personalities left out of traditional narratives of Britain’s past. Philippa Gregory has produced something rare and wonderful: a genuinely new history of [Britain], with women at its beating heart.” —Dan Jones, New York Times bestselling author... Read more

Broken (in the best possible way)

By: Jenny Lawson

Narrated by: Jenny Lawson

Length: 8 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

"Jenny Lawson returns to narrate her third installment in a disheveled saga of finding the light at the end of a long, winding, ludicrous tunnel...Another treasure in the Lawson collection, this audiobook shines with a powerful message: Depression and anxiety suck, but we can rise above them." -- AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner

From... Read more

The Editor

By: Sara B. Franklin

Narrated by: Eunice Wong

Length: 11 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

“A surprising, granular, luminous, and path-breaking biography.” —Edward Hirsch, critic and author of How to Read a Poem

Legendary editor Judith Jones, the woman behind some of the most important authors of the 20th century—including Julia Child, Anne Frank, Edna Lewis, John Updike, and Sylvia Plath—finally gets her due in this intimate... Read more

One in a Millennial

By: Kate Kennedy

Length: 9 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

This program is read by the author.

From pop culture podcaster and a voice of a generation, Kate Kennedy, a celebration of the millennial zeitgeist

One In a Millennial is an exploration of pop culture, nostalgia, the millennial zeitgeist, and the life lessons learned (for better and for worse) from coming of age as a member of a much-maligned... Read more

Man's Search for Meaning

By: Viktor E. Frankl

Narrated by: Theo Solomon

Length: 5 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

As relevant today as it was when it was first published, Man’s Search for Meaning is a book for finding strength and purpose in times of great despair.“This is a book I reread a lot … it gives me hope … it gives me a sense of strength.”—Anderson Cooper, Anderson Cooper 360/CNNViktor E. Frankl was a medical doctor at a psychiatric hospital in... Read more

Liliana's Invincible Summer (Pulitzer Prize winner)

By: Cristina Rivera Garza

Narrated by: Victoria Villarreal

Length: 8 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “A searing account of grief and the quest to bring her sister’s murderer to justice years after the fact” (The Boston Globe), from “one of Mexico’s greatest living writers” (Jonathan Lethem).
 
“Part memoir, part true-crime story, Garza’s chronicle is both... Read more

When Breath Becomes Air

By: Paul Kalanithi

Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra & Cassandra Campbell

Length: 5 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question, What makes a life worth living?

“Unmissable . . . Finishing this book and then forgetting about it is simply not an... Read more

All Creatures Great and Small

By: James Herriot

Narrated by: Nicholas Ralph

Length: 15 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

**This program is read by Nicholas Ralph, star of the PBS Masterpiece series**

"Nicholas Ralph’s readings of Herriot’s stories are as comforting an experience as the show, and even more immersive." —The Houston Chronicle

A tie-in to the PBS Masterpiece series and Christmas special, available on streaming and home video.

All Creatures Great and... Read more

Better Living Through Birding

By: Christian Cooper

Narrated by: Christian Cooper

Length: 10 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Central Park birder Christian Cooper takes us beyond the viral video that shocked a nation and into a world of avian adventures, global excursions, and the unexpected lessons you can learn from a life spent looking up.

"Wondrous . . . captivating.”—Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of An Immense World

Christian Cooper is a self-described... Read more

The Backyard Bird Chronicles

By: Amy Tan

Narrated by: Amy Tan & Evan Sibley

Length: 6 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

A gorgeous, witty account of birding, nature, and the beauty around us that hides in plain sight, written and illustrated by the best-selling author of The Joy Luck Club • With a foreword by David Allen Sibley

“Unexpected and spectacular” —Ann Patchett, best-selling author of These Precious Days

"The drawings and essays in this book do a lot more... Read more

All That She Carried

By: Tiya Miles

Narrated by: Janina Edwards

Length: 9 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft a “deeply layered and insightful” (The Washington Post) testament to people who are left out of the archives.
 
WINNER: Frederick Douglass Book Prize, Harriet Tubman Prize,... Read more

I Am, I Am, I Am

By: Maggie O'Farrell

Narrated by: Daisy Donovan

Length: 5 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

"I Am I Am I Am is a gripping and glorious investigation of death that leaves the reader feeling breathless, grateful, and fully alive. Maggie O’Farrell is a miracle in every sense. I will never forget this book."
—Ann Patchett

An extraordinary memoir—told entirely in near-death experiences—from one of Britain's best-selling novelists, for fans of... Read more

Hunger

By: Roxane Gay

Narrated by: Roxane Gay

Length: 5 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

From the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist: a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.“I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to... Read more

Into the Wild

By: Jon Krakauer

Narrated by: Philip Franklin

Length: 7 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for... Read more

Between the World and Me

By: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Length: 3 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT
 
Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal... Read more

Get the Picture

By: Bianca Bosker

Narrated by: Bianca Bosker

Length: 10 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Get the Picture is one of the funniest books I’ve read . . . Brilliant.” —The Washington Post

“A gripping and often hilarious investigation into the art world. . . . Bosker goes full Tom Wolfe.” —TIME

“Funny, whip-smart, and gorgeously written, Get the Picture will forever transform the way you see. . . . I... Read more

I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself

By: Glynnis MacNicol

Narrated by: Glynnis MacNicol

Length: 7 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

When you’re a woman of a certain age, you are only promised that everything will get worse. But what if everything you’ve been told is a lie?

Come to Paris, August 2021, when the City of Lights was still empty of tourists and a thirst for long-overdue pleasure gripped those who wandered its streets.

After New York City emptied out in March 2020,... Read more

The Friday Afternoon Club

By: Griffin Dunne

Narrated by: Griffin Dunne

Length: 12 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

“What a remarkable and moving story filled with twists and turns, the most famous of faces, and a complex family revealed with loving candor. I was blown away by Griffin Dunne’s life and his ability to capture so much of it in these beautifully written pages.” —Anderson Cooper

"Joyful, tragic, and resilient with a masterful, roving tone...Griffin... Read more

The House of Hidden Meanings

By: RuPaul

Narrated by: RuPaul

Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

***An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller!***From international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing and personal work to date--a deeply intimate memoir of discovery, found family, and self-acceptance. The House of Hidden Meanings is a self-portrait of the legendary icon on the road to global fame and changing... Read more

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By: Maya Angelou

Narrated by: Maya Angelou

Length: 10 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute... Read more

We Don't Know Ourselves

By: Fintan O'Toole

Narrated by: Aidan Kelly

Length: 22 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society—perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history.

Born to a working-class family in the... Read more

The Power Broker: Volume 1 of 3

By: Robert A. Caro

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Length: 22 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A modern American classic, this huge and galvanizing biography of Robert Moses reveals not only the saga of one man’s incredible accumulation of power but the story of his shaping (and mis-shaping of twentieth-century New York.  One of the Modern Library’s hundred greatest books of the twentieth century.

Robert Caro's... Read more

No Ordinary Time

By: Doris Kearns Goodwin

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

Length: 39 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning classic about the relationship between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, and how it shaped the nation while steering it through the Great Depression and the outset of World War II.

With an extraordinary collection of details, Goodwin masterfully weaves together a striking number of story... Read more