Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Bookseller Created
Pride month every month
Add to Wish List
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Make the switch
Gift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingREADME.txt
A Memoir
Due to publisher restrictions, this audiobook is unavailable for purchase in your selected country.
Narrator
Chelsea Manning
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn more
Length
9 hours 3 minutes
Language
English
Brought to you by Penguin.
An extraordinarily brave and moving memoir from one of the world's most famous transparency activists and trans women.
In 2010, Chelsea Manning was working as an intelligence analyst for the US Army in Iraq. She disclosed 720,000 classified military documents that she had smuggled out via the memory card of her digital camera. By far the largest leak in history, these documents revealed a huge number of diplomatic cables and footage of atrocities. She was sentenced to 35 years in military prison.
The day after her conviction, Chelsea declared her gender identity as a woman and began to transition. She was sent to a male prison, spent much of that time in appalling conditions in solitary confinement and attempted suicide multiple times. In 2017, after a lengthy legal challenge and an outpouring of support, President Obama commuted her sentence.
README.txt is a story of personal revolt, resilience and survival. Chelsea details the challenges of her childhood and adolescence in Oklahoma and in her mother's native Wales. She writes revealingly and movingly about a period of homelessness in Chicago, living under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' in the US Army, and the experience of coming to terms with her gender identity and undergoing hormone therapy in prison. We witness her Kafkaesque trial and heroic quest for release.
This powerful, courageous and observant memoir sheds light on the big themes of today - identity, authenticity, technology, the authoritarian state - and will stand as one of the definitive testaments of our digital, information-driven age.
'Chelsea Manning is the biggest hero that ever lived' Vivienne Westwood
'Searing ... uplifting ... redemptive' The New York Times
'Electrifying ... an insider confessional turned inside out for the 21st century' Washington Post
© Chelsea Manning 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
Chelsea Manning is an American transparency activist, politician and former US Army intelligence analyst. She lives in Brooklyn and works as a security consultant and expert in data science and machine learning. She has written for the Guardian and New York Times and tweets @xychelsea.
Chelsea Manning is an American transparency activist, politician and former US Army intelligence analyst. She lives in Brooklyn and works as a security consultant and expert in data science and machine learning. She has written for the Guardian and New York Times and tweets @xychelsea.