Biography & Memoir audiobooks

Room Full of Mirrors

By: Charles R. Cross

Narrated by: Lloyd James

Length: 13 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

For many, the name Jimi Hendrix conjures up a larger-than-life image of the man who set fire to guitars, women’s hearts, and the status quo. In this groundbreaking account, music journalist Charles R. Cross takes a far deeper look. Beyond Hendrix’s legendary onstage and offstage magnetism and his excessive lifestyle was a man who struggled to... Read more

The Grand Slam

By: Mark Frost

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 19 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

In the wake of the stock-market crash and the dawn of the Great Depression, a ray of light emerged from the world of sports. In the summer of 1930, Bobby Jones, a twenty-eight-year-old amateur golfer, mounted a campaign against the record books. In four months, this natural, self-taught player conquered the British Amateur Championship, the... Read more

God and Mr. Gomez

By: Jack Smith

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 6 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

When Jack and Denny Smith decided to build a vacation dream house in Baja, California, they had no idea they were entering a phase of their lives “that would capture the fancy of readers throughout the United States.” Through a series of strange and whimsical adventures, they would find that building a house takes God and Mr. Gomez.As their... Read more

Bill Clinton

By: Nigel Hamilton

Narrated by: James Adams

Length: 23 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

A decade and a half after William Jefferson Clinton first took the oath of office, biographer Nigel Hamilton tells the riveting story of what was possibly the greatest self-reinvention of a president in office in modern times. The Clinton presidency began disastrously and deteriorated in a series of fiascoes. How Bill Clinton faced up to his... Read more

The Sense of Wonder

By: Rachel L. Carson

Narrated by: Kaiulani Lee

Length: 33 minutes

Abridged: No

“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in…If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each... Read more

House to House

By: David Bellavia

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 9 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

This is the personal side of battle, where emotion, courage, and strength are stretched to the limits.Bringing to searing life the terrifying intimacy of hand-to-hand infantry combat, House to House is far more than just another war story—it is one of the most compelling combat narratives ever written. Populated by an indelibly drawn cast of... Read more

The Long Walk

By: Slavomir Rawicz

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 9 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

The film The Way Back, starring Colin Farrell and Ed Harris, is based on this amazing true story.Twenty-six-year-old cavalry officer Slavomir Rawicz was captured by the Red Army in 1939 during the German-Soviet partition of Poland and sent to the Siberian Gulag. In the spring of 1941, he escaped with six of his fellow prisoners, including one... Read more

Tearing Down the Wall of Sound

By: Mick Brown

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 17 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Phil Spector, born in the Bronx in 1939, grew up an outsider despised by his peers. Yet after his family moved to California, he learned everything he could about music, formed a band, and had a number-one hit with "To Know Him Is to Love Him." He quickly became the top producer of early rock and roll, originator of such girl groups as the... Read more

“What Do You Care What Other People Think?”

By: Richard P. Feynman

Narrated by: Raymond Todd

Length: 6 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the greatest theoretical physicists of the twentieth century, Richard Feynman possessed an unquenchable thirst for adventure and an unparalleled ability to tell the stories of his life. “What Do You Care What Other People Think?” is Feynman’s last literary legacy, prepared with his friend and fellow drummer, Ralph Leighton.Among the... Read more

Irrational Fear

By: Donald Davis

Narrated by: Donald Davis

Length: 47 minutes

Abridged: No

We all have our personal phobias and white-knuckle moments. The title story of Irrational Fear tells of Davis's mother's fear of snakes and the way she eventually got even with him for making fun of her. (She always came out on top.) The second story, "The Red Coat", tells why his father and his father's brother-in-law finally stopped playing... Read more

From Black and White to Living in Color

By: Donald Davis

Narrated by: Donald Davis

Length: 58 minutes

Abridged: No

There was a time during Donald Davis's college freshman year when he wasn't really sure if he wanted to claim his hometown of Sulpher Springs, North Carolina. But a boy by the name of Stanley Easter changed his mind. "The year after that," he recalls, "I did go home from college for Thanksgiving. In fact, I had now become so proud of where I was... Read more

My Dinner of Herbs

By: Efrem Zimbalist

Narrated by: Efrem Zimbalist

Length: 5 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”—Proverbs 15:17It’s a long way from a large, luxurious, and rambling estate in the Connecticut countryside to Hollywood’s 77 Sunset Strip, but Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., made that journey, traveling many different roads during the life he so engagingly recreates in... Read more

The Big Three in Economics

By: Mark Skousen

Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach

Length: 9 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

The Big Three in Economics reveals the battle of ideas among the three most influential economists in world history: Adam Smith, representing laissez faire; Karl Marx, reflecting the radical socialist model; and John Maynard Keynes, symbolizing big government and the welfare state. History comes alive in this fascinating story of opposing views... Read more

A Son of the Middle Border

By: Hamlin Garland

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 13 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

A Son of the Middle Border is an epic story of the quest for new frontiers during the last half of the nineteenth century, and of the gradual, heartbreaking failure of America’s pioneer ideal.Drawing on the history of his own family, Pulitzer Prize winner Hamlin Garland chronicles the experiences of a generation. A Son of the Middle Border,... Read more

Charlie Chaplin and His Times

By: Kenneth S. Lynn

Narrated by: Adams Morgan

Length: 21 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

With the psychologically penetrating insight that marked his award-winning Hemingway, Kenneth Lynn probes beneath the mystique of the "Little Tramp," the first true worldwide celebrity. This landmark, full-scale biography reveals the inner man whose unmatched comic genius masked a complex, sometimes tragic life.Lynn delves into Chaplin's... Read more

A Grief Observed

By: C. S. Lewis

Narrated by: Ralph Cosham

Length: 1 hour 51 minutes

Abridged: No

Written after his wife’s tragic death as a way of surviving the “mad midnight moments,” A Grief Observed is C. S. Lewis’ honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period: “Nothing will shake a man—or at any rate a man like me—out of his... Read more

Gullible’s Travels

By: Cash Peters

Narrated by: Cash Peters

Length: 8 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

For years, British journalist Cash Peters trekked around Europe and America visiting some of the tackiest attractions in the world for his hugely popular public radio series, The Bad Taste Tours. But a guy can only take so much. Now, as Peters prepares to leave his travel-reporting days behind forever, he takes us along on some of the more... Read more

Miles to Go

By: Chris Murphy

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Length: 8 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Miles to Go is a frank and intimate exploration of Miles Davis’ eccentric working life, drug habits, paranoia, depression, and subsequent recovery. Murphy explores Davis’ troubled relationship with his children and the controversial role Cicely Tyson played in his life. The book also delves into the dynamics that made Davis’ band work so well... Read more

Passages from the Diary of Samuel Pepys

By: Samuel Pepys

Narrated by: Fred Williams

Length: 13 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

"The diary which Samuel Pepys kept from January 1660 to May 1669…is one of our greatest historical records and…a major work of English literature," writes the renowned historian Paul Johnson.A witness to the coronation of Charles II, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666, Pepys chronicled the events of his day. His diary provides... Read more

Blooding at Great Meadows

By: Alan Axelrod

Narrated by: David Drummond

Length: 8 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

History celebrates George Washington as the leader of the American Revolution and the father of his country. But what has gone previously unexamined is Washington’s life as a twenty-two-year-old lieutenant colonel; he led four hundred American militiamen against a bigger, more experienced French army and paid a high price. Not only did... Read more

Kabul Beauty School

By: Deborah Rodriguez

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 8 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

Most Westerners now working in Afghanistan spend their time tucked inside the wall of a military compound or embassy. Deborah Rodriguez is one of the very few who lives life smack in the middle of Kabul. Now, Rodriguez tells the story of the beauty school she founded and the vibrant women who were her students there.When Rodriguez opened the... Read more

Broken Bones

By: Donald Davis

Narrated by: Donald Davis

Length: 49 minutes

Abridged: No

Broken Bones is a double set of double stories. The first set is made up of a story Davis's grandmother told about the time his mother broke her arm - twice! The second story in the first set is about how his little brother's collarbone was broken - twice! It is about how trouble is genetic in families. The second set of stories concerns Davis'... Read more

Titanic

By: Colonel Archibald Gracie

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson

Length: 7 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

Archibald Gracie was probably among the last to leave the sinking Titanic on that cold April night in 1912, one of the most traumatic events in maritime history. In this unique account, he describes his personal experiences and remarkable escape from death in the icy waters of the Atlantic, painting a vivid picture of what it was like on board... Read more

Marian McPartland’s Jazz World

By: Marian McPartland

Narrated by: Marian McPartland

Length: 7 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

In this collection of musical portraits, jazz pianist and radio host Marian McPartland pays sparkling tribute to such beloved and legendary figures as Benny Goodman, Bill Evans, Joe Morello, Paul Desmond, Alec Wilder, Mary Lou Williams, and others.In a preface to this new edition, published originally as All in Good Time, McPartland extends her... Read more