Biography & Memoir audiobooks

Anton Chekhov

By: Donald Rayfield

Narrated by: Fred Williams

Length: 28 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

Anton Chekhov’s life was short, intense, and dominated by battles, both with his dependents and with the tuberculosis that killed him at age forty-four. The traditional image of Chekhov is that of the restrained artist torn between medicine and literature, but Donald Rayfield’s biography reveals the life long hidden behind the noble facade. Here... Read more

Woodrow Wilson

By: Louis Auchincloss

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 3 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Woodrow Wilson sheds new light on Wilson’s upbringing and career and shows the grim determination that carried him to the presidency just before World War I. From the dynamic figure whose ringing speeches hypnotized vast crowds, to the gentle voice reading poetry to his children, to the rising academic and president of Princeton who made the... Read more

Joan of Arc

By: Mary Gordon

Narrated by: Mari Devon

Length: 5 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

Celebrated novelist Mary Gordon brings Joan of Arc alive as a complex figure full of contradictions and desires, as well as spiritual devotion. A humble peasant girl, Joan transformed herself into the legendary Maid of Orléans, knight, martyr, and saint. Following the voice of God, she led an army to victory and crowned the king of France, only... Read more

Papa Bravo Romeo - Abridged

By: Wynn Goldsmith

Narrated by: Eric Conger

Length: 1 hour 56 minutes

Abridged: Yes

"Our mission was independent, no-holds-barred combat against a stubborn enemy in the enemy's backyard."                

In Vietnam, river warfare was often conducted in the dark. It was always dangerous, sometimes fatal--especially in the eastern end of the Cong-plagued Mekong Delta. In 1967, U.S. Navy Lt. Wynn Goldsmith was the "river rat" who... Read more

Life Stories

By: David Remnick

Narrated by: Amy Irving, Philip Bosco & Alton Fitzgerald White

Length: 9 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

One of art's purest challenges is to translate a human being into words. The New Yorker has met this challenge more successfully and more originally than any other modern American journal. It has indelibly shaped the genre known as the Profile. Starting with light-fantastic evocations of glamorous and idiosyncratic figures of the... Read more

Les plus belles Histoires de Haim - Vol 1

By: Yossef Brami & Haim Nisenbaum

Narrated by: Yossef Brami

Length: 1 hour

Abridged: No

Vivez comme si vous y étiez de merveilleuses histoires juives jouées pour vous par des comédiens professionnels.Onkelos - Le miroir aux richesses - Les héritiers - Le Cadi de Mogador - Le petit grand-père Read more

Mao Zedong

By: Jonathan Spence

Narrated by: Alexander Adams

Length: 5 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Born in rural China in 1893, Mao Zedong led his country through "a long-drawn-out adventure in upheaval." In the process, he became one of the monumental figures of the twentieth century. He died in 1976, just as China was entering a détente with the United States. This excellent biography illuminates Mao's family life, his early years as a... Read more

Selznick - Abridged

By: Bob Thomas

Narrated by: Carl Reiner

Length: 5 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: Yes

It was the triumph and the tragedy of his life. As a producer, he had reached the pinnacle of success; there was nowhere else to go. In this biography, noted Hollywood chronicler Bob Thomas reveals the stormy career of a shrewd, self-confident intellectual whiz kid who today personifies the image of a studio head during the Golden Age of movies.... Read more

Life Is So Good - Abridged

By: George Dawson & Richard Glaubman

Narrated by: LeVar Burton

Length: 5 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: Yes

George Dawson was a slave's grandson who learned to read at age 98 and lived to the age of 103. In this remarkable memoir, he reflects on his life and shares valuable lessons in living, as well as a fresh, firsthand view of America during the entire sweep of the twentieth century. Dawson's irresistible voice and view of the world are captured... Read more

The Greatest Generation Speaks

By: Tom Brokaw

Narrated by: Tom Brokaw

Length: 7 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful selection of the letters Tom Brokaw received in response to his towering #1 bestseller The Greatest Generation.
 
“When I wrote about the men and women who came out of the Depression, who won great victories and made lasting sacrifices in World War II and then returned home to begin building the world we have... Read more

Life of Samuel Johnson (Unabridged)

By: James Boswell

Narrated by: Jonathan Oliver

Length: 66 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered James Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the... Read more

WWII Airmen

By: Multiple Authors

Narrated by: Various

Length: 2 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

These amazing accounts of airmen recorded during the war include stories of air combat, music of the time, and recordings made on bomb runs over Europe and Japan.

Eagles over Europe: (1) Introduction; (2) AAF Intro; (3) Bomb run over Germany, A-26; (4) Lt. Gilman, AT-9 Trainer; (5) Lt. Anderson, AT-7 Trainer; (6) Jack the Ripper air raid; (7)... Read more

King of Hearts

By: G. Wayne Miller

Narrated by: John Lescault

Length: 7 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Few of the great stories of medicine are as palpably dramatic as the advent of open heart surgery, yet, until now, no one has brought to life all of the thrilling specifics of this triumph. G. Wayne Miller has dramatically and meticulously reconstructed the amazing true story of how a group of renegade Minnesota surgeons, led by Dr. Walt... Read more

Endurance - Abridged

By: Alfred Lansing

Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith

Length: 6 hours

Abridged: Yes

In August 1914, explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew set sail from England for Antarctica, where Shackleton hoped to be the first man to cross the uncharted continent on foot. Five months later, the Endurance—just a day's sail short of its destination—became locked in an island of ice, and its destiny and men became locked in history. For ten... Read more

James Joyce

By: Edna O'Brien

Narrated by: Donada Peters

Length: 5 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

One of Ireland's best current novelists provides a thumbnail sketch of Ireland's greatest writer. A passionate and sensuous portrait, James Joyce is a return to the land of politics, history, saints, and scholars that shaped the creator of the twentieth century's groundbreaking novel Ulysses. O'Brien traces Joyce's early days as a rambunctious... Read more

Mozart

By: Peter Gay

Narrated by: Alexander Adams

Length: 4 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

The greatest mind in Western music is examined by a National Book Award–winning writer on culture and psychology in this concise account of the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The composer’s unshakable hold on the public’s fascination can only be strengthened by the historian and biographer Peter Gay’s bold new perspective.  

His passionate and... Read more

Saint Augustine

By: Garry Wills

Narrated by: Alexander Adams

Length: 4 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

For centuries, Augustine's writings have moved and fascinated readers. With the keen eye of a writer whose own intellectual analysis won him a Pulitzer Prize, Gary Wills examines this famed fourth-century bishop and seminal thinker whose grounding in classical philosophy informed his interpretation of Christian doctrine. Saint Augustine explores... Read more

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

By: Frederick Douglass

Narrated by: Charles Turner

Length: 4 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

Uncertain of his date of birth or the identity of his father, Frederick Douglass came into the world with one surety: he was born a slave, and would die a slave. But as he grew up, Douglass determined that he would teach himself to read and write, and that one day he would be free from slavery. In 1832, Douglass was sent to a plantation in St.... Read more

Out of Africa - Abridged

By: Isak Dinesen

Narrated by: Julie Harris

Length: 2 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: Yes

"When I was a young girl, it was very far from my thoughts to go to Africa, nor did I dream then that an African farm should be the place in which I should be perfectly happy."After the failure of her coffee farm, Karen Blixen returned to Denmark, where she wrote this classic account of her experiences. Out of Africa is a celebration of her life... Read more

They Made a Monkee Out of Me - Abridged

By: Davy Jones

Narrated by: Davy Jones

Length: 2 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Aiming to cash in on the success of The Beatles, American television producers created a television show that featured a quartet of fun-loving musicians, achieving instant success with The Monkees. Davy Jones, a young, aspiring actor was cast in the series, which aired for the first time on September 12th, 1966. Within two months, the show had... Read more

Been There, Done That - Abridged

By: Eddie Fisher & David Fisher

Narrated by: Eddie Fisher

Length: 5 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: Yes

By the time he was 21 years old, Eddie Fisher was one of America's most popular entertainers. But for Eddie, that was only the beginning of a two-decade affair with fame and fortune that made him more popular than Frank Sinatra, turned out more consecutive hit records than the Beatles, and earned him millions of dollars. He married America's... Read more

Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs - Abridged

By: Dave Barry

Narrated by: Mike Dodge

Length: 1 hour 27 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Based on the results from Dave Barry's monumental reader survey, Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs is a compilation of some of the worst songs ever written. Read more

A Jerk on One End

By: Robert Hughes

Narrated by: Peter Renaday

Length: 2 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

For Robert Hughes fishing was a lifelong obsession and the pastime that he loved best. In A Jerk on One End he brings the wit and insight that have characterized his art criticism to the subjects of fish and fishing. He traces his love of fishing to his boyhood on Sydney Harbour and recounts the high and low points of his career with rod and... Read more

When Pride Still Mattered - Abridged

By: David Maraniss

Narrated by: David Maraniss

Length: 6 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In this groundbreaking biography, David Maraniss captures all of football great Vince Lombardi: the myth, the man, his game, and his God.

More than any other sports figure, Vince Lombardi transformed football into a metaphor of the American experience. The son of an Italian immigrant butcher, Lombardi toiled for twenty frustrating years as a high... Read more