Speak, Memory

Beautiful Country

A Memoir

By: Qian Julie Wang
Narrated by: Qian Julie Wang
Length: 9 hours 38 minutes

“In this brutally honest coming-of-age memoir, Qian Julie Wang comes to terms with the deprivations and struggles of her undocumented Chinese upbringing in New York City in the 1990s. Read more

In the Dream House

A Memoir

By: Carmen Maria Machado
Narrated by: Carmen Maria Machado
Length: 5 hours 28 minutes

“This is a spellbinding memoir that will stand the test of time. Carmen Maria Machado has crafted a memoir that turns the form on its head, that creates a stunning, chilling and winding narrative that stays true to the nature of human beings: complex and nuanced. The LGBTQ archive of intimate-partner violence needed this and helped pave a way for... Read more

When Time Stopped

A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains

By: Ariana Neumann
Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
Length: 10 hours 6 minutes

“This book is beautiful, intimate, breathtaking, and heartbreaking. It reads like a novel and yet gives a better sense of what was happening to Jewish families during the Holocaust than any history book I’ve read. I feel so invested in the Neumann family and their friends, as if I know them personally. More than anything, my takeaway from this... Read more

Seeing Ghosts

A Memoir

By: Kat Chow
Narrated by: Kat Chow
Length: 9 hours 53 minutes

This "graceful, captivating" (New York Times Book Review) story from a singular new talent paints a portrait of grief and the search for meaning as told through the prism of three generations of her Chinese American family—perfect for readers of Helen Macdonald and Elizabeth Alexander.

Kat Chow has always been unusually fixated on death. She... Read more

Why Fish Don't Exist

A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life

By: Lulu Miller
Narrated by: Lulu Miller
Length: 4 hours 55 minutes

“This is a book that is going to stay with me for a long time. Miller, motivated by her relationship with her father, and a lifelong search for meaning, closely examines David Starr Jordan, the larger-than-life father of American Ichthyology and founding president of Stanford University. If you ever wondered how fish identification and eugenics... Read more

Notes on a Silencing

A Memoir

By: Lacy Crawford
Narrated by: Lacy Crawford
Length: 11 hours 5 minutes

A "powerful and scary and important and true" memoir of a young woman's struggle to regain her sense of self after trauma, and the efforts by a powerful New England boarding school to silence her—at any cost (Sally Mann, author of Hold Still).

Shortlisted for the 2022 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing When Notes on a Silencing hit... Read more

Sigh, Gone

A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In

By: Phuc Tran
Narrated by: Phuc Tran
Length: 10 hours 47 minutes

"Tran's story is an American immigration story, and so much more. His delivery is crisp and engaging, and maintains just the slightest element of whimsy...If you're a fan of memoirs and a fan of literature, this is a must- listen." -- AudioFile Magazine

This program is read by the author.

For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong,... Read more

And Now We Have Everything

On Motherhood Before I Was Ready

By: Meaghan O'Connell
Narrated by: Meaghan O'Connell
Length: 5 hours 8 minutes

“Times have changed, women have changed, and, naturally, the experience of young(ish) motherhood has changed as well. I often tell people that becoming a mother was equal parts wonderful and abysmally dark and get blank stares, but here it is: a tale like mine, articulated with clarity and wit! I'm excited to be able to recommend this honest and... Read more

Educated

A Memoir

By: Tara Westover
Narrated by: Julia Whelan
Length: 12 hours 9 minutes

“Educated by Tara Westover is a wrenching account of a young woman who must choose between education on one hand and her family which is ruled by a religious misogynist apocalyptic zealot who lives off the grid and who might also be bi-polar, on the other. I thought the most fascinating part of Westover’s story would be her journey from backwoods... Read more

Taste

My Life Through Food

By: Stanley Tucci
Narrated by: Stanley Tucci
Length: 6 hours 50 minutes

“This was amazing. Tucci is funny, knowledgeable, inspiring, and talented. This was more than a simple memoir; he managed to expertly portray the importance of taste in his and all our lives. Bravo. Read more