Biographies and Memoirs We Love!

Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars

The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission

By: Col. Eileen M. Collins, USAF (Retired) & Jonathan H. Ward
Narrated by: Molly Secours
Length: 11 hours 8 minutes

The long-awaited memoir of a trailblazer and role model who is telling her story for the first time.

Eileen Collins was an aviation pioneer her entire career, from her crowning achievements as the first woman to command an American space mission as well as the first to pilot the space shuttle to her early years as one of the Air Force's first... Read more

Words Are My Matter

Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016, with a Journal of a Writer’s Week

By: Ursula K. Le Guin
Narrated by: Laural Merlington
Length: 13 hours 16 minutes

Words Are My Matter gathers talks, essays, introductions to beloved books, and book reviews by Ursula K. Le Guin, one of our foremost public literary intellectuals. A must-listen collection, Words Are My Matter is a manual for investigating the depth and breadth of contemporary fiction—and, through the lens of deep considerations of contemporary... Read more

She Said

Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement

By: Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey
Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman, Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey
Length: 9 hours 52 minutes

From the Pulitzer-prize winning reporters who broke the news of Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment and abuse for the New York Times, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the thrilling untold story of their investigation and its consequences for the #MeToo movement

On October 5, 2017, the New York Times published an article by Jodi Kantor and Megan... Read more

We Were Dreamers

An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story

By: Simu Liu
Narrated by: Simu Liu
Length: 8 hours 10 minutes

“This was an excellent memoir. I listened to this and Simu Liu, not surprisingly, is a wonderful narrator. Filled with humor, emotion and struggles, Simu (and his family) are really honest about their tumultuous (and abusive) relationship before Simu finished high school. Simu dives into his parents' backgrounds and with this knowledge, it helps... Read more

Educated

A Memoir

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

“This memoir is unlike anything I've ever read, yet I fear that there are others who were raised in circumstances like Tara Westover. Westover documents her childhood devoid of education beyond the family's radical, extreme, doomsday religion with chilling detail as if investigating herself as a case study will help explain how she escaped.... Read more

Dreams from My Father

A Story of Race and Inheritance

By: Barack Obama
Narrated by: Barack Obama
Length: 14 hours 4 minutes

NOW AVAILABLE UNABRIDGED ON AUDIO FOR THE FIRST TIME
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF ESSENCE’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS

In this iconic memoir of his early days, Barack Obama “guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, class, and race” (The Washington Post Book World).
 
In... Read more

The Light We Carry

Overcoming in Uncertain Times

By: Michelle Obama
Narrated by: Michelle Obama
Length: 9 hours 58 minutes

“Michelle Obama is back with more words of wisdom, pillars of humility, and just simply Michelle. The Light We Carry is an uplighting book that will help you deal with the emotions and isolation that we have had to deal with during and after the pandemic. But more than that, she has compiled questions that she has been asked again and again, and... Read more

Becoming

By: Michelle Obama
Narrated by: Michelle Obama
Length: 19 hours 1 minute

“I adore our former president and I miss him. Yet I cannot help but be ecstatic that Michelle is coming out with a book about her own life so that I can learn more about this powerful, intelligent, and singularly awesome woman. Barack would be the first to say that his wife is a superstar, and I can’t wait to get my hands on Becoming to read... Read more

Titan

The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

By: Ron Chernow
Narrated by: Grover Gardner
Length: 35 hours 3 minutes

John D. Rockefeller, Sr., history’s first billionaire and the patriarch of America’s most famous dynasty, is an icon whose true nature has eluded three generations of historians. Now Ron Chernow, a National Book Award–winning biographer, gives us a detailed and insightful history of the mogul. Titan is the first full-length biography based on... Read more

Alexander Hamilton

By: Ron Chernow
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Length: 35 hours 56 minutes

The inspiration for the hit Broadway musical Hamilton! 

In the first full-length biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, National Book Award winner Ron Chernow tells the riveting story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America. According to historian Joseph Ellis, Alexander Hamilton is “a robust... Read more

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By: Rebecca Skloot
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell & Bahni Turpin
Length: 12 hours 30 minutes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The story of modern medicine and bioethics—and, indeed, race relations—is refracted beautifully, and movingly.”—Entertainment Weekly

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE • ONE OF THE “MOST INFLUENTIAL” (CNN), “DEFINING” (LITHUB), AND “BEST” (THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER) BOOKS OF... Read more

Bossypants

By: Tina Fey
Narrated by: Tina Fey
Length: 5 hours 31 minutes

Spirited and whip-smart, these laugh-out-loud autobiographical essays are "a masterpiece" from the Emmy Award-winning actress and comedy writer known for 30 Rock, Mean Girls, and SNL" (Sunday Telegraph).

Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update," before "Sarah Palin," Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she... Read more

Yes Please

By: Amy Poehler
Narrated by: Amy Poehler, Carol Burnett, Mike Schur & Kathleen Turner
Length: 7 hours 30 minutes

GRAMMY NOMINEEAudie Award, Humor, 2015Amy Poehler is hosting a dinner party and you're invited! Welcome to the audiobook edition of Amy Poehler's Yes Please. The guest list is star-studded with vocal appearances from Carol Burnett, Seth Meyers, Michael Schur, Patrick Stewart, Kathleen Turner, and even Amy's parents - Yes Please is the ultimate... Read more

The New One

Painfully True Stories from a Reluctant Dad

By: Mike Birbiglia
Narrated by: Mike Birbiglia & J. Hope Stein
Length: 5 hours 8 minutes

With laugh-out-loud funny parenting observations, the New York Times bestselling author and award-winning comedian delivers a book that is perfect for anyone who has ever raised a child, been a child, or refuses to stop acting like one. In 2016 comedian Mike Birbiglia and poet Jennifer Hope Stein took their fourteen-month-old daughter Oona to... Read more

Fresh Off the Boat

A Memoir

By: Eddie Huang
Narrated by: Eddie Huang
Length: 7 hours 54 minutes

NOW AN ORIGINAL SERIES ON ABC • “Just may be the best new comedy of [the year] . . . based on restaurateur Eddie Huang’s memoir of the same name . . . [a] classic fresh-out-of-water comedy.”—People
 
“Bawdy and frequently hilarious . . . a surprisingly sophisticated memoir about race and assimilation in America . . . as much James Baldwin and... Read more

Why Not Me?

By: Mindy Kaling
Narrated by: Mindy Kaling, Greg Daniels & B. J. Novak
Length: 4 hours 57 minutes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? and creator of The Mindy Project and Never Have I Ever comes a hilarious collection of essays about her ongoing journey to find contentment and excitement in her adult life.

“This is Kaling at the height of her power.”—USA Today

In Why Not Me?, Kaling shares... Read more

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

By: Mindy Kaling
Narrated by: Mindy Kaling, B. J. Novak, Michael Schur & Brenda Withers
Length: 4 hours 36 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER •  In this hilarious instant classic, the creator of The Mindy Project and Never Have I Ever invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood.

“[Kaling is] like Tina Fey’s cool little sister. Or perhaps . . . the next Nora Ephron.”—The New York Times
 
Mindy... Read more

You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)

A Memoir

By: Felicia Day
Narrated by: Felicia Day
Length: 6 hours 48 minutes

The instant New York Times bestseller from “queen of the geeks” Felicia Day, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) is a “relentlessly funny and surprisingly inspirational” (Forbes) memoir about her unusual upbringing, her rise to internet stardom, and embracing her weirdness to find her place in the world.

When Felicia Day was a girl, all... Read more

I'm Just a Person

By: Tig Notaro
Narrated by: Tig Notaro
Length: 5 hours 15 minutes

One of America’s most original comedic voices delivers a darkly funny, wryly observed, and emotionally raw account of her year of death, cancer, and epiphany.In the span of four months in 2012, Tig Notaro was hospitalized for a debilitating intestinal disease called C. diff, her mother unexpectedly died, she went through a breakup, and then she... Read more

Scrappy Little Nobody

By: Anna Kendrick
Narrated by: Anna Kendrick
Length: 6 hours

“Scrappy Little Nobody is less outsider-looking-in as it is insider-looking-out. Kendrick's anecdotes, experiences, and her initiation as a working youth breaking into Hollywood reflect her social awkwardness and self-deprecation as the product of a blue-collar family and a dogged work ethic. Humble and hilarious, Kendrick's lack of the knack... Read more