Best-Selling Full Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, Memoirs

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/550125 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Rebel: My Escape from Saudi Arabia to Freedom Author: Rahaf Mohammed Narrator: Anonymous Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 12 minutes Release date: March 8, 2022 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: A gripping memoir of bravery and sacrifice by a young woman whose escape from her abusive family and an oppressive culture in Saudi Arabia captivated the world  In early 2019, after three years of careful planning, Rahaf Mohammed finally escaped her abusive family in Saudi Arabia—but made it only to Bangkok before being stripped of her passport. If forced to return home, she was sure she would be killed, like other rebel women in her country. As men pounded at the door of her barricaded hotel room, she opened a Twitter account. The teenager reached out to the world, and the world answered—she gained 45,000 followers in one day, and those followers helped her seek asylum in the West. Now Rahaf Mohammed tells her remarkable story in her own words, revealing untold truths about life in the closed kingdom, where young women are brought up in a repressive system that puts them under the legal control of a male guardian. Raised with immense financial privilege but under the control of her male relatives—including her high-profile politician father—she endured an abusive childhood in which oppression and deceit were the norm. Moving from Rahaf’s early days on the underground online network of Saudi runaways, who use coded entries to learn how to flee the brutalities of their homeland, to her solo escape to Canada, Rebel is a breathtaking and life-affirming memoir about one woman’s tenacious pursuit of freedom.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/546771 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Humanity Is Trying: Experiments in Living with Grief, Finding Connection, and Resisting Easy Answers Author: Jason Gots Narrator: Jason Gots Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 53 minutes Release date: March 1, 2022 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: “A truly beautiful, wise, raw, subtle book." —Robert MacFarlane, author of Underland My sister and I are driving south toward Graceland in her beat-up red Saturn, both in need of refuge, both running from different things. Her bumper sticker reads “Humanity Is Trying.” It’s a triple entendre, she explains: Humanity is exhausting. Humanity is struggle. Humanity is doing the best it knows how. Humanity Is Trying is several books in one. It’s a memoir about the love and the loss of a sister and a best friend. It’s the story of a series of escape attempts—cowardly, courageous, harmful, and hopeful—experiments in freedom from the stories that limit us. And it’s a record of spiritual, intellectual, and emotional growth with the help of friends, psychedelics, art, and spiritual practice. From Jason Gots, creator of the podcasts Think Again and Clever Creature, comes a philosophical love letter to the slow, messy work of building a life and living with your dreams in the face of reality.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/550543 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Diagnosis Normal: Living with abuse, undiagnosed autism, and COVID-grade crazy Author: Emma A. Jane Narrator: Emma A. Jane Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 10 minutes Release date: March 1, 2022 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: 'I have three gears: glum melancholy, inappropriate outbursts, and extreme slapstick. On a good day, I can pass as normal but not for too many minutes. I'm what most people would regard as a hardened introvert . . . I like other people. I'm just not very good at them.' Emma Jane has lived a thousand colourful lives. She escaped a small town and a traumatic childhood by moving to Sydney, where she made an indelible imprint on the oppressively blokey mediascape. She played in an all-girl band, married a rock star she hardly knew, had a baby, ditched journalism for academia, and changed her name from Emma Tom to Emma Jane. But all the while she was struggling with her mental health. Then, during the first Sydney lockdown she was accidentally sectioned in a psychiatric ward. At the time she wasn't sure whether to be more embarrassed by the institutionalisation or the fact she'd forgotten to set her at-home eyebrow dye timer and looked like Groucho Marx. Given everyone suffered some sort of corona-related DIY body hair disaster, however, she decided to focus on her confinement, and when she was subsequently diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder a number of things suddenly fell into place. Emma writes candidly about the complex combination of autism, mental illness and childhood sexual abuse that led to her being the person she is, and explores the impact each has on so many others in society. Critically, by breaking the toxic silence surrounding sexual violence and mental illness, she raises the possibility of not just surviving them but thriving. As she writes: 'We need to speak unspeakable things. We need more un-pretty stories.'

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/554184 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Lovers Dreamers Fighters Author: Lo Carmen Narrator: Lo Carmen, Mark Mordue Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 12 hours 26 minutes Release date: February 23, 2022 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: A beautiful and moving memoir about passion, creativity and fearlessness from one of Australia's true creatives, singer/songwriter Lo Carmen, inspired by the lives and careers of other remarkable Australian women - such as Renee Geyer, Chrissy Amphlett, Robyn Archer and Wendy Saddington. 'If you don't know Lo, you don't know sh*t. This is the best music book of the year, a dream-like celebration of women and song. A triumph.' Noah Taylor 'We've all got them, the lighters of the way, those mythological wonders who glow in our dark. These are the ones I got to be close to, whether in a real or allusive sense; these are the ones that got to me in a way that still flows through my veins. I think you'll understand why soon...' Lo Carmen was discovered at sixteen working in a Kings Cross pizza bar and cast as in the seminal Australian film The Year My Voice Broke, for which she was nominated for an AFI award. But even before that, Lo has lived a bigger life than most. From being backstage at Rolling Stones concerts when she was a baby to writing her first song at eight; performing an original song onstage at nine; having a baby while barely out of her teens; forming her first band at twenty one; touring Europe without a manager, funds or a safety net; and all the while making music her life and her art. In all this, Lo has been inspired by a handful of women - all icons, one way or another, of modern Australian life. Lo Carmen weaves her own remarkable story as a critically acclaimed singer/songwriter together with compelling portraits of the women who have influenced her life and career: bold creative visionaries, trailblazers, provocateurs, pioneers, feminists and activists such as Renee Geyer, Chrissy Amphlett, Robyn Archer and Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, exploring the often complex lives of these fascinating women as a way of understanding her own life and choices. A tender, joyous, messy, vibrant and wholly inspiring investigation of creativity, passion, purpose, art and music. 'A hard won account of the mess, glory and risk of making art. Lo tells her story by telling the stories of all those who've lit and tended her flame. She knows that worship is at the heart of creation. And she writes like a river.' Paul Kelly 'Loene has always been unique. Lovers Dreamers Fighters is beautifully written.' Don Walker 'There is an electricity and trueness to Loene's voice you can't fake. It involves her passion for art and music, but also a love for outsiders who have something special to give. Her intense humanity and feel for unexpected intimate detail goes to your core.' Mark Mordue, Boy on Fire 'A little bit country, a little bit rock n roll, Loene Carmen's writing is vivid, sassy and intimate. From the studios of Nashville to the grimy bars of the Cross, Lovers Dreamers Fighters is a memoir about the power of song, family and spiritual connection, but most of all a love letter to the soul-sisters who have shaped Lo's creative spirit, and Australia's cultural history, through the generations.' Kirsten Krauth, Almost a Mirror

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/552274 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Hunting Buffalo with Bent Nails Author: Lawrence Block Narrator: Peter Berkrot Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 36 minutes Release date: February 22, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: While he is probably best known as a novelist and short-story writer, Lawrence Block has produced a rich trove of nonfiction over the course of a sixty-year career. Over the years, Block has written extensively for magazines and periodicals. Generally Speaking collects his philatelic columns from Linn's Stamp News, while his extensive observations of crime fiction, along with personal glimpses of some of its foremost practitioners, have won wide acclaim in book form as The Crime of Our Lives. Hunting Buffalo With Bent Nails is what he's got left over. The title piece, originally published in American Heritage, recounts the ongoing adventure Block and his wife undertook, crisscrossing the United States and parts of Canada in their quixotic and exotic quest to find every 'village, hamlet, and wide place in the road named Buffalo.' Other travel tales share space with a remembrance of his mother, odes to New York, a disquisition on pen names and book tours, and, well, no end of bent nails not worth straightening. Where else will you find 'Raymond Chandler and the Brasher Doubloon,' an assessment of that compelling writer from a numismatic standpoint? Where else can you hear about Block's collection of old subway cars? Highly recommended.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/552636 to listen full audiobooks. Title: No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green Author: Melody Green Narrator: Brittany Goodwin Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 16 hours 46 minutes Release date: February 15, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 2 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Get a glimpse into the life of the late musician Keith Green through this revised, updated, and expanded 25th-anniversary edition of his inspiring biography, written by his wife, Melody. American pianist, singer, and contemporary Christian songwriter Keith Green was only 28 when he died in a plane crash with two of his small children, but he had already created a legacy of music and inspiration that would outlive him. Keith touched people through vibrant lyrics in songs like 'Your Love Broke Through', 'You Put This Love in My Heart', and 'Asleep in the Light'. In No Compromise, Melody has updated her husband's biography to include: - New never-before-seen photos - Essays from current musicians who Keith influenced - Selections from Keith’s private journal - Stories about what it’s like raising their two remaining children alone A spiritual revolutionary, Keith found freedom through Jesus and spent his last years convincing others to refuse to accept the status quo and instead to bring compassion and honesty back to the church. Last Days Ministries, which he and his wife Melody founded, went on to challenge thousands of people to take to the mission fields of the world. Now, on the 25th anniversary of his death, Melody has updated her husband's biography with new stories and insights about their life, photographs never before published, and glimpses into Melody’s season of grieving.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/554612 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Home in the World: A Memoir Author: Amartya Sen Narrator: Steven Crossley Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 16 hours 44 minutes Release date: February 15, 2022 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: From Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, a memoir about home, belonging, inequality, and identity, recounting a singular life devoted to bettering humanity.A towering figure in the field of economics, Amartya Sen is perhaps best known for his work on poverty and famine, as inspired by events in his boyhood home of West Bengal, India. But Sen has, in fact, called many places “home,” from Dhaka in modern Bangladesh to Trinity College, Cambridge. In Home in the World, these “homes” collectively form an unparalleled and profoundly truthful vision of twentieth- and twenty-first century life. Interweaving scenes from his youth with candid reflections on wealth, welfare, and social justice, Sen shows how his life experiences—in Asia, Europe, and later America—vitally informed his work, culminating in the ultimate “portrait of a citizen of the world” (Philip Hensher, Spectator).“Sen is more than an economist, moral philosopher or even an academic. He is a life-long campaigner … for a more noble idea of home.”—Edward Luce, Financial Times (UK)

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/546762 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage Author: Heather Havrilesky Narrator: Heather Havrilesky Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 11 minutes Release date: February 8, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3 of Total 2 Ratings of Narrator: 1 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: “Full of razor-sharp, big-hearted wisdom…. Couples should read this book aloud to each other instead of writing vows. People who never want to get married should read this book anyway.” —Leslie Jamison An illuminating, poignant, and savagely funny examination of modern marriage from Ask Polly advice columnist Heather Havrilesky If falling in love is the peak of human experience, then marriage is the slow descent down that mountain, on a trail built from conflict, compromise, and nagging doubts. Considering the limited economic advantages to marriage, the deluge of other mate options a swipe away, and the fact that almost half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce anyway, why do so many of us still chain ourselves to one human being for life? In Foreverland, Heather Havrilesky illustrates the delights, aggravations, and sublime calamities of her marriage over the span of fifteen years, charting an unpredictable course from meeting her one true love to slowly learning just how much energy is required to keep that love aflame. This refreshingly honest portrait of a marriage reveals that our relationships are not simply “happy” or “unhappy,” but something much murkier—at once unsavory, taxing, and deeply satisfying. With tales of fumbled proposals, harrowing suburban migrations, external temptations, and the bewildering insults of growing older, Foreverland is a work of rare candor and insight. Havrilesky traces a path from daydreaming about forever for the first time to understanding what a tedious, glorious drag forever can be.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/549503 to listen full audiobooks. Title: God Is a Black Woman Author: Christena Cleveland Narrator: Robin Eller Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 40 minutes Release date: February 8, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 4 Ratings of Narrator: 4 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: In this timely, much-needed book, theologian, social psychologist, and activist Christena Cleveland recounts her personal journey to dismantle the cultural “whitemalegod” and uncover the Sacred Black Feminine, introducing a Black Female God who imbues us with hope, healing, and liberating presence. For years, Christena Cleveland spoke about racial reconciliation to congregations, justice organizations, and colleges. But she increasingly felt she could no longer trust in the God she’d been implicitly taught to worship—a white male God who preferentially empowered white men despite his claim to love all people. A God who clearly did not relate to, advocate for, or affirm a Black woman like Christena.  Her crisis of faith sent her on an intellectual and spiritual journey through history and across France, on a 400-mile walking pilgrimage to the ancient shrines of Black Madonnas to find healing in the Sacred Black Feminine. God Is a Black Woman is the chronicle of her liberating transformation and a critique of a society shaped  by white patriarchal Christianity and culture. Christena reveals how America’s collective idea of God as a white man has perpetuated hurt, hopelessness, and racial and gender oppression. Integrating her powerful personal story, womanist ideology, as well as theological, historical, and social science research, she invites us to take seriously the truth that God is not white nor male and gives us a new and hopeful path for connecting with the divine and honoring the sacredness of all Black people.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/550048 to listen full audiobooks. Title: How to Host a Viking Funeral: The Case for Burning Your Regrets, Chasing Your Crazy Ideas, and Becoming the Person You're Meant to Be Author: Kyle Scheele Narrator: Kyle Scheele Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 37 minutes Release date: February 8, 2022 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: An inspiring speaker and artist asked 20,000 people around the world to share the regrets they wanted him to burn in a mock Viking ship.  This is the story of what he learned about letting go of the pain of the past and embracing the future with hope. Turning 30, artist and speaker Kyle Scheele wanted to do something unusual to mark this milestone. Instead of a birthday bash, he decided to hold a funeral to memorialize the decade of his life that was ending. Building a 16-foot Viking ship out of cardboard, he invited friends to help him set it on fire—a symbolic farewell to his 20s and all the grief, regret, and mistakes that accompanied those years.  When video of his Viking funeral went viral, it encouraged many others to let go of past hurts as well. Moved by the response he received, Kyle planned a second funeral (this time with a 30-foot cardboard Viking ship) and asked people to share the things they carried—the bad choices, disappointments, heartaches, and negative thinking that they wanted to lay to rest. He received more than 20,000 responses from around the world—stories both heartbreaking and hilarious, painful and inspiring.  In this entertaining and wise book, Kyle reflects on what he discovered about freeing ourselves from the pain of the past, interweaving anecdotes from those who participated with the story of his own journey of renewal. “This story involves multiple Viking funerals, thousands of square feet of cardboard, and enough hot glue to supply your mother-in-law's craft night for the rest of time,” he writes. “But it also involves regret, self-doubt, insecurity, and ultimately, redemption. So buckle up. It's about to get bumpy.” How to Host a Viking Funeral is the story of letting go of the people we used to be, but no longer want to be. It’s about renewal; where there was once regret there is now blank space—an opportunity for a fresh start.