Best-Selling Full Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, Memoirs

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/555810 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Walking in My Joy: In These Streets Author: Jenifer Lewis Narrator: Jenifer Lewis Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 27 minutes Release date: August 30, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.78 of Total 18 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 6 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: A new offering from the author of the hugely successful Mother of Black Hollywood. Walking in My Joy is a collection of electric stories by the one and only, super hilarious Jenifer Lewis. Her commentary on what’s happening in the world today, told through her outrageous real-life adventures, will have you laughing out loud, while her insightful messages touch your soul. A self-described “traveling fool and nature freak,” Jenifer takes readers with her all over the world, from Cape Town to Bali; Washington, DC, to the Serengeti; Mongolia to St. Petersburg; and Argentina to Antarctica to demonstrate how she walks in her joy by seeking pleasure in everyday encounters. Every step of the way you’ll be doubled over with laughter as she faints at the Obamas’ holiday party; awakens to a swollen face and has to go to the hospital during the height of the Covid pandemic; an alien visitation; a successful takedown of a conman; as well as meeting a handsome Maasai warrior and being chased by a Cape buffalo. An actress, activist, and mental health advocate, Jenifer Lewis imparts ways to love yourself that will allow you to deflect negative energy and keep people who may come to take your joy in check. She stresses the importance of fully living to your greatest ambitions and taking the time to admire the world’s natural gifts. She also encourages embracing each other’s uniqueness as a way of finding societal healing. Walking in My Joy is a riveting and enthralling journey. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/552827 to listen full audiobooks. Title: I'm Not Broken: A Memoir Author: Jesse Leon Narrator: Jesse Leon Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 9 minutes Release date: August 23, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 2 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: In this unflinching and inspiring memoir, Jesse Leon tells an extraordinary story of resilience and survival, shining a light on a childhood spent devastated by sex trafficking, street life, and substance abuse. 'A book for survivors and those who know someone they hope survives, bodhisattvas all.'  —Sandra Cisneros, bestselling author of The House on Mango Street Born to indigenous working-class Mexican immigrants in San Diego in the 1970s, Jesse Leon’s childhood was violently ruptured. A dangerous and harrowing encounter at a local gift shop when he was eleven years old left Jesse with a deadly secret. Hurt, alone, and scared for his life, Jesse numbed his pain by losing himself in the hyper-masculine culture of the streets and wherever else he could find it—in alcohol, drugs, and prostitution. Overlooked by state-sanctioned institutions and systems intended to help victims of abuse, neglected like many other low-income Latinos, Jesse spiraled into cycles of suicide and substance abuse.   I’m Not Broken is the heartbreaking and remarkable story of the journey Jesse takes to win back his life, leading him to the steps of Harvard University. From being the lone young person of color in Narcotics Anonymous meetings to coming to terms with his own sexual identity, to becoming an engaged mentor for incarcerated youth, Jesse finds the will to live with the love and support of his family, friends, and mentors. Recounting the extraordinary circumstances of his life, Jesse offers a powerful, raw testament to the possibilities of self-transformation and self-acceptance. Unforgettable, I’m Not Broken is an inspirational portrait of one young man’s indomitable strength and spirit to survive—against all possible odds.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/551290 to listen full audiobooks. Title: All of This: A Memoir of Death and Desire Author: Rebecca Woolf Narrator: Rebecca Woolf Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 22 minutes Release date: August 16, 2022 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: “Beautifully written, complex, provocative, painful, genuine...an unforgettable memoir.”—ROXANE GAY “Wonderfully lyrical and uncomfortably honest in a way that is so rare, yet so needed.”—JENNY LAWSON “Disturbing and profound, this intimate book also reveals the sometimes-labyrinthine nature of the bonds that unite people in love...A provocative and memorable work.”—Kirkus Reviews After years of struggling in a tumultuous marriage, writer Rebecca Woolf was finally ready to leave her husband. Two weeks after telling him she wanted a divorce, he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Four months later, at the age of forty-four, he died. In All of This, Woolf chronicles the months before her husband’s death—and her rebirth after he was gone. With rigorous honesty and incredible awareness, she reflects on the end of her marriage: how her husband’s illness finally gave her the space to make peace with his humanity and her own. Stunning, compelling, and brilliantly nuanced, All of This is one woman’s story of embracing the complexities of grief without shame—as a mother, a widow, and a sexual being—and emerging on the other side of a relationship with gratitude and relief.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/548750 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure, and an Unfinished Revolution Author: Nona Willis Aronowitz Narrator: Nona Willis Aronowitz Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 44 minutes Release date: August 9, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Named a Most Anticipated Book by Bustle, Esquire, Nylon, and The Millions “Intimate, thoughtful, and accessible to anyone struggling with the persistent, maddening inequities of contemporary sex.” –Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad From Teen Vogue sex and love columnist Nona Willis Aronowitz, a blend of memoir, social history, and cultural criticism that probes the meaning of desire and sexual freedom today. At thirty-two years old, everything in Nona Willis Aronowitz’s life, and in America, was in disarray. Her marriage was falling apart. Her nuclear family was slipping away. Her heart and libido were both in overdrive. Embroiled in an era of fear, reckoning, and reimagining, her assumptions of what “sexual liberation” meant were suddenly up for debate.   In the thick of personal and political turmoil, Nona turned to the words of history’s sexual revolutionaries—including her late mother, early radical pro-sex feminist Ellen Willis. At a time when sex has never been more accepted and feminism has never been more mainstream, Nona asked herself: What, exactly, do I want? And are my sexual and romantic desires even possible amid the horrors and bribes of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy? Nona’s attempt to find the answer places her search for authentic intimacy alongside her family history and other stories stretching back nearly two hundred years. Stories of ambivalent wives and unchill sluts, free lovers and radical lesbians, sensitive men and woke misogynists, women who risk everything for sex—who buy sex, reject sex, have bad sex and good sex. The result is a brave, bold, and vulnerable exploration of what sexual freedom can mean. Bad Sex is Nona’s own journey to sexual satisfaction and romantic happiness, which not only lays bare the triumphs and flaws of contemporary feminism but also shines a light on universal questions of desire.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/550106 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Fruit Punch: A Memoir Author: Kendra Allen Narrator: Kendra Allen Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 4 hours 11 minutes Release date: August 9, 2022 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: An arresting and one-of-a-kind memoir about the alternately exultant and harrowing trip growing up as a Black child desperate to create a clear reality for herself in this country Written in a distinctive voice and filled with personality, humor, and pathos, Fruit Punch is a memoir unlike any other, from a one-of-a-kind millennial talent. Growing up in Dallas, Texas, in the nineties and early 2000s, Kendra Allen had a complicated, loving, and intense family life filled with desire and community but also undercurrents of violence and turmoil. “We equate suffering to perseverance and misinterpret the weight of shame,” she writes. As she makes her way through a world of obscureness, Kendra finds herself slowly discovering outlets to help navigate growing up and against the expected performance of being a young Black woman in the South—a complex interplay of race, class, and gender that proves to be ever-shifting ground. Fruit Punch touches on everything from questions of beauty and how we form concepts of ourselves—as a small rebellion, young Kendra scratched a hole into every pair of stockings she was forced to wear—to what it means to grow up in her great uncle’s Southern Baptist church—with rules including “No uncrossed ankles” and “No questions.” Inflected by a powerful sense of place and touched by poetry, Fruit Punch is a stunning achievement—a memoir born of love and endurance, fight or flight, and what it means to be a witness, from a blisteringly honest and observant voice.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/548806 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Deer Creek Drive: A Reckoning of Memory and Murder in the Mississippi Delta Author: Beverly Lowry Narrator: Beverly Lowry Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 16 hours 26 minutes Release date: August 2, 2022 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: The stunning true story of a murder that rocked the Mississippi Delta and forever shaped one author’s life and perception of home. In 1948, in the most stubbornly Dixiefied corner of the Jim Crow south, society matron Idella Thompson was viciously murdered in her own home: stabbed at least 150 times and left facedown in one of the bathrooms. Her daughter, Ruth Dickins, was the only other person in the house. She told authorities a Black man she didn’t recognize had fled the scene, but no evidence of the man's presence was uncovered. When Dickins herself was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the community exploded. Petitions pleading for her release were drafted, signed, and circulated, and after only six years, the governor of Mississippi granted Ruth Dickins an indefinite suspension of her sentence and she was set free.   In Deer Creek Drive, Beverly Lowry—who was ten at the time of the murder and lived mere miles from the Thompsons’ home—tells a story of white privilege that still has ramifications today, and reflects on the brutal crime, its aftermath, and the ways it clarified her own upbringing in Mississippi. Cover images: (pruning shears) Tragedy-of-the-Month, 1949, Triangle Publications, Inc.; (background) Special Collections, University of Mississippi Libraries

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/553269 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Survival of the Fastest: Weed, Speed, and the 1980s Drug Scandal that Shocked the Sports World Author: Randy Lanier Narrator: Jonathan Beville Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 55 minutes Release date: August 2, 2022 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: As featured on Netflix’s “Bad Sport,” the high-octane, Seabiscuit-meets-Scarface story of how Randy Lanier became a 1980s international sports star, soaring through the ranks of car racing while holding a dark secret: he was also one of the biggest pot smugglers in American history As a kid, Randy Lanier dreamed of achieving four-wheel glory at the Indianapolis 500, but knew he’d never be able to afford the most expensive sport on earth. That all changed when he bought a speedboat and began smuggling pot from the Bahamas. Fueled by what would become a historically massive smuggling operation, he started racing cars and became an overnight sensation. For Randy and his teammates, money was no object, and bigger hauls meant faster cars. At every event they attended, they were behind the wheel of the best machinery, flaunting their secret in front of huge crowds and live television cameras. But no matter how fast they drove, they couldn’t outrun the law. As Randy came ever closer to reaching his dream of high-speed glory, one of the biggest drug scandals ever to hit the professional sports world was about to unfold. Set in the 1980s Florida of Miami Vice, this is the unbelievable, unforgettable, unparalleled story of an ordinary guy whose attempts to become famous doing the thing he wanted most—become a world class race car driver—devolved into a you-can’t-make-this-up tale of one of the biggest crime rings and drug scandals of the 1980s. Now, with the help of New York Times bestselling author A.J. Baime, Randy tells the whole truth for the first time ever, a gripping narrative unlike any other, a sports story for the ages, and shocking a true crime epic.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/556132 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Acceptance: A Memoir Author: Emi Nietfeld Narrator: Julia Knippen Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 13 hours 56 minutes Release date: August 2, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 2 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: “Nietfeld’s gifts for capturing the fury of living at the mercy of bad circumstances, for critiquing the hero’s journey even while she tells it, make Acceptance a remarkable memoir.” —The New York Times Book Review A hard-hitting and hilarious memoir of ambition, desperation, and the dark side of grit Growing up in a house filled with dirty feather boas and fearless mice, Emi Nietfeld dreams of escaping to the Ivy League. Emi’s single mom believes in her, but can’t stop hoarding—catapulting Emi into the underworld of troubled teen treatment, foster care, and homelessness. When her shot arrives to trade sleeping in her car for the hallowed halls of an elite college, Emi must decide: How far will she go to market herself as a perfect “overcomer” when her problems are far from over? And what will it cost to maintain that illusion at Harvard and into adulthood?   From journalist, mental health advocate, and software engineer Emi Nietfeld, this searing coming-of-age story is both a chronicle of the American Dream and an indictment of it. Exposing the price of trading a troubled past for the promise of a bright future, Nietfeld explores whether any amount of success can make trauma worth it. With a ribbon of dark humor, Acceptance challenges our ideas of what it means to overcome—and live on your own terms.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/556142 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Walking Gentry Home: A Memoir of My Foremothers in Verse Author: Alora Young Narrator: Alora Young Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 2 hours 47 minutes Release date: August 2, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: An “extraordinary” (Laurie Halse Anderson) young poet traces the lives of her foremothers in West Tennessee, from those enslaved centuries ago to her grandmother, her mother, and finally herself, in this stunning debut celebrating Black girlhood and womanhood throughout American history. “A masterpiece that beautifully captures the heartbreak that accompanies coming of age for Black girls becoming Black women.”—Evette Dionne, author of Lifting as We Climb, longlisted for the National Book Award ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Ms. Magazine, Kirkus Reviews Walking Gentry Home tells the story of Alora Young’s ancestors, from the unnamed women forgotten by the historical record but brought to life through Young’s imagination; to Amy, the first of Young’s foremothers to arrive in Tennessee, buried in an unmarked grave, unlike the white man who enslaved her and fathered her child; through Young’s great-grandmother Gentry, unhappily married at fourteen; to her own mother, the teenage beauty queen rejected by her white neighbors; down to Young in the present day as she leaves childhood behind and becomes a young woman.  The lives of these girls and women come together to form a unique American epic in verse, one that speaks of generational curses, coming of age, homes and small towns, fleeting loves and lasting consequences, and the brutal and ever-present legacy of slavery in our nation’s psyche. Each poem is a story in verse, and together they form a heart-wrenching and inspiring family saga of girls and women connected through blood and history. Informed by archival research, the last will and testament of an enslaver, formal interviews, family lore, and even a DNA test, Walking Gentry Home gives voice to those too often muted in America: Black girls and women.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/556444 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Adrenaline: My Untold Stories Author: Zlatan Ibrahimovic Narrator: James Hillier Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 42 minutes Release date: July 28, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 3 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. Football's most prolific and controversial goalscorer has nothing left to prove on the pitch. There is only one Zlatan. In the decade since his megaselling memoir I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic, he has played at Paris Saint-Germain (2012-2016), Manchester United (2016-2018), LA Galaxy (2018-2019) and Milan (2020-). This outrageous and hilarious follow-up is bursting with personal confessions and revealing anecdotes about the world's best players and managers. Packed with revelations, in Adrenaline we hear for the first time what Zlatan really thinks about his time in the Premier League and what it was like to score that glorious bicycle kick against England. We hear about the club he very nearly signed for, and see his hilarious run-ins with the French media - and the French in general, really. Plus so much more. Zlatan transports you into the world of top-flight football like no one else. Filled with revelations - including Zlatan's life lessons on happiness, friendship and love - you'll be talking about this book a long time after finishing it. 'He is an amazing talent, one of the best around' Pep Guardiola © Zlatan Ibrahimovic 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022