Discover the Best Audio Stories in Biography & Memoir

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/737411 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Take Care of Them Like My Own: Faith, Fortitude, and a Surgeon's Fight for Health Justice Author: Ala Stanford Narrator: Ala Stanford Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 11 hours 38 minutes Release date: August 6, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: The founder of the Black Doctors Consortium shares her “inspiring story of overcoming mind-numbing obstacles” (Will Smith), highlighting the devastating racial injustices in our healthcare system in this empowering call to action. Dr. Ala Stanford knew she wanted to be a doctor by the time she was eight years old. But role models were few and far between in her working-class North Philly neighborhood. Her teachers were dismissive, and the realities of racism, sexism, and poverty threatened to derail her at every turn. Nevertheless, thanks to her faith, family, and the sheer strength of her will, today she is one of the vanishingly small number of Black women surgeons in America—and an unrelenting force in the fight for health justice. In Take Care of Them Like My Own, Dr. Stanford shares an unflinching account of her story, explaining how her experiences on both sides of the scalpel have informed her understanding of America’s racial health gap, an insidious and lethal form of inequality that exacts a devastating toll on Black communities across the county, affluent and underserved alike. When Covid-19 arrived in her hometown of Philadelphia, she knew it would disproportionately affect the Black population. As the city stood idly by, unwilling or unable to protect its most vulnerable citizens, Dr. Stanford took matters into her own hands. She rented a van, made some calls, and began administering tests in church parking lots. Soon, she found herself at the helm of a powerful grassroots campaign that successfully vaccinated tens of thousands of Philadelphians. She and her movement are living proof that by drawing on faith, community, and inner strength, everyday people can affect tremendous change. “With extraordinary insight, sensitivity, and intelligence” (Dr. Drew Weissman, Nobel Laureate) Take Care of Them Like My Own offers urgent lessons about the power of communities working together to take care of one another and the importance of fighting for a health care system that truly fulfills its promise to all Americans.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/721833 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)?: Adventures in Boyhood Author: Jay Ellis Narrator: Jay Ellis Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 25 minutes Release date: July 30, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Jay Ellis, star of HBO’s Insecure, tells the story of growing up with an imaginary best friend you will never forget—part Dwayne Wayne from A Different World, part Will Smith from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air—in this hilarious, vulnerable memoir. “So funny, poignant, and personal. I loved this and you will, too.”—Mindy Kaling, author of Why Not Me? and Nothing Like I Imagined What to do when you’re the perpetual new kid, only child, and military brat hustling school to school each year and everyone’s looking to you for answers? Make some shit up, of course! And a young Jay Ellis does just that, with help from his imaginary friend, Mikey. A testament to the importance of invention, trusting oneself, and making space for creativity, Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)? is a memoir of a kid who confided in his imaginary sidekick to navigate parallel pop culture universes (like watching Fresh Prince alongside John Hughes movies or listening to Ja Rule and Dave Matthews) to a lifetime of birthday disappointment (being a Christmas-season Capricorn will do that to you) and hoop dreams gone bad. Mikey also guides Ellis through tragedies, like losing his teenage cousin in a mistaken-target drive-by and the shame and fear of being pulled over by cops almost a dozen times the year he got his driver’s license. As his imaginary friend morphs into adult consciousness, Ellis charts an unforgettable story of looking inward to solve to some of life’s biggest (and smallest) challenges, told in the roast-you-with-love voice of your closest homey.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/737415 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Widow's Guide to Dead Bastards Author: Jessica Waite Narrator: Cassandra Campbell Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 58 minutes Release date: July 30, 2024 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: “You will stay up all night reading this gem” (Christie Tate, New York Times bestselling author) about a widow whose life is turned upside down when she uncovers the truth about her late husband. A lyrical, witty, and deeply moving memoir of betrayal and forgiveness. While mourning her husband’s sudden death, Jessica Waite discovered shocking secrets that undermined everything she thought she knew about the man she’d loved and trusted. From secret affairs to drug use and a pornography addiction, Waite was overwhelmed reconciling this devastating information with her new reality as a widowed single mom. Then, to further complicate matters, strange, inexplicable coincidences forced her to consider whether her husband was reaching back from beyond the grave. With unflinching honesty, Waite details her tumultuous love story and the pain of adjusting to the new normal she built for herself and her son. “A candid, raw chronicle of bereavement” (Kirkus Reviews), The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards is also a lyrical exploration of mental health, single parenthood, and betrayal that demonstrates that the most moving love stories aren’t perfect—they’re flawed and poignantly real.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/721842 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Feh: A Memoir Author: Shalom Auslander Narrator: Shalom Auslander Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 38 minutes Release date: July 23, 2024 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 3 Ratings of Narrator: 4 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: From the acclaimed author of Foreskin’s Lament, a memoir of the author’s attempt to escape the biblical story he’d been raised on and his struggle to construct a new story for himself and his family Shalom Auslander was raised like a veal in a dysfunctional family in the Orthodox community of Monsey, New York: the son of an alcoholic father; a guilt-wielding mother; and a violent, overbearing God. Now, as he reaches middle age, Auslander begins to suspect that what plagues him is something worse, something he can't so easily escape: a story. The story. One indelibly implanted in him at an early age, a story that told him he is fallen, broken, shameful, disgusting, a story we have all been told for thousands of years, and continue to be told by the religious and secular alike, a story called 'Feh.' Yiddish for 'Yuck.' Feh follows Auslander's midlife journey to rewrite that story, a journey that involves Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a Pulitzer-winning poet, Job, Arthur Schopenhauer, GHB, Wolf Blitzer, Yuval Noah Harari and a pastor named Steve in a now-defunct church in Los Angeles. Can he move from Feh to merely meh? Can he even dream of moving beyond that? Auslander's recounting of his attempt to exorcize the story he was raised with—before he implants it onto his children and/or possibly poisons the relationship of the one woman who loves him—isn’t sacred. It is more-than-occasionally profane. And like all his work, it is also relentlessly funny, subversively heartfelt and fearlessly provocative.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/719555 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Why Can't I Just Enjoy Things?: A Comedian's Guide to Autism Author: Pierre Novellie Narrator: Pierre Novellie Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 28 minutes Release date: July 18, 2024 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: 'Outstanding, I want to press it into the hands of every newly diagnosed person' Fern Brady 'Like a Martian's guide to living on Earth. Funny, enlightening and gobsmacking' Frank Skinner 'A hilarious, crystal-clear guide to autism' Phil Wang Why were the other kids at school obsessed with Britney Spears instead of The Goon Show? Why don't people ever say what they mean? And... Why is everyone chewing so loudly? Comedian Pierre Novellie was on stage when a heckler suggested he was autistic. Usually, this disruption would be water off a duck's back but two things made this heckler different: first, he was himself autistic. Second, he turned out to be absolutely right. This random encounter led to a diagnosis of autism at the age of 31 that unravelled his world, explained his struggles and answered questions that had bothered him for his entire life. At once a hilarious and insightful journey through autism and neurodivergence, an entertaining explainer for the uninitiated and observational comedy for the neurodiverse, this is the perfect read for anyone who has ever asked themselves: why can't I just enjoy things? The audiobook includes an exclusive Q&A with comedian and BudPod co-host, Phil Wang.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/727977 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Perfect Bound: A memoir of trauma, heartbreak and the words that saved me Author: Lindsay Nicholson Narrator: Leda Hodgson Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 19 minutes Release date: July 18, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: An unforgettable memoir and manifesto for living, from the woman who redefined magazines for the 21st century ‘Truly compelling.’ Cathy Rentzenbrink ‘Breathtaking … I loved it.’ Fern Britton ‘Courageous. Inspiring. Hopeful.’ Alastair Campbell 'Gripping’ Observer ‘Brave and raw’ Daily Mail Having suffered the unimaginable loss of her first husband and child, Lindsay Nicholson rewrites her story to become Britain’s most successful lifestyle magazine editor. But when a would-be suicide runs in front of her car, the pages of her picture-perfect life fall apart once more. In just one year, Lindsay loses her marriage, job and home, and is even arrested. Suicidal and suffering from profound PTSD, she tries medication, therapy and New Age courses – until she finds the answer in the pages of her former magazines. Life isn’t about being perfect; it’s friendship and laughter, stitched together with the little things that truly matter. Deeply moving, inspiring and sharply funny, Perfect Bound is an unforgettable story about resilience, recovery and what really makes life worth living.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/720029 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl Author: Hyeseung Song Narrator: Hyeseung Song Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 17 minutes Release date: July 16, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: For readers of Crying in H Mart and Minor Feelings as well as lovers of the film Minari comes a “scorchingly honest…hugely evocative memoir” (Helen Macdonald, New York Times bestselling author of H Is for Hawk) about the daughter of ambitious Asian American immigrants and her search for self-worth. A daughter of Korean immigrants, Hyeseung Song spends her earliest years in the cane fields of Texas where her loyalties are divided between a restless father in search of Big Money, and a beautiful yet domineering mother whose resentments about her own life compromises her relationship with her daughter. With her parents at constant odds, Song learns more words in Korean for hatred than love. When the family’s fake Gucci business lands them in bankruptcy, Song moves to a new elementary school. On her first day, a girl asks the teacher: “Can she speak English?” Neither rich nor white, Song does what is necessary to be visible: she internalizes the model minority myth as well as her beloved mother’s dreams to see her on a secure path. Song meets these expectations by attending the best Ivy League universities in the country. But when she wavers, in search of an artistic life on her own terms, her mother warns, “Happiness is what unexceptional people tell themselves when they don’t have the talent and drive to go after real success.” Years of self-erasure take a toll on Song as she experiences recurring episodes of depression and mania. A thought repeats: I want to die. I want to die. Song enters a psychiatric hospital where she meets patients with similar struggles. So begins her sweeping journey to heal herself by losing everything. “A celebration of resilience and a testament to the power of art to heal and transform” (Chloé Cooper Jones, two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and author of Easy Beauty), Docile is one woman’s story of subverting the model minority myth, contending with mental illness, and finding her self-worth by looking within.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/721875 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Striker and the Clock: On Being in the Game Author: Georgia Cloepfil Narrator: Georgia Cloepfil Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 3 hours 45 minutes Release date: July 16, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: An illuminating perspective on the life of an athlete and the pursuit of excellence outside the spotlight. Georgia Cloepfil played professional soccer for six years, on six teams, in six countries. In those years, the sport became more than a game—it was an immersive yet transient way of life. In South Korea, she lived and practiced in an isolated island compound next to an airport. In Australia, she coached youth teams on the side to pay her rent. In Lithuania, she played in the European Champions League, to empty stadiums and little fanfare. She lived out of a single suitcase, chasing better opportunities and the euphoria of playing well.   The Striker and the Clock is a beautiful examination of the joy and pain of serious athletics. It’s also an eye-opening look at the still-developing world of professional women’s soccer. Written in ninety short passages—reflecting the ninety inexorably passing minutes of a soccer match—the book is a love letter to a maddening sport and a reflection on the way it has shaped a life. In vivid prose, it portrays the athlete as an artist, debating how much of herself to devote to her craft.  This finely wrought, singular book celebrates the complex appeal of sports and the fulfillment found in fleeting moments of glory.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/742561 to listen full audiobooks. Title: An Angel Walks Through the Stage and Other Essays Author: Jon Fosse Narrator: Kåre Conradi Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 3 hours 41 minutes Release date: July 16, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature Jon Fosse said farewell to theory early in his career, choosing poetry, fiction, and drama as his mediums of choice. Here, however, in a selection from his two books of essays, we see just how incisive a critic and memoirist he can be. Not only including a generous portion of Fosse's writing on literature and theater—including the irresistible ''Thomas Bernhard and His Grandfather''—this collection also includes such personal essays such as ''My Dear New Norwegian,'' ''Old Houses,'' and ''He Who Didn't Want to Become a Teacher.''

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/718653 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Fi: A Memoir of My Son Author: Alexandra Fuller Narrator: Alexandra Fuller Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 25 minutes Release date: July 11, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. The story of a mother grieving the sudden loss of her twenty-one-year-old child - from the award-winning and bestselling memoirist of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight It’s midsummer in Wyoming and Alexandra Fuller is barely hanging on. Grieving her father and pining for her home country of Zimbabwe, reeling from a midlife breakup, freshly sober and piecing her way uncertainly through a volatile new relationship with a younger woman, Alexandra vows to get herself back on even keel. And then – suddenly and incomprehensibly – her son Fi, at twenty-one years old, dies in his sleep. From a sheep wagon deep in the mountains of Wyoming to a grief sanctuary in New Mexico to a silent meditation retreat in Alberta, Canada, Alexandra journeys up and down the spine of the Rocky Mountains in an attempt to find how to grieve herself whole. By turns disarming, devastating and unexpectedly, blessedly funny, Alexandra recounts the wild medicine of painstakingly grieving a child in a culture that has no instructions for it. 'Truly extraordinary' HELEN MACDONALD ‘A mesmeric celebration... Will help others surviving loss — surviving life' NEW YORK TIMES ©2024 Alexandra Fuller (P)2024 Penguin Audio