Free Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, Memoirs

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/701071 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Ballad of Speedball Baby: A Memoir Author: Ali Smith Narrator: Ali Smith Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 32 minutes Release date: January 16, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: A Stylist Magazine (UK) pick for Best New Nonfiction A That Eric Alper pick for My Next Reads The Ballad of Speedball Baby is the thrilling, darkly hilarious, and heart-wrenchingly vulnerable story of Ali Smith’s coming-of-age in ’90s New York as she commits to the messy, exhilarating life of a musician and must survive the slings and arrows society reserves for women who refuse to comply. As an only child reeling from the demolition of her parents’ toxic marriage, the New York City underground music scene offers a young Ali a different family of misfits and talented outsiders to belong to. She becomes the bass player for edgy band Speedball Baby, a decision that will take her around the world—from onstage at the legendary CBGBs to the red-light district of Amsterdam. She’s often the only girl in a broken-down tour van, being strip-searched at the Croatian border, chased by lunatics, and navigating the seedy underbelly of a male-dominated music scene full of addiction, violence, and misogyny—all while keeping her sharp wit and dark humor intact. Rimmed with heavy black eyeliner and smelling faintly of cheap booze, The Ballad of Speedball Baby is a pulse-quickening, unpredictable ride through the ’90s music scene—alternately terrifying, hilarious, and painfully evocative—as well as a love letter to the power of female solidarity.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/702405 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Sex with a Brain Injury: On Concussion and Recovery Author: Annie Liontas Narrator: Natalie Naudus Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 21 minutes Release date: January 16, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: For readers of Meghan O’Rourke’s The Invisible Kingdom, Esmé Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias, and Melissa Febos’s Girlhood, a powerful and deeply personal memoir in essays that sheds light on the silent epidemic of head trauma. Annie Liontas suffered multiple concussions in her thirties. In Sex with a Brain Injury, she writes about what it means to be one of the “walking wounded,” facing her fear, her rage, her physical suffering, and the effects of head trauma on her marriage and other relationships. Forced to reckon with her own queer mother’s battle with addiction, Liontas finds echoes in their pain. Liontas weaves history, philosophy, and personal accounts to interrogate and expand representations of mental health, ability, and disability—particularly in relation to women and the LGBT community. She uncovers the surprising legacy of brain injury, examining its role in culture, the criminal justice system, and through historical figures like Henry VIII and Harriet Tubman. Encountering Liontas’s sharp, affecting prose, the reader can imagine this kind of pain, and having to claw one’s way back to a new normal. The hidden gift of injury, Liontas writes, is the ability to connect with others. For the millions of people who have suffered from concussions and for those who have endeavored to support loved ones through the painful and often baffling experience of head trauma, this astonishing and compassionate narrative offers insight and hope in equal measure.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/706626 to listen full audiobooks. Title: [Spanish] - Evocación: Mi vida al lado del Che Author: Aleida March Narrator: Irene Machado, Ignacio Rodríguez De Anca, Ernesto Báez Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 43 minutes Release date: January 16, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: La viuda del Che Guevara recuerda el gran romance revolucionario trágicamente acortado por el asesinato del Che en Bolivia. Cuando Aleida March primero conoció al Che Guevara, ella era una combatiente de veinte años del interior de Cuba, él era un ya legendario revolucionario y un exuberante líder. Pero había una faceta más humana del Che a la cual Aleida accedió exclusivamente, primero como su compañera de confianza y luego como el amor de su vida.  Con gran inmediatez y agudez, Aleida relata la historia de su romance épico —su cortejo intermitente contra el trasfondo de la guerra revolucionaria cubana, su casamiento cuando terminó la guerra y el nacimiento de sus cuatro hijos, hasta el asesinato trágico del Che en Bolivia menos de diez años después. Incluye fragmentos de sus cartas y un conmovedor cuento corto sobre el Che escrito por Aleida, este libro es un retrato íntimo del hombre detrás de la leyenda y la mujer tenaz y valiente que más lo conocía —un cuento sobre amor apasionado, sacrificio desgarrador y firme heroísmo. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION In this Spanish-language edition, Che Guevara’s widow remembers a great revolutionary romance tragically cut short by Che’s assassination in Bolivia. When Aleida March first met Che Guevara, she was a twenty-year-old combatant from the provinces of Cuba, he an already legendary revolutionary and larger-than-life leader. And yet there was another, more human side to Che, one Aleida was given special access to, first as his trusted compañera and later as the love of his life. With great immediacy and poignancy, Aleida recounts the story of their epic romance—their fitful courtship against the backdrop of the Cuban revolutionary war, their marriage at the war’s end and the birth of their four children, up through Che’s tragic assassination in Bolivia less than ten years later. Featuring excerpts from their letters and a moving short story Che wrote for Aleida, here is an intimate look at the man behind the legend and the tenacious, courageous woman who knew him best—a story of passionate love, wrenching sacrifice, and unwavering heroism.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/705885 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The MAGA Diaries: My Surreal Adventures Inside the Right-Wing (And How I Got Out) Author: Tina Nguyen Narrator: Tina Nguyen Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 23 minutes Release date: January 16, 2024 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: This explosive “must-read for anyone who cares about the future of our democracy” (Brian Stelter, New York Times bestselling author) chronicles the rise of the MAGA movement from acclaimed political journalist Tina Nguyen, who began her career—and her education—on the ground levels of the conservative recruiting machine. Her very first job was working for a little-known journalist named Tucker Carlson. She’s chugged Mountain Dews with the first Breitbart writers, poured over conspiracy theories from COVID-19 deniers, and visited the apocalyptic Patriot Church deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. The right is now a MAGA cult. And Tina Nguyen knows because she was raised by it, back when it wasn’t one. In 2008, in the weeks leading up to the election of Barack Obama, Nguyen was a history-loving, politics-obsessed college student at Claremont McKenna College, drawn there by a boyfriend—and a research institute called the Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom. Swept up by pro-America rhetoric and promises of a career in journalism, Nguyen was drawn into the world of right-wing student activism, and the early days of the movement now known as MAGA. In The MAGA Diaries, she tells not only her story of loving and leaving the conservative movement but the history of the right wing, painting a shocking picture of how they recruit, train, and indoctrinate generations of young people and shape them into the influential leaders and the supporting cast of tomorrow’s Republican party. They are ruthless in building robust networks of power, even if it means demolishing entire civic institutions, from women’s rights to fair elections—and staging a coup when it doesn’t work out. In this “sobering, endlessly readable fly-on-the-wall account of creeping fascism” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Nguyen pulls back the curtain on the conservative machine, shining a light on the systematized on-ramp for young Republicans. These are the new leaders of the right, and it’s urgent we start paying attention.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/714174 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe Author: Carl Safina Narrator: Carl Safina Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 12 hours 19 minutes Release date: January 16, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: When ecologist Carl Safina and his wife, Patricia, took in a near-death baby owl, they expected that, like other wild orphans they'd rescued, she'd be a temporary presence. But Alfie's feathers were not growing correctly, requiring prolonged care. As Alfie grew and gained strength, she became a part of the family, joining a menagerie of dogs and chickens and making a home for herself in the backyard. Alfie & Me is the story of the remarkable impact this little owl would have on their lives. The continuing bond of trust following her freedom—and her raising of her own wild brood—coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a year in which Carl and Patricia were forced to spend time at home without the normal obligations of work and travel. Witnessing all the fine details of their feathered friend's life offered Carl and Patricia a view of existence from Alfie's perspective. One can travel the world and go nowhere; one can be stuck keeping the faith at home and discover a new world. Safina's relationship with an owl made him want to better understand how people have viewed humanity's relationship with nature across cultures and throughout history. Interwoven with Safina's keen observations, insight, and reflections, Alfie & Me is a work of profound beauties and magical timing harbored within one upended year.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/698218 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Twenty-Seven Letters to My Daughter Author: Ella Ward Narrator: TBD Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 34 minutes Release date: January 3, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: When death is dancing closer than you'd like, what becomes important? What do you need to tell your child? And how do you want to be remembered? A beautiful, tender, funny and poignant guide on how to really live, from a mother to her daughter. Ella Ward comes from a long line of irrepressibly charming raconteurs, letter-writers, storytellers and people who 'quite like giving toasts at parties'. And so, a few years ago, when Ella was 36 years old, with a husband and a young daughter, and was told that she had a rare cancer and might die, she decided that death wasn't going to stand in the way of her mothering her child. As Ella's treatment for her cancer began, she started drafting letters to her daughter. To tell her about life, love, death, the importance of cotton knickers and - above all - her family. The kind of people who weren't dissuaded by little things like cancer. Or war. Or loss. Or a charging elephant. This is a story of what we inherit, and how we become ourselves. This is the story of a family - a glorious, funny, exotic and gutsy family - but it's really a story about how your attitude to life, can shape your life. A time-travelling memoir from one mother, and the generations that came before her - these are twenty-seven letters about the good, the bad, the magical and the whole damn thing. Jaunty, brave, moving and immensely appealing, this is a gloriously endearing inspirational story in the tradition of Tuesdays with Morrie and The Last Lecture ... although with slightly more dry martinis.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/715996 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Tracking Giants: Big Trees, Tiny Triumphs, and Misadventures in the Forest Author: Amanda Lewis Narrator: Tanya Eby Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 26 minutes Release date: December 19, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Amanda Lewis was an overachieving, burned-out book editor most familiar with trees as dead blocks of paper. A dedicated 'indoorswoman,' she could barely tell a birch from a beech. But that didn't stop her from pledging to visit all of the biggest trees in British Columbia, a Canadian province known for its rugged terrain and gigantic trees. The 'Champion' trees on Lewis's ambitious list ranged from mighty Western red cedars to towering arbutus. The only problem? Well, there were many . . . Climate change and a pandemic aside, Lewis's lack of wilderness experience, the upsetting reality of old-growth logging, the ever-changing nature of trees, and the pressures of her one-year time frame complicated her quest. Burned out again—and realizing that her 'checklist' approach to life might be the problem—she reframed her search for trees to something humbler and more meaningful: getting to know forests in an interconnected way. Weaving in insights from writers and artists, Lewis uncovers what we're really after when we pursue the big things—revealing that sometimes it's the smaller joys, the mindsets we have, and the companions we're with that make us feel more connected to the natural world.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/702530 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Damn This War!: Between the Blitz and the Desert, a Story of War-Crossed Love Author: Julie Hankey Narrator: Julie Hankey Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 39 minutes Release date: December 7, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: The love story of Zippa and Tony is nothing without the context of the Second World War. The war introduced them - they met as blackout wardens in London. It gave them darkened streets to wander in, hand in hand, then, by sending Tony away to officer training camps, it sharpened their hunger for each other, casting a glow over his comings and goings. It turned them into schemers and wanglers against fate and army regulations. It pressed them into marriage, and when the war decided to deploy him to North Africa, it whispered the urgent question of a baby. To which Tony, thinking of the war, replied maybe not; and Zippa, thinking of the war, said yes. In spite of themselves, the war experience was changing them both, and yet both were hanging on, looking back, suspended in memory and time, and living from letter to letter. Decades later, their daughter Julie discovered their letters, and piecing them together began to create a portrait of her parents and their relationship that was completely unfamiliar to her. Vivid, honest and completely absorbing, Damn This War! is a true insight into a wartime love story.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/715999 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Child Who Never Spoke: 23 ½ Lessons in Fragility Author: Cristina Nehring Narrator: Rosemary Benson Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 3 hours 45 minutes Release date: December 5, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: In 2009 Cristina Nehring's brilliant first book, A Vindication of Love, was featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review. An important new voice had appeared in American letters. Just as suddenly, Nehring seemed to disappear—only to reemerge like a bolt from the blue. 'One of the most graceful, tender and wise books I have ever read.' —Christina Hoff Sommers, Senior Fellow Emeritus, American Enterprise Institute 'Yes, there are lessons to be taken from these pages, hard-won lessons wrung from Cristina Nehring's ongoing odyssey as the single mother of a Down syndrome child and spun into lyric wisdom. But The Child Who Never Spoke: 23 ½ Lessons in Fragility is more than a guidebook to the uses and unexpected gifts of adversity. It is a love story, an adventure tale, an impetuous travelog, and a suspenseful medical saga (you can almost hear the hospital beeps in the background, the shuffle of footsteps down the halls) borne along by Nehring's buoyant breadth of spirit and the unbreakable bond with her daughter Eurydice. And the writing! So elegant and intimate. It's like hearing from a cherished friend after way too long.' —James Wolcott, author of the memoir Lucking Out and the essay collection Critical Mass 'In 2009 Cristina Nehring's brilliant first book, A Vindication of Love, was featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review. An important new voice had appeared in American letters. Then just as suddenly Nehring seemed to disappear. Now unexpectedly from Paris comes a heartbreaking and tender memoir, The Child Who Never Spoke, that explains her years of silence. These 'lessons in fragility' tell of Nehring's unexpected pregnancy and birth of a 'special child,' a baby girl with Down's syndrome in its most extreme form. Forthright, profound, and passionate, this new book is also a vindication of love. Although it tells a story full of sorrow, The Child Who Never Spoke is a not a sad book but a profound and joyous testament to the love between a mother and daughter.' —Dana Gioia, California poet laureate and author of Can Poetry Matter?

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/710756 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Still Laughing: A Life in Comedy (From the Creator of Laugh-In) Author: George Schlatter Narrator: P.J. Ochlan Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 53 minutes Release date: November 28, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: In 1967, producer George Schlatter pitched an idea for a quirky new television show: one inspired by the hippie counterculture, which would take the idea of sit-ins, love-ins, and be-ins, and manifest that politicized, sexualized, consciousness-raising energy into pure comedy. Much to the surprise of NBC executives, Laugh-In soon became the #1 show on American TV, and the careers of beloved stars like Lily Tomlin and Goldie Hawn were born. Still Laughing features never-before-told stories from the creation of one of the most groundbreaking shows in television history. It also recounts the coming-of-age of one of Hollywood's most iconic producers, from his early nightclub days rubbing elbows with mob figures like Mickey Cohen and John Stompanato, to his influential friendships with Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, for whom George was asked to deliver a eulogy at his funeral decades later. An inside look at Hollywood in the wake of the cultural upheaval of the '60s and '70s, Still Laughing demonstrates the crucial, deeply creative role a working producer plays in bringing a show (and its stars) to life. With spit-fire humor, tireless wit, and keen perception, Still Laughing tells of the rise of some of comedy's greatest talents, and reveals the actual people cloistered inside larger-than-life celebrity.