Free Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, Memoirs

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/703319 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida, and Felony Author: Annabelle Tometich Narrator: Annabelle Tometich Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 56 minutes Release date: April 2, 2024 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: This “witty, humorous, and heartfelt“ (Cinelle Barnes) memoir navigates the tangled branches of Annabelle Tometich’s life, from growing up in Florida as the child of and a Filipino mother and a deceased white father to her adult life as a med-school-reject-turned-food-critic. When journalist Annabelle Tometich picks up the phone one June morning, she isn’t expecting a collect call from an inmate at the Lee County Jail. And when she accepts, she certainly isn’t prepared to hear her mother’s voice on the other end of the line. However, explaining the situation to her younger siblings afterwards was easy; all she had to say was, “Mom shot at some guy. He was messing with her mangoes.” They immediately understood. Answering the questions of the breaking-news reporter—at the same newspaper where Annabelle worked as a restaurant critic––proved more difficult. Annabelle decided to go with a variation of the truth: it was complicated. So begins The Mango Tree, a poignant and deceptively entertaining memoir of growing up as a mixed-race Filipina “nobody” in suburban Florida as Annabelle traces the roots of her upbringing—all the while reckoning with her erratic father’s untimely death in a Fort Myers motel, her fiery mother’s bitter yearning for the country she left behind, and her own journey in the pursuit of belonging. With clear-eyed compassion and piercing honesty, The Mango Tree is a family saga that navigates the tangled branches of Annabelle’s life, from her childhood days in an overflowing house flooded by balikbayan boxes, vegetation, and juicy mangoes, to her winding path from medical school hopeful to restaurant critic. It is a love letter to her fellow Filipino Americans, her lost younger self, and the beloved fruit tree at the heart of her family. But above all, it is an ode to Annabelle’s hot-blooded, whip-smart mother Josefina, a woman who made a life and a home of her own, and without whom Annabelle would not have herself.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/697447 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Hildasay to Home: How I Found a Family by Walking the UK's Coastline Author: Christian Lewis Narrator: Christian Lewis Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 20 minutes Release date: March 28, 2024 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.5 of Total 2 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Read by the author, Christian Lewis. Walking saved his life. Now it will help find him a family. In the follow-up to his Sunday Times bestselling Finding Hildasay, Christian Lewis takes his next steps. Since his time on Hildasay, Chris’ adventure has only gotten wilder. No one was more surprised than Chris when, in November 2020, he had an unlikely (seemingly destined) encounter with fellow adventurer Kate. The two turned out to be kindred spirits and – even more astonishingly – Kate made the bold decision to join Chris on the walk of a lifetime. Day in, day out, as they trekked the coastline down from Scotland together, their relationship grew, and soon the couple were thrown in at the deep end when their first child – baby Magnus – arrived. But, away from Scotland, Chris’ struggles with mental health returned. The solitude of Hildasay seemed far away, and he unravelled once again. Through injuries and setbacks, with Jet the dog ageing and baby Magnus growing by the day, the adventurous family of four had to find their feet and come together to complete this epic challenge. They’ve navigated the east coast of Scotland, through Yorkshire and East Anglia, and struggled on to the Jurassic Coast where Chris slowly came back into himself. In Hildasay to Home Chris finally crosses the finish line back in Swansea with almost half a million pounds raised. He reflects beautifully on all that he’s learned and the family he’s found for himself along the way.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/696725 to listen full audiobooks. Title: If I Don't Laugh, I'll Cry: How Death, Debt, and Comedy Led to a Life of Faith, Farming, and Forgetting What I Came into This Room For Author: Molly Stillman Narrator: Molly Stillman, Lisa Larsen Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 4 minutes Release date: March 26, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Read by the author. Some people have life all figured out. This book is for the rest of us. Molly Stillman has lived the type of life that when shared, people stop in their tracks and ask “Wait, what happened?” Molly’s mother, Lynda Van Devanter Buckley, served as an Army nurse during the Vietnam War and wrote the bestselling memoir Home Before Morning. When Molly was seventeen, Lynda passed away after an eight-year battle with an autoimmune disorder due to her exposure to Agent Orange. Four years later Molly turned twenty-one and unexpectedly inherited a quarter of a million dollars from her mother’s estranged family’s estate. Through “retail therapy” and a long series of grossly irresponsible financial decisions, Molly found herself broke with over $36,000 in credit card debt less than two years later. Shame, guilt, and embarrassment set in. With aspirations of a career in comedy, Molly used humor to mask the pain and brokenness she felt, believing that if she looked joyful and put together on the outside, it would eventually be true on the inside. Instead, she spent the next few years depressed, lonely, and feeling alienated from those closest to her. But an unlikely call with a compassionate credit counselor, meeting the spreadsheet-loving man who eventually became her husband, and a surprising visit to a church started her on a path that changed everything. If I Don’t Laugh, I’ll Cry offers humor and hope to all of us who have struggled to reconcile the life we are living with the life we thought we wanted to have. Molly will bring you into the tension of feeling both joy and grief and show you that every broken, messed up story has a purpose, and it’s possible to gain everything if you’re willing to surrender it all to Jesus.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/697404 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Wishful Thinking: How I Lost My Faith and Why I Want to Find It Author: Donna Freitas Narrator: Donna Freitas Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 44 minutes Release date: March 26, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Donna Freitas wants to believe. Raised Catholic, she sang songs about Jesus as a child and lived in a house where nuns and priests were regular guests, yet she found herself questioning the faith of her family, examining the reasons none of it added up, and distancing herself from the God of Christianity. Despite her questions—or perhaps because of them—she made a career out of trying to understand God, pursuing a PhD in religion. But even as she taught college students about mystics, theologians, and others who wrestled with God, she was never able to embrace a faith of her own. In this searingly honest and deeply personal book, Freitas retraces her roundabout path up and out of the wilderness toward hope, and her dogged—and ongoing—search for faith. She talks about her experience with the Catholic abuse scandal, about being embraced as a speaker at evangelical colleges, about how the death of her mother and the loss of her marriage made her question everything she thought she knew about love, how she cannot reconcile the ways the concept of God makes absolutely no sense, and how she cannot stop trying to believe, despite it all. Real, raw, and beautifully written, Wishful Thinking is a powerful story about the author’s search for belief in God and about finding God in the most unexpected places.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/697220 to listen full audiobooks. Title: There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension Author: Hanif Abdurraqib Narrator: Hanif Abdurraqib Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 40 minutes Release date: March 26, 2024 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 2 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “powerful” (The Guardian) reflection on basketball, life, and home—from the author of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America “Mesmerizing . . . not only the most original sports book I’ve ever read but one of the most moving books I’ve ever read, period.”—Steve James, director of Hoop Dreams A TIME AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged and countless others weren’t. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling. “Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father’s jump shot,” Abdurraqib writes. “The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time.”   There’s Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus—whether it’s basketball, or music, or performance—Hanif Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/695275 to listen full audiobooks. Title: [Spanish] - Sing Your Name Out Loud / iCanta tu nombre! (Spanish edition): 15 pasos para vivir tus suenos Author: Jason Derulo Narrator: Humberto Montes Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 24 minutes Release date: March 19, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: En su cautivante e inspirador primer libro, el legendario compositor y cantante Jason Derulo comparte sus 15 reglas para alcanzar el éxito en todo y nos invita —en particular a los artistas y creadores— a iniciar el camino hacia la grandeza. En 2009, un chico de 18 años, hijo de inmigrantes haitianos irrumpió en las listas del Billboard con la canción “Whatcha Say”, que de inmediato ocupó el primer lugar, con su sorprendente gancho, una frase que se convertiría en una de las más pegajosas de la historia de la música pop: su propio nombre, cantado a toda voz. Desafiando todas las probabilidades, Jason Derulo se plantó una y otra vez, éxito tras éxito, como uno de los cantantes, bailarines e intérpretes más trabajadores del mundo y como una fuerza arriesgada de la naturaleza. Esta es la extraordinaria historia del ascenso de Derulo, contada mediante los valiosos principios que lo guiaron e impulsaron hacia la excelencia artística. El compromiso de Derulo con su sueño y su dedicación para realizarlo es materia de leyenda: levantarse a las 4 de la mañana para alcanzar autobuses por Miami y poder asistir a las escuelas de artes escénicas con una beca, apuntarse en los concursos locales de canto en el centro comercial los fines de semana y escribir cientos de canciones sin siquiera haber visto el interior de un estudio de grabación. Pero fue durante su reinvención en 2020, después de convertirse en uno de los creadores más seguidos en Titok, cuando descubrió que sus reglas personales para el autodominio y el éxito aplican en cualquier lugar, para cualquier persona y ante cualquier circunstancia. In his page-turning and inspiring first book, legendary songwriter and recording artist Jason Derulo shares his 15 rules for finding success in any pursuit, and invites everyone—especially artists and creators—to start on their path to greatness. In 2009, an 18-year-old son of Haitian immigrants burst onto Billboard music charts with the instant #1 song, “Whatcha Say,” which sampled a surprising hook and opened with what would prove to be one of the catchiest lines in pop music history – the artist’s own name, sung out loud. Defying every possible odd, Jason Derulo cemented himself again and again, hit after hit, as one of the hardest working singers, dancers, and performers in the world and a risk-taking force of nature. This is the remarkable story of Derulo's come up, told through the valuable principles that guided and propelled him toward artistic excellence. Waking at 4am to catch buses across Miami so he could attend performing arts schools on scholarship, entering himself into local singing competitions at the mall on the weekends, and penning hundreds of songs before he ever saw the inside of a recording studio, Derulo’s commitment to his dream – and dedication to seeing it come true – is the stuff of legend. But it was during his reinvention in 2020, after becoming one of the most followed creators on TikTok, that he realized his personal rules for self-mastery and success are applicable anywhere, for anyone, under any circumstance. “Now,” he writes, “It’s your turn.” Sing Your Name Out Loud: 15 Rules for Living Your Dream takes readers into the mind of one of the most consistent, dominating, and versatile artists alive. Derulo reflects, in his own words, on the defining moments of his career thus far, most notably the wins and losses that strengthened his signature style of creative pursuit and offers his fifteen rules for turning goals into reality – where numbers mean everything, obstacles are opportunities, closed doors are meant to be opened, failure is inevitable, and good lighting is non-negotiable.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/697206 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Observable Universe: An Investigation Author: Heather Mccalden Narrator: Heather Mccalden Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 48 minutes Release date: March 19, 2024 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Is anyone ever truly lost in the internet age? A moving, original memoir of a young woman reckoning with her parents’ absence, the virus that took them, and what it means to search for meaning in a hyperconnected world. “Brilliantly innovative . . . syncing a narrative of profoundly personal emotion with the invention and evolution of today’s cyberspace.”—William Gibson, author of Neuromancer and The Peripheral In the early 1990s, Heather McCalden lost both her parents to AIDS. She was seven when her father died, ten when she lost her mother. Raised by her grandmother, Nivia, she grew up in Los Angeles, also known as ground zero for the virus and its destruction. Years later, she begins researching online the history of HIV as a way to deal with her loss, which leads her to the unexpected realization that the AIDS crisis and the internet developed on parallel timelines. By accumulating whatever fragments she could about both phenomena—images, anecdotes, and scientific entries—alongside her own personal history, McCalden forms a synaptic journey of what happened to her family, one that leads to an equally unexpected discovery about who her parents might have been. Entwining this personal search with a wider cultural narrative of what the virus and virality mean in our times—interrogating what it means to “go viral” in an era of explosive biochemical and virtual contagion—The Observable Universe is at once a history of our viral culture and a prismatic account of grief in the internet age.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/697204 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Mother Island: A Daughter Claims Puerto Rico Author: Jamie Figueroa Narrator: Kelle Rae Oien, Jamie Figueroa Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 25 minutes Release date: March 19, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: A searing memoir that explores the institutions that defined a Puerto Rican woman and what she unlearned to rediscover herself • 'A lushly written, deeply felt investigation into the meanings of home, lineage and selfhood.' —Melissa Febos, bestselling author of Body Work and Girlhood Growing up in the Midwest, raised by a Puerto Rican mother who was abandoned by her family, Jamie Figueroa and her sisters were estranged from their culture, consumed by the whiteness that surrounded them. In Mother Island, Figueroa traces her search for identity as shaped by and against a mother who settled into the safety of assimilation. In lyrical, blistering prose, Figueroa recalls a childhood in Ohio in which she was relegated to the background of her mother’s string of failed marriages; her own marriage in her early twenties to a man twice her age; how her work as a licensed massage therapist helped her heal her body trauma; and how becoming a mother has reshaped her relationship to her family and herself. Only as an adult in New Mexico was Figueroa able to forge her own path, using writing to recast her origin story. In a journey that takes her to Puerto Rico and back, Figueroa looks to her ancestors to reimagine her relationship to the past and to her mother’s native island, reaching beyond her own mother into a greater experience of mothering and claiming herself.      Drawing from Puerto Rican folklore and mythology, a literary lineage of women writers of color, and narratives of identity, Figueroa presents a cultural coming-of-age story. Candid and raw, Mother Island gets to the heart of the question: Who do we become when we are no longer trying to be someone else?

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/697397 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Flirting with Disaster: True Travel Tales of Fear, Failure, and Faith Author: Angie Orth Narrator: Angie Orth Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 36 minutes Release date: March 12, 2024 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Join travel writer Angie Orth (@angieaway) on a journey of self-discovery as she empowers readers to buck expectations, take leaps of faith, and trust that God’s plan is better than anything we think we want for our lives. Angie Orth should have had at least 2.5 kids by now—everyone else back home did. Despite a successful PR career in New York, Angie was failing at the roles she was born to play—those of submissive wife and grandchild incubator. Without a potential husband in sight or the hope of a photogenic brood to show off, she was beginning to wonder if God forgot about her.   With her thirtieth birthday looming, Angie was at a crossroads. Should she hightail it home to find a man like a “good girl” or continue running the rat race in New York City and hope for the best?   Orth chose Plan C: Escape! She quit her job, launched a travel blog, and booked a one-way ticket to the South Pacific while her Southern family gnashed their teeth in protest. But the timing couldn’t have been worse for a solo trip: she found herself dodging tsunamis, earthquakes, revolutions, grabby men, and incessant DMs from her worrywart relatives over a journey that spanned five continents. In the midst of her global misadventures, Orth’s hilarious, vulnerable journey of faith and wanderlust demonstrates that God’s plan is so much more creative than society’s expectations. Fasten your seatbelt for this sassy, relatable memoir about living life unscripted yet still on mission. By the time readers turn the last page of Flirting with Disaster, they’ll feel empowered, knowing God’s vision is better than anything we think we want—or are supposed to want—for our lives. And they’ll be ready to take on the world in their own way.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/700628 to listen full audiobooks. Title: A Very Private School: A Memoir Author: Charles Spencer Narrator: Charles Spencer Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 57 minutes Release date: March 12, 2024 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.33 of Total 6 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER “A tour de force.” —The Washington Post In this poignant memoir, Charles Spencer recounts the trauma of being sent away from home at age eight to attend boarding school. A Very Private School offers a clear-eyed, first-hand account of a culture of cruelty at the school Charles Spencer attended in his youth and provides important insights into an antiquated boarding system. Drawing on the memories of many of his schoolboy contemporaries, as well as his own letters and diaries from the time, he reflects on the hopelessness and abandonment he felt at aged eight, viscerally describing the intense pain of homesickness and the appalling inescapability of it all. Exploring the long-lasting impact of his experiences, Spencer presents a candid reckoning with his past and a reclamation of his childhood.