Get Most Popular Full Audiobooks in Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

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Title: Like Me

Subtitle: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer

Author: Chely Wright

Narrator: Sarah Zimmerman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-03-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 50 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Chely Wright, singer, songwriter, country music star, writes in this moving and telling memoir about her life, growing up in Kansas City, the youngest of three children, making up her mind at a young age to become a country music star, making a pact with God - to keep her "sinning" to a minimum if he'd just get her to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. . . We see her, a featured vocalist at seventeen on the Ozark Jubilee (the show that started Brenda Lee, Red Foley and Porter Wagoner), being cast in Country Music U.S.A., a popular show in Opryland U.S.A., being asked to perform at that young age on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. . . She describes writing and singing her own songs for producers who'd discovered and recorded the likes of Reba McEntire, Billy Ray Cyrus, Shania Twain and Toby Keith ... signing her to a record contract with PolyGram, releasing her first album. . . sending her on her first tour bus, hitting the road, her music on local radio stations; her videos on TV; being showered with critical acclaim, awarded the Academy Of Country Music's Top New Female Vocalist. . . her first hit single, Shut Up And Drive. . .her songs (from her fourth album, Single White Female) climbing the Billboard chart for 29 weeks, finally hitting the #1 spot. . .

She writes about the friends she made along the way - Vince Gill...Brad Paisley and others, collaborating together, recording and touring together, some of the friendships developing into something more and not ending happily. . .

She writes about her drive that spurred her to write more hits, make more videos, produce bigger tours. . . how she was chosen as one of People's 50 Most Beautiful People. . . given the Humanitarian Award. . . named FHM's Top 20 Sexiest Women In Entertainment. . . appeared on the cover of USA Today. . . How, instead of breathing a sigh of relief, she writes about the terror she felt at losing everything she'd worked so hard to create. . .

And after, in the face of everything she did to ward it off, she writes about how the vortex of success took its toll; her life, a wreck she refused to see coming, and finally, how she found the guts to untangle herself from the image of the country music star she'd become, an image steeped in long-standing ideals and notions about who - and what - a country artist is, and what their fans expect them to be. . .

She writes about this time of life and death renewal, how she has come to terms with who she is, and how she has found a new voice in her music; with music flowing naturally from her that never came so easily.

Like Me is a book of revelation; fearless, inspiring, true

Members Reviews:

Very couragous!!!

Living a secret life for so long was hell for Chely. She really lets you in on all the twists and turns along the way and how it almost led to suicide, literally. I was absolutely amazed at her honesty and courage to share it with the world. I think her story has really made some people think very hard and to review their core beliefs about gays. This is an amazing and important story!!!

Poignant and Moving

A deeply personal memoir that was greatly revealing. Stories of childhood abuse and of the way she used men to hide her sexuality. Though denying she did so purposely; she knew she wasn't attracted to men, she still dated and slept with them.

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Title: Marmee and Louisa

Subtitle: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother

Author: Eve LaPlante

Narrator: Karen White

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-06-12

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 26 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Since its release nearly 150 years ago, Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women has been a mainstay in American literature, while passionate Jo March and her calm, beloved "Marmee" have shaped generations of young women. Biographers have consistently credited her father, Bronson Alcott, for Louisa's professional success, assuming that this outspoken idealist was the source of her progressive thinking and remarkable independence.

But in this riveting dual biography, Eve LaPlante explodes those myths, drawing on unknown and unexplored letters and journals to show that Louisa's "Marmee", Abigail May Alcott, was in fact the intellectual and emotional center of her daughter's world. It was Abigail who urged Louisa to write, who inspired many of her stories, and who gave her the support and courage she needed to pursue her unconventional path. Abigail, long dismissed as a quiet, self-effacing companion to her famous husband and daughter, is revealed here as a politically active feminist firebrand, a fascinating thinker in her own right.

Examining family papers, archival documents, and diaries thought to have been destroyed, LaPlante paints an exquisitely moving and utterly convincing portrait of a woman decades ahead of her time - and the fiercely independent daughter who was both inspired and restricted by her mother's dreams of freedom.

A story guaranteed to turn all previous scholarship on its head, Marmee and Louisa is a gorgeously written and deeply felt biography of two extraordinary women as well as a key to our understanding of Louisa May Alcott's life and work.

Critic Reviews:

"A most original love story, taut and tender." (Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra: A Life)

Members Reviews:

Hardworking women and the man they supported

Drawing on new materials, letters, and family papers, Eve LaPlante restores Abba May Alcott to her rightful position as nurturing mother and friend to Louisa May Alcott, her daughter and the author of Little Women and many other books. LaPlante fills in the missing background on Abba's life: her wealthy (for a time) family, her close relationship to her crusading abolitionist brother, Samuel Joseph May, and her extraordinary lifelong support and guidance of all her family, especially Louisa.

The family member who does not come off especially well here is her husband, Bronson Alcott. With an ego the size of Concord or maybe Boston, Bronson did not feel "called" to work or support his family. He had to have space to think, after all, so he would leave Abba with three children under 10 (and no money) so that he could rent a room in downtown Philadelphia or Boston for months at a time and work on his intellectual development.

For Bronson, bringing in money was the job of Abba and her daughters. So Anna taught school, Louisa sewed and wrote, May gave lessons, and Abba worked as a social worker and begged what support she could from family and friends. Marmee and Louisa tells the story of these hardworking women and their extended family in the context of the social and political turmoil of their times. It's an excellent listen.

History with primary sources

The book touched me deeply as a mother of three

daughters.

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Title: There Was a Country

Subtitle: A Personal History of Biafra

Author: Chinua Achebe

Narrator: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-11-12

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 40 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

From the legendary author of Things Fall Apart comes a long-awaited memoir about coming of age with a fragile new nation, then watching it torn asunder in a tragic civil war.

The defining experience of Chinua Achebe's life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967-1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe's people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. By then, Chinua Achebe was already a world-renowned novelist, with a young family to protect. He took the Biafran side in the conflict and served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he absorbed the war's full horror. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for more than 40 years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa's most fateful events, from a writer whose words and courage have left an enduring stamp on world literature.

Achebe masterfully relates his experience, both as he lived it and how he has come to understand it. He begins his story with Nigeria's birth pangs and the story of his own upbringing as a man and as a writer so that we might come to understand the country's promise, which turned to horror when the hot winds of hatred began to stir. To read There Was a Country is to be powerfully reminded that artists have a particular obligation, especially during a time of war. All writers, Achebe argues, should be committed writers - they should speak for their history, their beliefs, and their people.

Marrying history and memoir, poetry and prose, There Was a Country is a distillation of vivid firsthand observation and 40 years of research and reflection. Wise, humane, and authoritative, it will stand as definitive and reinforce Achebe's place as one of the most vital literary and moral voices of our age.

"1966", "Benin Road", "Penalty of Godhead", "Generation Gap", "Biafra, 1969", "A Mother in a Refugee Camp", "The First Shot", "Air Raid", "Mango Seedling", "We Laughed at Him", "Vultures", and "After a War" from Collected Poems by Chinua Achebe. Copyright 1971, 1973, 2004 by Chinua Achebe. Used by permission of Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc. and The Wylie Agency, LLC.

Members Reviews:

The Audible Edition Is a Disaster

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Mr. Akinnuoye-Agbaje, a non-Igbo speaker who simply happens to be of Nigerian-descent, manages to mispronounce every Igbo word in the book, making it a particularly painful experience to listen to his reading. It wouldn't have required much to learn how to pronounce these words properly, without which their meanings are lost. I'll be exploring the possibility of getting my money back. There's no imaginable reason why an Igbo speaker could not have been recruited to read this book for Audible.

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Title: Waging Heavy Peace

Subtitle: A Hippie Dream

Author: Neil Young

Narrator: Keith Carradine

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-04-12

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Neil Youngs Waging Heavy Peace, the rock music memoir of the year. Read by Keith Carradine.

"I felt that writing books fit me like a glove; I just started and I just kept going." Neil Young is a singular figure in the history of rock and pop culture generally in the last four decades. Reflective, insightful, and disarmingly honest, in Waging Heavy Peace he writes about his life and career. From his youth in Canada to his crazy journey out to California, through Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, & Nash, to his massively successful solo career and his reemergence as the patron saint of grunge on to his role today as one of the last uncompromised and uncompromising survivors of rock & roll - this is Neils story told in his own words.

In the book Young presents a kaleidoscopic view of personal life and musical creativity; its a journey that spans the snows of Ontario to the LSD-laden boulevards of 1966 Los Angeles to the contemplative paradise of Hawaii today. Along the way he writes about the music, the victims, the girls, and the drugs; about his happy family life but also about the health problems he and his children have experienced; about guitars, cars, and sound systems; about Canada and California and Hawaii.

Members Reviews:

Shame about the lost credit

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Keith Carradine?

This guy sounds more like a brainless cheerleader reading out loud a self help book than someone with balls to narrate Neil Young's autobiography. I cannot get over the pretended enthusiasm and complete lack of style and presentation, even after a couple of hours listening that usually does the trick. It just kills the story.

Maybe the book is an enjoyable read, though, I'll give it a try some day.

Not what you might expect

At the time of writing Im only about halfway through this book but the reality is I seriously doubt Im going to make it to the end. Like many other reviewers I have been a fan of CSN&Y for many years (who am I kidding, decades) and even had the opportunity to see Neils former colleagues in London when they toured in 2013. They were amazing, and their enjoyment of playing together, after all the highs and lows, was clear to see.

Consequently I was hoping that this book would be filled with background about one of the most influential bands of the past 40 years; how Neil met them, what happened the very first time they all sat down and played together, behind-the-scenes insights into life in the heady days of the California Sound that gave us The Eagles, Steely Dan, Buffalo Springfield, Joni Mitchell and many, many more. How they dealt with the pressures of having four accomplished songwriters and their egos in one room as they worked to produce a follow-up to the worldwide hit album Deja Vu. Stories of life on the road and of course, the stresses and arguments that led to the bands final demise, and what happened next.

Well, amazing as it sounds, none of that is in this book.

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Title: Blue Water, Green Skipper

Subtitle: A Memoir of Sailing Alone Across the Atlantic

Author: Stuart Woods

Narrator: Steven Collins

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-02-12

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 119 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Stuart Woods had never owned more than a dinghy before setting out on one of the world's most demanding sea voyages, navigating single-handedly across the Atlantic. How, at the age of 37, did this self-proclaimed novice go from small ponds to the big sea?

Now with a new afterword that looks back at how one transatlantic race changed his life, Woods takes listeners on a spectacular journey not just of traveling across the world, but of being tried in fire, learning by accepting challenges, appreciating the beauty of the open water, and living to tell about it.

Members Reviews:

For the Hardened Sailor, Novice, and Dreamer Alike

This was an outstanding book that depicts the authors real-life adventures related to sailing. Starting with a small sailing dingy in Ireland, and ending with sailing in a race across the Atlantic, this was a great description of what sailing is really like including all of the learning, hard work, unexpected failures, boat repairs, and scares along the way.

The author starts in a small town in Ireland where he joins the local sailing club and learns to sail a small mirror dinghy. After buying his own, he starts to compete in local sailing races. Shortly after this, his grandfather and long-time mentor dies. Out of this tragedy he learns that his grandfather left him a rather large sum of money. He decides to use this money to buy a brand new sailing yacht to compete in the long-distance sailing races he is now so enamored with.

He contacts a nearby shipwright to build a custom sailing yacht that he will use for single-handed long-distance sailing. After extensive modifications to the yacht, he enters a sailing race from England to the Azores. While crewed for this race, he sails the yacht back to Ireland on his own.

His journey across the Atlantic in a world-famous annual sailing yacht race is full of adventure, perilous waters, equipment failures, and supply shortages. However, it is out on the ocean that the author discovers more about himself than he ever thought possible.

By now, this author has written dozens of excellent books. However, I will not say that this was the best book I have ever read. You can tell that he was a young and inexperienced writer at the time. BUT, this book is an excellent representation of what sailing is really like, with the good and the bad. I thoroughly enjoyed the adventure.

Narration was very good as well. I hope to hear him narrate other similar adventure stories.

Anyone interested in sailing, whether youre an experienced sea captain or just dreaming of sailing someday, will enjoy this book. 5 stars!

One of the best narrators I've heard

Where does Blue Water, Green Skipper rank among all the audiobooks youve listened to so far?

One of the very best.

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Title: Love Is the Cure

Subtitle: On Life, Loss, and the End of AIDS

Author: Elton John

Narrator: Elton John

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-17-12

Publisher: Hachette Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 95 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Audie Award Nominee, Nonfiction, 2013

In the 1980s, Elton John saw friend after friend, loved one after loved one, perish needlessly from AIDS. In the midst of the plague, he befriended Ryan White, a young Indiana boy ostracized by his town and his school because of the HIV infection he had contracted from a blood transfusion. Ryan's inspiring life and devastating death led Elton to two realizations: His own life was a mess. And he had to do something to help stop the AIDS crisis.

Since then, Elton has dedicated himself to overcoming the plague and the stigma of AIDS. He has done this through the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which has raised and donated $275 million to date to fighting the disease worldwide.

Love Is the Cure is Elton's personal account of his life during the AIDS epidemic, including stories of his close friendships with Ryan White, Freddie Mercury, Princess Diana, Elizabeth Taylor, and others, and the story of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. With powerful conviction and emotional force, Elton conveys the personal toll AIDS has taken on his life - and his infinite determination to stop its spread.

Elton writes, "This is a disease that must be cured not by a miraculous vaccine, but by changing hearts and minds, and through a collective effort to break down social barriers and to build bridges of compassion. Why are we not doing more? This is a question I have thought deeply about, and wish to answer - and help to change - by writing this book."

Sales of Love Is the Cure benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

Critic Reviews:

"My friend Elton John has touched us all with his music and with the countless lives he has saved through his AIDS Foundation. Now he has given us a deeply personal story of struggle and perseverance in the fight against this terrible disease. Few people know more [than] Elton what it will take to end AIDS. His wonderful new book will convince you there's cause for hope - and inspire you to be part of the solution." (President Bill Clinton)

Members Reviews:

Inspiring book

Where does Love Is the Cure rank among all the audiobooks youve listened to so far?

This is one of the best books I have heard in a long time. I knew that Elton John was involved in the AIDS fight, but I had no idea how much the foundation has achieved since its inception. Elton chronicles the history of not only the foundation but the fight against AIDS as well. It is a virtual primer on the fight and the efforts (for and against) to end this virus once and for all.

His account is clear, honest, perceptive, and cuts through the political nonsense that has surrounded the AIDS crisis.

If you want some plain and simple facts, get the book. He knows what he is talking about and has worked tirelessly to help end AIDS.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Love Is the Cure?

I liked how honest he was in the book. His honesty extends not only to others who did nothing to fight AIDS, but also to himself and how he did not act when he could have.

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Title: Amy, My Daughter

Author: Mitch Winehouse

Narrator: Mitch Winehouse, Rupert Farley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-26-12

Publisher: HarperAudio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 59 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Candid, compelling, and heartbreaking - a father's story of a talent taken too soon and a legacy that will live on for generations...

On July 23, 2011, Amy Winehouse's family, friends, and fans around the world mourned the tragedy that this remarkable, talented, and extraordinarily generous young woman was now gone. A legion of dedicated fans had lost their idol; a devastated family had lost their Amy. With this difficult news came an outpouring of love and grief from her fans, along with troubling questions about Amy's very public struggles with drugs and alcohol, as people tried to understand how such a soulful singer had been silenced so young.

Now, in this intimate and tender account, her father and confidant, Mitch, offers an inside view of Amy's life as she lived it, putting to rest once and for all the controversies that have long surrounded her. Sifting fact from fiction, he presents a portrait of Amy unlike any other, detailing the events and the people that shaped her youth - from her mischievous childhood to her grandmother's Jazz Age stories, to her father singing Frank Sinatra around the house. Shedding light on Amy's musical coming-of-age, Mitch explores how she honed her distinctive sound, created her unforgettable look, and channeled her own life into hits such as "You Know I'm No Good", "Rehab", and "Back to Black" - some of the most memorable and personal pop music in years.

While her beehive hair, larger-than-life voice, and outrageous personality made her famous, her life offstage made her infamous. Here Mitch holds nothing back about Amy's addiction to drugs and alcohol, mixing the painful with the poignant as he describes the realities of her dependencies and the toll they took on the family and friends who refused to give up on her. Revealing the truth about Amy's substance abuse and dispelling many of the tabloid-fueled rumors about her tumultuous marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil, Mitch exposes the years of behind-the-scenes drama that consumed his life and explains how, for those who knew Amy in her last months, the greatest tragedy of all was that she finally appeared to be conquering her demons.

Filled with insights into Amy Winehouse's music, photographs from her life, and stories of the real woman behind the headlines, Amy, My Daughter is an emotional journey into music, addiction, and the unbreakable bond between a daughter and her father.

Members Reviews:

A Fathers Tender Memoir

Amy Winehouse had a lot of negative publicity not all of it true.

A talented young woman who could not overcome her demons.

This is a touching account of Amy's life as seen through her fathers eyes.

He does not gloss over all her problems and relates events of her life

as honestly as he can.

You can't help feeling sorry Mitch Winehouse, watching helplessly as addiction takes hold of his daughter. Only the addict/alcoholic can overcome the decease.

The proceeds of this book are going towards a foundation to be set up in Amy's name.

Narration by Rupert Farley was perfect for this book.

Real.

I've listened to this book 3x. I find the dad's perspective of Amy's life to sound honest and truthful; however, I've also watched the fabulous documentary about Amy many times and I imagine the truth is somewhere between the two.

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Title: The Lost Generation

Subtitle: American Writers in Paris in the 1920s

Author: Michael Shelden

Narrator: Michael Shelden

Format: Original Recording

Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-11-12

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 29 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

The Lost Generation from Professor Michael Shelden evokes one of the most creative periods in American literature. Paris of the 1920s served as a base for such authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein. In these lectures, Professor Shelden details and provides fresh insight into the unending allure of the Lost Generation - and of the literary output that exerts a continuing influence nearly a century later.

Members Reviews:

Very nice introduction

Informative for laymen who are interested in the American expatriates in Paris in the 1920s. The professor 's slow, soft and a little nostalgic tone is perfect for the topic. I finished this in less than a week, which is a record for me.

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Title: When I Left Home

Subtitle: My Story

Author: David Ritz, Buddy Guy

Narrator: Mirron Willis

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-08-12

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 123 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

According to Eric Clapton, John Mayer, and the late Stevie Ray Vaughn, Buddy Guy is the greatest blues guitarist of all time. An enormous influence on these musicians as well as on Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, he is the living embodiment of Chicago blues.

Guys epic story stands at the absolute nexus of modern blues. He came to Chicago from rural Louisiana in the fifties - the very moment when urban blues were electrifying our culture. He was a regular session player at Chess Records. Willie Dixon was his mentor. He was a sideman in the bands of Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf. He and Junior Wells formed a band of their own. In the sixties, he became a recording star in his own right.

When I Left Hometells Guys picaresque story in his own words, those of a storyteller who remembers everything, including blues masters in their prime and the exploding, evolving culture of music that happened all around him.

Buddy Guy was born in 1936 in Lettsworth, Louisiana. He is considered among the best blues guitarists alive today. He lives in Chicago.

Critic Reviews:

Buddy has never failed to amaze me first as an artist and secondly as a beautiful guyLong may he give us his gift. (Keith Richards)

Buddy Guy was to me what Elvis was for others[He] is by far and without a doubt the best guitar player alive. (Eric Clapton)

Guy is a vibrant and hilarious storyteller. With a natural ease and honesty, he captures the spirit of the age, the culture of violence in the clubs, and the personalities of his colleagues...Highly recommended for any fan of Guy and those interested in the history of blues music. (

Library Journal)

Members Reviews:

Excellent History and Respect for The Blues

Would you listen to When I Left Home again? Why?

There's a lot of history here. It is told in a very personal way, fully accessible and very listenable. Great to get such perspective from Buddy Guy and those who were there during this era of Blues awareness.

Who was your favorite character and why?

No question, Buddy Guy although those he comes in contact with each have their own appeal.

Have you listened to any of Mirron Williss other performances before? How does this one compare?

I might. It took a bit to adjust to Willis's performance but once I got into his rhythm it was a joy ride

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It makes me want to venture to the areas of the country central to the book and walk the steps Buddy Guy walked alongside so many legends

Any additional comments?

It's a terrific compliment to Gregg Allman's book - great background on what was happening in the music industry told through the eyes of a couple of central figures.

The Unsung Hero of the Blues is Getting His Due

Would you consider the audio edition of When I Left Home to be better than the print version?

I'm not sure if the audio version is better than the printed version. Having seen Buddy Guy perform in many different settings, I imagine his voice different than the audio of the Narrator. That having been said, Mirron Willis does not detract from the story.

What other book might you compare When I Left Home to and why?

None

Would you listen to another book narrated by Mirron Willis?

I would listen to another book narrated by Mirron Willis.

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Title: Farther Away

Subtitle: Essays

Author: Jonathan Franzen

Narrator: Jonathan Franzen, Scott Shepherd

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-24-12

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 66 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Jonathan Franzens Freedom was the runaway most-discussed novel of 2010, an ambitious and searching engagement with life in America in the 21st century. In The New York Times Book Review, Sam Tanenhaus proclaimed it a masterpiece of American fiction and lauded its illumination, through the steady radiance of its authors profound moral intelligence, [of] the world we thought we knew.

In Farther Away, which gathers together essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, Franzen returns with renewed vigor to the themes, both human and literary, that have long preoccupied him. Whether recounting his violent encounter with bird poachers in Cyprus, examining his mixed feelings about the suicide of his friend and rival David Foster Wallace, or offering a moving and witty take on the ways that technology has changed how people express their love, these pieces deliver on Franzens implicit promise to conceal nothing. On a trip to China to see first-hand the environmental devastation there, he doesnt omit mention of his excitement and awe at the pace of Chinas economic development; the trip becomes a journey out of his own prejudice and moral condemnation. Taken together, these essays trace the progress of unique and mature mind wrestling with itself, with literature, and with some of the most important issues of our day. Farther Away is remarkable, provocative, and necessary.

Members Reviews:

Two different readers, two different experiences

I really liked the first two essays read by the author and felt the book was read poorly by the reader that followed. This was not the case with Franzen's other books of essays which included essays read both by the author and a reader but where the combination was not so mismatched.

The second reader of FARTHER AWAY does not have a voice suited for a literary text. His voice sounds like Rod Serling or some cowboy story narrator, not like an author of serious reflective essays about literature. He sounds like the Marlboro Man. He reads too fast and without knowledge, including how to pronounce the names of other authors correctly. His words can be understood but the pace is so 'off' one essay sometimes ends and a new one is begun without him even pausing for a breath. You just suddenly realize the topic has changed.

That said, I enjoyed the essays themselves enough to purchase a hard copy of the book so that I could read it at my own pace and reread things that needed my own reflection. But I would not have needed to do that if the second reader had been more appropriately chosen.

Not as good as his fiction

I am a fan of Franzen's fiction, but this book of essays wasn't really for me. I wish there was an abridged version that was full of the main ideas that were found in quotes and passages. But his nonfiction stories and reviews were not nearly as enjoyable as his fictional prose.