Get New Free Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, History & Culture

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/617440 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Unearthed: A Lost Actress, a Forbidden Book, and a Search for Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust Author: Meryl Frank Narrator: Erin Bennett Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 42 minutes Release date: April 11, 2023 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: A thrilling mystery woven into a beautifully constructed family memoir: Meryl Frank’s journey to seek the truth about a beloved and revolutionary cousin, a celebrated actress in Vilna before World War II, and to answer the question of how the next generation should honor the memory of the Holocaust. As a child, Meryl Frank was the chosen inheritor of family remembrance. Her aunt Mollie, a formidable and cultured woman, insisted that Meryl never forget who they were, where they came from, and the hate that nearly destroyed them. Over long afternoons, Mollie told her about the city, the theater, and, above all else, Meryl’s cousin, the radiant Franya Winter. Franya was the leading light of Vilna’s Yiddish theater, a remarkable and precocious woman who cast off the restrictions of her Hasidic family and community to play roles as prostitutes and bellhops, lovers and nuns. Yet there was one thing her aunt Mollie would never tell Meryl: how Franya died. Before Mollie passed away, she gave Meryl a Yiddish book containing the terrible answer, but forbade her to read it. And for years, Meryl obeyed.    Unearthed is the story of Meryl’s search for Franya and a timely history of hatred and resistance. Through archives across four continents, by way of chance encounters and miraculous discoveries, and eventually, guided by the shocking truth recorded in the pages of the forbidden book, Meryl conjures the rogue spirit of her cousin—her beauty and her tragedy. Meryl’s search reveals a lost world destroyed by hatred, illuminating the cultural haven of Vilna and its resistance during World War II. As she seeks to find her lost family legacy, Meryl looks for answers to the questions that have defined her life: what is our duty to the past? How do we honor such memories while keeping them from consuming us? And what do we teach our children about tragedy?

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/617632 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Courage of Compassion: A Journey from Judgment to Connection Author: Robin Steinberg Narrator: Robin Steinberg Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 35 minutes Release date: April 11, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: 'Powerfully insightful reading.' —Kirkus Reviews How would you like to be judged for the rest of your life by the worst thing you’ve ever done? We all think we are compassionate just like we all think we are honest.  But true compassion is not innate. Compassion for others, especially those that we don’t know or understand, must be learned. Our lack of compassion is perhaps most extreme in the exercise of criminal justice, where a person’s entire life, worth, and character are judged through the myopic lens of a single act. But no one, says Robin Steinberg, should be reduced to their worst moment.  From the founder and CEO of The Bail Project, The Courage of Compassion unveils how we can reimagine justice through compassion. Steinberg shares her journey as a public defender, representing people at precisely that time in their lives — their own worst moment. She recounts the heart-wrenching stories of her clients and invites us to interrogate our fears and beliefs about justice and punishment. Lastly, Steinberg reveals moments when she questioned her own capacity for compassion, as well as her ability to fight for better, more humane justice from within a system that is riddled with holes and seemingly interminable problems.  A gritty tale about confronting injustice and challenging ourselves to rediscover our shared humanity, The Courage of Compassion is an invitation to join Steinberg as she explores what it will take to move beyond our current justice paradigm. The criminal justice system reflects a history and power structure, but it also mirrors how we come into society and show up for one another. As she writes, the quest to improve this system will only truly begin “when we can finally see in the faces of those ensnared and imprisoned in our legal system, ourselves. And when we can see our children, in their children.”

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/615108 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Real Friends Talk About Race: Bridging the Gaps Through Uncomfortable Conversations Author: Hannah Summerhill, Yseult P. Mukantabana Narrator: Hannah Summerhill, Yseult P. Mukantabana Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 1 minute Release date: April 4, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Real Friends Talk About Race is an essential guide for those who want to have stronger interracial relationships—whether it’s with friends, colleagues, or loved ones. Having conversations about race is uncomfortable. But for progress between individuals (and our communities) to happen, we need to be able to speak openly and honestly. Podcast hosts of The Kinswomen Yseult and Hannah use their own friendship and experiences from different racial backgrounds to offer guidance on navigating these layered conversations. In Real Friends Talk About Race, the duo share their two perspectives on the ways in which culture, history, and white supremacy have prevented us from having the skills to build trust and healthy relationships across race. Yseult and Hannah approach these topics with love and candor—calling readers in (not out) to confront hard realities and their own internalized biases, while also sharing prescriptive advice, encouragement, and a sense of community. Real Friends Talk About Race is a must-read for anyone looking to listen, learn, and feel empowered to have meaningful conversations about race.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/604512 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Blanche: The Life and Times of Tennessee Williams's Greatest Creation Author: Nancy Schoenberger Narrator: Elizabeth Wiley Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 55 minutes Release date: April 4, 2023 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: A penetrating consideration of Tennessee Williams’s most enduring character—Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire—written by the co-author of The Fabulous Bouvier Sisters and Furious Love. Ever since Jessica Tandy glided onto the stage in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1947, Blanche DuBois has fascinated generations of audiences worldwide and secured a place in the history of literature, theater, and film. One of Williams’s greatest creations, Blanche has bedazzled, amused, and broken the hearts of generations of audiences. Before the Covid pandemic, the stage classic was performed somewhere in the world every hour. It has been adapted into a ballet and an opera, and it was satirized in an episode of The Simpsons. The final twelve words Blanche utters at the play’s end—“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”—have taken on a life of their own. Endlessly fascinating, this indelible figment of one of America’s greatest midcentury playwrights garners nearly universal interest—but why? In Blanche, Nancy Schoenberger searches for the answer. An exploration of the cultural impact of Blanche DuBois, Schoenberger’s absorbing study examines Tennessee Williams's most enduring creation through the performances of seven brilliant actresses who have taken on the role—Jessica Tandy, Vivien Leigh, Ann-Margret, Jessica Lange, Patricia Clarkson, Cate Blanchett, and Jemier Jenkins—as well as the influence of the playwright's tragic sister, Rose Williams, the person he was most haunted and inspired by. In examining various Blanches from throughout the decades and their critical reception, Schoenberger analyzes how our perception and understanding of this mesmerizing figure has altered and deepened over time. Exploring themes of womanhood, sexuality, mental illness, and the idealized South, Blanche is an engrossing cultural history of a rich and complex character that sheds light on who we are.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/606377 to listen full audiobooks. Title: If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury in Medicine and Why It's So Hard for Clinicians to Put Patients First Author: Simon Talbot, Wendy Dean Narrator: Wendy Dean Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 26 minutes Release date: April 4, 2023 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: An incredibly important and captivating book for patients, families, and clinicians detailing how we’re all hurt by corporate medicine “Wendy Dean diagnoses the dangerous state of our healthcare system, illustrating the thumbscrews applied to medical professionals by their corporate overlords… Required reading for all stakeholders in healthcare.” — Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error Offering examples of how to make medicine better for the healers and those they serve, If I Betray These Words profiles clinicians across the country who are tough, resourceful, and resilient, but feel trapped between the patient-first values of their Hippocratic oath and the business imperatives of a broken healthcare system. Doctors face real risks when they stand up for their patients and their oath; they may lose their license, their livelihood, and for some, even their lives. There’s a growing sense, referred to as moral injury, that doctors have their hands tied – they know what patients need but can’t get it for them because of constraints imposed by healthcare systems run like big businesses. Workforce distress in healthcare—moral injury—was a crisis long before the COVID-19 pandemic, but COVID highlighted the vulnerabilities in our healthcare systems and made it impossible to ignore the distress, with 1 in 5 American healthcare workers leaving the profession since 2020, and up to 47% of U.S. healthcare workers now planning to leave their positions by 2025. If I Betray These Words confronts the threat and broken promises of moral injury – what it is; where it comes from; how it manifests; and who’s fighting back against it. We need better healthcare—for patients and for the workforce. It’s time to act.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/617663 to listen full audiobooks. Title: George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy Author: Sally Bedell Smith Narrator: Rosalyn Landor Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 22 hours 7 minutes Release date: April 4, 2023 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: A revelatory account of how the loving marriage of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth saved the monarchy during World War II, and how they raised their daughter to become Queen Elizabeth II, based on exclusive access to the Royal Archives—from the bestselling author of Elizabeth the Queen and Prince Charles “An intimate and gripping portrait of a royal marriage that survived betrayal, tragedy, and war.”—Amanda Foreman, bestselling author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire Granted special access by Queen Elizabeth II to her parents’ letters and diaries and to the papers of their close friends and family, Sally Bedell Smith brings the love story of this iconic royal couple to vibrant life. This deeply researched and revealing book shows how a loving and devoted marriage helped the King and Queen meet the challenges of World War II, lead a nation, solidify the public’s faith in the monarchy, and raise their daughters, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. When King Edward VIII abdicated the throne in 1936, shattering the Crown’s reputation, his younger brother, known as Bertie, assumed his father’s name and became King George VI. Shy, sensitive, and afflicted with a stutter, George VI had never imagined that he would become King. His wife, Elizabeth, a pretty, confident, and outgoing woman who became known later in life as “the Queen Mum,” strengthened and advised her husband. With his wife’s support, guidance, and love, George VI was able to overcome his insecurities and become an exceptional leader, navigating the country through World War II, establishing a relationship with Winston Churchill, visiting Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in Washington and in Hyde Park, and inspiring the British people with his courage and compassion during the Blitz. Simultaneously, George VI and Elizabeth trained their daughter Princess Elizabeth from an early age to be a highly successful monarch, and she would reign for an unprecedented seventy years. Sally Bedell Smith gives us an inside view of the lives, struggles, hopes, and triumphs of King George VI and Elizabeth during a pivotal time in history.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/617625 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Beautiful Trauma: An Explosion, an Obsession, and a New Lease on Life Author: Rebecca Fogg Narrator: Rebecca Fogg Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 50 minutes Release date: April 4, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: A compelling account of surviving a freak accident, and a fascinating exploration of the science of trauma and recovery.     Late one night, while Rebecca Fogg was alone in her apartment, her hand was partially amputated in an explosion. Quick thinking saved her life, but the journey to recovery would be a slow one. As the doctors rebuilt her hand, Rebecca (who also survived 9/11) began rebuilding her sense of self by studying the physical and psychological process of recovery.    Interspersing the personal with the medical, Rebecca charts her year of rehabilitation, touching on the marvelously adaptable anatomy of the hand; how the brain’s fight-or-flight mechanism enables us to react instantly to danger; and why trauma causes some people to develop PTSD and gives others a whole new lease on life.    Told with emotional and intellectual clarity, Beautiful Trauma is a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit and the wonder of the human hand.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/604576 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Humanly Possible: The great humanist experiment in living Author: Sarah Bakewell Narrator: Antonia Beamish Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 14 hours 27 minutes Release date: March 30, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. The bestselling, prizewinning author of How to Live and At the Existentialist Café brings us a celebration of 700 years of human endeavour and achievement, in which dozens of philosophers, scientists, classicists, architects, educationalists and others explore the art of being human Humanly Possible is a wide-ranging, personal, thought-provoking and entertaining journey through the battle of ideas over some 700 years of history - mostly, but not exclusively, in Europe. Through a mixture of biography and philosophy, Bakewell seeks to understand what humanism is, why it has continued to flourish despite opposition from fanatics, mystics, tyrants and cultural pessimists of all kinds, and exactly why we should value and defend it in the 21st century. © Sarah Bakewell 2023 (P) Penguin Audio 2023

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/603431 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Royal Lodge, Windsor Series: Part of Royal House of Windsor Author: Helen Cathcart Narrator: Lorna Bennett Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 40 minutes Release date: March 28, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Royal Lodge is one of a scattered group of dwellings, mansions, forts, and follies in the southern recesses and environs of Windsor Great Park which have served royal pleasures and private needs ever since the carefree days of Charles II. It has been the home of artists and courtiers and farmers and foresters, the picnic pavilion of queens and the private abode of two kings. Nestled amongst groves of ancient woodland and landscaped gardens, it is where the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) made their home in 1932 and where their two young daughters-Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret-played happily in the Little House, Y Bwthyn Bach, in the garden. Meticulously researched, royal chronicler Helen Cathcart paints a vivid picture of the evolving architecture, changing decor, and esteemed inhabitants of Royal Lodge from earliest days through to the mid-twentieth century. Royal Lodge, Windsor is a superb narrative history of life at Royal Lodge through the centuries.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/597786 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Dragged Up Proppa: Growing up in Britain’s forgotten North Author: Pip Fallow Narrator: Pip Fallow Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 17 minutes Release date: March 23, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Dragged Up Proppa, read by the author, is the story of growing up working class in a forgotten England. 'Very compelling, beautifully written memoir of a time and England that no longer exists but remains just as important today as ever' - Sebastian Payne, author of Broken Heartlands Pip Fallow was born in the coal-miner’s cottage where his family of eight lived, in a village near Durham. Pip was destined to join his father down the pit, but the closure of his village’s mine in the 1980s saw him at the back of the dole queue like the rest. This is Pip’s story of being ‘dragged up proppa’, living by his wits, working and travelling the world before finally settling a few miles from where he grew up. A lot has been written about the red wall in recent years but Pip Fallow has lived it. This is his account of some of the most important issues affecting Britain today; from levelling-up and the north-south divide, to social mobility and class, and the devastating social upheaval caused by decades of deindustrialization and government neglect. Showing how broken promises of the past impact his village and the politics of today. This is the memoir of a man who left school illiterate, but has now written a book. The story of a lost generation who were prepared for a life that had disappeared by the time they were ready for it, of communities with once strong social ties that have now disintegrated, and a way of living that simply no longer exists in Britain today. 'Fallow's memoir is not just a classic piece of working-class writing, but a truly gripping narrative' - Brian Groom, author of Northerners: A History