Listen to Latest Full Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, Women

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/669359 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis

Author: Maria Smilios

Narrator: Gina Daniels

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 12 hours 13 minutes

Release date: September 19, 2023

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.67 of Total 3

Genres: Women

Publisher's Summary:

New York City, 1929. A sanatorium, a deadly disease, and a dire nurse shortage. So begins the remarkable true story of the Black nurses who helped cure one of the world’s deadliest plagues: tuberculosis. During those dark pre-antibiotic days, when tuberculosis killed one in seven people, white nurses at Sea View, New York’s largest municipal hospital, began quitting. Desperate to avert a public health crisis, city officials summoned Black southern nurses, luring them with promises of good pay, a career, and an escape from the strictures of Jim Crow. But after arriving, they found themselves on an isolated hilltop in the remote borough of Staten Island, yet again confronting racism and consigned to a woefully understaffed facility, dubbed “the pest house” where “no one left alive.”  Spanning the Great Depression and moving through World War II and beyond, this story follows the intrepid young women, the “Black Angels,” who, for twenty years, risked their lives working under dreadful conditions while caring for the city’s poorest—1,800 souls languishing in wards, waiting to die or become “guinea pigs” for experimental (often deadly) drugs. Yet despite their major role in desegregating the NYC hospital system—and regardless of their vital work in helping to find the cure for tuberculosis at Sea View—these nurses were completely erased from history. The Black Angels recovers the voices of these extraordinary women and puts them at the center of this riveting story celebrating their legacy and spirit of survival. Photo of nurses courtesy of NYCHHC/SeaView Archives

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/702543 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish

Author: Francesca Peacock

Narrator: Anna Cordell

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 7 minutes

Release date: September 14, 2023

Genres: Women

Publisher's Summary:

A biography of the remarkable, and in her time scandalous, seventeenth-century writer Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. 'My ambition is not only to be Empress, but Authoress of a whole world' - Margaret Cavendish Margaret Cavendish, then Lucas, was born in 1623 to an aristocratic family. In 1644, as England descended into civil war, she joined the court of the formidable Queen Henrietta Maria at Oxford. With the rest of the court she went into self-imposed exile in France. Her family's wealth and lands were forfeited by Parliament. It was in France that she met her much older partner, William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a marriage that would remain at the heart of both her life and career. Cavendish was a passionate writer. She wrote extensively on gender, science, philosophy, and published under her own name at a time when women simply did not do so. Her greatest work was The Blazing World, published in 1666, a utopian proto-novel that is thought to be one of the earliest works of science fiction. Yet hers is a legacy that divides opinion. And history has largely forgotten her, an undeserved fate for a brilliant, courageous proto-feminist. In Pure Wit, Francesca Peacock shines a spotlight on the fascinating, pioneering, yet often complex and controversial life of Margaret Cavendish.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/672859 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Omega Farm: A Memoir

Author: Martha McPhee

Narrator: Tracy Thorne

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 7 hours 45 minutes

Release date: September 12, 2023

Genres: Women

Publisher's Summary:

*A New Yorker and Vogue Best Book of 2023* “Compelling... [McPhee] positions herself neither as victim nor saint but as someone who, she says, only wants to be good.” —The Washington Post A moving memoir from an award-winning novelist—a riveting account of her complicated, bohemian childhood and her return home to care for her ailing mother. In March 2020, Martha McPhee, her husband, and their two children set out for her childhood home in New Jersey, where she finds herself grappling simultaneously with a mother slipping into severe dementia and a house that’s fallen into neglect. As Martha works to manage her mother’s care and the sprawling, ramshackle property—a broken septic system, invasive bamboo, dying ash trees—she is swept back, unwillingly, into memories of her fraught, dysfunctional childhood. In this masterful exploration of a complicated family legacy, McPhee “makes no effort to spare her own flaws even as she searches for the roots of her mature turmoil in the shortcomings of adults who failed in the fundamental task of protecting her younger self” (BookPage). Omega Farm is an “expansive” (New Yorker) testament to hope in the face of suffering, and a courageous tale about how returning home can offer a new way to understand the past.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/657968 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career

Author: Kristi Coulter

Narrator: Kristi Coulter

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 48 minutes

Release date: September 12, 2023

Genres: Women

Publisher's Summary:

This program is read by the author. A candid, intensely funny memoir of ambition, gender, and a grueling decade inside Amazon.com, from the author of Nothing Good Can Come from This. 'A unique and brilliant book.' —Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks What would you sacrifice for your career? All your free time? Your sense of self-worth? Your sanity? In 2006, Kristi Coulter left her cozy but dull job for a promising new position at the fast-growing Amazon.com, but she never expected the soul-crushing pressure that would come with it. In no time she found the challenge and excitement she'd been craving—along with seven-day workweeks, lifeboat exercises, widespread burnout, and a culture driven largely by fear. But the chase, the visibility, and, let's face it, the stock options proved intoxicating, and so, for twelve years, she stayed—until she no longer recognized the face in the mirror or the mission she'd signed up for. Unsparing, absurd, and wickedly funny, Exit Interview is a rare journey inside the crucible that is Amazon. It is an intimate, surprisingly relatable look at the work life of a driven woman in a world that loves the idea of female ambition but balks at the reality. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/700811 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Bing and Billie and Frank and Ella and Judy and Barbra

Author: Dan Callahan

Narrator: Paul Bellantoni

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 12 hours 58 minutes

Release date: September 5, 2023

Genres: Women

Publisher's Summary:

Crosby, Holiday, Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Garland, and Streisand were the major interpreters of the American songbook, and this is the interlocking story of their lives and careers. Here is the epic tale of how these artists dominated American popular music over a fifty-year period, a roller coaster ride that gains momentum through the 1930s and '40s, reaches a crest of magical creativity in the 1950s and early '60s, and then crashes down by the early 1970s, a half century when the great American songbook dominated the airwaves and the fight for racial equality came to the forefront. Ella was beloved in her time, and she is still beloved. Frank is still the king of the songbook, but Bing's legacy is just as vital once you start listening to his unprecedented 1930s output. The best songs from Judy's greatest triumph, her 1963–64 TV series, are shared endlessly online. The legend of Billie grows by the year, and the basis of this should be appreciation and wonder for her own great artistry in the 1930s. Barbra is a living legend and still a commercial force to be reckoned with, the last exemplar of the songbook and its glories. All six of these singers reach out to us and show us new ways of expression and new ways to dream. Their song is largely ended but the melody lingers on.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/665571 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: But Will You Love Me Tomorrow?: An Oral History of the '60s Girl Groups

Author: Laura Flam, Emily Sieu Liebowitz

Narrator: Emily Sieu Liebowitz, Laura Flam, Lanecia Edmonds, Leon Nixon, Robin Eller, Janina Edwards, Fred Berman, Suzanne Toren

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 14 hours 40 minutes

Release date: September 5, 2023

Genres: Women

Publisher's Summary:

Featuring over 300 hours of new interviews with 100+ subjects, an oral history of the girl groups (such as The Ronettes, The Shirelles, The Supremes, and The Vandellas) that redefined the early 1960s    The girl group sound, made famous and unforgettable by acts like The Ronettes, The Shirelles, The Supremes, and The Vandellas, took over the airwaves by capturing the mixture of innocence and rebellion emblematic of America in the 1960s.  As songs like "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "Then He Kissed Me," and "Be My Baby" rose to the top of the charts, girl groups cornered the burgeoning post-war market of teenage rock and roll fans, indelibly shaping the trajectory of pop music in the process. While the songs are essential to the American canon, many of the artists remain all but anonymous to most listeners.  With more than 100 subjects that made the music, from the singers to the songwriters, to their agents, managers, and sound engineers—and even to the present-day celebrities inspired by their lasting influence–But Will You Love Me Tomorrow: An Oral History of 60s Girl Groups tells a national coming-of-age story that gives particular insight into the experiences of the female singers and songwriters who created the movement.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/699693 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Trailblazers: The Unmatched Story of Women's Tennis

Author: Cynthia Starr, Billie Jean King

Narrator: Billie Jean King

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 7 hours 56 minutes

Release date: August 29, 2023

Genres: Women

Publisher's Summary:

Legendary tennis player Billie Jean King details the remarkable history of women’s tennis in this stunning edition of Trailblazers: The Unmatched Story of Women's Tennis. In celebration of the Women’s Tennis Association’s 50th anniversary, this updated and expanded edition—based on the 1988 original We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Women's Tennis—includes more than 250 photographs and 33 years’ worth of stories about inspiring women and their achievements. The book arrives 53 years after King and eight other women players broke with the male tennis establishment and launched their own professional tour. With this gorgeous, photographically forward, and deeply moving ode to women’s tennis, King and coauathor Cynthia Star will continue the remarkable story in which King has played such an integral role, shedding new light on barriers that were overcome and milestones that were achieved. Women’s tennis today has never been more popular across the globe and, as this book demonstrates, has never been more diverse and inclusive.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/691587 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Finding Elevation: Fear and Courage on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

Author: Lisa Thompson

Narrator: Holly Adams

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 47 minutes

Release date: August 29, 2023

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1

Genres: Women

Publisher's Summary:

Defiance led Lisa Thompson to the male-dominated world of mountain climbing. But after battling breast cancer, she needed to understand the motivations behind the risks she took while climbing. Finding Elevation is more than her climbing memoir. It is an examination of the human spirit and motivation. Listeners will be gripped by Lisa's path from amateur mountain climber to world-class mountaineer as she: ● Becomes the second American woman to summit K2 ● Conquers the world's most dangerous mountains ● Defines her own limits, and ● Discovers what she's truly capable of In this inspirational book, listeners will be moved by Lisa's story of heartbreak, resilience, and the discovery that we must define our own boundaries, find our own happiness, and face our fears head-on.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/690769 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Fly Girls Revolt: The Story of the Women Who Kicked Open the Door to Fly in Combat

Author: Eileen A. Bjorkman

Narrator: Lisa S. Ware

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 5 minutes

Release date: August 29, 2023

Genres: Women

Publisher's Summary:

In 1993, U.S. women earned the right to fly in combat, but the full story of how it happened is largely unknown. The Fly Girls Revolt chronicles the actions of a band of women who overcame decades of discrimination and prevailed against bureaucrats, chauvinists, anti-feminists, and even other military women. Drawing on extensive research, interviews with women who served in the 1970s and 1980s, and her personal experiences in the Air Force, Eileen Bjorkman weaves together a riveting tale of the women who fought for the right to enter combat and be treated as equal partners in the U.S. military. Although the military had begun training women as aviators in 1973, by a law of Congress they could not fly in harm's way. Time and again when a woman graduated at the top of her pilot training class, a less-qualified male pilot was sent to fly a combat aircraft in her place. Most of the women who fought for change between World War II and today would never fly in combat themselves, but they earned their places in history by strengthening the U.S. military and ensuring future women would not be denied opportunities solely because of their sex. The Fly Girls Revolt is their story.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/650352 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Book of Queens: The True Story of the Middle Eastern Horsewomen Who Fought the War on Terror

Author: Pardis Mahdavi

Narrator: Shila Ommi, Sitara Attaie, Pardis Mahdavi, Sean Rohani, Nikki Massoud, Suzanne Toren

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 40 minutes

Release date: August 29, 2023

Genres: Women

Publisher's Summary:

The untold story of generations of Middle Eastern freedom fighters—horsewomen who safeguarded an ancient breed of Caspian horse—and their efforts to defend their homelands from the Taliban and others seeking to destroy them."A breathtaking book that revisits nearly one hundred years of Iranian history, highlighting the power and beauty of women who refuse to be subdued.” ―Alison Hawthorne Deming, author of A Woven World Book of Queens reaches back centuries to the Persian Empire and a woman disguised as a man, facing an invading army, protected only by light armor and the stallion she sat astride. Mahdavi draws a thread from past to present: from her fearless Iranian grandmother, who guided survivors of domestic violence to independent mountain colonies in Afghanistan where the women, led by a general named Mina, became their country’s first line of defense from marauding warlords. To the female warriors who helped train and breed the horses used by US Green Berets when they touched down in October 2001, with a mission but insufficient intelligence on the ground—women whose contributions were then forgotten. Pardis Mahdavi chases the legacy of Caspian horses and the women whose lives are saved by them, drawing on decades of research, newly-discovered diaries, and exclusive military sources. Among those intersecting stories is that of American Louise Firouz, who helped bring the breed back from the brink of extinction, connecting Virginia traders to British royals to the son of the Shah. Firouz’s life is forever changed when she meets Mahdavi’s own family, who run an unusual smuggling operation in addition to raising horses in a wild bid for freedom. Book of Queens is an epic tale of hidden women whose communal knowledge was instrumental in saving an animal as ancient as civilization, and who were the genesis of their own liberation.