Listen to Popular Titles Audiobooks in Bios & Memoirs, Religious Figures

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Title: Mary MacKillop Unveiled

Author: Lesley O'Brien

Narrator: Jenny Seedsman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-14-10

Publisher: Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Religious Figures

Publisher's Summary:

Aiming to make this compelling story of church politics and Christian service available to all, Lesley O'Brien presents a moving account of the life and times of Mary MacKillop, Australia's first saint. The only biography of Mary to be authorised by the Sisters of St. Joseph, this edition has been updated to include her beatification by Pope John Paul II.

Editorial Reviews:

In this authorized biography of St. Mary of the Cross, Lesley OBrien weaves a compelling and revelatory tapestry of the first recognized Catholic saint of Australia, who wasnt without flaws but was passionately resolute in her egalitarian, self-sacrificial convictions and unafraid to stand up to the perceived hypocrisy of Catholic establishment of the time.

From her humble roots as a teenager working as a store clerk in Melbourne to her controversial excommunication from the Church, Jenny Seedsmans vibrant performance enlivens this refreshingly humanistic and candid portrait of Australias only recognized Catholic saint.

Members Reviews:

What an amazing woman

Like most people I knew Mary MacKillop was a saint and had been a nun who started an order to help under privileged children, however this book revealed a woman way ahead of her time and her fight against a male dominated feild was nothing short of amazing. This book is well worth a read to understand the challenges and opposition Mary had to wok through. She is definitely one of Australia's remarkable people.

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Title: Thomas Wolsey, the Late Cardinal

Subtitle: His Life and Death

Author: George Cavendish

Narrator: David Thorn

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-05-10

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Religious Figures

Publisher's Summary:

This extraordinary eye-witness account of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's rise and fall from power was written between 1554 and 1558 by his gentleman-usher, George Cavendish, who was privy to so much of the Cardinal's ambitious endeavors. However, Cavendish prudently waited a long time before chronicling his observations for fear of his life, as there were those who may have taken his memoirs the wrong way.

Cavendish describes in great detail the daily life of Wolsey, listing his huge household of servants to give a good idea of the magnitude of this larger-than-life man who outdid Henry VIII in lifestyle and riches, which was his undoing. Throughout the book, he records Wolsey's endless acquisitions of bishopricsincluding the very rich monastery of St. Albans, even though he was never a monkall to feather his already very wealthy nest. Cavendish also tells of Wolsey's scheme to put himself over and above the Archbishop of York, the senior prelate in England, later to be named Pope. Wolsey is eventually charged with treason but dies in Leicester, and it is said that had he not died, he would have been more than likely subject to a beheading.

Cavendish also delves into the lives of King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, the infamous Duke of Norfolk, and other prominent figures of the Tudor period, all to bring the sixteenth century to vivid life.

This rare document, considered the most important single source for our knowledge of Wolsey, was edited for easy comprehension by Roger Lockyer, a former faculty member of Royal Holloway College, University of London, and an authority on the tumultuous Tudor period which was so pivotal in England's storied history.

Critic Reviews:

Thorn's accent and command of English of the 1500's allow him to take on the persona of the good and faithful Cavendish with particular ease and authenticity. This skillful handling allows what could be stilted and difficult to be natural sounding and entertaining. (

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Members Reviews:

Indispensable for study of the Tudors

Thomas Cavendish was, as he remarks frequently in this biography of Cardinal Wolsey, "Gentleman Usher" to the Cardinal, a top-level servant or steward for much of the Cardinal's career. It was a responsible position, as the Cardinal had hundreds, perhaps a thousand servants at the height of his wealth and power during the 1520s. Cavendish wrote his biography in the 1550s, some thirty years after the wild events of the Cardinal's involvement in the failed attempt to procure a divorce for King Henry VIII from Katherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn. Although the Cardinal made himself one of the richest men in history through the decades of favor of King Henry, whom he relieved of the tedious business of ruling England, he fell from power all in the month of July 1529 when Wolsey failed to get the other papal legate to decide the divorce in the king's favor, and that Cardinal Campeggio called a summer "vacation" to the legal proceedings, the Pope in Rome abrogated the case to Rome instead of England, and demanded (through Katharine's machinations) that the king show up in Rome, eventually, to hear the case there before the Pope himself.

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Title: David Livingstone

Subtitle: Man of Prayer and Action

Author: C. Silvester Horne

Narrator: Ralph Cosham

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 21 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-09-10

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 20 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Religious Figures

Publisher's Summary:

Written just 40 years after David Livingstones death, this admiring account of the famous missionarys life and work takes us deep into the dark continent of 19th-century Africa, where he labored to bring Christianity, commerce, and civilization. A national hero in Victorian Britain, Livingstone earned fame as an explorer and scientific investigator, an antislavery crusader, and imperial reformer, as well as in the role of a Protestant missionary and martyr who eventually died in Africa of malaria.

From the book: In those forty years great and astounding changes have been witnessed in the Continent which is associated with his fame.But nothing that has happened since has diminished by a single laurel the wreath he won, and will wear for ever.Livingstone is greatest, not as a scientist, nor an explorer, but as a man and a missionary.

Charles Silvester Horne (18651914) studied theology at Mansfield College, Oxford, became a well-known Congregationalist minister, and additionally served as a member of the British parliament for Ipswich, England.

Members Reviews:

A perfect telling of an extraordinary man

Most people only know David Livingston as the explorer whom Mr Stanley found. He was so much greater and an amazing servant to, not only God, but to all around him.

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Title: Dalai Lama, My Son

Subtitle: A Mother's Story

Author: Diki Tsering

Narrator: Arabella Hong

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-06-10

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Religious Figures

Publisher's Summary:

Born to humble but prosperous peasants in 1901, the Year of the Ox, Diki Tsering grew up a simple girl with a simple life and the ordinary ambition to be a good wife and mother. When faith and fate led her son Lhamo Dhondup to be recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama, her world altered completely.

In Dalai Lama, My Son she recounts her own amazing story from her early life with her "tended family and siblings" to the customs and rituals of old Tibet and her arranged marriage at age 16. She vividly recalls the births of her children and their Buddhist upbringing; His Holiness' unfolding personality; the visitors who came to her town to seek the new Dalai Lama; the family's arduous move to Lhasa; and the years there until the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the family's escape and eventual exile.

Rich in historic and cultural details, this moving glimpse into the origins of the Dalai Lama personalizes the history of the Tibetan people, the magic of their culture, the role of their women, and their ancient ideals of compassion, faith, and equanimity.

Members Reviews:

amazing

This is a great read, so good I read in two days. This book gives an honest look into a time and place long gone. I especially like how everyday topics such as marriage, birth and burial cermonies are brought to life with the words of someone who actually experienced the life. This woman was a strong lady who with stregnth and humility faced what life had to offer her.

Three Stars

Pleasant story. Somewhat interesting if you're a fan of the Dalai Lama.

Great read!

Great stories from a woman who lived a good life. Very interesting read.

A must read. and again and again.

I have read this book several times. I lent it to someone and they did not return it. So my daughter got it for me for my birthday. Absolutely incredible story of the Dalai Lama's childhood and his becoming of the Dalai Lama. You will want to read it again and again. I know I do.

A facinating window into a lost world.

Dalai Lama, My Son is the autobiography of his late mother, Diki Tsering. It is a fascinating story told with unpretentious dignity to her granddaughter and edited with reverence and respect by her grandson. We learn firsthand what it was like to be a mother, daughter, bride, wife, and daughter-in-law in the traditional world of Tibet at the beginning of this century. Diki Tsering began life as a commoner, and while her husband's family was not poor, her role as a wife was arduous. After the recognition of her son, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, she became a public figure of the highest order in her society, but she maintained her values and perspective. Diki Tsering disclosed things about her children's personalities that only a mother would know, and added humanity to her description of momentous and terrible events by giving us homely details like the foods they ate during their climactic state visit to China, the appearance of the wives of Chinese government officials, and the disguises she helped to sew for their escape into India. Readers of other books by or about the Dalai Lama and his family (Freedom in Exile, Seven Years in Tibet, Kundun, etc.) will appreciate seeing this saga through the eyes of his mother.

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Title: Pope John Paul II

Subtitle: The Biography

Author: Tad Szulc

Narrator: Josef Sommer

Format: Abridged

Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-23-10

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Religious Figures

Publisher's Summary:

As the spiritual leader of nearly one billion Catholics and the head of the oldest universal organization, Pope John Paul II wields enormous international power and influence. Yet, in the seventeenth year of his papacy, he remains a mystery -- theologically, politically, and personally.

In this landmark, definitive new biography of the 264th pontiff, Tad Szulc, a former New York Times bureau chief and award-winning author, sheds long-awaited light on the life of Karol Wojtyla. Included are such exclusive highlights as: Wojtyla's life and work under Nazi occupation; the story of how the communists inadvertently helped Wojtyla to become a bishop, opening his way to the papacy; the secret police files revealing their attempt to undermine his cardinalship; and the never-before-revealed account of the Pope's backstage involvement in the downfall of Polish communism.

Drawing on Szulc's unprecedented access to the Pope himself, his friends, colleagues, and collaborators -- and on secret documents from many sources -- Pope John Paul II is a work of monumental religious and political significance.

Members Reviews:

A Fantastic Biography of the Saint of our time.

I first read this book many years ago on retreat. I recently re-read it and it was as captivating and interesting now and then. Tad Szulc offers a compelling and moving picture of John Paul II, his life and ministry. This biography is imminently readable, interesting, engaging and dynamic, much like his subject. Reading this biography, one comes to know John Paul II, not as a Pope, or a hero of the faith, not as the man who helped bring down Communism in Europe, not as the revered saint. One comes to know John Paul II, the pastor, the teacher, the man.

A Pontiff With A Human Face

It's one of the many ironies of "Pope John Paul II: The Biography" that the most revealing views we get of the man who would exemplify Catholicism for better and worse, not to mention the cause of peace, comes from an atheist military leader, Wojciech Jaruzelski.

It was 1983, and Poland was under martial law. General Jaruzelski as premier was dealing with a nation in turmoil, caught between a rebelling populace and an uneasy Soviet Union, then the de facto boss of Eastern Europe and unhappy with Jaruzelski's unwillingness to take a stronger hand. Enter John Paul II, a Pole himself and the first Slavic pope, who became a partner for a peaceful resolution to the problem that would ultimately lead to Poland's freedom.

"General, please do not feel insulted, but I have nothing against socialism," Jaruzelski would later recall the pontiff saying. "I just want socialism to have a human face."

The humanity of John Paul II comes across often in this 1995 biography, even if the personality seems elusive. Author Tad Szulc points out the reclusive nature of John Paul II's character, and hints at what drives it. Yet even an interview with the Pope does little to help create what might have been a definitive portrait.

Another mark against this book might be the heavy concentration on the Polish side of John Paul II's papacy - except it's by far the best thing in the book.

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Title: A Mended and Broken Heart

Subtitle: The Life and Love of Francis of Assisi

Author: Wendy Murray

Narrator: Eileen Stevens

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-18-09

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 6 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Religious Figures

Publisher's Summary:

Francis of Assisi is Catholicism's most popular saint. Tens of millions of spiritual seekers summon his name and example. But the real Francis--both his complicated personality and his complex theology - have been misunderstood for centuries. In 1228, Pope Gregory IX rushed to canonize St. Francis only two years after his death. Soon thereafter, the Church eliminated significant aspects of his biography from the public record. For Francis's early life was defined by his profligacy; shortly before dying, Francis himself warned his brothers: "Don't be too quick to canonize me. I am perfectly capable of fathering a child."In A Mended and Broken Heart, journalist Wendy Murray slices through the bowdlerized version of Francis's life promoted within the Catholic tradition and reveals instead a saint who was in every way also a real man. Murray stresses in particular the crucial but completely neglected role that Clare of Assisi played in Francis's life, both pre- and postconversion, and his theology.

A profoundly humane portrait of a misunderstood saint, A Mended and Broken Heart makes a powerful case that St. Francis's life and thought make him a role model for religious seekers of every faith.

Members Reviews:

Ho-hum, didn't grab me.

Can a book about a Saint be described as cute? This was a "nice" read, in a sweet-not-quite-syrupy tone. Simple and one dimensional. It had a quality of being a compilation of small neat church approved stories strung together in response to a class assignment. It is written (and to my tastes narrated) in rather drab style, lacking strength and any sort of literary passion.

Difficult for me to finish because after many pauses I couldn't remember if I had finished it. Perhaps we don't have much information to choose from about Francis of Assisi? That seems impossible. A man such as he was, to have had such an impact on history, lead me to imagine that a biography of St. Francis would come close to revelation. I was expecting more. I don't have a significantly enriched idea of who he was, now, after completing the book, than before I started.

I'd classify this as an overview. It wasn't a complete waste of time but got close in places.

I highly recommend you listen to the sample of this book to make up your mind about the narrater before you finalize your purchase.

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Title: Abraham

Subtitle: The First Historical Biography

Author: David Rosenberg

Narrator: A. C. Fellner

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-16-09

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 10 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Religious Figures

Publisher's Summary:

The world's three largest faiths all find a common root in one man: Abraham. Breaking new ground, David Rosenberg portrays Abraham as a man whose whole life, and therefore his legacy, is informed by the Sumerian culture that produced him. Abraham is a brilliant literary excavation of the ancient cultures from which our modern world has grown.

©2007 David Rosenberg; (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews:

"[A] compelling and moving interpretation that ponders the significance, for Abraham and his descendants, of his journey from Ur to Canaan, fraught with uncertainty for a man - expatriate, aging, childless - hanging between a lost past and a still unmapped future." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

One of the best books I have experienced

What did you love best about Abraham?

The book was an experience. Most insightful and fills in many blanks regarding Abraham. So glad I found it.

christian?

If you're looking for a christian narrative you'll be disappointed. The author makes the point, all through the book, that belief in a god of salvation from sins is merely a cosmic theatre. A good narrative from ancient authors who are credited with bringing sumeric life and traditions to the hebrewic bible.

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Title: Joan of Arc

Subtitle: People & Places

Author: iMinds

Narrator: Luca James Lee

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-16-09

Publisher: iMinds

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Religious Figures

Publisher's Summary:

Learn about Joan of Arc with iMinds insightful audio knowledge series.It is said that when Joan of Arc was born on 6 January in 1412, the roosters in her village all crowed, even though it was midnight.

When Joan was 13 years old, something happened to change her life. She was working in the garden when she thought she saw a bright light coming from the church, and heard someone speaking French in a sweet, low, beautiful voice. The voice told her it was the angel Saint Michael, and that he had a message from God. He told her she had a great mission to fulfill, and that she would be the one to save France.

France had been at war with England for 92 years - what would later be known as the Hundred Years War. The English were trying to conquer France, and were succeeding. But the conflict had been raging for so long that there were barely any soldiers left, and both sides had to rely on mercenaries from Spain and Italy. Both countries were poor and exhausted, but there was no end in sight.

Perfect to listen to while commuting, exercising, shopping or cleaning the house.. iMinds brings knowledge to your MP3 with 8 minute information segments to whet your mental appetite and broaden your mind.

iMinds offers 12 main categories; become a Generalist by increasing your knowledge of Business, Politics, People, History, Pop Culture, Mystery, Crime, Culture, Religion, Concepts, Science and Sport. Clean and concise, crisp and engaging, discover what you never knew you were missing.

iMinds is the knowledge solution for the information age cutting through the white noise to give you quick, accurate knowledge .. Perfect your dinner party conversation, impress your boss - an excellent way to discover topics of interest for the future.

Editorial Reviews:

If you are looking to fill gaps in your cultural, scientific, or historical knowledge, iMinds series of audiobooks - each one less than ten minutes - is a great place to start. They are all crisp and clear with a pleasing background soundtrack.

Joan of Arc gives a brief overview of "The Maid of Orleans", the French peasant girl whose miraculous visions gained her access to the raging Hundred Years War with England. Now a martyred saint and a classical study in war strategy (her legacy of defining political contests in religious terms marches on), Joan is a necessary component to the study of the late Middle Ages.

Critic Reviews:

"I'm learning all sorts of stuff about stuff I didn't even know I didn't know. And it sticks. In a nutshell: wonderful." (Jonathon Margolis, Financial Times)

Members Reviews:

another short story

certainly not a book but a short wiki article, this did at least have some new to me info. still not worth what I paid. we are talking 20 minutes..

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Title: Christian History Issue #65

Subtitle: The Ten Most Influential Christians

Author: Hovel Audio

Narrator: Michael Kramer

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-09-09

Publisher: christianaudio.com

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Religious Figures

Publisher's Summary:

In the 21st century, the Christian church is larger and stronger than ever - thanks in part to the 10 people profiled here: Billy Graham, C. S. Lewis, William Seymour, Mother Teresa, Karl Barth, John XXIII, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, John Paul II, John Mott, and Martin Luther King Jr.

(P)2009 christianaudio.com

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Title: Paul

Subtitle: A Servant of Jesus Christ

Author: Frederick Brotherton Meyer

Narrator: Bill Wallace

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-03-09

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Religious Figures

Publisher's Summary:

"But as the eye of omniscient love glanced down the ages, it must have lighted with peculiar pleasure on the eager, devoted soul of Paul. God foreknew and predestined him. The divine purpose, descrying his capacity for the best, selected him for it, and it for him." - from the audio.

Members Reviews:

wonderful

a must have for serious scholars. recommended with enthusiasm, you will love this book. I certainly did