New Free Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, Memoirs

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/679964 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Hope and Hard Truth: A Life in Texas Politics Author: Mary Beth Rogers Narrator: Mary Beth Rogers Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 14 minutes Release date: August 1, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Mary Beth Rogers has led an eventful life rooted in the weeds of Texas politics, occasionally savoring a few victories—particularly the 1990 governor's race when, as campaign manager for Ann Richards, she did the impossible and put a Democratic woman in office. She also learned to absorb her losses—after all, she was a liberal feminist in America's most aggressively conservative state. Rogers's road to a political life was complex. Candidly and vulnerably, she shares both public and private memories of how she tried to maintain a rich family life with growing children and a husband with a debilitating illness. She goes on to provide an insider's account of her experiences as Richards's first chief of staff while weaving her way through the highs and lows of political intrigue and legislative maneuvering. Reflecting on her family heritage and nascent spiritual quest, Rogers discovers a reality at once sobering and invigorating: nothing is ever completely lost or completely won. It is a constant struggle to create humane public policies built on a foundation of fairness and justice—particularly in her beloved Texas.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/673813 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Against the Water: A surfing champion's inspirational journey to Olympic glory Author: Owen Wright Narrator: Barton Welch Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 20 minutes Release date: August 1, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: The gut-wrenching story of how one of Australia’s finest surfers overcame a brain injury and despair to win an Olympic medal. On the morning of 10 December 2015, Owen Wright entered the water at Pipeline, Hawaii, determined to become a world champion. But after being pounded by a set of monstrous waves, he ended up fighting for life and facing extensive brain trauma. In this inspirational memoir, Wright chronicles the events leading up to that fateful day, as well as the months and years that followed as he battled to regain basic functioning, and eventually the capacity to compete again at the apex of surfing. Against the Water carries the reader back to Wright’s boyhood in the tiny town of Culburra, where his father, determined to raise champions, turned family life into a kind of boot camp. While eccentric, his father’s methods bore fruit: the Wrights of Culburra would become Australian surfing royalty. Owen’s story lays bare the complex relationship with his father – the adoration, the fight for independence, the fallings out, and the reconciliations. Told in a spare, intimate style, Against the Water is the moving account of an athlete who refused to accept that his best days were behind him and raises fundamental questions around family and competition. What, ultimately, is our duty to our children? At what point does bravery become folly? And how much should we sacrifice for the sake of another? ‘Owen was a childhood phenom who grew into the ultimate family man. In between this transition, he took on the world, charged crazy waves, suffered a huge brain injury, and finished off with the all-time sporting comeback!’ Mick Fanning, three-time world champion surfer   ‘Whatever it is that Owen is getting himself into, he seems to do it with little to no fear and a massive smile on his face. He’s an inspirational guy, to put it lightly. Owen is one special human!’ Liam Hemsworth, actor   ‘Owen Wright has to be the most inspiring person I’ve ever met. His story is one of a childhood prodigy, to facing a near-death experience, to Australian hero . . . This book will inspire and motivate anyone who has had to face adversity whilst following their dreams.’ Kita Alexander, singer-songwriter   ‘[A] true fighter’s spirit!' Luke Rockhold, UFC middleweight champion, two-time jiu-jitsu world champion, three-time strikeforce middleweight champion

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/689672 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Summons to Berlin: Nazi Theft and A Daughter's Quest for Justice Author: Joanne Intrator Narrator: Suzanne Toren Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 5 minutes Release date: August 1, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: On his deathbed, Dr. Joanne Intrator's father poses two unsettling questions: 'Are you tough enough? Do they know who you are?' Joanne soon realizes that these haunting questions relate to a center-city Berlin building at 16 Wallstrasse that the Nazis ripped away from her family in 1938. But a decade is to pass before she will fully come to grasp why her father threw down the gauntlet as he did. Repeatedly, Joanne's restitution quest brings her into confrontation with yet another of her profound fears surrounding Germany and the Holocaust. Having to call on reserves of strength she's unsure she possesses, the author leans into her professional command of psychiatry, often overcoming flabbergasting obstacles perniciously dumped in her path. The depth and lucidity of psychological insight threaded throughout Summons to Berlin makes it an attention-grabbing standout among books on like topics. As a listener, you'll come away delighted to know just who Dr. Joanne Intrator is. You'll also finish the book cheering for her, because in the end, she proves far more than tough enough to satisfy her father's unnerving final demands.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/691351 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Jali Author: Oliver Twist Narrator: Oliver Twist Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 43 minutes Release date: August 1, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Comedian Oliver Twist was four years old when he and his family fled the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda for Malawi, their exile for the next fourteen years. Twist has turned the turmoil he and his family endured into a thrilling adventure of a hero's journey. A natural born storyteller, propelled from the cold alleys of a Malawian refugee camp to the warm spotlight of the Australian stage, he vividly describes what it's like to leave your homeland behind and to have to wait your whole childhood for life to begin. Powerful, heartbreaking and full of humour, Jali marks the arrival of a dazzling new voice.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/675640 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Empty Honour Board Author: Martin Flanagan Narrator: Martin Flanagan Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 54 minutes Release date: July 25, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: In 1966, at the age of 10, Martin Flanagan was sent to a Catholic boarding school in north-west Tasmania. Of the 12 priests on the staff, three have since gone to prison for sexual crimes committed against boys in their care. In 2018 and 2019, a series of disclosures about the school appeared on the ABC Tasmania website. Then came the Pell case. What followed was a frenzy of opinions, none of which represented Flanagan's view. The Empty Honour Board is part memoir, a reflection on truth and memory, and what is lost in rushing to judgement. Flanagan's school abounds in memorable characters. There's a kid who escapes and gets as far as Surfers Paradise, and two boys who hold a competition during evening chapel to see who can confess more times. A wild boy receives a 'Bradmanesque' 234 strokes of the cane in one year. It is a lonely and, at times, scary existence - as while the boys are victims of violence, they are also perpetrators. Drawn to neither the school nor its religion, Flanagan discovers himself through sport, later becoming known as one of Australia's most creative sportswriters. But his boarding days linger. In his first three years at the school, he'd faced a series of adult moral challenges. Not being an adult, he had failed - in his own estimation. This becomes of great consequence in his 20s when his wife is about to have their first child. A major reckoning with his past, however, leaves him with his ambition as a writer. A prison diary, a story of brotherly love, a journey of redemption, Flanagan's book goes inside an experience many have had, but few have talked about.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/688244 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Not All Heroes Wear Capes: The incredible story of how one young man found happiness by embracing his differences Author: Jono Lancaster Narrator: Jono Lancaster Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 15 minutes Release date: July 20, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. ''My appearance hasn't changed, but my outlook on life and attitude towards it has. Finding self-acceptance hasn't always been easy. I was abandoned at birth with a facial difference, and as I got older, I began to hate my face and the world I lived in. Gradually, through trial and error, random moments with strangers, and some tragic haircuts, I've found self-love and happiness. This book is the story of how I found my way out of difficult times, and how you can do the same.' Jono Lancaster was born with Treacher Collins Syndrome - a condition that affects facial appearence - and at only two weeks old, he found himself in foster care. In his remarkable story, Jono shares the highs and lows of his journey and how he turned his differences into his greatest strengths. Inspirational, empowering and moving - this is an extraordinary memoir with a powerful message: you are strong enough to become your own hero. (Cape optional.) ©2023 Jonathan Lancaster (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/680816 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Lost in Music: The classic laugh-out-loud memoir Author: Giles Smith Narrator: Giles Smith Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 29 minutes Release date: July 20, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. 'In the Spring of 1989, shortly after my twenty-seventh birthday, as I stood in the sleet at a bus stop in Colchester, it dawned on me that I had probably, all things considered, failed in my mission to become Sting. At least, for the time being.' Lost in Music is about growing up with pop music - about hearing it, buying it, loving it, and attempting to play it in public for money. A brilliant combination of the confessional and the unapologetic, this is a book for anyone who has ever treasured vinyl, or sung into a roll-on deodorant in front of the bedroom mirror and dreamed of playing Wembley. Praise for Lost in Music 'Very, very funny . . . Giles Smith is a wonderful writer' Nick Hornby 'A wonderfully funny pop-music memoir . . . You don't have to know who Nik Kershaw is to laugh out loud at the chapter about him' Sebastian Faulks, Spectator 'One of the best books about music that you will ever read . . . It is impossible to read Lost in Music without laughing out loud' Daily Telegraph ©2023 Giles Smith (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/673955 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Pillar of Salt: A Daughter's Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust Author: Anna Salton Eisen Narrator: Kelli Tager Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 4 hours 24 minutes Release date: July 18, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: As the daughter of Holocaust survivors, Anna Salton Eisen's memoir, Pillar of Salt: A Daughter's Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust, breaks down the barrier of silence that was intended as a protective shield for her parents and their children. From early childhood, Anna, as a second-hand witness to the Holocaust, felt overwhelmed by the unspoken but ever-present trauma of her parents' past. Her father, born as Lucjan Salzman, survivor of ten different concentration camps, is enveloped in impenetrable grief and his history encased in secrecy. But Anna is determined to look backwards, breaking through her father's reticence to confront the unspoken terrors of the past. The entire Salton family embarks on a journey through Poland unlocking a history sealed in silence and buried by time. By the end of her odyssey, Anna acquires a new understanding of her legacy as a child of Holocaust survivors and how trauma is revisited upon subsequent generations. By revisiting those places of trauma with her father as her guide, Anna Salton Eisen's tour of terrors provide her with a new understanding of how her identity has been shaped under the shadow of the Holocaust. Anna confides that by looking back like Lot's wife, and by taking in the whole story, 'I could carry the pain of the Holocaust and find there is more to me than a pillar of salt.'

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/684151 to listen full audiobooks. Title: These Days Are Numbered: Diary of a High-Rise Lockdown Author: Rebecca Rosenblum Narrator: Christina Delaine Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 21 minutes Release date: July 11, 2023 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: We all lived our own pandemics. For writer Rebecca Rosenblum, the pandemic meant watching and considering the city she loves. From milestones such as crying when the parks closed to the little moments with strangers on the street and with loved ones across the six-foot divide, Rebecca wondered, worried, and wrote it down.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/686174 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Justice for Bonnie Author: I.J. Schecter, Karen Foster Narrator: Suzie Althens Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 36 minutes Release date: July 11, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: When police told Karen Foster that her eighteen-year-old daughter, Bonnie Craig, had died in a hiking accident, she knew the pieces of the investigation just didn't add up. Bonnie would have never ditched her classes at the University of Alaska to go hiking. And she didn't drive—so how would she have reached McHugh Creek, miles outside of Anchorage, in the first place? Armed with little more than her own conviction, Karen set out to find the truth behind her daughter's death. After a long series of false leads and dead ends, it seemed the case would forever go unsolved. Then, after twelve years of public campaigning, private despair, and increasingly tense dealings with the detectives working the case, Karen received an e-mail that would change everything: the system, at long last, had produced a match for the unknown DNA in the case—from a man in a jail all the way across the country. Here is the chilling tale of a mother's unflagging fight to track down the monster who stole her daughter's life—and the battle to ensure that he, and others like him, would no longer be able to evade justice.