Stream Popular Free Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, History & Culture

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/662700 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Chronic: A Memoir Author: Rebecca Dimyan Narrator: Devon Sorvari Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 4 hours 24 minutes Release date: June 6, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In this powerful debut, Rebecca Dimyan details her experience with endometriosis, a chronic disease which effects one in ten women worldwide. This painful condition takes an average of seven years to be diagnosed and has no proven cure. Most women will undergo multiple surgeries, take countless painkillers and other drugs, and will still endure regular pain and other complications. With honesty, vulnerability, and sometimes humor, Dimyan explores the ways the condition has impacted her experiences, her body, her pain, and her joy. She takes her audience on an emotional journey through her teenage years, early twenties, and into her thirties as she becomes a professional woman, wife, and mother. Dimyan blends research, anecdotes, and advice as she shares the relief she's found through alternative treatments and holistic medicine. Chronic isn't just a story about one woman's illness—it is a memoir about all the pain, pleasure, heartbreak, friendship, love, and hope she experiences on her path to healing.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/669926 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Our Flag Was Still There: The Star Spangled Banner that Survived the British and 200 Years―And the Armistead Family Who Saved It Author: Tom McMillan Narrator: Robert Fass Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 47 minutes Release date: June 6, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Our Flag Was Still There details the improbable two-hundred-year journey of the original Star-Spangled Banner—from Fort McHenry in 1814, when Francis Scott Key first saw it, to the Smithsonian—and the enduring family who defended, kept, hid, and ultimately donated the most famous flag in American history. Francis Scott Key saw the original Star-Spangled Banner flying over Baltimore’s Fort McHenry on September 14, 1814, following a twenty-five-hour bombardment by the British Navy, inspiring him to write the words to our national anthem. Torn and tattered over the years, reduced in size to appease souvenir-hunters, stuffed away in a New York City vault for the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the flag’s mere existence after two hundred years is an improbable story of dedication, perseverance, patriotism, angst, inner-family squabbles, and, yes, more than a little luck. For this unlikely feat, we have the Armistead family to thank—led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry, who took it home after the battle in clear defiance of US Army regulations. It is only because of that quiet indiscretion that the flag survives to this day. Armistead’s descendants kept and protected their family heirloom for ninety years. The flag’s first photo was not taken until 1873, almost sixty years after Key saw it waving, and most Americans did not even know of its existence until Armistead’s grandson loaned it to the Smithsonian in 1907. Tom McMillan tells a story as no one has before. Digging deep into the archives of Fort McHenry and the Smithsonian, accessing never-before-published letters and documents, and presenting rare photos from the private collections of Armistead descendants and other sources, McMillan follows the flag on an often-perilous journey through two centuries. Our Flag Was Still There provides new insight into an intriguing period of US history, offering a “story behind the story” account of one of the country’s most treasured relics.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/640959 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Defiant Dreams: The Journey of an Afghan Girl Who Risked Everything for Education Author: Sola Mahfouz, Malaina Kapoor Narrator: Ariana Delawari Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 0 minutes Release date: June 1, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. 'I began to grow up the day my mother warned me to stop laughing' At age eleven, Sola Mahfouz was told she could no longer attend school. The Taliban threatened that any girl who dared to continue their education would have acid thrown in their face, be kidnapped, or worse. Confined to the walls of her home, Sola watched as the few freedoms of childhood were stripped away. She was forbidden to play, to sing, even to laugh. Her early teenage years were consumed by restrictions. Realising that she would have to either succumb to this life or find a way out, she decided on the latter. At age sixteen, without even a basic ability to add or subtract, she began secretly learning maths and English. By reading dictionaries and taking free online courses, she taught herself theoretical physics and philosophy, all from a home she could only leave five times a year. In the space of nine years she achieved the level of education that a westerner might take 25 years to do and against all odds moved to America to study quantum computing. It is a radical act to tell the story of an Afghan woman. Too often, they are portrayed only as victims, their identities erased by thick veils and blanket reporting. Defiant Dreams will change the narrative. It's the story of an Afghan girl who dared to ask for more. 'Stories like this inspire me. Seeing the way people like Sola Mahfouz think about the world reinforces my optimism about the future.' BILL GATES ©2023 Malaina Kapoor (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/663246 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Bird: Three extraordinary flights. One extraordinary woman Author: Tracey Curtis-Taylor Narrator: Anna Cordell Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 11 hours 17 minutes Release date: June 1, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Tracey Curtis-Taylor has created headlines around the world with three epic flights in a 1942 Boeing Stearman biplane. Paying homage to two historic female aviators, she flew from Cape Town to Goodwood in 2013, from London to Australia in 2015 and, two years later, completed a transcontinental flight across the USA, after surviving a plane crash during the expedition. But her daring exploits came at a huge personal cost. From the moment the Light Aircraft Association (LAA) awarded her a prestigious trophy for ‘navigation, a feat of aviation, endurance and tenacity', several men with personal grudges made it their mission not just to strip Tracey of her award but to destroy her reputation. Now, for the first time and with searing honesty, Tracey tells, in breath-taking detail, the remarkable story of how she overcame extreme adversity to complete her three epic journeys. And she charts the bitter campaign waged against her, revealing the rank misogyny and hypocrisy that exists in British aviation. In Bird, her unique and action-packed memoir, she also tells how: She cheated death twice – once in a high-speed boating accident and again when her historic Stearman crashed in the Arizona desert. Her unconventional upbringing sparked her spirit of adventure – but a shocking secret drove her family apart She fulfilled her dreams only after overcoming a series of near-critical setbacks Tracey took her first flying lesson at 16 but it was in New Zealand where she properly learned to fly and had her first taste of piloting historic aircraft Overcoming a series of traumatic events, including a failed marriage, Tracey returned to England and, in 2009, was determined to emulate the heroics of Lady Heath, the first UK woman to hold a pilot's licence and the first person to fly from Cape Town to London in an open-cockpit aircraft.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/673973 to listen full audiobooks. Title: America's Youngest Ambassador: The Cold War Story of Samantha Smith’s Lasting Message of Peace Author: Lena Nelson Narrator: Christa Lewis Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 59 minutes Release date: June 1, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In 1982, amid the nuclear paranoia that engulfed the US and the Soviet Union, Samantha Smith, a fifth grader from Manchester, Maine, wrote a letter to the Kremlin asking the Soviet leader if he was going to start a war. When Pravda, the biggest Soviet newspaper, published her letter—and Samantha received an unprecedented invitation to visit the Soviet Union —her family embarked on a historic journey. The story of a young American girl's letter to the Soviet leader and her innocent curiosity about the other side of the Iron Curtain holds an important lesson for every American. America's Youngest Ambassador provides insights into a forgotten era and has an important message for young people who strive to be more involved in facilitating change, both locally and worldwide. Juxtaposing Samantha's narrative with that of her own childhood in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, Lena Nelson explores the consequences of government propaganda on both sides of the ocean and reveals how Samantha Smith's journey in the summer of 1983 helped melt the hearts of the Soviets and thaw the ice of the Cold War. Drawing on interviews conducted in both the US and Russia with key players in the events of those days, Nelson blends storytelling, anecdotes, and analysis of Soviet-American relations to tell the story of this unprecedented moment in history.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/639392 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Cleopatra's Daughter: From Roman Prisoner to African Queen Author: Jane Draycott Narrator: Joan Walker Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 39 minutes Release date: May 23, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: The first biography of one of the most fascinating yet long-neglected rulers of the ancient world: Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Antony and Cleopatra. Years ago, archaeologists excavating near Pompeii unearthed a hoard of Roman treasures, among them a bowl depicting a woman with thick, curly hair and sporting an elephant-scalp headdress. For decades, theories circulated about her identity―until, at last, she was ascertained to be Cleopatra Selene, the only surviving daughter of Roman Triumvir Marc Antony and Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII. Using this discovery as her starting point and creating a narrative from mere fragments in the archaeological record, historian Jane Draycott reconstructs the exceptional life of this woman who, although born into royalty and raised in her mother’s court, was held captive by Augustus Caesar and his sister, Octavia, after her parents’ demise. Yet as Draycott shows, Cleopatra Selene was destined to emerge as an influential ruler in her own right, as queen, alongside King Juba II, of Mauretania, an ancient African kingdom. A long-overdue historical corrective, Cleopatra’s Daughter reclaims a mighty regent―and her infamous family―for posterity.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/670900 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon Author: Melissa L. Sevigny Narrator: Elizabeth Wiley Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 53 minutes Release date: May 23, 2023 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 5 Ratings of Narrator: 4.67 of Total 3 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. With its churning waters and treacherous boulders, the Colorado was famed as the most dangerous river in the world. Journalists and veteran river runners boldly proclaimed that the motley crew would never make it out alive. But for Clover and Jotter, the expedition held a tantalizing appeal: no one had yet surveyed the plant life of the Grand Canyon, and they were determined to be the first. Through the vibrant letters and diaries of the two women, science journalist Melissa L. Sevigny traces their daring forty-three-day journey down the river, during which they meticulously cataloged the thorny plants that thrived in the Grand Canyon's secret nooks and crannies. Along the way, they chased a runaway boat, ran the river's most fearsome rapids, and turned the harshest critic of female river runners into an ally. Clover and Jotter's plant list, including four new cactus species, would one day become vital for efforts to protect and restore the river ecosystem. Brave the Wild River is a spellbinding adventure of two women who risked their lives to make an unprecedented botanical survey of a defining landscape in the American West.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/637382 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Last Secrets of Anne Frank: The Untold Story of Her Silent Protector Author: Joop Van Wijk-Voskuijl, Jeroen De Bruyn Narrator: Jacques Roy Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 17 minutes Release date: May 16, 2023 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.75 of Total 4 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: A “gripping” (Kati Marton, author of The Chancellor) historical investigation and family memoir that intertwines the iconic narrative of Anne Frank with the untold story of Bep Voskuijl, her protector and closest confidante in the Annex, bringing us closer to understanding one of the great secrets of World War II. Anne Frank’s life has been studied by many scholars, but the story of Bep Voskuijl has remained untold, until now. As the youngest of the five Dutch people who hid the Frank family, Bep was Anne’s closest confidante during the 761 excruciating days she spent hidden in the Secret Annex. Bep, who was just twenty-three when the Franks went into hiding, risking her life to protect them, plunging into Amsterdam’s black market to source food and medicine for people who officially didn’t exist under the noses of German soldiers and Dutch spies. In those cramped quarters, Bep and Anne’s friendship bloomed through deep conversations, shared meals, and a youthful understanding. Told by her own son, The Last Secrets of Anne Frank intertwines the story of Bep and her sister Nelly with Anne’s iconic narrative. Nelly’s name may have been scrubbed from Anne’s published diary, but Joop van Wijk-Voskuijl and Jeroen De Bruyn expose details about her collaboration with the Nazis, a deeply held family secret. After the war, Bep tried to bury her memories just as the Secret Annex was becoming world famous as a symbol of resistance to the Nazi horrors. She never got over losing Anne nor could Bep put to rest the horrifying suspicion that those in the Annex had been betrayed by her own flesh and blood. “Part biography, part whodunit” (The Wall Street Journal), this is a story about those caught in between the Jewish victims and Nazi persecutors, and the moral ambiguities and hard choices faced by ordinary families like the Voskuijls, in which collaborators and resistors often lived under the same roof. Beautifully written and unsettlingly suspenseful, The Last Secrets of Anne Frank will show the Secret Annex as we’ve never seen it before. And it provides a powerful understanding of how historical trauma is inherited from one generation to the next and how sometimes keeping a secret hurts far more than revealing a shameful truth.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/640595 to listen full audiobooks. Title: An Unspeakable Hope: Brutality, Forgiveness, and Building a Better Future for My Son Author: Leon Ford Narrator: Leon Ford Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 24 minutes Release date: May 9, 2023 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 2 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: A “powerful and insightful” (Cyntoia Brown-Long, author of Free Cyntoia) memoir in the vein of Just Mercy and The Sum of Us that upends our understanding about the future of policing in the United States and explores how we can begin healing from systemic injustice. In 2012, nineteen-year-old Leon Ford was shot five times by a Pittsburgh police officer during a racially charged traffic stop stemming from a case of mistaken identity. When he woke up in the hospital, he was faced with two life-changing realities: he was a new father, and he was paralyzed from the waist down. Leon found the only way to move forward was to let go of his bitterness and learn to practice forgiveness. Now, in this memoir and manifesto, Leon illustrates how this harrowing experience has inspired a deep reckoning with the issues his community is facing, not only with police brutality, but also an epidemic of street violence, toxic masculinity and its impact on Black fatherhood, and the lack of disability rights and mental health access in disenfranchised communities. In the wake of countless similar shootings across the country, Leon details how he turned towards social activism, dedicating himself to bridging the gap between the police and the communities they are supposed to serve. With a voice filled with “healing, triumph, and resilience” (Shaka Senghor, bestselling author of Writing My Wrongs), Ford offers fresh, counterintuitive ways we can effect social change. Leon shows us how, together, we can move away from retribution and towards transformative justice in order to end police brutality and heal as a country. As he once said, “Lead with love. Start compassionate conversations even with individuals and systems that have caused you pain. I know from experience that you can make your pain purposeful.”

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/652158 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Seduced by the Light: The Mina Miller Edison Story Author: Alexandra Rimer Narrator: Bernadette Dunne Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 13 hours 27 minutes Release date: May 2, 2023 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Seduced by the Light is the first and only biography of Mina Miller Edison, the wife of Thomas Edison, the woman who created and shaped the myth of one of the most seminal figures in America’s history. The Thomas Edison we think we know was essentially created by Mina Miller Edison. Exhaustively researched by author Alexandra Rimer, this account draws on unprecedented access to Edison family diaries, memoirs, and letters to look below the surface of the Edison family during the Gilded Age from the little-known perspective of this female protagonist. Following his first wife’s death, Thomas Edison went in search of the next mother to his children and chose a wealthy twenty-year-old socialite from Ohio who was nineteen years his junior. What Mina did not know at the time was that Edison was a terrible father, completely neglecting his children and, ultimately, Mina herself. Absorbed in his work, he only interacted with his family at dinner, and sometimes not even then. The result was a dysfunctional family overseen by a saintly matriarch who went to great lengths to protect Edison’s reputation as well as that of his wayward children.