Stream Popular Free Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, Memoirs

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/544048 to listen full audiobooks. Title: High Yella: A Modern Family Memoir Author: Steve Majors Narrator: Terrence Kidd Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 54 minutes Release date: November 16, 2021 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 3 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: They called him 'pale faced or mixed race' or 'light, bright, almost white.' But most of the time his family called him 'high yella.' Steve Majors was the white passing, youngest son of an all-Black family that struggled with poverty, abuse, and generational trauma. High Yella is the poignant account of how he tried to leave his troubled childhood and family behind to create a new identity, only to discover he ultimately needed to return home to truly find himself and help his two adopted Black daughters find their own place in the world. In his remarkable and moving memoir, Majors gathers the shards of a broken past to piece together a portrait of a man on an extraordinary journey toward Blackness, queerness, and parenthood. High Yella delivers its hard-won lessons on love, life, and family with exceptional grace.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/528837 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Little Sister: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood Author: Lana Wood Narrator: Lana Wood Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 21 minutes Release date: November 9, 2021 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.6 of Total 5 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: In this memoir, Lana Wood investigates the mysterious drowning of her sister, the actress Natalie Wood, and clears up the myths and misconceptions behind one of the most notorious celebrity deaths of our time. On the night of November 29, 1981, Natalie Wood disappeared from her yacht, the Splendour, while visiting Catalina Island with her husband, Robert “R.J.” Wagner and their friend, Christopher Walken. The beloved movie star’s tragic drowning shook America, inspiring troves of magazine covers and media pieces. What was originally believed to be an open-and-shut case of accidental drowning has been called into question over the years, and in 2011 the investigation was reopened. In 2018, at the urging of the public, it was reclassified as “suspicious.” Ever since, the question has remained: What really happened to Natalie Wood? Lana Wood, Natalie’s younger sister, long suspected nefarious circumstances surrounding her sister’s death. Her closest confidante from childhood, Lana stood witness to Natalie’s life: the successes, the heartache, and her deepest pain. But there was tremendous fear about investigating the case. Uncertain of what her own search would unravel, and frightened of the possibilities, Lana stayed silent for years, until she no longer could. She realized she was ignoring what was in front of her, and that the best way to honor her sister's legacy would be uncovering the secrets behind the very end of Natalie’s life. By elucidating previously unknown complications of Natalie’s life, and offering new evidence from key parties involved in the investigation—including the boat’s captain and other witnesses—Little Sister recounts Lana’s search for the truth and brings to light explosive details that have been suppressed for decades. Ranging from the bonds that hold family together, to inconsistencies in interviews with detectives to complications with evidence, this story of sisterhood and mystery presents a fresh perspective on a night that has long been fodder for Hollywood lore.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/528440 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Will: The Sunday Times Bestselling Autobiography Author: Will Smith, Mark Manson Narrator: Will Smith Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 16 hours 16 minutes Release date: November 9, 2021 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.46 of Total 148 Ratings of Narrator: 4.9 of Total 48 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller The Instand #1 Audible Bestseller NARRATED BY WILL SMITH. One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had. Will Smith's transformation from a fearful child in a tense West Philadelphia home to one of the biggest rap stars of his era and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, with a string of box office successes that will likely never be broken, is an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph, and Will tells it astonishingly well. But it's only half the story. Will Smith thought, with good reason, that he had won at life: not only was his own success unparalleled, his whole family was at the pinnacle of the entertainment world. Only they didn't see it that way: they felt more like star performers in his circus, a seven-days-a-week job they hadn't signed up for. It turned out Will Smith's education wasn't nearly over. This memoir is the product of a profound journey of self-knowledge, a reckoning with all that your will can get you and all that it can leave behind. Written with the help of Mark Manson, author of the multi-million-copy bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Will is the story of how one exceptional man mastered his own emotions, written in a way that can help everyone else do the same. Few of us will know the pressure of performing on the world's biggest stages for the highest of stakes, but we can all understand that the fuel that works for one stage of our journey might have to be changed if we want to make it all the way home. The combination of genuine wisdom of universal value and a life story that is preposterously entertaining, even astonishing, puts Will the book, like its author, in a category by itself. PRAISE FOR WILL 'The best memoir I ever read' Oprah Winfrey 'If you read one book this year, make it this one' Jay Shetty 'Incredible' Idris Elba 'The book is awesome. So candid and considered...fascinating' Chris Evans 'A triumph...really inspiring, so well written, vulnerable and deep. I highly recommend it' Mindy Kaling 'It's fantastic...very moving' Zoe Ball 'Incredibly honest...inspiring' Greg James 'A wild ride' New York Times 'Raw, comedic, inspirational' GQ ©2021 Will Smith and Mark Manson (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/544095 to listen full audiobooks. Title: BOOKMARKED: HOW THE GREAT WORKS OF WESTERN LITERATURE F*CKED UP MY LIFE Author: Mark Scarbrough Narrator: Mark Scarbrough Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 37 minutes Release date: November 9, 2021 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Mark Scarbrough has been searching for something his entire life. Whether it's his birth mother, true love, his purpose, or his sexual identity, Mark has been on a constant quest to find out who he really is, with the great Western texts as his steadfast companions. As a boy with his head constantly in a book, desperate to discover new worlds, he can hardly distinguish between their plots and his own reality. The child of strict Texan Evangelicals, Mark is taught by the Bible to fervently believe in the rapture and second coming and is thus moved to spend his teen years as a youth preacher. At college, he discovers William Blake, who teaches him to fall in love with poems, lyrics . . . and his roommate Alex. Raised to believe that to be gay was to be a sinner, Mark is driven to the brink of madness and attempts suicide. Hoping to avoid books once and for all, Mark joins the seminary, where he meets his wife, Miranda. Neither the seminary nor the marriage stick, and Mark once again finds himself turning to his books for the sense of belonging he continues to seek . . . An examination of one man's complicated, near-obsessive relationship with books, and how they shaped, molded, ruined, and saved him, Bookmarked is about how we readers stash our secrets between jacket covers and how those secrets ultimately get told in the ways that the books themselves demand.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/545059 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Oak Papers Author: James Canton Narrator: Peter Noble Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 54 minutes Release date: November 9, 2021 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: ''A profound meditation on the human need for connection with nature, as one man seeks solace beneath the bows of an ancient oak tree.''—Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees ''James Canton knows so much, writes so well and understands so deeply about the true forest magic and the important place these trees have in it. Knowledge and joy.''— Sara Maitland, author of How to Be Alone Joining the ranks of The Hidden Life of Trees and H is for Hawk, an evocative memoir and ode to one of the most majestic living things on earth—the oak tree—probing the mysteries of nature and the healing role it plays in our lives. Thrown into turmoil by the end of his long-term relationship, Professor James Canton spent two years meditating beneath the welcoming shelter of the massive 800-year-old Honywood Oak tree in North Essex, England. While considering the direction of his own life, he began to contemplate the existence of this colossus tree. Standing in England for centuries, the oak would have been a sapling when the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. In this beautiful, transportive book, Canton tells the story of this tree in its ecological, spiritual, literary, and historical contexts, using it as a prism to see his own life and human history. The Oak Papers is a reflection on change and transformation, and the role nature has played in sustaining and redeeming us.  Canton examines our long-standing dependency on the oak, and how that has developed and morphed into myth and legend. We no longer need these sturdy trees to build our houses and boats, to fuel our fires, or to grind their acorns into flour in times of famine. What purpose, then, do they serve in our world today? Are these miracles of nature no longer necessary to our lives? What can they offer us?  Taking inspiration from the literary world—Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Katherine Basford’s Green Man, Thomas Hardy, William Shakespeare, and others—Canton ponders the wondrous magic of nature and the threats its faces, from human development to climate change, implores us to act as responsible stewards to conserve what is precious, and reminds us of the lessons we can learn from the world around us, if only we slow down enough to listen.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/544376 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Black and White: The Way I See It Author: Richard Williams Narrator: Cary Hite Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 26 minutes Release date: November 9, 2021 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: The fascinating, “upfront and unapologetic” (Kirkus Reviews) memoir of Richard Williams, a businessman, tennis coach, subject of the major motion picture King Richard, and father to two of the greatest athletes and professional tennis champions of all time—Venus and Serena Williams. Born into poverty in Shreveport, Louisiana in the 1940s, Richard Williams was blessed by a strong, caring mother who remained his lifelong hero, just as he became a hero to Venus and Serena. From the beginning of his life, Richard’s mother taught him to live by the principles of courage, confidence, commitment, faith, and love. He passed the same qualities on to his daughters, who grew up loving their father and valuing the lessons he taught them. “I still feel really close to my father,” says Serena. “We have a great relationship. There is an appreciation. There is a closeness because of what we’ve been through together, and a respect.” A self-made man, Williams has walked a long, hard, exciting, and ultimately rewarding road during his life, surmounting many challenges to raise a loving family and two of the greatest tennis players who ever lived. Black and White is the extraordinary story of that journey and the indomitable spirit that made it all possible.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/537775 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Fighting Time Author: Isaac Knapper, Amy Banks Narrator: Beresford Bennett, Christina Moore Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 27 minutes Release date: November 5, 2021 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Unaware of the danger lurking on the periphery of the French Quarter, Drs. Ronald Banks and John Hakola made a tragic decision on the evening of April 29, 1979, to walk several blocks from the historic district to the Hyatt Regency. Inches from the safety of their hotel, they were accosted by two young men—a scuffle ensued, a shot was fired, and Dr. Banks lay dead on the sidewalk. Fighting Time is a tale of two families whose lives became entangled in that moment of trauma. Isaac Knapper, a sixteen-year-old boy from a nearby housing project, was wrongfully convicted of the murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. In Maine, the Banks family believed justice had been served by Isaac’s conviction, and his exoneration in 1992 unleashed a sea of confusion and grief. In 2015, Dr. Banks’ daughter, Amy, a psychiatrist and trauma specialist, realized it was time to unpack her own family trauma. After learning details of the prosecutorial misconduct, Amy and her sister, Nancy, traveled to New Orleans to meet the man wrongfully convicted of killing their father. In Fighting Time Isaac Knapper and Amy Banks narrate the story of their thirty-sixyear journey from murder to meeting with clarity, humility, and vulnerability.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/545352 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Patient 1: Forgetting and Finding Myself Author: Charlotte Raven, Edward Wild Narrator: Dr Ed Wild, Anna Wilson-Jones Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 44 minutes Release date: November 4, 2021 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. Charlotte Raven had never heard of Huntington's Disease when, in her mid-thirties, she discovered that her father was suffering from the illness. Life for her and her young family would never be the same again. Patient 1 is her brutally candid account of coming to terms with this inherited neurodegenerative disease, which can manifest at any time in life for people who carry the faulty gene. As the illness began to take hold of Raven's body, mind and memory, she began to write. She wrote like her life depended on it - and in many ways she believed it did. Frank and fearless, Patient 1 is an act of self-preservation and a kind of reckoning: with the illness, with the person she once was, with the person she is now. In an afterword, Raven's doctor Ed Wild - one of the country's leading experts in Huntington's - explains how doctors and patients like Charlotte are working together in the hope of one day eliminating this disease altogether. Honest, intelligent and unsentimental, Patient 1 is a startling self-portrait written with wit and vulnerability, and a unique testament to the power of hope in the face of illness. © Charlotte Raven 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/537730 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Ciao Bella!: Six Take Italy Author: Kate Langbroek Narrator: Kate Langbroek Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 13 hours 3 minutes Release date: November 3, 2021 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.75 of Total 4 Ratings of Narrator: 4 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Kate Langbroek’s deliciously funny and inspiring memoir about moving to Italy with her family to seek la dolce vita. Now including new bonus content: Kate's recipe for happiness – oh, and a recipe for the perfect Ragu alla Bolognese! ‘A wonderful story, beautifully written, filled with heart and humour’ Liane Moriarty (reviewing Ciao Bella! on 3pm Pick Up, KIIS 1065) I wasn’t looking to fall in love. It just happened. There were moments, encounters as fleeting as feelings. Sometimes – tellingly – they emerged from chaos.   When Kate Langbroek first dreamed of moving to Italy, she imagined a magnificent sun-drenched pastiche of long lunches and wandering through cobbled laneways clutching a loaf of crusty bread and a bottle of wine, Sophia Loren-style, while handsome men called out ‘Ciao Bella!’   In the stark light of day the dream Kate shared with her husband Peter after an idyllic holiday in Italy seemed like madness. They didn’t speak Italian. They knew no one in Italy. They had four children. Kate also had the best job in the world on a top-rating radio show with her longtime friend, Dave Hughes.   But the siren song of Italy was irresistible. This would be the adventure of a lifetime, a precious opportunity to spend more time with their children – Lewis, Sunday, Artie and Jannie – and it came from a deep longing to seize life after they almost lost Lewis to leukaemia.   Ciao Bella! is about having a dream and living it as Kate shares the sublime joys and utter chaos of adapting to a new life in Bologna, what you discover about yourself when you are a stranger in a strange land, and how she fell in love. With a country.   Deliciously funny, insightful and often deeply moving, Ciao Bella! is Kate’s love letter to Italy and her family. It is also a glorious reminder of what Italians can teach us about living life to the full – and what really matters when the world goes to hell in a handbasket.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/530252 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Men I’ve Never Been: A Memoir Author: Michael Sadowski Narrator: Charlie Thurston Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 41 minutes Release date: November 2, 2021 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Men I've Never Been recounts Michael Sadowski's odyssey as a boy who shuns his own identity—and, ultimately, his sexual orientation—in order to become who he thinks he's supposed to be. Beginning with the memory of a four-year-old sitting in a dingy dive bar, sounding out newspaper headlines while his boasting father collects drinks from onlookers, each chapter highlights a different image of manhood that Sadowski saw at home, at school, or on television—from sports heroes, hunters, and game show hosts to his charismatic but hard-drinking father. As he learns not to talk, laugh, cry, or love, he retreats further behind a stoic mask of silence—outwardly well-functioning but emotionally isolated, sinking under the weight of the past. Through wrenching tragedy and tense, life-threatening challenges, Sadowski learns to find love, purpose, and healthy self-regard. In coming to understand his identity and his place within his family, he meditates on the power of real human connection and comes to grasp the damage of his troubled upbringing and the traumas caused by toxic masculinity. By turns comic and tragic, this nuanced memoir uncovers the false selves we create to get along in the world and the price we pay to maintain them.