Top Free Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, History & Culture

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/565594 to listen full audiobooks. Title: With Two Souls: Midwives in Ethiopia Author: Indie Mcdowell Narrator: Yasmin Mwanza, Jennifer Ness Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 12 hours 32 minutes Release date: September 15, 2022 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In 2016, English midwife Indie joined the staff at Attat Hospital in south-western Ethiopia, where Atsede led the midwifery services. It was a meeting that would change their lives. Their close professional relationship, and deep personal friendship, led to them opening a birth centre serving the Gurage women and families of Cheha Woreda, bringing compassionate midwifery care into the heart of traditional communities. Through the two midwives' eyes, as they recount stories from the women they have cared for over the years, we experience the lives of the Gurage people in rich detail. From one night shift which saw Atsede attend 16 births, and 17 babies born, to the day there was a donkey mysteriously tied up inside the hospital. By way of undiagnosed birth defects, the ramifications of female circumcision, obstetric emergencies, and long hours of ordinary, extraordinary births, what shines through is a deep and abiding love for the women in their care, and respect for each other and the colleagues they work alongside.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/564555 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Days Author: Paul Bowles Narrator: Richard Trinder Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 2 hours 9 minutes Release date: September 13, 2022 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Between 1987 and 1989, Paul Bowles, at the suggestion of a friend, kept a journal to record the daily events of his life. What emerges is not only just a record of the meals, conversations, and health concerns of the author of The Sheltering Sky but also a fascinating look at an artist at work in a new medium. Characterized by a refreshing informality, clear-sightedness, and passages of exquisite prose, these pages record with equal fascination the behavior of an itinerant spider, a brutal episode of violence in a Tangier marketplace, and the pageantry and excess of Malcolm Forbes's seventieth birthday party. In Days, a master observer of the foreign and obscure turns his attentions toward his own daily existence, giving us a startlingly candid portrait of his life in late twentieth-century Tangier.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/569240 to listen full audiobooks. Title: [Spanish] - Memorias de un historiador del Holocausto Author: Raul Hilberg, àlex Guàrdia Berdiell (translator) Narrator: Germán Gijón Format: Abridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 58 minutes Release date: September 7, 2022 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: 'Un faro, un rompeolas, un barco de la historia anclado en el tiempo y en un sentido más allá del tiempo, imperecedero, inolvidable, con el que nada en el curso de la producción histórica ordinaria puede compararse.'—Claude Lanzmann 'Nadie podrá ya escribir sobre estas cuestiones sin recurrir a él.'—Hannah Arendt 'La tarea hercúlea de reconstruir el obsceno edificio de la burocracia nazi. El viaje intelectual de un hombre extremadamente exigente. Cada página es apasionante.'—London Review of Books Raul Hilberg dedicó su vida al estudio de uno de los mayores horrores de la humanidad y escribió La destrucción de los judíos europeos, la obra más exhaustiva e influyente jamás escrita sobre el genocidio nazi. Sin embargo, el libro no fue bien recibido por sus contemporáneos: el manuscrito fue rechazado por numerosas editoriales de prestigio —Hilberg tardó catorce años en encontrar editor—; una vez publicado recibió duras críticas en el ámbito académico y mediático y por parte de la propia comunidad judía. Para colmo, sus ideas más importantes fueron retomadas más tarde y sin reconocimiento alguno por intelectuales como Lucy Dawidowicz, Nora Levin y Hannah Arendt. Memorias de un historiador del Holocausto es el conmovedor testimonio autobiográfico de un hombre que, en un momento en el que nadie quería oír hablar del Holocausto, se propuso descubrir la verdad de los hechos y se halló inmerso en un doloroso debate sobre la actitud de las víctimas y los testigos de la catástrofe. También es una galería de retratos de grandes figuras intelectuales del siglo XX, así como el reflejo de la progresiva y costosa penetración del genocidio nazi en nuestra conciencia colectiva. 'Me he basado en la obra de Raul Hilberg, que fue publicada después del juicio, y que constituye el más exhaustivo y el más fundamental estudio sobre la política judía del Tercer Reich.'—Hannah Arendt, sobre su libro Eichmann en Jerusalén 'Mucho más que una autobiográfica. Un libro sobre ética académica y manipulación política.'—Die Presse

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/573557 to listen full audiobooks. Title: One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World Author: Michael Frank Narrator: Michael Frank Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 28 minutes Release date: September 6, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.75 of Total 4 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: A 2022 Audible Editor's Selection One of Wall Street Journal’s Ten Best Books of the Year * Winner of the National Jewish Book Awards for Holocaust Memoir and Sephardic Culture * Recipient of the Jewish Book Council’s Natan Notable Book Award * Winner of the Sophie Brody Medal The remarkable story of ninety-nine-year-old Stella Levi whose conversations with the author over the course of six years bring to life the vibrant world of Jewish Rhodes, the deportation to Auschwitz that extinguished ninety percent of her community, and the resilience and wisdom of the woman who lived to tell the tale. With nearly a century of life behind her, Stella Levi had never before spoken in detail about her past. Then she met Michael Frank. He came to her Greenwich Village apartment one Saturday afternoon to ask her a question about the Juderia, the neighborhood on the Greek island of Rhodes where she’d grown up in a Jewish community that had thrived there for half a millennium. Neither of them could know this was the first of one hundred Saturdays over the course of six years that they would spend in each other’s company. During these meetings Stella traveled back in time to conjure what it felt like to come of age on this luminous, legendary island in the eastern Aegean, which the Italians conquered in 1912, began governing as an official colonial possession in 1923, and continued to administer even after the Germans seized control in September 1943. The following July, the Germans rounded up all 1,700-plus residents of the Juderia and sent them first by boat and then by train to Auschwitz on what was the longest journey—measured by both time and distance—of any of the deportations. Ninety percent of them were murdered upon arrival. Probing and courageous, candid and sly, Stella is a magical modern-day Scheherazade whose stories reveal what it was like to grow up in an extraordinary place in an extraordinary time—and to construct a life after that place has vanished. One Hundred Saturdays is a portrait of one of the last survivors drawn at nearly the last possible moment, as well as an account of a tender and transformative friendship between storyteller and listener, offering a powerful “reminder that the ability to listen thoughtfully is a rare and significant gift” (The Wall Street Journal).

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/575052 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Wild Ride: A Memoir of I.V. Drips and Rocket Ships Author: Hayley Arceneaux Narrator: Hayley Arceneaux Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 53 minutes Release date: September 6, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: The youngest American to ever orbit the earth—cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux—shows us all that when we face our fears with hope and faith, extraordinary things can happen. “A potent reminder to all of us that nothing on earth—or in the heavens, for that matter—can keep us from becoming commanders of our own destiny.”—Marlo Thomas, actor, author, and national outreach director for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital WINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER AWARD In this boldly optimistic debut memoir, Hayley Arceneaux details how she overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to grab hold of a life greater than she’d ever imagined. With her signature upbeat messaging, Arceneaux recounts her odyssey, from her cancer diagnosis at age ten and the yearlong treatment that inspired her goal of working with pediatric cancer patients, to living through her father’s terminal cancer diagnosis, to getting her lifelong dream job at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as a physician assistant. She was sure she’d finally attained the life she wanted, and then the amazing and unimaginable happened: She was invited to go to space as a St. Jude ambassador. Throughout the book, Arceneaux encourages readers to fight for the life they want, saying, You have to hold on, because you don’t know what great thing can come and change your life. Take the chance and you will feel, and learn, and grow, and become even more you. Following your dreams can take you to dreams you didn’t know you had. Arceneaux’s uplifting story is the inspiration we all need today. She offers wisdom and lessons in courage to anyone fighting against the odds. And through it all, she reveals how resilience and faith can help us grab hold of the life we’ve always wanted and live it to the fullest.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/580543 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life Author: Alice Wong Narrator: Nancy Wu Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 38 minutes Release date: September 6, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.14 of Total 7 Ratings of Narrator: 4.6 of Total 5 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: This groundbreaking memoir offers a glimpse into an activist's journey to finding and cultivating community and the continued fight for disability justice, from the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project In Chinese culture, the tiger is deeply revered for its confidence, passion, ambition, and ferocity. That same fighting spirit resides in Alice Wong.   Drawing on a collection of original essays, previously published work, conversations, graphics, photos, commissioned art by disabled and Asian American artists, and more, Alice uses her unique talent to share an impressionistic scrapbook of her life as an Asian American disabled activist, community organizer, media maker, and dreamer. From her love of food and pop culture to her unwavering commitment to dismantling systemic ableism, Alice shares her thoughts on creativity, access, power, care, the pandemic, mortality, and the future. As a self-described disabled oracle, Alice traces her origins, tells her story, and creates a space for disabled people to be in conversation with one another and the world. Filled with incisive wit, joy, and rage, Wong’s Year of the Tiger will galvanize readers with big cat energy. * This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF containing photographs, illustrations and a crossword puzzle from the printed book.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/578565 to listen full audiobooks. Title: And Finally: Matters of Life and Death, the Sunday Times bestseller from the author of DO NO HARM Author: Henry Marsh Narrator: Henry Marsh Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 48 minutes Release date: September 1, 2022 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. As a neurosurgeon, I lived in a world filled with fear and suffering, death and cancer. But rarely, if ever, did I think about what it would be like if what I witnessed at work every day happened to me. This book is the story of how I became a patient myself. As a retired brain surgeon, Henry Marsh thought he understood illness, but he was unprepared for the impact of his diagnosis of advanced cancer. And Finally explores what happens when someone who has spent a lifetime on the frontline of life and death finds himself contemplating what might be his own death sentence. As he navigates the bewildering transition from doctor to patient, he is haunted by past failures and projects yet to be completed, and frustrated by the inconveniences of illness and old age. But he is also more entranced than ever by the mysteries of science and the brain, the beauty of the natural world and his love for his family. Elegiac, candid, luminous and poignant, And Finally is ultimately not so much a book about death, but a book about life and what matters in the end. © Henry Marsh 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/561313 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation Author: Douglas Sanderson, Andrew Stobo Sniderman Narrator: Greg Rogers Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 0 minutes Release date: August 30, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 2 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER Winner – 2023 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize Winner – 2023 John W. Dafoe Book Prize Winner – 2023 High Plains Book Award for Indigenous Writer Winner – 2022 Manitoba Historical Society Margaret McWilliams Book Award for Local History Finalist – 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize Finalist – Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing Nominated – 2023 Ontario Library Association Forest of Reading Evergreen Award Shortlisted – 2023 Quebec Writers’ Federation Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction and Concordia University First Book Prize Finalist – Canadian Law and Society Association Book Prize Longlisted – 2023-2024 First Nations Communities Read A heart-rending true story about racism and reconciliation Divided by a beautiful valley and 150 years of racism, the town of Rossburn and the Waywayseecappo Indian reserve have been neighbours nearly as long as Canada has been a country. Their story reflects much of what has gone wrong in relations between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous Canadians. It also offers, in the end, an uncommon measure of hope. Valley of the Birdtail is about how two communities became separate and unequal—and what it means for the rest of us. In Rossburn, once settled by Ukrainian immigrants who fled poverty and persecution, family income is near the national average and more than a third of adults have graduated from university. In Waywayseecappo, the average family lives below the national poverty line and less than a third of adults have graduated from high school, with many haunted by their time in residential schools. This book follows multiple generations of two families, one white and one Indigenous, and weaves their lives into the larger story of Canada. It is a story of villains and heroes, irony and idealism, racism and reconciliation. Valley of the Birdtail has the ambition to change the way we think about our past and show a path to a better future. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/577612 to listen full audiobooks. Title: We Are Still Here: Afghan Women on Courage, Freedom, and the Fight to Be Heard Author: Tba Narrator: Hosna Jalil, Waslat Hasrat-Nasimi, Hila Limar, Rada Akbar, Fereshteh Forough, Manizha Wafeq, Mina Sharif, Mariam Safi, Nahid Shahalimi, Margaret Atwood Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 4 hours 12 minutes Release date: August 16, 2022 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: NATIONAL BESTSELLER A collection of first-hand accounts from courageous Afghan women who refuse to be silenced in the face of the Taliban. After decades of significant progress, the prospects of women and girls in Afghanistan are once again dependent on radical Islamists who reject gender equality. When the United States announced the end of their twenty-year occupation and the Taliban seized control of the country on August 15, 2021, a steep regression of social, political, and economic freedoms for women in the country began.   But just because a brutal regime has taken over doesn't mean Afghan women will stand by while their rights are stripped away. In We Are Still Here, artist and activist Nahid Shahalimi compiles the voices of thirteen powerful, insightful, and influential Afghan women who have worked as politicians, journalists, scientists, filmmakers, artists, coders, musicians, and more. As they reflect on their country's past, stories of their own upbringing and the ways they have been able to empower girls and women over the past two decades emerge. They report on the fear and pain caused by the impending loss of their homeland, but, above all, on what many girls and women in Afghanistan have already lost: freedom, self-determination, and joy.   The result is an arresting book that issues an appeal to remember Afghan girls and women and to show solidarity with them. Like us, they have a right to freedom and dignity, and together we must fight for their place in the free world because Afghanistan is only geographically distant. Extremist ideas know no limits.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/588014 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Power of Plus: Inside Fashion's Size-Inclusivity Revolution Author: Gianluca Russo Narrator: Chelsea Stephens Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 59 minutes Release date: August 16, 2022 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Plus-size fashion revolutionizes the way women view themselves and their bodies. By honoring our progress so far, The Power of Plus launches the next stage of the plus-size fashion movement. Exclusivity runs within the foundation of fashion. While calls for diversity have intensified recently, long-held attitudes are only beginning to change. But through social media, plus-size people have been able to create strong communities that show them to be confident, strong, and beautiful. Plus-size fashionistas have been writing their own narrative for the past two decades, creating a market all on their own that is now worth more than $21 billion dollars. The Power of Plus features interviews with trailblazers such as Tess Holliday, Hunter McGrady, Gabi Gregg, and more, as it follows the evolution of plus-size fashion from its start on small blogs to its current boom, examines the way this market has changed women’s relationships with their bodies, and predicts how plus-size fashion is integral to the future success of the industry. Plus-size fashion is not a PR stunt. It is a culture-changing market created by and for the women and men who have always deserved to feel stylish but never had the visibility to be … until now.