The Biographies & Memoirs category has 8,363 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 123,952 ratings. The most-rated is Born a Crime.
Lost Girls
Summary
Chelsea King was a popular high school senior, an outstanding achiever determined to make a difference. Fourteen-year-old Amber Dubois loved books and poured her heart into the animals for which she cared. Treasured by their families and friends, both girls disappeared in San Diego County, just eight miles and one year apart. The community's desperate search led authorities to John Albert Gardner, a brutal predator hiding in plain sight. Now Pulitzer-nominated author Caitlin Rother delivers an incisive, heartbreaking true-life thriller that touches our deepest fears.
©2012 Caitlin Rother (P)2020 Tantor
Confessions of a Military Wife
Summary
"I remember when I hit rock bottom. There I was with no makeup on, hadn’t showered, eating raw cookie dough out of the tube, hitting on the toothless bagger at the commissary, and ordering jewelry off the TV. And that was just my first day!" Confessions of a Military Wife is an honest, witty, and often hilarious look at the life of the new-generation military wife. Mollie Gross learned the hard way to laugh instead of cry at what she could not control as a military spouse - and as she quickly discovered, nearly everything was out of her control! A stand-up comedienne, public speaker, and wife of a Marine Corps officer, Mollie explores everything about the “issued” spouse, from deployment and the stress of having a husband in a combat zone to the realization that marriage changes when your husband returns home from war. Nothing is taboo or out-of-bounds in Confessions, including the “parties” military wives throw for themselves before hubby returns. (You’ll have to listen to the audiobook to find out about those!) More than a million American servicemen have deployed to war over the last few years, which means the lives and lifestyles of military wives are now front and center in the public’s curiosity. How do they live? What is their day-to-day life like? How do they interact? How do they deal with weeks and months of separation? The answers will surprise (and in some cases, shock) you. Confessions teaches all women, whether civilian or military, that they can learn to find the funny side of anything by embracing the situation and changing their perspective. Now, they can do so with humor, levity, and a little wisdom. Evocative and provocative, Confessions of a Military Wife is a can’t-stop-listening audiobook that will leave you laughing and crying at the same time. About the author: Mollie Gross is a former Marine spouse, author, stand-up comedienne, and public speaker. She teaches audiences to “Handle it with Humor” - to learn how to laugh through life’s toughest challenges.
©2009, 2015 Mollie Gross (P)2018 Savas Beatie
Franz Kafka
Summary
In the waning years of the 19th century, Europe began to feel the effects of the Industrial Revolution. With the rise of mechanical technologies that upgraded productivity in terms of raw quantity, the Romantic era was rendered dispensable, and soon to be replaced. The region known as Bohemia, later to be reorganized into the Czech Republic, was buffeted by various influences of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and the nearby sensibilities of Russian society. The arts, particularly in the city of Prague, were shaped and reshaped by the pull of nearby Vienna and the European tastes of St. Petersburg. In the previous century, the young Mozart had once called Prague his favorite center of European music. Catherine the Great recreated the artistic splendors of Western cities within proximity to Bohemia, and in the 19th century, composer Antonin Dvorak and others came to represent the final years of the Romantic era in the new state of Czechoslovakia. With the continent’s new industrial personality, the arts shed their preoccupation with the importance of personal urges and gave way to a cooler, bare view of life. Programmatic music and realistic art lost their preeminence, and in the more abstract, surreal, and “practical” era that followed, mirroring the effects of mechanical invention, the great writers followed suit. Among the most unique authors in the early 20th century, and as a Jewish German-language writer, he proved to be an ideal conduit for his era’s deepest anxieties. Already emotionally damaged, he was physically weak as well, unable to confront society on any level. His sense of intimidation at the hands of his family reached deeply pathological proportions, and he suffered further from a simultaneous, desperate mix of embrace and revulsion with the Jewish faith. Retreating into familiar representations of his time, Kafka created a series of nightmarish short stories and novels, in which someone much like him played the central role. Settings tended to be a mixture of landmarks, and rather than being based on real events from his life, Kafka’s stories are more linked to the habits of his own inner demons and exterior relationships. Kafka’s work was unprecedented in its day, but terms commonly used to describe his work today include “absurdist” and “visionary fiction”. The former is at times perceived by modern readers as whimsical, but more correctly applies to locales and situations that could not possibly exist or take place. In the latter, Kafka hangs the presiding issues of the piece on fictitious human and natural riddles that exacerbate the victimhood of central characters. These artificial dilemmas stand as the unsolvable barriers that lace each narrative. Nearly a century after his death, Kafka is considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, despite being a virtual unknown throughout his life. In fact, Kafka never intended for his unpublished work to be released posthumously, but his wishes were ignored, and it was certainly to the world’s benefit. Kafka’s work is so profound and unique that the term “Kafkaesque” is now a part of the English language, a reference to surreal distortions and amazing complexities, and his works served as the forerunners for some of the 20th century’s most influential short forms, such as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and The Twilight Zone. Franz Kafka: The Life and Legacy of One of the 20th Century’s Most Influential Writers examines his short life, unique work, and enduring reputation.
©2021 Charles River Editors (P)2021 Charles River Editors
Healing Hearts
Summary
Dr. Kathy Magliato is one of fewer than a dozen female heart surgeons practicing in the world today. She is also a member of an even more exclusive group - those surgeons who perform heart transplants. Healing Hearts is the story of the making of a surgeon who also calls herself a wife and mother. Dr. Magliato takes us into her highly demanding, physically intense, male-dominated world and shows us how she masterfully works to save patients' lives every day. In her memoir, we come to know many of those patients whose lives Dr. Magliato has touched: a baby born with a hole in her heart, a 94-year-old woman with heart failure, and a 35-year-old movie producer who saves her own life by recognizing the symptoms of a heart attack. Along the way, Dr. Magliato sheds light on the rarely recognized symptoms of heart attack and cardiovascular disease - the number-one killer of women in America - and the specific measures that can be taken to prevent it. By taking us deep into her life and those of her patients, Dr. Magliato acquaints us with the day-to-day realities of her life and work. We see her frantically juggle a full and happy family life as the wife of a liver transplant surgeon (they each have bedside tables cluttered with pagers and cell-phones) and the mother of two young boys. We also see the toll that being a female pioneer can take, as well as the rewards of such demanding work. Dr. Magliato's powerful and moving memoir demonstrates her love, passion, and commitment toward both her work and her family and reveals that, at the end of a long day, it's the heart that matters most.
©2010 Kathy E. Magliato (P)2010 Tantor
The Life and Works of Jane Austen
Summary
Born to the ranks of the lower English gentry in 1775, Jane Austen led what some have mistakenly described as an ordinary and unremarkable life - a life that ended all too soon at the age of 41. But from this life, Austen drew inspiration for six novels that all rank as literary masterpieces, including the widely beloved Pride and Prejudice. So, what do we really know about Austen’s life and influences? With Professor Devoney Looser of Arizona State University, you will get invaluable insight into Austen’s everyday reality in the elegant and tumultuous Regency period and a more thorough understanding of her influence and lasting legacy. Over the course of the 24 lessons of The Life and Works of Jane Austen, you will explore her six completed works, as well as her raucous teenage writings and unfinished novels. You will also get a guided tour of Austen’s world - the politics, social dynamics, major events, cultural markers, and class structures that defined the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Great Britain - and how these elements shaped her life and inspired her work. While there may always be a certain amount of mystery about Austen’s life, this course offers a fuller understanding of her world and how she brilliantly captured it on the page. Jane Austen’s work was shaped profoundly by the world she lived in, and The Life and Works of Jane Austen offers you the chance to explore this world and to see how the novels Austen published over two centuries ago continue to engage and entertain readers and influence popular culture through countless adaptations on page and screen. Whether you are a fan, a casual reader - or even someone who has always been a little confused by “Austenmania” - this course will illuminate the worlds, both real and imagined, of Austen’s fiction and her astonishing contributions to literature. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2021 The Great Courses (P)2021 The Teaching Company, LLC
Do Not Go Gentle. Go to Paris
Summary
Rattled by fears, that she is losing not just keys, but her job, looks - even a sweetheart - Gail rashly announces that she will go alone to Paris, a dream postponed for 40 years. So begins the journey through France of an optimistic, infinitely curious, 62 year woman, who seeks to ransom her self-confidence and learn how to age. Deftly weaving scenic description with sketches of feisty Frenchwomen and flashbacks of older women she has admired, Gail draws wisdom from people and places that have gracefully endured the passing years.
©2019 Gail Thorell Schilling (P)2021 Gail Thorell Schilling
I'm Staying with My Boys
Summary
I'm Staying with My Boys is a firsthand look inside the life of one of the greatest heroes of the Greatest Generation. Sgt. John Basilone held off 3000 Japanese troops at Guadalcanal after his 15-member unit was reduced to three men. At Iwo Jima he single-handedly destroyed an enemy blockhouse, allowing his unit to capture an airfield. Minutes later he was killed by an enemy artillery round. He was the only Marine in World War II to have received the Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross, and a Purple Heart and is arguably the most famous Marine of all time. I'm Staying with My Boys is the only family-authorized biography of Basilone. Distinctive among military biographies, the story is told in first person, allowing listeners to experience his transformation, forged in the horrors of battle, from aimless youth to war hero known as "Manila John".
©2010 Jim Proser with Jerry Cutter (P)2017 Tantor
Blue Yarn
Summary
In the space of a few days, Carrie loses her marriage, her career, and her home - all while working in Lagos, Nigeria. She is blindsided by the losses and realizes the story she painstakingly knit together over the past two decades - the story explaining her life and who she is - has unraveled. With no plan for the future and only her deaf cat, Lucy, for company, Carrie decides to remain in Africa until she figures out what has just happened. What happens next is an awkward, amusing, and ultimately inspiring journey as Carrie slowly lets go of who she thought she was and starts from scratch at middle-age: making unlikely friends, acquiring dump trucks, tumbling into an improbable love affair, and eventually learning to listen to the elusive and sometimes annoying voice helping her discover who she is, find the neglected artist inside, and piece together her unexpected new life.
©2019 Black Rose Writing (P)2019 Beacon Audiobooks
Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda
Summary
Through his alcoholism and her mental illness, his career lows and her institutional confinement, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's devotion to each other endured for over 22 years. Now, for the first time, we have the story of their love in the couple's own letters. Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda consists of more than 75 percent previously unpublished or out-of-print letters, as well as extensive narrative on the Fitzgeralds' marriage by Fitzgerald scholars Jackson R. Bryer and Cathy W. Barks. Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda also features a candid introduction by Eleanor Lanahan, the Fitzgeralds' granddaughter.
©2002 Jackson R. Bryer and Cathy W. Barks (P)2019 HighBridge Company
Liar
Summary
An intense memoir about mental illness, memory, and storytelling from an acclaimed novelist. When Rob Roberge learns that he's likely to have developed a progressive memory-eroding disease from years of hard living and frequent concussions, he is terrified by the prospect of becoming a walking shadow. In a desperate attempt to preserve his identity, he sets out to (somewhat faithfully) record the most formative moments of his life - ranging from the brutal murder of his childhood girlfriend to a diagnosis of rapid-cycling bipolar disorder to opening for famed indie band Yo La Tengo at The Fillmore in San Francisco. But the process of trying to remember his past only exposes just how fragile the stories that lie at the heart of our self-conceptions really are. As Liar twists and turns through Roberge's life, it turns the familiar story of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll on its head. Darkly funny and brutally frank, it offers a remarkable portrait of a down-and-out existence cobbled together across the country, from musicians' crashpads around Boston to seedy bars popular with sideshow freaks in Florida to a painful moment of reckoning in the scorched Wonder Valley desert of California. As Roberge struggles to keep addiction and mental illness from destroying the good life he has built in his better moments, he is forced to acknowledge the increasingly blurred line between the lies we tell others and the lies we tell ourselves.
©2016 Rob Roberge (P)2016 Random House Audio
Against Memoir
Summary
The PEN Award-winning essay collection about queer lives: “Gorgeously punk-rock rebellious.” (The A.V. Club) The razor-sharp but damaged Valerie Solanas; a doomed lesbian biker gang; recovering alcoholics; and teenagers barely surviving at an ice creamery: these are some of the larger-than-life, yet all-too-human figures populating America’s fringes. Rife with never-ending fights and failures, theirs are the stories we too often try to forget. But in the process of excavating and documenting these queer lives, Michelle Tea also reveals herself in unexpected and heartbreaking ways. Delivered with her signature honesty and dark humor, this is the first-ever collection of journalistic writing by the author of How to Grow Up and Valencia. As she blurs the line between telling other people’s stories and her own, she turns an investigative eye to the genre that’s nurtured her entire career - memoir - and considers the price that art demands be paid from life. “Eclectic and wide-ranging... A palpable pain animates many of these essays, as well as a raucous joy and bright curiosity.” (The New York Times) “Queer counterculture beats loud and proud in Tea’s stellar collection.” (Publishers Weekly, starred) “The best essay collection I've read in years.” (The New Republic)
©2018 by Michelle Tea (P)2021 Audible, Inc.
Lifesaving Gratitude
Summary
If you’ve ever been ugly dumped, knocked off your feet, financially devastated, stunned by a potentially fatal diagnosis, or paralyzed by fear, you’ll find comfort and strategies for surviving and eventually thriving in this book. Bunny Terry experienced all of these and was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer on a day when she thought she was the healthiest person in the world. Her surprising journey through the maze of illness, treatment, surgery, and recovery, along with her stubborn daily practice of gratitude, even when she wanted to throw her gratitude journal off a cliff, will leave you laughing, crying, and hopefully feeling grateful, even when it seems impossible. The author heard her father say daily, “If life were any better, I’d have to be two people,” even in moments when things seemed especially dire. He said it when he was losing the farm, when she was an unwed pregnant college student, when she was getting her third divorce, and even when she was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Putting that practice of positivity and gratitude to work when she was ill and struggling with chemo was no easy feat, but it frequently felt like the only alternative to outright despair. In unexpected, simple, and profound language, Bunny’s transparent sharing of her cancer, her vulnerability, her physical pain, and her gratitude story will move you to tears at the same time that it gives you tools for saving your own life with a gratitude practice.
©2021 Bunny Terry (P)2021 Bunny Terry
The Suspect
Summary
On a clear autumn morning in 2004, Rachel O'Reilly, a 30-year-old mother of two, was brutally battered to death in her home. It was a merciless killing that stunned the small, trusting community where she lived, and devastated her close-knit family. In the days that followed the discovery of her body, it was thought that Rachel was the victim of a bungled robbery attempt. It soon emerged, however, that police investigating the case believed Rachel had known her killer and that her murder had been carefully planned months in advance. The spotlight immediately fell upon Rachel's husband, Joe O'Reilly, who admitted in a number of extraordinary press interviews that he was a prime suspect in his wife's slaying. The 32-year-old advertising executive vehemently denied any involvement. It was a crime that captured the imagination of the public, who watched as the illusion of the idyllic suburban life the couple shared together began to shatter.
©2007 Jenny Friel (P)2017 Tantor
Hawkeye
Summary
For more than 30 years, Giora Even-Epstein flew fighters for the Israel Air Force, achieving recognition as a highly skilled military aviator and the highest-scoring jet-mounted ace with the most number of confirmed victories in the French Mirage. Having overcome numerous hurdles just to learn how to fly, he went on to compile a record of Arab MiGs and Sukhoi kills that bettered any other combat aviators' tally in the entire world. This fast-moving autobiography details his experiences particularly in the intense conflicts of 1967, the Six Day War, and 1973, the Yom Kippur War. The listener shares the cockpit with him as he describes every action he undertook with 101 and 105 Squadron, including the greatest jet-versus-jet air battle in history with four MiG-21 kills in one engagement. His final score was 17. After his last battle he became commander of the First Jet Squadron, 117, began civilian flying, retrained to command 254 MMR Squadron in the 1982 Lebanon War, and flew the F-16 at the age of 50 before retirement. His story is of one man's unfaltering dedication to his dreams and his country. As the leading jet ace it is one well worth telling and, critically, it can be told in his own words.
©2020 Giora Even-Epstein (P)2021 Tantor
Two Years of Wonder
Summary
September 25, 2012. Ted Neill picked up a knife to cut his wrists open and kill himself. Post hospitalization and treatment for major depressive disorder, he wrote Two Years of Wonder, a memoir based on his journey toward recovery. In it, he examines the experience that left him with such despair: living and working for two years at an orphanage for children with HIV/AIDS in Nairobi, Kenya. Neill interweaves his story with the experiences of Oliver, Miriam, Ivy, Harmony, Tabitha, Sofie, Nea, and other children, exploring their own paths of trauma, survival, and resilience. In a narration that is, by turns, poetic, confessional, and brutal, Neill with the children, he comes alongside, strives to put the pieces of their fractured lives back together as they search for meaning and connection, each trying to reclaim their humanity and capacity to love in the face of inexplicable suffering and loss. Two Years of Wonder has been compared to Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy, Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, and Brene Brown's Daring Greatly and Dare to Lead. Fans of these authors, their vulnerability, their depth, and their focus on social issues will find that Neill's story and the story of the children he knew in Kenya resonates. About the author: In addition to his time living in Kenya, Ted Neill has worked for CARE and World Vision International in the fields of health, education, and child development. He has written for The Washington Post and published multiple novels.
©2018 Edwin B. Neill (P)2020 Edwin B. Neill
John Wayne Gacy
Summary
John Wayne Gacy: The Killer Clown, was a prolific American serial killer who murdered 33 boys between 1972 and 1976, burying most of them in the crawlspace under his house in Norridge, Cook County, Illinois. He was a businessman, politician, and registered clown who used his charm and trickery to lure his victims to his house, where he unleashed his sexual sadism and depravity on them before he strangled them to death with his “rope trick”. How did he go undetected for so long? Did he have any accomplices? How was he caught and sentenced to death? Let’s investigate!
©2021 Gisela K. (P)2021 Gisela K.
The Matriarch
Summary
The matriarch of Australia’s most violent and notorious criminal family, and allegedly the inspiration for the award-winning film Animal Kingdom, tells her side of the story. Kathy Pettingill is a name that’s both respected and feared, not only by Australia’s criminal underworld, but by many in the Victorian police force. As the matriarch at the head of the most notorious and violent family of habitual offenders in Australian criminal history, her life has revolved around murder, drugs, prison, prostitution, and bent coppers - and the intrigue and horror that surround such crimes. Her eldest son, Dennis Allen, was a mass murderer and a $70,000-a-week drug dealer who dismembered a Hell’s Angel with a chainsaw. Two younger sons were acquitted of the Walsh Street murders, the cold-blooded assassination of two police officers that changed the face of crime in Melbourne forever. One of the two, Victor, was gunned down himself in the street 14 years later, becoming the third son Kathy has buried. In this revised and updated authorized edition of Adrian Tame’s best-selling The Matriarch, Kathy Pettingill reveals the chilling truth behind many of the myths and legends that surround her family, including her experiences in the blood-spattered charnel house at the centre of Dennis Allen’s empire of drugs and violence. But this is no plea for pity. Forthright and deeply disturbing, like its subject, The Matriarch pulls no punches. Updated and revised for a new generation, this true crime classic is as terrifying and powerful as when it was first published.
©1996, 2019 Adrian Tame and Kathy Pettingill (P)2019 Simon & Schuster Australia. All rights reserved.
Fast Eddie
Summary
9.30 a.m. on 22 January 1993. The moment in crime history that one of Britain's most audacious thefts ever took place and the legend of 'Fast Eddie' was created. This is the story of how Securicor guard Eddie Maher managed to pull off a £1.2 million heist, fled the country despite every port being closed, spawned an international manhunt and managed to evade capture for 20 years. As Britain's most wanted man, he led 30 detectives, FBI and Interpol on a wild goose chase across the USA. Dubbed 'Fast Eddie' by the press, he was always one step ahead, and after two decades on the run with his family using a series of of aliases and identities, Eddie began to think he'd committed the perfect crime, until a cruel and dramatic betrayal proved otherwise.... Like a Hollywood movie script and told in full for the first time, Fast Eddie is the compelling story of how an ordinary British man became America's most notorious fugitive.
©2021 Eddie Maher (P)2021 Bonnier Books UK
The Murder of Kelsey Berreth
Summary
Love and Murder A successful young mother, Kelsey Berreth, vanishes on Thanksgiving Day in 2018. Kelsey, a pilot so good she taught the military how to fly, goes shopping at a Safeway store, and simply disappears. Her fiance, Patrick Frazee, says he doesn't have a clue. In fact, he says they broke up just a few days before. He's as mystified as everyone else. But Kelsey's mother, Cheryl, is afraid she knows what happened to her daughter. A task force of FBI and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation agents believe they also know what happened to Kelsey. They have cell phone records and more, including surveillance video and DNA. But they have run into a roadblock. The agents have to get someone close to the killer to flip and turn state's evidence. Are they going to have to do a deal with the devil to find justice for Kelsey Berreth? Contains mature themes.
©2020 Lyons Circle Pubilshing Inc. (P)2021 Tantor
Obsessed
Summary
Sheila Davalloo was young, attractive, and successful. When she started a new job at a cutting-edge research lab in Stamford, Connecticut, she met the man of her dreams. Nelson Sessler had no idea how violently Sheila would react when he began seeing a co-worker, Anna Lisa Raymundo. Sheila eliminated her rival in a bloody knife attack - and then turned her rage on another victim she saw as an obstacle to her passions. M. Williams Phelps recounts the riveting story of a white-collar love triangle gone horribly wrong…and the terrifying infatuation that drove one woman to kill.
©2014 M. William Phelps (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.