New Reviews: Biography & Memoir

Holter Graham doesn't sound like Meb Keflezighi, but he throws himself so wholeheartedly into this narration that you can't help but think: By God, that's him. When flying, never ever check your racing flats, he tells us. And speaking of shoes, be sure you've taken your Breathe Right strip out of the left one and put it on your nose before starting a 26.2-mile race. After his... Read More

This absorbing audiobook is surprising in many ways, not least of which are the vivid stories that bring each American president's struggles with his writing (or ghostwriting) alive. While some, like John Adams, wrote to settle scores and preserve their legacy, others, like John F. Kennedy, wrote to promote their candidacy. With his warm voice and clear diction, narrator Fred... Read More

Arthur Morey's performance of this P.T. Barnum biography is affable and straightforward, providing listeners with a gentle guide through a remarkable but controversial life. Barnum's story is woven deeply into American culture; Wilson's research provides listeners with both his humanizing and difficult qualities. Listeners learn how Barnum's personality had global reach; his... Read More

Barry Sonnenfeld, who has directed and produced numerous films, including MEN IN BLACK, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, and a series of pornographic shorts, tells the story of his tortured life. While a seasoned narrator might have lent some rhythm to the narration, Sonnenfeld performs it without emotion. He plows right on, one story after another, in a Woody Allen-esque recitation of his... Read More

P. Carl narrates this story of becoming himself with a raw, emotional intensity that makes for an unforgettable listening experience. At 51, Carl begins living as the man he's always known himself to be. In the untrained voice of a man telling his hard-earned truth, he navigates his shifting relationship to masculinity and queerness, recounts the trauma he experienced living as... Read More

Entertainment columnist Leslie Gray Streeter gives voice to love and loss in this memoir about grief. A black woman who was married to a Jewish man, she is a big personality with a unique story, and it shows throughout her lively narrative style. Listeners' laughter may turn to tears as they hear her detail the circumstances of her husband's unexpected death. Streeter is witty,... Read More

Narrator Simon Vance uses a professorial tone as he introduces the wide-ranging stable of authors, from Albert Camus to Howard Zinn, who affected musician David Bowie's evolution. Divided into 100 3-4-minute segments, this audiobook lecture illuminates Bowie's creative process. For example, THE ILIAD is compared to Bowie's work with Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, 1984 is viewed in... Read More

Midway through this audiobook, James Taylor describes how, while learning to play the guitar, he drove his father up a wall by repeatedly attempting to bend a seventh chord. Happily, for non-musician listeners, Taylor plays the chord, illustrating one of the great features of his memoir: It includes music. It seems like a simple thing to ask for in a musician's memoir, yet few... Read More

Actor Diane Keaton holds nothing back in this memoir of childhood. She recalls her tender relationship with her younger brother, Randy, a seemingly normal child who grew into a troubled adult. Listeners will be drawn in by her candor as she considers her feelings at key stages of their lives. Keaton's voice is as lively as it has been in the roles that made her famous.... Read More

Narrator Hillary Huber ably performs the majority of this work, with Stephen Mendel sharing the foreword. In this audiobook, Marsha Linehan tells her life story and how she created a new form of behavior therapy, which she calls dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). It is designed for those diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD), which, incredibly, Linehan herself... Read More

Yesterday's gossip is today's history, a principle amply confirmed by this richly detailed audiobook chronicling the high life on the Riviera in the 1930s through WWII. Designer Coco Chanel is the focus of the narrative, and the thread that connects a wide cast of contemporaries ranging from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to Marlene Dietrich, Picasso, Churchill, and H.G.... Read More

Narrator Tim Andres Pabon shares memoirist Castillo's emotionally rich observations about his own and his family's undocumented lives in the U.S. Pabon's low-key approach to this personal story sometimes verges on the sonorous, even as Castillo describes his father's physical brutality and his own feelings of guilt at how he has been able to feel at home in California while his... Read More

Maggi-Meg Reed's appealing narration brings listeners into late-nineteenth-century to early-twentieth-century American society, when magazines were an important source of information. One of the most influential magazines was MCCLURE'S, founded by S.S. McClure, whose accomplished staff included journalists Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, and Lincoln Steffens. In a steady and... Read More

In a clear, welcoming voice, Shauna Ahern narrates her candid memoir in which she describes how she found her own version of "enough." Ahern was pushed to achieve by her parents, while her mother's abuse and fears kept her isolated. As an adult with celiac disease, Ahern founded the blog "Gluten-Free Girl," through which she and her husband shared slices of their life, along... Read More

Author Amy Shira Teitel narrates her portrait of women aviators Jackie Cochran and Jerrie Cobb. While the two women had significant achievements as airplane pilots, both dreamed of being the first American woman in space. While Teitel's delivery is strong overall, she could have varied her tone and pacing somewhat to better match the levels of excitement in her stories. In... Read More

Listeners are challenged to look at refugees through the eyes of Roberta Gately, a nurse who has spent most of her life working to aid the displaced in the most devastated areas of the world. In meeting individual men, women, and children in such war-torn places as Afghanistan, the Balkans, Iraq, and Sudan, listeners gain new insights into human rights issues all over the... Read More

Narrator Frankie Corzo brings an academic gravitas to this exploration of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's time in America. Corzo's voice is steady as well as measured while guiding listeners through the details of Kahlo's marriage and later artistic development. Fans of Kahlo's art will immerse themselves in this nuanced account of her challenges and inspirations. Her story is in... Read More

Towards the end of this eloquent audiobook, author and narrator Kimball describes the birth of a calf. Her rendering of this scene collapses time, and the event rings so true that the listener feels an intimate connection with the rural life that Kimball so sure-handedly details. Kimball has a pleasing voice and an expressive style that bring the listener into close contact... Read More

R. Eric Thomas narrates his collection of funny and heartfelt essays with irresistible warmth. His scattered "honeys," outbreaks of laughter, and occasional frustrated sighs make his narration seem more like a conversation than a recording. In a voice that will immediately make listeners feel like they've known him forever, Thomas reflects on the complexities of identity,... Read More

Author, Grammy nominee, and college professor Holly George-Warren offers an incisive and compelling portrait of musical legend Janis Joplin. Actress Nina Arianda's narration is effective, though her phrasing is frequently stilted. Her weakest efforts are her unsuccessful attempts to voice interviewees in direct quotes and to re-create Joplin's singing. This well-researched... Read More

Jeremy Arthur's voice is gentle, although not quite as much as Mister Rogers's, as he narrates Gavin Edwards's biography and musings on the TV icon. Edwards traces the evolution of Rogers's show from "Children's Corner" on Pittsburgh public TV station WQED to its conclusion early in the 21st century. He looks into vague rumblings of discontent in Rogers's neighborhood,... Read More

Joyce Bean's narrations are always genuine and down-to-earth, and this performance of Margaret Renkl's short essays on the natural world and her family is no different. Renkl, who grew up in Alabama and now lives in Nashville, tells of her grandmother being shot, her grandfather's death, her mother's postpartum depression, and her own homesickness when she ventures north for... Read More

The gentle voice of narrator Mary Sarah lends a wistful quality to this memoir by Francoise Gilot, Picasso's mistress of 10 years and the mother of two of his children. Forty years younger than Picasso, Gilot was a self-aware young woman coming into her own as an artist. She describes with remarkable candor the intimate details of their stormy relationship and of Picasso's... Read More

Author E.J. Koh's solemn narration of this poignant story captures the language of mother-daughter relationships. Eun Ji is 15 when her parents go to South Korea for her father's job, leaving her in California with her older brother for five years. As she recounts her memories of this period, sparked by the letters that her mother wrote during their separation, Koh's... Read More

Marvel Comics writer and editor Danny Fingeroth narrates his biography of his friend and mentor, Stan Lee, in a friendly and jovial manner that Lee would appreciate. Lee, who transformed comic books from children's pablum to adult fare with creations like Spider-Man and the Avengers, never planned a life in comics. A frustrated novelist, he imbued his characters with humanity... Read More

Celebrated narrator Bahni Turpin captures the ineffable mood and high timbre of early-twentieth-century recordings while voicing the life story of one of that century's greatest legal minds. Turpin speaks purposefully as civil rights lawyer Dovey Johnson Roundtree uniquely contemplates issues of race, gender, and American democracy. Her deliberate pacing works beautifully to... Read More

Cathy Park Hong brings a poet's rigor to her narration of these seven essays about the multiplicity of Asian-American experiences. The daughter of Korean immigrants tells stories from her life as well as from American history, examining the particular spaces Asian Americans inhabit in the national understanding of race. Hong's delivery is precise and deliberate. She speaks... Read More

Jenn Shapland's narration of her audiobook embodies a deeply personal journey. Originally embarking on a project to write Carson McCullers's biography, Shapland then decided to provide listeners with her own story woven throughout McCullers's history. Ultimately, her audiobook recounts how she discovered her own truths as the research progressed. McCullers, author of THE HEART... Read More

An extensive cast of writers and narrators join together to perform this collection of heartrending essays and poetry created by survivors of sexual assault and abuse. With original music by Amanda Rose Smith, a wave of acceptance and love resonates in the chorus of voices united with the message that victims are not alone and their pain is valid and important. Some pieces are... Read More

Listeners will hear the admiration in television writer Bess Kalb's voice as she expresses the determined spirit of her beloved grandmother, Bobby Bell, with whom she shared a special bond. As Kalb recounts their many conversations, listeners will come to share in her pride in her grandmother's wise counsel. Kalb's narration flows from one anecdote to another, allowing... Read More

Gabra Zackman gives a sterling performance of this biography outlining the unconventional life of Joan Harrison (1907-1994), who became the valued right-hand woman to director Alfred Hitchcock. After a series of unsatisfying early career attempts, Harrison finally interviews with Hitchcock and finds her place in the male-dominated world of Hollywood. Zackman masterfully handles... Read More

Audiobook listeners can choose from more than half a dozen well-researched biographies of history's most villainous king--or the most falsely maligned, depending on your source. Hicks benefits from recent DNA and archaeological evidence, and he is a serious and thorough scholar, maybe too thorough. His indictment is based on records of Richard's earlier life, and on details of... Read More

Mozhan Marno gives a warm performance of this hybrid book--partly a translation of poetry by Rumi--the beloved 13th-century Iranian poet--and partly a memoir. The author came to the U.S. as a child with her Iranian parents. Marno recounts Moezzi's personal exploration of Rumi's poems, which seem to cover every aspect of human experience. Marno's warm and measured delivery plays... Read More

Dominic Hoffman gives these revealing missives an outstanding narration. Whether the author is expansive, petulant, pedestrian, or eloquent, Hoffman's narration captures the language, cadence, and spirit of one of the twentieth century's most important writers and African-American public figures. The letters provide a window onto his thinking on race; his reaction to his 1953... Read More

This biography of Pliny the Younger, with many references to his uncle, Pliny the Elder, interposes episodes from his life, such as the eruption of Vesuvius, rather than telling a chronological story. That approach gives a full but rather foggy sense of his life in ancient Rome. Mike Grady's narration takes the listener past the book's limitations. His intelligence and... Read More

The #MeToo movement gains a firsthand account from Kantor and Twohey, reporters who were at the center of investigating Harvey Weinstein and his transgressions and also were involved with recounting the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford in the lead-up to the Brett Kavanaugh Senate Confirmation Hearings. Narrator Rebecca Lowman's even delivery and enunciation style can sound... Read More

Narrator Jot Davies lends his beautifully resonant voice to this interesting personal memoir. Author Toby Ferris had a mission: to view in person every existing painting by the Northern Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. While on his journey across Europe and the U.S., he relates the subject matter in the Bruegel works to his own life and that of his father. Davies... Read More

Kate Mulligan narrates this first biography of the renowned screenwriter and director Sidney Lumet. Her exceptionally precise enunciation is so much so that it can border on the obsessive, becoming distracting. The author's extensive and thoughtful research, which included exclusive family interviews, yields a work that is carefully written. However, despite Mulligan's... Read More

At breakneck speed, author/narrator Amanda Seales takes listeners through this manual of advice that runs the gamut from how to build self-confidence to fashion tips. She brings one hundred percent of her bubbly persona as a former DJ and comedian to this performance. Seales will have listeners laughing through road trips and exercise routines. Her trademark sass is intense as... Read More

Listeners will be captivated by the emotion in narrator Ramon de Ocampo's voice in this beautifully written account of a young man's life-changing journey. Alvarez sought to understand his own history and future on a run celebrating indigenous history and tradition. At age 19, the son of working-class Mexican immigrants drops out of college to join the Peace and Dignity... Read More

It's hard to avoid binge-listening to this hilarious celebrity memoir. The author is even more fun in real life than he is in his electrifying performances on stage and screen. Covering his life before landing his first role on Broadway, Rannells's stories about growing up in Omaha and struggling as a young actor in New York City are immeasurably enhanced by his emotional... Read More

Glennon Doyle's voice is strong, honest, and brave as she opens her heart to listeners. The bestselling author, motivational speaker, and philanthropist describes realizing that society had "tamed" her by forcing her into proscribed ways of being in the world and recounts how she finally broke free. Hearing her passionate words, listeners will begin looking into themselves to... Read More

If you only heard WHAM's music, you only know part of the story. For Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael, music was fun and a way to meet girls. Their meteoric rise to worldwide fame as WHAM! in the 1980s was a shock, but one they embraced. Ridgeley narrates their story, saying he never intended for the band to last. He tells a jaunty tale of their rise and eventual breakup, not... Read More

Skilled Mexican-American chef and television food personality Aarón Sánchez offers a candid, articulate, and well-written memoir that he voices himself. This work concentrates on his initially restless formative years, which were strongly influenced by his mother, Zarela, also a talented chef and restaurateur, and New Orleans' iconic chef Paul Prudhomme. Sánchez's deep baritone... Read More

This audiobook is a biography of Eglantyne Jebb, who founded the Save the Children Fund in 1919. It is primarily delivered by Joely Richardson, but author Clare Mulley also does some of the narration. Both talented narrators have cultivated, crisp, and authoritative voices, which lead listeners to focus on this remarkable British woman. It is easy to understand how a young... Read More

This audiobook is filled with stories of very privileged mostly American heiresses and how they lived. Narrator Susan Ericksen creates a cadence that carries listeners smoothly from one woman to the next. From members of the Vanderbilt family to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the women depicted will astonish with respect to the lengths to which many would go to get their way or... Read More

Narrated with skill and aplomb by the author, this audiobook is a shining example of what memoir can be. It's an honest account of one person's ever-unfinished journey through and around gender, identity, and mental illness. It moves quickly, and, despite its often cerebral and self-conscious tone, nearly every sentence is sharp, full of importance. It is deeply intellectual... Read More