New Reviews: Biography & Memoir

Gary Furlong narrates a vivid biography of the first non-native samurai in feudal Japan, who was also black. Yasuke has achieved almost mythical status in Japan, but he was very much human and flawed. While telling Yasuke's life story, the audiobook covers a staggering amount, including the topics of warfare and politics. Furlong capably imbues the well-researched and detailed... Read More

One of the greatest quarterbacks ever, Joe Namath, narrates his own work, and he's perfect for the dual role of storyteller and narrator. Namath describes his life--growing up in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania; his relationship with the legendary Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama; and his high-profile role with the New York Jets on the field and off. He narrates with an... Read More

Author and columnist Thomas Page McBee narrates his thought-provoking memoir about masculinity with an engaging clarity and openness. McBee, who wrote about transitioning to male gender in his award-winning memoir, MAN ALIVE, is living with his girlfriend when the audiobook opens. Finding himself in a near fistfight with an aggressive jerk one day, the tattooed and... Read More

Oh, the utter delight of adventuring in Madagascar with the late English naturalist Gerald Durrell and his poly-voiced narrator, Rupert Degas, who beautifully channels Durrell's slightly raspy voice, his exuberant personality, and his enthusiasm for every variety of fauna, including human. The book describes a 1990s trip to Madagascar's remotest regions to find and collect a... Read More

Rupert Degas delivers a bang-up performance--including tiger growls and buffalo snorts--of Gerald Durrell's colorful and often comic memories of his first job as a student keeper at England's Whipsnade Zoological Park. Be forewarned that the legendary founder of the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust wrote the book in 1970 about events in 1945. While he's forward-thinking about... Read More

Author Isha Sesay narrates her experience of reporting on the return of the Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, the extremist group in Nigeria. Genuine passion infuses her delivery--she turns this audiobook into a feminist speech of sorts. She shares her personal experiences with relatives who grew up in Nigeria who encountered circumstances similar to those of... Read More

Emily Bernard proves herself a gifted storyteller and a gifted narrator. This moving reading of her own essays is laced with nuance, emotion, and her ongoing struggle with the topics she addresses. As a graduate student at Yale, Bernard was one of seven victims of a random stabbing attack at a local coffee shop. Though it was traumatizing and painful, she also notes that the... Read More

The founder and executive director of OUTWORDS, Mason Funk, introduces and contextualizes each of the more than 70 first-person accounts of liberation, disruption, survival, and other experiences collected by the organization to document LGBTQ+ history. Reaching back to the pre-Stonewall era, the whole offers an intersectional tapestry of causes, gender, sexual orientation,... Read More

Fans of Okorafor's Africanfuturist fiction will enjoy hearing her narrate her memoir and discovering some of the roots of her celebrated stories. Okorafor was a skilled athlete at age 19 when she had surgery to correct her worsening scoliosis. When she awoke, she found she was one of the unlucky one percent who become paralyzed during spinal surgery. In a warm and... Read More

Narrator Jennywren Walker's narration lacks authority and engagement with this audiobook. CNN legal analyst Joan Biskupic has written a liberal's well-researched examination and critique of the life and rulings of United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed by President George W. Bush. Biskupic is critical of Roberts's consistently conservative... Read More

Simon Vance is a master narrator, and a highly suitable choice for this lively history of a dining club composed of eighteenth-century London's most celebrated figures, including Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, David Garrick, Edward Gibbon, Joshua Reynolds--yes, all of them men. Their gatherings were a composite portrait of the arts and letters of their time, their individual... Read More

Pam Houston reads her high-country memoir in the clear voice of a lifelong storyteller who is at home in front of the mic. Her skill with words animates this richly detailed and honest-to-the bone work. She narrates with an assured tone and admirable poise, since her life has been packed with toils and snares. This audiobook reveals the dark--her father was horribly abusive and... Read More

Julian Elfer brings a fine voice, a likable British accent, skill, and obvious intelligence to his performance of a book about the often sensational role of women in two of the Roman Empire's wildly dysfunctional dynasties. That sounds promising yet fails to satisfy. Early in the book, de la Bédoyère follows themes rather than sequence, jumping confusingly around in... Read More

Tavia Gilbert provides a sensitive and appropriately paced narration of actress, humanitarian, and UNICEF ambassador Audrey Hepburn's early years. The five-year Nazi occupation of the Netherlands when she was a teenager provides the framework for this historical biography. The well-researched work creates a fiction-style narrative of the harrowing, malnourished realities of... Read More

Narrator Dan Woren brings listeners the musings of the insightful Oliver Sacks in a measured, masculine voice. He plays up the contemplative nature of these essays, which detail the late neurologist's personal reflections on growing up with mental health challenges and encountering professional dilemmas. For those who have followed Sacks's other work, this feels like a warm... Read More

Political adviser Valerie Jarrett delivers her memoir of her experiences in the Obama administration in an even conversational tone that suits the text. As narrator, she exudes a confidence that makes her sound like someone capable and steady. These are clearly traits that served her well when she was at the center of hurly-burly Chicago politics and then in the trenches in... Read More

Randy Travis may have lost his ability to sing (he suffered a life-threatening stroke in 2013), but his voice as a writer comes through loud and clear in this deeply engaging autobiography on audio. Fellow country singer Rory Feek echoes Travis's twang as he confidently narrates the story of a talented and resilient man who overcame a difficult upbringing to achieve remarkable... Read More

This audiobook chronicles the battles freed slaves faced as they sought to exercise their new rights after the Civil War. Of particular menace was the recently created Ku Klux Klan. Federal efforts to thwart the Klan were led by the Secret Service and its controversial leader, Hiram Whitley--"the man who masterminded America's first war on terror." Jonathan Yen is an engaging... Read More

Actor Tembi Locke narrates her memoir in a smooth, warm voice that carries the listener through her story of falling in love with Saro, an engaging Sicilian chef, his early death from cancer, and how time with his family helped heal her intense grief. Locke's memoir frequently shifts timeframes, alternately voicing the devastation of his death and the joy of their life... Read More

Narrator Hillary Huber uses a slow, even pace and authoritative tone in her narration of this twisted true-crime story set in Alabama. What makes this audiobook even more engaging is that it is also a literary biography of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD's Harper Lee, who leaves an unfinished manuscript based on the incidents. That manuscript, THE REVEREND, was supposed to be similar to... Read More

Mira Jacob's graphic memoir is thoughtfully adapted to audio with members of a full cast narrating each voice. They create a sense of intimacy as listeners eavesdrop on a lifetime of conversations about race, racism, and colorism. Mira Jacob's voice reflects exasperation as she faces impossible questions from her young son, who is portrayed with curiosity by Kivlighan de... Read More

Part very personal memoir, part travelogue, part intellectual obsession--it's hard to know whom this audiobook is for. Mary Norris, former NEW YORKER copy editor, is here most interesting when discussing classical Greek language and literature, modern Greek, and the history of written languages. Norris's personal journey learning to speak Greek, and her passion for Greece the... Read More

YouTube lifestyle vlogger Gigi Gorgeous's vivacious personality and candor illuminate her narration. Before launching into her memoir, Gigi shares a glossary of "Gigi-isms" for listeners unfamiliar with the words that pepper her speech, which include "everything," "hundo P," and "eek-a-deek." Growing up in Toronto, Gigi struggled with gender identity and sexuality, coming out... Read More

Candace Thaxton's almost wistful narration sets an appropriately nostalgic tone for this beautiful, perceptive memoir. From a young age, Meredith May and her brother were emotionally rejected by their divorced, mentally ill mother and treated coldly by their grandmother. Thaxton infuses Meredith's drug-addled mother with almost hysterical insecurity and her grandmother with a... Read More

Actress Kate Mulgrew delivers an emotive and finely tuned performance of her newest memoir, which centers on the period of time when she returned to her Iowa hometown to care for her dying parents. The book explores the often painful yet loving dynamics of their large Catholic family and examines how her parents' dissimilar temperaments and complex relationship shaped the lives... Read More

Mary Laura Philpott narrates her collection of engaging personal essays with clarity and verve, as befits someone used to public speaking. The Emmy-winning cohost of the show "A Word on Words" on Nashville Public Television and author/illustrator of the humor book PENGUINS WITH PEOPLE PROBLEMS, Philpott has created a blend of memoir and social commentary that touches on a wide... Read More

Jan Morris's quirky, endearing, stimulating collection of daily thoughts is given a wholehearted narration by Jennifer M. Dixon. Now that the renowned travel writer and essayist is in her 80s, opportunities for voyaging far and wide have diminished. Though she has settled into the Welsh countryside, her opinions haven't moderated. Dixon doesn't sound exactly like Morris, whose... Read More

Rebecca Lowman's quiet but expressive performance perfectly captures O'Gieblyn's essays about coming of age in a Midwestern evangelical family before losing her faith altogether. O'Gieblyn is wry and affectionate as she riffs on her parents' stocking up on dried food rations in anticipation of the end of the world in 1999 or her own catching the intentionally convenient bus... Read More

Writer Sarah McColl narrates her memoir about love, the relationships between a mother and her children, and the end of a marriage, giving the listener brief views of her life. McColl tells her stories as a series of vignettes, seemingly going from one piece to the next with nary a breath between. Whether discussing her childhood, her mother's illness and death, or her failing... Read More

In an Audible exclusive, Kathleen Turner answers questions on acting posed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Dustin Morrow. In her unmistakable deep, sultry voice, Turner tells us what it takes to make it in the world of show business. A Golden Globe winner for PRIZZI'S HONOR and ROMANCING THE STONE, Turner is a cultural icon. The singer Falco wrote a song called "The Kiss of... Read More

Lorene Cary does a fantastic job narrating her outstanding memoir, shading it with the nuanced emotions it requires. In a wonderfully paced storytelling voice, she captures the reverberations that occur when her grandmother, who lived to be over 100, moves into her home. Her story is filled with all the love, pain, frustration, guilt, sadness, and, most of all, the appreciative... Read More

This laugh-out-loud audiobook is Bill Geist's recollection of his 1960s summers at his Uncle Ed's hotel, Arrowhead Lodge, in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. Geist introduces his memoir with his Midwestern twang; then narrator Allan Robertson transforms Geist's words into one of the funniest performances ever. He effectively delivers the pregnant pauses in the description of... Read More

Baseball broadcaster Charley Steiner narrates this illuminating biography of Chicago Cubs legend Ernie Banks. Banks is well known for his stellar accomplishments on the baseball field and for his cheerful public persona. While this audiobook fully covers his twenty-year career in Chicago, it also portrays Banks as a complicated, conflicted man. It delves into his childhood in a... Read More

Comedian Chelsea Handler's decision to narrate this memoir means that her trademark breezy irreverence peppers this laugh-out-loud glimpse of her life and running interior monologue. As she races through her feelings about current events, American politics, and her rise to fame, fans will be clutching their sides with laughter and delight at the intimate feel of the listening... Read More

Essayist T Kira Madden performs her memoir with the raw, brutal honesty no one else could give it. With little emotional modulation, she lets her stream-of-consciousness writing plunge listeners into her childhood in Boca Raton, Florida. It was marked by material wealth, neglect by parents who were struggling with addiction, and racism. Her calm, steady voice provides some... Read More

Paul F. Verhoeven's dry performance, with his ability to witness dark moments, makes this audiobook both compelling and hilarious. Verhoeven's father is a career police officer in Australia; throughout the audiobook, Verhoeven seeks to come to terms with a childhood memory of seeing one of his father's grisly crime photos. Verhoeven learns how his parents met and how his father... Read More

With quiet power, Ayaz Virji narrates his own audiobook about facing prejudice and discrimination in middle America. Virji is a Muslim who moves his family to a rural Minnesota town. He adapts to the friendly community while building his reputation as a caring doctor. Then Donald Trump is elected. Virji's interactions with his colleagues and friends the day after are raw and... Read More

In a warm voice and upbeat tone, narrator Robin Miles depicts a mother's unfailing love and concern for her son. When Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., began serving 30 months in federal prison, his mother, Jacqueline, wrote him a short letter reminding him that "all life has purpose and meaning, and only God directs the meaningful purpose." Every day afterward, Jacqueline... Read More

Dustin Lance Black, Academy Award-winning screenwriter and LGBTQ activist, narrates his family's heartwarming and poignant journey growing up across intersections of faith, poverty, and sexuality in the southern U.S. and California. Black's conversational storytelling illuminates his cherished mother Anne's irrepressible spirit and tenacity in the face of adversity and... Read More

Michael Butler Murray seems to channel the tone and style of a sportscaster as he narrates Tony Castro's last book about Yankees slugger Mickey Mantle. Murray's delivery is enthusiastic and lively, and he adds color with his interpretation of Mantle's Oklahoma drawl. Castro's final installment of his trilogy on the troubled ballplayer, based on his twenty-five-year friendship... Read More

A natural storyteller, Chris Wilson delivers an engaging narration that pulls no punches as he recounts aspects of his childhood in Washington, DC, his eventual path to prison at age 17, and his personal transformation. Realizing the full weight of his life sentence at 19, Wilson decided to make a change--many changes actually, which resulted in a "master plan" that evolved... Read More

Kate Levy scores a triumph with her first audiobook narration, masterfully delivering this exhaustively researched biography of First Lady Barbara Bush. Even listeners with only the most casual interest in Mrs. Bush will find themselves transfixed by complex and fascinating insights that are short on sentiment and long on family dynamics. Levy's narration is appealing,... Read More

Brittany Pressley performs this audiobook at a fast pace that will be familiar to listeners who live in large, bustling cities. But she knows how to moderate her energy for the tender sections, and her overall performance sounds authentic, conversational, and true to the core intentions of the author's story. Lori Gottlieb, a psychotherapist, describes her experiences trying to... Read More

Fans of the Queen biopic BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY who are hungering for more about Freddie Mercury may find a bit of satisfaction in this work cowritten by Mercury's longtime lover, Jim Hutton--but ultimately the audiobook is more about Hutton than Mercury. Narrator Patrick Moy lends gravitas to the work, skillfully interpreting the author's memories of a complicated relationship, but... Read More

Cheerfully lewd and sincerely disingenuous, cult filmmaker, comic, and lifelong raconteur John Waters narrates his latest memoir/tell-all with a good-natured wink and a well-earned dab of sentimentality. Waters happily doles out observations and advice on any number of subjects from how to make it big in Hollywood and Broadway (CRY-BABY, HAIRSPRAY) to how to choose and... Read More

Dale Berra, along with a fine cast of narrators, gives a first-rate performance in this audio biography of his father, Yogi Berra. This isn't a tell-all but rather a tribute to a man who grew up dirt poor but with discipline and talent became one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Dale's narration is heartfelt and honest, and listeners will hear his clear admiration... Read More

Tan France's unique accent, chummy intimacy, and cheeky delivery make audio the best way to experience his memoir. Fans will get to know the "Queer Eye" fashion expert as he shares stories about growing up South Asian in England, meeting his American husband and settling in Salt Lake City, starting his fashion businesses, and the road to getting cast in "Queer Eye." France is... Read More

Bill Quinn's sublime narration of this detailed biography of Alain Locke would meet with its subject's approval. The writer, educator, and philosopher was ahead of his time in extolling black intellect and was instrumental in the development of the Harlem Renaissance. At points, especially during descriptions of literary or philosophical styles, Quinn's voice can seem... Read More

In heartrending detail, Emilie Pine shares her struggle to cope with her father's illness after his life of addiction. She delivers her narration like a sister confessing to sibling who is her shoulder to lean on. The result is a warm, slightly raspy delivery in which she reveals the details of corrosive liver disease and her own musings on mortality and blame. Her intimate... Read More

Warren Zevon was one messed-up dude--but a true genius. This audio biography of the Southern California songwriter is justifiably painful to listen to, despite Fleet Cooper's excellent narration (though Cooper needs to do better at pronouncing the names of rock stars). Zevon was an alcoholic self-destructive artist, a terrible friend, and a worse husband, but when his genius... Read More

Jayson Greene narrates his beautifully written memoir with a quiet, restrained intensity suited to the challenging subject: a recounting of the traumatic accident that claimed the life of his daughter and the heartbreaking aftermath of this loss. His daughter, two-year-old Greta, was sitting on a New York City bench when a brick from a crumbling windowsill eight stories above... Read More

Narrator Joe Barrett's voice is learned, rugged, and dry--the perfect fit for Packer's political biography, which spans decades as it follows career diplomat Richard Holbrooke from the Vietnam War to the war in Afghanistan. Packer's audiobook doesn't polish Holbrooke's story; his personal flaws and fierce political ambition are on full display. His intellect and political... Read More

This superb audiobook is a seminar in great poetry from the Old Testament to the century just past. Bloom, our most revered literary critic, who is in his late 80s now, looks back at the poems and authors he's most admired. Many of the recent poets are friends now departed, and a sense of nostalgia and loss pervades the material. Stephen Mendel is an especially effective... Read More

Narrators January LaVoy and Sullivan Jones smoothly trade chapters of a collection exploring the influence of pop star Beyoncé. Jones voices the peppy, more lighthearted contributions, while LaVoy is the steady-paced voice narrating more academic pieces. Together they explore a wide range of topics from the artist's rise as a household name to the marital conflict that became... Read More

If eclectic, sharp-witted observations on a well-lived life presented in a lyrical style are your cup of tea, Craig Ferguson's words and skillful audio performance will amuse and entertain. Ferguson, best known for his 10 years at the helm of CBS's "Late Late Show," liberally employs his Scottish lilt in a narration that enhances the stronger pieces and strengthens the weaker... Read More

Lara Prior-Palmer jokes that her upper-class British accent is full of entitlement, and narrator Henrietta Meire certainly possesses that posh undertone in her accent. But Prior-Palmer is also authentic and self-deprecating, and Meire expresses that likability with energy and vulnerability in her voice. At 19 years old, on a whim and with no experience or preparation,... Read More

Ed Levine narrates with the passion of personal experience. The food writer, impresario, and founder of Serious Eats--a major web presence in all things culinary--tells the story of his trials and tribulations in getting his popular site funded. It's part autobiography (his parents died when he was young), part memoir (he's had more than a hundred jobs), and part cautionary... Read More

LGBTQ+ activist Jacob Tobia narrates their own coming-of-age memoir, focusing on childhood through their college graduation. As a child, Tobia was the frequent victim of gender policing, in their case, being forced into traditionally masculine pursuits and aesthetics. As a teen, they came out as a gay man, although they knew that this identity wasn't entirely accurate. It... Read More

JD Jackson is an outstanding narrator of this memoir of cruelty, casual corruption, and solitary confinement. Woodfox was serving a fifty-year stint in Angola prison in Louisiana when he was falsely accused of murdering a white guard and sent to solitary confinement for more than 40 years. Jackson sounds exactly like what Woodfox is--an older man who has seen so many bad things... Read More

The challenge of narrating this audiobook is to clearly differentiate between its two alternating points of view: The third-person perspective of the author and the first-person perspective of former Boston Red Sox star Luis Tiant. Leon Nixon narrates both in a deep, serious tone which, while very clearly describing the life of the colorful baseball great, takes a slow, somber... Read More

Author Helen Ellis is the perfect narrator for her humorous essays. She has just the right inflections and tone for her anecdotes and words of wisdom. Hearing about the decades between the 1980s and the 2010s, listeners are quickly indoctrinated into a world of euphemisms, unusual customs, and genteel hospitality, both in Alabama, where Ellis was raised, and in New York City,... Read More

Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark team up to narrate their dual memoir in which they reflect on the life experiences that shaped them as women, led them to meet each other, and, ultimately, inspired them to create the hit podcast "My Favorite Murder." Both women are unapologetically vulnerable as they share their stories about depression, addiction, and learning to value... Read More

Xe Sands narrates this inspiring memoir with grace, humor and an engaging intimacy. Caroline Van Hemert and her husband, Pat, are tough and adventurous as they travel from Washington to Alaska by rowboat, canoe, skis, raft, and on foot in an incredible feat of endurance. There is no bravado here. Sands's sincere and tender tone captures Caroline's deep affection for her family,... Read More

Actor Santino Fontana gives an animated performance of this collection of essays and musings on fatherhood from Fredrik Backman. Fontana brings a perfect balance of acerbic wit and tenderness. With his theater background, it's not surprising that his delivery is reminiscent of a one-man show; his rhythm even includes slight pauses where the listener might laugh. The essays in... Read More

David Rintoul narrates with remarkable skill and charm, treating the historical references in this audiobook like allusions to old friends. This long, complex, and desultory account of one of Henry VIII's chief ministers, Thomas Cromwell, is thick with references to hundreds of people and places, many obscure. Sadly, Rintoul's familiar chatty style applied to people the... Read More

Narrator Pearl Hewitt deftly continues the story renowned primatologist Jane Goodall began in her first memoir of her work with chimpanzees at Gombe National Park, Tanzania. That book was titled IN THE SHADOW OF MAN. Once more, listeners will strongly relate to the chimpanzees, as does Goodall--she defies scientists by naming (not numbering) them and maintains that they have... Read More

Forthright and uncompromising, Anuradha Bhagwati narrates her memoir with same strong voice that her prose exhibits. Bhagwati takes listeners through her life as a Marine after graduating from Yale. Following an honorable discharge, Bhagwati dedicated herself to fighting the military's culture of gender discrimination and sexual abuse. She recounts intense and painful... Read More

The tumultuous life of artist Vincent Van Gogh is made easy to listen to by the pleasant voice of narrator Paul Heitsch. While exhaustively researched and incredibly detailed, the biography flows like a story. Beginning with childhood and progressing through Van Gogh's every obsessive attempt to find his true passion, Heitsch's calm and steady pacing provides empathy for this... Read More

Gerard Doyle's narration aptly reflects the author--a man of strong convictions who chose to chart his own course. As author Mark Boyle came to the conclusion that the things he owned were beginning to own him, he took drastic steps that many of us would find unthinkable: He renounced modern technologies and opted for a slower existence closer to the earth on Blasket Island,... Read More

There's a moment in this enchanting audiobook that displays narrator Rupert Degas's talent to the full. It occurs when the naturalist author is at a cocktail party in Buenos Aires and has to talk to a pompous Englishman whose dismissive attitude towards Argentinians offends the young Durrell. Degas imitates this Brit's accent in such a fine tone that it sounds like he is... Read More

Narrator Juliet Stevenson's straightforward delivery is appropriate for the personality and clandestine lifestyle of trailblazing Virginia Hall, who worked with British SOE and later the American OSS to support, aid, and arm the French Resistance during WWII. She defied convention to become one of the most important operatives of the war. Stevenson's delivery is smooth as she... Read More

As an audiobook performer, Robert Caro doesn't display much polish, but there could be no finer voice for describing his career as an investigative writer. Caro, the esteemed biographer of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, portrays the painstaking research and years of writing and rewriting behind his books in a voice that is pure New York City: "sawer" for "saw" and "idear" for... Read More

Author Bridgett M. Davis narrates a love letter to her mother now that she is finally able to speak freely about her mother's vocation: She was a numbers runner of more than 30 years in late-twentieth-century Detroit. The illicit work provided an upper-middle-class life for Davis's family, and she eschews any indictment of her mother's character, painting a glowing portrait of... Read More

This clever travel memoir reveals a witty story expertly narrated by the multitalented Rupert Degas. Degas is a kind of verbal ventriloquist at home with the accents, intonations, and styles of the Cameroon natives--royal and commoner alike--and he portrays the very British Durrell quite well, too. His mimicry is remarkable as he recounts naturalist Gerald Durrell's trip to... Read More

Narrator Bahni Turpin engages the listener with this complex dual biography of writers Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. While both are known as luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance, this audiobook explores the lesser known aspects of their friendship and collaboration throughout the 1920s and '30s, which ended in a bitter split. Turpin keeps the pace of the work flowing... Read More