Unlock Top Free Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, History & Culture

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/120529 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile Author: Julia Fox Narrator: Rosalyn Landor Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 14 hours 52 minutes Release date: January 31, 2012 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.14 of Total 7 Ratings of Narrator: 4.5 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The history books have cast Katherine of Aragon, the first queen of King Henry VIII of England, as the ultimate symbol of the Betrayed Woman, cruelly tossed aside in favor of her husband’s seductive mistress, Anne Boleyn. Katherine’s sister, Juana of Castile, wife of Philip of Burgundy and mother of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, is portrayed as “Juana the Mad,” whose erratic behavior included keeping her beloved late husband’s coffin beside her for years. But historian Julia Fox, whose previous work painted an unprecedented portrait of Jane Boleyn, Anne’s sister, offers deeper insight in this first dual biography of Katherine and Juana, the daughters of Spain’s Ferdinand and Isabella, whose family ties remained strong despite their separation. Looking through the lens of their Spanish origins, Fox reveals these queens as flesh-and-blood women—equipped with character, intelligence, and conviction—who are worthy historical figures in their own right. When they were young, Juana’s and Katherine’s futures appeared promising. They had secured politically advantageous marriages, but their dreams of love and power quickly dissolved, and the unions for which they’d spent their whole lives preparing were fraught with duplicity and betrayal. Juana, the elder sister, unexpectedly became Spain’s sovereign, but her authority was continually usurped, first by her husband and later by her son. Katherine, a young widow after the death of Prince Arthur of Wales, soon remarried his doting brother Henry and later became a key figure in a drama that altered England’s religious landscape. Ousted from the positions of power and influence they had been groomed for and separated from their children, Katherine and Juana each turned to their rich and abiding faith and deep personal belief in their family’s dynastic legacy to cope with their enduring hardships. Sister Queens is a gripping tale of love, duty, and sacrifice—a remarkable reflection on the conflict between ambition and loyalty during an age when the greatest sin, it seems, was to have been born a woman.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/117968 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch Author: Sally Bedell Smith Narrator: Rosalyn Landor Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 21 hours 27 minutes Release date: January 10, 2012 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.96 of Total 26 Ratings of Narrator: 4 of Total 2 Genres: World Publisher's Summary: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This “excellent, all-embracing” (The New York Times) biography of Queen Elizabeth II is a magisterial study of the woman known only from a distance—and a captivating window into her decades-long reign. From the moment of her ascension to the throne in 1952 at the age of twenty-five, Queen Elizabeth II was the object of unparalleled scrutiny. But through the fog of glamour and gossip, how well did we really know the world’s most famous monarch? Drawing on numerous interviews and never-before-revealed documents, acclaimed biographer Sally Bedell Smith pulls back the curtain to show in intimate detail the public and private lives of Queen Elizabeth II, who led her country and Commonwealth through the wars and upheavals of the last twentieth and twenty-first centuries with unparalleled composure, intelligence, and grace.   In Elizabeth the Queen, we meet the young girl who suddenly becomes “heiress presumptive” when her uncle abdicates the throne. We meet the thirteen-year-old Lilibet as she falls in love with a young navy cadet named Philip and becomes determined to marry him, even though her parents prefer wealthier English aristocrats. We see the teenage Lilibet repairing army trucks during World War II and standing with Winston Churchill on the balcony of Buckingham Palace on V-E Day. We see the young Queen struggling to balance the demands of her job with her role as the mother of two young children. Sally Bedell Smith brings us inside the palace doors and into the Queen’s daily routines—the “red boxes” of documents she reviewed each day, the weekly meetings she had with twelve prime ministers, her physically demanding tours abroad, and the constant scrutiny of the press—as well as her personal relationships: with her husband, Prince Philip, the love of her life; her children and their often-disastrous marriages; her grandchildren and friends.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/102472 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest Author: Wade Davis Narrator: Enn Reitel Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 28 hours 54 minutes Release date: October 18, 2011 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 9 Ratings of Narrator: 4.4 of Total 5 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: On June 6, 1924, two men set out from a camp perched at 23,000 feet on an ice ledge just below the lip of Mount Everest’s North Col. George Mallory, thirty-seven, was Britain’s finest climber. Sandy Irvine was a young Oxford scholar of twenty-two with little previous mountaineering experience. Neither of them returned.   In this magisterial work of history and adventure, based on more than a decade of prodigious research in British, Canadian, and European archives, and months in the field in Nepal and Tibet, Wade Davis vividly re-creates British climbers’ epic attempts to scale Mount Everest in the early 1920s. With new access to letters and diaries, Davis recounts the heroic efforts of George Mallory and his fellow climbers to conquer the mountain in the face of treacherous terrain and furious weather. Into the Silence sets their remarkable achievements in sweeping historical context: Davis shows how the exploration originated in nineteenth-century imperial ambitions, and he takes us far beyond the Himalayas to the trenches of World War I, where Mallory and his generation found themselves and their world utterly shattered.  In the wake of the war that destroyed all notions of honor and decency, the Everest expeditions, led by these scions of Britain’s elite, emerged as a symbol of national redemption and hope.   Beautifully written and rich with detail, Into the Silence is a classic account of exploration and endurance, and a timeless portrait of an extraordinary generation of adventurers, soldiers, and mountaineers the likes of which we will never see again.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/101245 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen and the King's Mother Author: Michael Jones, David Baldwin, Philippa Gregory Narrator: Bianca Amato Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 29 minutes Release date: September 13, 2011 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.86 of Total 7 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 3 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: #1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory joins two eminent historians to explore the extraordinary true stories of three women largely forgotten by history: Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford; Elizabeth Woodville, queen of England; and Margaret Beaufort, the founder of the Tudor dynasty. In her essay on Jacquetta, Philippa Gregory uses original documents, archaeology, and histories of myth and witchcraft to create the first-ever biography of the young duchess who survived two reigns and two wars to become the first lady at two rival courts. David Baldwin, established authority on the Wars of the Roses, tells the story of Elizabeth Woodville, the first commoner to marry a king of England for love. And Michael Jones, fellow of the Royal Historical Society, writes of Margaret Beaufort, the almost-unknown matriarch of the House of Tudor. Beautifully illustrated throughout with rare portraits and source materials, The Women of the Cousins’ War offers fascinating insights into the inspirations behind Philippa Gregory’s fiction and will appeal to all with an interest in this epic period.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/99016 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Romanovs: The Final Chapter Author: Robert K. Massie Narrator: Geoffrey Howard Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 49 minutes Release date: August 16, 2011 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: A “masterful” (The Washington Post Book World) account of the quest to solve one of the great mysteries in Russian history—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Catherine the Great “Riveting . . . unfolds like a detective story.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review In July 1991, nine skeletons were exhumed from a shallow mass grave near Ekaterinburg, Siberia, a few miles from the infamous cellar room where the last tsar and his family had been murdered seventy-three years before. But were these the bones of the Romanovs? And if these were their remains, where were the bones of the two younger Romanovs supposedly murdered with the rest of the family? Was Anna Anderson, celebrated for more than sixty years in newspapers, books, and film, really Grand Duchess Anastasia? The Romanovs provides the answers, describing in suspenseful detail the dramatic efforts to discover the truth. Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie presents a colorful panorama of contemporary characters, illuminating the major scientific dispute between Russian experts and a team of Americans, whose findings, along with those of DNA scientists from Russia, America, and Great Britain, all contributed to solving one of the great mysteries of the twentieth century.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/98242 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela Author: Nelson Mandela Narrator: Michael Boatman Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 28 hours 0 minutes Release date: July 18, 2011 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.52 of Total 58 Ratings of Narrator: 4.8 of Total 10 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: The autobiography of global human rights icon Nelson Mandela is 'riveting . . . both a brilliant description of a diabolical system and a testament to the power of the spirit to transcend it' (Washington Post). Nelson Mandela was one of the great moral and political leaders of his time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. After his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela was at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is still revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. Long Walk to Freedom is his moving and exhilarating autobiography, destined to take its place among the finest memoirs of history's greatest figures. Here for the first time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela told the extraordinary story of his life -- an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph. The book that inspired the major motion picture Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/121209 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush Author: Howard Blum Narrator: John H. Mayer Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 16 hours 3 minutes Release date: April 26, 2011 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.17 of Total 6 Ratings of Narrator: 4 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: New York Times bestselling author Howard Blum expertly weaves together three narratives to tell the true story of the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush. It is the last decade of the 19th century. The Wild West has been tamed and its fierce, independent and often violent larger-than-life figures--gun-toting wanderers, trappers, prospectors, Indian fighters, cowboys, and lawmen--are now victims of their own success. But then gold is discovered in Alaska and the adjacent Canadian Klondike and a new frontier suddenly looms: an immense unexplored territory filled with frozen waterways, dark spruce forests, and towering mountains capped by glistening layers of snow and ice. In a true-life tale that rivets from the first page, we meet Charlie Siringo, a top-hand sharp-shooting cowboy who becomes one of the Pinkerton Detective Agency’s shrewdest; George Carmack, a California-born American Marine who’s adopted by an Indian tribe, raises a family with a Taglish squaw, and makes the discovery that starts off the Yukon Gold Rush; and Jefferson 'Soapy' Smith, a sly and inventive conman who rules a vast criminal empire. As we follow this trio’s lives, we’re led inexorably into a perplexing mystery: a fortune in gold bars has somehow been stolen from the fortress-like Treadwell Mine in Juneau, Alaska. Charlie Siringo discovers that to run the thieves to ground, he must embark on a rugged cross-territory odyssey that will lead him across frigid waters and through a frozen wilderness to face down 'Soapy' Smith and his gang of 300 cutthroats. Hanging in the balance: George Carmack’s fortune in gold. At once a compelling true-life mystery and an unforgettable portrait of a time in America’s history, The Floor of Heaven is also an exhilarating tribute to the courage and undaunted spirit of the men and women who helped shape America.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/100393 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Symposium, the Apology, and the Allegory of the Cave Author: Plato Narrator: Jonathan Cowley Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 0 minutes Release date: March 31, 2011 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: This collection brings together three of Plato's most enduring classics: the Symposium, the Apology, and the famous 'Allegory of the Cave' from the Republic. The Symposium, a dialogue on the nature and purpose of love centered around the ideals of beauty and goodness, is arguably the deepest inquiry of its kind in Western philosophy. The Apology, Plato's account of the speech given by Socrates at his trial in 399 BC, constitutes an essential defense of Socrates' life and philosophy. Finally, the 'Allegory of the Cave,' written as a fictional dialogue between Socrates and Plato's brother, Glaucon, is a profound commentary on the human understanding of reality. This edition is the translation by Benjamin Jowett.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/92496 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India Author: Joseph Lelyveld Narrator: Mark Bramhall Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 16 hours 48 minutes Release date: March 29, 2011 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 2.5 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: A highly original, stirring book on Mahatma Gandhi that deepens our sense of his achievements and disappointments—his success in seizing India’s imagination and shaping its independence struggle as a mass movement, his recognition late in life that few of his followers paid more than lip service to his ambitious goals of social justice for the country’s minorities, outcasts, and rural poor. Pulitzer Prize–winner Joseph Lelyveld shows in vivid, unmatched detail how Gandhi’s sense of mission, social values, and philosophy of nonviolent resistance were shaped on another subcontinent—during two decades in South Africa—and then tested by an India that quickly learned to revere him as a Mahatma, or “Great Soul,” while following him only a small part of the way to the social transformation he envisioned. The man himself emerges as one of history’s most remarkable self-creations, a prosperous lawyer who became an ascetic in a loincloth wholly dedicated to political and social action. Lelyveld leads us step-by-step through the heroic—and tragic—last months of this selfless leader’s long campaign when his nonviolent efforts culminated in the partition of India, the creation of Pakistan, and a bloodbath of ethnic cleansing that ended only with his own assassination. India and its politicians were ready to place Gandhi on a pedestal as “Father of the Nation” but were less inclined to embrace his teachings. Muslim support, crucial in his rise to leadership, soon waned, and the oppressed untouchables—for whom Gandhi spoke to Hindus as a whole—produced their own leaders. Here is a vital, brilliant reconsideration of Gandhi’s extraordinary struggles on two continents, of his fierce but, finally, unfulfilled hopes, and of his ever-evolving legacy, which more than six decades after his death still ensures his place as India’s social conscience—and not just India’s.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/92212 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Source of All Things: A Memoir Author: Tracy Ross Narrator: Tracy Ross Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 18 minutes Release date: March 8, 2011 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 7 Ratings of Narrator: 3.67 of Total 3 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Called “brave and heartbreaking” by Elle and “an extraordinary journey” by People, Tracy Ross’s riveting memoir about abuse, survival, and healing is now available in paperback. Tracy Ross’s adult life has been defined by her determination to push herself to the physical limits of what a person can endure. In The Source of All Things, she struggles to reconcile her stepfather’s abuse with her desire to make her family whole again. Tracy’s stepfather first molested her when she was eight years old. But he was also her family’s savior—the man who rescued her mother from deep depression and the protective figure who instilled in her the very passion for nature that saved her life. It wasn’t until she ran away from home at fourteen that her family was forced to confront the abuse that tore them apart.  The Source of All Things is a powerful, breathtakingly honest story about a mistake that has taken three decades and thousands of miles of raw wilderness to reconcile. Unfolding in the achingly gorgeous landscapes of Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, and Alaska, Tracy describes her search for a place in which to heal, the sacredness of the outdoors, and the ways in which nature, at its most wild and challenging, gave her the strength to overcome.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/91712 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Bringing Adam Home: The Abduction That Changed America Author: Les Standiford, Joe Matthews Narrator: Robert Fass Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 51 minutes Release date: March 1, 2011 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.8 of Total 5 Ratings of Narrator: 2 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: “Les Standiford’s account of the decades-long attempt to solve the murder of Adam Walsh is chilling, heartbreaking, hopeful, and as relentlessly suspenseful as anything I’ve ever read. A triumph in every way.” —Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River “The most significant missing child case since the Lindbergh’s….A taut, compelling and often touching book about a long march to justice.” —Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent The abduction that changed America forever, the 1981 kidnapping and murder of six-year-old Adam Walsh—son of John Walsh, host of the Fox TV series America’s Most Wanted—in Hollywood, Florida, was a crime that went unsolved for a quarter of a century. Bringing Adam Home by author Les Standiford is a harrowing account of the terrible crime and its dramatic consequences, the emotional story of a father and mother’s efforts to seek justice and resolve the loss of their child, and a compelling portrait of Miami Beach Homicide Detective Joe Matthews, whose unwavering dedication brought the Adam Walsh case to its resolution.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/90805 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family Author: Peter Firstbrook Narrator: Peter Firstbrook Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 30 minutes Release date: February 8, 2011 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 1 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In the first in-depth history of the Obama family, Peter Firstbrook recounts a journey that starts in a mud hut by the White Nile and ends seven centuries later in the White House. Interweaving oral history and tribal lore, interviews with Obama family members and other Kenyans, the writings of Kenyan historians, and original genealogical research, Firstbrook sets the fascinating story of the president’s family against the background of Kenya’s rich culture and complex history.   From the tribe’s cradleland in southern Sudan, he follows the family generation by generation, tracing the paths of the famous Luo warriors—Obama’s direct ancestors—and vividly illuminating Luo politics, society, and traditions. Firstbrook also brings to life the impact of English colonization in Africa through the eyes of President Obama’s grandfather Onyango. And Firstbrook delves into the troubled life of Obama’s father, a promising young man whose aspirations were stymied by post-independence tribal politics and a rash tendency toward self-destruction—two factors that his family believes contributed to his death in 1982. The Obamas reveals a family history—epic in scope yet intimate in feel—that is truly without precedent.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/88301 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Colonel Roosevelt Series: #3 of Theodore Roosevelt Author: Edmund Morris Narrator: Mark Deakins Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 24 hours 44 minutes Release date: November 23, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.57 of Total 14 Ratings of Narrator: 4.75 of Total 8 Genres: The Americas Publisher's Summary: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK •  “Colonel Roosevelt is compelling reading, and [Edmund] Morris is a brilliant biographer who practices his art at the highest level. . . . A moving, beautifully rendered account.”—Fred Kaplan, The Washington Post This biography by Edmund Morris, the Pulitzer Prize– and National Book Award–winning author of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex, marks the completion of a trilogy sure to stand as definitive. Of all our great presidents, Theodore Roosevelt is the only one whose greatness increased out of office. What other president has written forty books, hunted lions, founded a third political party, survived an assassin’s bullet, and explored an unknown river longer than the Rhine? Packed with more adventure, variety, drama, humor, and tragedy than a big novel, yet documented down to the smallest fact, this masterwork recounts the last decade of perhaps the most amazing life in American history. “Hair-raising . . . awe-inspiring . . . a worthy close to a trilogy sure to be regarded as one of the best studies not just of any president, but of any American.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/83774 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia Author: Michael Korda Narrator: Robin Sachs Format: Abridged Audiobook Length: 14 hours 10 minutes Release date: November 16, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 7 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: From Michael Korda, author of the New York Times bestselling Eisenhower biography Ike and the captivating Battle of Britain book With Wings Like Eagles, comes the critically-acclaimed definitive biography of T. E. Lawrence—the legendary British soldier, strategist, scholar, and adventurer whose exploits as “Lawrence of Arabia” created a legacy of mythic proportions in his own lifetime. Many know T.E. Lawrence from David Lean’s Oscar-winning 1962 biopic—based, itself, upon Lawrence’s autobiographical Seven Pillars of Wisdom—but in the tradition of modern biographers like John Meacham, David McCullough, and Barbara Leaming, Michael Korda’s penetrating new examination reveals new depth and character in the twentieth century’s quintessential English hero.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/83726 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Cleopatra: A Life Author: Stacy Schiff Narrator: Robin Miles Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 14 hours 30 minutes Release date: November 1, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.29 of Total 28 Ratings of Narrator: 4.2 of Total 10 Genres: Ancient Civilizations Publisher's Summary: The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer brings to life the most intriguing woman in the history of the world: Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt. Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious sister as well; incest and assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex with only two men. They happen, however, to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, among the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra had a child with Caesar and--after his murder--three more with his protégé. Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antony confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two would together attempt to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations ever since. Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra's supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff 's is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/83517 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Grace of Silence: A Memoir Author: Michele Norris Narrator: Michele Norris Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 49 minutes Release date: September 21, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 4 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In the wake of talk of a “postracial” America upon Barack Obama’s ascension as president of the United States, Michele Norris, cohost of National Public Radio’s flagship program All Things Considered, set out to write, through original reporting, a book about “the hidden conversation” on race that is unfolding nationwide. She would, she thought, base her book on the frank disclosures of others on the subject, but she was soon disabused of her presumption when forced to confront the fact that “the conversation” in her own family had not been forthright.   Norris unearthed painful family secrets that compelled her to question her own self-understanding: from her father’s shooting by a Birmingham police officer weeks after his discharge from the navy at the conclusion of World War II to her maternal grandmother’s peddling pancake mix as an itinerant Aunt Jemima to white farm women in the Midwest. In what became a profoundly personal and bracing journey into her family’s past, Norris traveled from her childhood home in Minneapolis to her ancestral roots in the Deep South to explore the reasons for the “things left unsaid” by her father and mother when she was growing up, the better to come to terms with her own identity. Along the way she discovered how her character was forged by both revelation and silence.   Extraordinary for Norris’s candor in examining her own racial legacy and what it means to be an American, The Grace of Silence is also informed by rigorous research in its evocation of time and place, scores of interviews with ordinary folk, and wise observations about evolving attitudes, at once encouraging and disturbing, toward race in America today. For its particularity and universality, it is powerfully moving, a tour de force.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/83496 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers Author: Will Durant Narrator: Grover Gardner Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 19 hours 27 minutes Release date: September 17, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.4 of Total 15 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 3 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: The product of eleven years of research, The Story of Philosophy is an endlessly inspiring and instructive chronicle of the world’s greatest thinkers, from Socrates to Santayana. Written with exacting and scrupulous scholarship, it was designed both to command the respect of educators and to capture the interest of the layman. Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous “monarchs of the mind” as Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, and Nietzsche. Along with their ideas, he offers their flesh-and-blood biographies, placing their thoughts within their own time and place and elucidating their influence on our modern intellectual heritage. This book is packed with wisdom and wit. The Story of Philosophy is a key book for any listener who wishes to survey the history and development of philosophical ideas in the Western world.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/83402 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends Author: Tom Segev Narrator: Marc Cashman Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 20 hours 0 minutes Release date: September 7, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 1 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: This first fully documented biography of Simon Wiesenthal, the legendary Nazi hunter, is also a brilliant character study of a man whose life was part invention but wholly dedicated to ensuring both that the Nazis be held responsible for their crimes and that the destruction of European Jewry never be forgotten. Like most Jews in Eastern Europe on the eve of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, twenty-four-year-old Simon Wiesenthal did not grasp the nature of the Nazi threat. But six years later, when a skeletal Wiesenthal was liberated from the concentration camp at Mauthausen, he fully fathomed the crimes of the Nazis. Within days he had assembled a list of nearly 150 Nazi war criminals, the first of dozens of such lists he would make over a lifetime as a Nazi hunter. A hero in the eyes of many, Wiesenthal was also attacked for his unrelenting pursuit of the past, when others preferred to forget. For this new biography, rich in newsworthy revelations, historian and journalist Tom Segev has obtained access to Wiesenthal’s private papers and to sixteen archives, including records of the U.S., Israeli, Polish, and East German secret services. Segev is able to reveal the intriguing secrets of Wiesenthal’s life, including his stunning role in the capture of Adolf Eichmann, his relationship with Israel’s Mossad, his controversial investigative techniques, his unlikely friendships with Kurt Waldheim and Albert Speer, and the nature of his rivalry with Elie Wiesel. Segev’s challenge in writing this biography was Wiesenthal’s own complicated relationship to truth. Wiesenthal told many versions of his life, his suffering in the camps, and his involvement with the arrest of individual Nazis. Segev shows that in order to gain the information he sought and twist the arms of reluctant government figures, Wiesenthal needed to seem more influential than he really was. For two generations of Americans, Simon Wiesenthal was a Jewish superhero—depicted on film by Ben Kingsley and Laurence Olivier—and the muse for a Frederick Forsyth thriller. Now Segev demonstrates that the truth of Wiesenthal’s existence is as compelling as the fiction. Simon Wiesenthal is an unforgettable life of one of the great men of the twentieth century.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/82989 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook Author: Anthony Bourdain Narrator: Anthony Bourdain Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 59 minutes Release date: July 6, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.47 of Total 93 Ratings of Narrator: 4.91 of Total 33 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Medium Raw marks the return of the inimitable Anthony Bourdain, author of the blockbuster bestseller Kitchen Confidential and three-time Emmy Award-nominated host of No Reservations on TV’s Travel Channel. Bourdain calls his book, “A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook,” and he is at his entertaining best as he takes aim at some of the biggest names in the foodie world, including David Chang, Alice Waters, the Top Chef winners and losers, and many more. If Hunter S. Thompson had written a book about the restaurant business, it could have been Medium Raw.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/82892 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Amazing People of London: Inspirational Stories Author: Charles Magerison Narrator: Various Readers Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 1 hour 12 minutes Release date: June 15, 2010 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: What would it have been like to meet William Shakespeare when he lived in London? What would you have asked Charles Dickens about the experiences that led him to write Oliver Twist and other great stories? In this Amazing London BioView, you can do so, via the virtual interview process. You can meet the great names and understand how they contributed to London becoming a great city.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/82947 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Amazing Classical Musicians - Volume 1: Inspirational Stories Author: Charles Magerison Narrator: Various Readers Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 1 hour 6 minutes Release date: June 15, 2010 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In days when there was no radio or television, people relied on travelling entertainers. Mozart was one of these. In between his travels, he wrote his great compositions. On this audio you can meet other great composers and hear how they composed their works.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/61785 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition Author: Anne Frank Narrator: Selma Blair Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 55 minutes Release date: May 25, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.5 of Total 157 Ratings of Narrator: 4.72 of Total 36 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: THE DEFINITIVE EDITION • Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, the remarkable diary that has become a world classic—a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit. Updated for the 75th Anniversary of the Diary’s first publication with a new introduction by Nobel Prize–winner Nadia Murad “The single most compelling personal account of the Holocaust ... remains astonishing and excruciating.”—The New York Times Book Review In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, they and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annex” of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and amusing, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/61895 to listen full audiobooks. Title: My Early Life: A Roving Commission Author: Sir Winston Churchill Narrator: Frederick Davidson Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 12 hours 39 minutes Release date: April 20, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 7 Ratings of Narrator: 3 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: As a visionary, statesman, historian, and the most eloquent spokesman against Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill was one of the greatest figures of the twentieth century.This is the story of the first thirty years of his life, up to the point where his unique parliamentary career was just beginning. From childhood and his apprentice days at Harrow and Sandhurst we follow him on active service to Cuba, the northwest frontier, Omdurman and the Boer War—including the historic story of his escape from captivity—whilst in the background are his early adventures in politics and literature. 'I have tried, in each part of the quarter-century in which this tale lies, to show the point of view appropriate to my years, whether as a child, a schoolboy, a cadet, a subaltern, a war-correspondent or a youthful politician…When I survey this work as a whole I find I have drawn a picture of a vanished age.'—from the author's preface My Early Lifegives listeners insights into the shaping of a great leader.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/61249 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Mandela's Way: Fifteen Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage Author: Richard Stengel Narrator: Richard Stengel Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 4 hours 44 minutes Release date: March 30, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 6 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 3 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: A compact, profoundly inspiring book that captures the spirit of Nelson Mandela, distilling the South African leader’s wisdom into 15 vital life lessons We long for heroes and have too few. Nelson Mandela, who died in 2013 at the age of ninety-five, is the closest thing the world has to a secular saint. He liber­ated a country from a system of violent prejudice and helped unite oppressor and oppressed in a way that had never been done before. Now Richard Stengel, the editor of Time maga­zine, has distilled countless hours of intimate conver­sation with Mandela into fifteen essential life lessons. For nearly three years, including the critical period when Mandela moved South Africa toward the first democratic elections in its history, Stengel collaborated with Mandela on his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, and traveled with him everywhere. Eating with him, watching him campaign, hearing him think out loud, Stengel came to know all the different sides of this complex man and became a cherished friend and colleague. In Mandela’s Way, Stengel recounts the moments in which “the grandfather of South Africa” was tested and shares the wisdom he learned: why courage is more than the absence of fear, why we should keep our rivals close, why the answer is not always either/or but often “both,” how important it is for each of us to find something away from the world that gives us pleasure and satisfaction—our own garden. Woven into these life lessons are remarkable stories—of Mandela’s child­hood as the protégé of a tribal king, of his early days as a freedom fighter, of the twenty-seven-year imprison­ment that could not break him, and of his fulfilling remarriage at the age of eighty. This uplifting book captures the spirit of this extraordinary man—warrior, martyr, husband, statesman, and moral leader—and spurs us to look within ourselves, reconsider the things we take for granted, and contemplate the legacy we’ll leave behind.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/61231 to listen full audiobooks. Title: George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I Author: Miranda Carter Narrator: Rosalyn Landor Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 21 hours 12 minutes Release date: March 23, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.88 of Total 8 Ratings of Narrator: 2 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In the years before the First World War, the great European powers were ruled by three first cousins: King George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world. Miranda Carter uses the cousins’ correspondence and a host of historical sources to tell the tragicomic story of a tiny, glittering, solipsistic world that was often preposterously out of kilter with its times, struggling to stay in command of politics and world events as history overtook it. George, Nicholas and Wilhelm is a brilliant and sometimes darkly hilarious portrait of these men—damaged, egotistical Wilhelm; quiet, stubborn Nicholas; and anxious, dutiful George—and their lives, foibles and obsessions, from tantrums to uniforms to stamp collecting. It is also alive with fresh, subtle portraits of other familiar figures: Queen Victoria—grandmother to two of them, grandmother-in-law to the third—whose conservatism and bullying obsession with family left a dangerous legacy; and Edward VII, the playboy “arch-vulgarian” who turned out to have a remarkable gift for international relations and the theatrics of mass politics. At the same time, Carter weaves through their stories a riveting account of the events that led to World War I, showing how the personal and the political interacted, sometimes to devastating effect. For all three men the war would be a disaster that destroyed forever the illusion of their close family relationships, with any sense of peace and harmony shattered in a final coda of murder, betrayal and abdication.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/61308 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor Author: Tad Friend Narrator: William Dufris Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 42 minutes Release date: March 5, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.5 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Tad Friend’s family is nothing if not illustrious: his father was president of Swarthmore College, and at a Smith college poetry contest judged by W. H. Auden, his mother came in second—to Sylvia Plath. For centuries, Wasps like his ancestors dominated American life. But then, in the ’60s, their fortunes began to fall. As a young man, Friend noticed that his family tree, for all its glories, was full of alcoholics, depressives, and reckless eccentrics. Yet his identity had already been shaped by the family’s age-old traditions and expectations. Part memoir, part family history, and part cultural study of the long swoon of the American Wasp, Cheerful Money is a captivating examination of a cultural crack-up and a man trying to escape its wreckage.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/60660 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Tudors: The Complete Story of England's Most Notorious Dynasty Author: G. J. Meyer Narrator: Robin Sachs Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 25 hours 0 minutes Release date: February 23, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.43 of Total 28 Ratings of Narrator: 4 of Total 4 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • For the first time in decades comes a fresh look at the fabled Tudor dynasty, comprising some of the most enigmatic figures ever to rule a country. “A thoroughly readable and often compelling narrative . . . Five centuries have not diminished the appetite for all things Tudor.”—Associated Press In 1485, young Henry Tudor, whose claim to the throne was so weak as to be almost laughable, crossed the English Channel from France at the head of a ragtag little army and took the crown from the family that had ruled England for almost four hundred years. Half a century later his son, Henry VIII, desperate to rid himself of his first wife in order to marry a second, launched a reign of terror aimed at taking powers no previous monarch had even dreamed of possessing. In the process he plunged his kingdom into generations of division and disorder, creating a legacy of blood and betrayal that would blight the lives of his children and the destiny of his country. The boy king Edward VI, a fervent believer in reforming the English church, died before bringing to fruition his dream of a second English Reformation. Mary I, the disgraced daughter of Catherine of Aragon, tried and failed to reestablish the Catholic Church and produce an heir. And finally came Elizabeth I, who devoted her life to creating an image of herself as Gloriana the Virgin Queen but, behind that mask, sacrificed all chance of personal happiness in order to survive.    The Tudors weaves together all the sinners and saints, the tragedies and triumphs, the high dreams and dark crimes, that reveal the Tudor era to be, in its enthralling, notorious truth, as momentous and as fascinating as the fictions audiences have come to love. Praise for The Tudors “A rich and vibrant tapestry.”—The Star-Ledger “A thoroughly readable and often compelling narrative . . . Five centuries have not diminished the appetite for all things Tudor.”—Associated Press “Energetic and comprehensive . . . [a] sweeping history of the gloriously infamous Tudor era . . . Unlike the somewhat ponderous British biographies of the Henrys, Elizabeths, and Boleyns that seem to pop up perennially, The Tudors displays flashy, fresh irreverence [and cuts] to the quick of the action.”—Kirkus Reviews   “[A] cheeky, nuanced, and authoritative perspective . . . brims with enriching background discussions.”—Publishers Weekly   “[A] lively new history.”—Bloomberg

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/60677 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest Author: Anatoli Boukreev, G. Weston Dewalt Narrator: Lloyd James Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 35 minutes Release date: January 13, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.33 of Total 12 Ratings of Narrator: 4.4 of Total 5 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: This is the gripping true account of the worst disaster in the history of Mt. Everest. On May 10, 1996, two commercial expeditions headed by experienced leaders attempted to climb the highest mountain in the world—but things went terribly wrong. Crowded conditions on the mountain, miscommunications, unexplainable delays, poor leadership, bad decisions, and a blinding storm conspired to kill. Twenty-three men and women, disoriented and out of oxygen, struggled to find their way down the side of the mountain. In the dark, battered by snow and driven by hurricane-force winds, some of the climbers became hopelessly lost and resigned themselves to death. But head climbing guide Anatoli Boukreev refused to give up hope. Climbing blind in the maw of a life-threatening storm, Boukreev brought climbers back from the edge of certain death. This is an amazing true story of an expedition fated for disaster, of the blind ambition that drives people to attempt such dangerous ventures, and of a modern-day hero, who risked his own life to save others.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/60630 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Hayek: His Contribution to the Political and Economic Thought of Our Time Author: Eamonn Butler Narrator: Jeff Riggenbach Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 4 hours 52 minutes Release date: January 5, 2010 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3 of Total 2 Ratings of Narrator: 1 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Nobel prize winner F. A. Hayek is one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, but up to now there has been no book for the non-specialist that describes his ideas and explains their significance. Eamonn Butler’s clear, systematic, perceptive study fills this gap. Starting with a short survey of Hayek’s life, Dr. Butler goes on to analyze all the main elements in his thought under six basic headings: Understanding How Society Works; The Market Process; Hayek’s Critique of Socialism; Criticism of Social Justice; The Institutions of a Liberal Order; and The Constitution of a Liberal State. Hayek’s influence in helping a generation to understand the nature of society and the errors of collectivism goes far beyond that of any other writer of his period. Having been decades ahead of his time when he began to write, Hayek is proving to be one of the most seminal thinkers of our age.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/119639 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Up from Slavery Author: Booker T. Washington Narrator: Jonathan Reese Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 15 minutes Release date: November 30, 2009 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: For the fifty years that followed its original publication in 1901, Up From Slavery was the most widely known book written by an African American. The life of Booker T. Washington was the embodiment of the American self-made man, and his autobiography gave voice for the first time to a vast group that had to pull itself up from nothing. The well-documented ordeals and observations of this humble and plainspoken schoolmaster reveal traces of Washington's other nature: the ambitious and tough-minded analyst. Here was a man who had to balance the demands of his fellow blacks with the constraints imposed on him by whites. Historically acknowledged as one of America's most powerful and persuasive orators, Booker T. Washington consistently challenged the forces of racial prejudice at a time when such behavior from a black man was unheard of. While he mollified white leaders by publicly agreeing with their racist views of social parity, he also worked tirelessly to convince blacks to work together as one people in order to improve their lives and the future of their race. This story of Booker T. Washington's rise to distinction emphasizes that a strong work ethic and excellence in whatever one is doing will be rewarded no matter what race or what position a person holds in life. As far as Washington was concerned, slavery only made the black person stronger. He also argued that both blacks and whites would benefit more from giving blacks vocational training than from encouraging the 'craze for Greek and Latin learning.' While this set him at odds with other black leaders of his time, it also set the groundwork for Washington's Tuskegee Institute to be the best-funded black educational institution of its era.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/59808 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Ayn Rand and the World She Made Author: Anne C. Heller Narrator: Bernadette Dunne Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 19 hours 37 minutes Release date: October 27, 2009 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.5 of Total 2 Ratings of Narrator: 3 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Ayn Rand is best known as the author of two phenomenally best-selling ideological novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, which have sold over twelve million copies in the United States alone. Through them, she built a cult following in the late 1950s and became the guiding light of Libertarianism and of White House economic policy in the 1960s and ‘70s. Her defenses of radical individualism and of selfishness as a “capitalist virtue” have permanently altered the American cultural landscape. Anne Conover Heller traveled to Russia to discover Rand’s Russian and Jewish roots and her misunderstood youth, interview surviving acquaintances, and unearth new archival material. The result is the most comprehensive, revealing and unbiased biography of one of the most important figures of the twentieth century.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/121273 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Queen Mother: The Official Biography Author: William Shawcross Narrator: William Shawcross Format: Abridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 49 minutes Release date: October 27, 2009 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 4 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: The official and definitive biography of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: consort of King George VI, mother of Queen Elizabeth II, grandmother of Prince Charles—and the most beloved British monarch of the twentieth century. Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon—the ninth of the Earl of Strathmore’s ten children—was born on August 4, 1900, and, certainly, no one could have imagined that her long life (she died in 2002) would come to reflect a changing nation over the ourse of an entire century. Now, William Shawcross—given unrestricted access to the Queen Mother’s personal papers, letters, and diaries—gives us a portrait of unprecedented vividness and detail. Here is the girl who helped convalescing soldiers during the First World War . . . the young Duchess of York helping her reluctant husband assume the throne when his brother abdicated . . . the Queen refusing to take refuge from the bombing of London, risking her own life to instill courage and hope in others who were living through the Blitz . . . the dowager Queen—the last Edwardian, the charming survivor of a long-lost era—representing her nation at home and abroad . . . the matriarch of the Royal Family and “the nation’s best-loved grandmother.” A revelatory royal biography that is, as well, a singular history of Britain in the twentieth century.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/59845 to listen full audiobooks. Title: I Am the New Black Author: Anthony Bozza, Tracy Morgan Narrator: Tracy Morgan Format: Abridged Audiobook Length: 4 hours 10 minutes Release date: October 20, 2009 Genres: Arts & Entertainment Publisher's Summary: The outrageously funny, heartbreaking, and surprising story of Tracy Morgan's rise from ghetto wiseass to superstar comedian. Who is Tracy Morgan? The wildly unpredictable funnyman who rocketed to fame on Saturday Night Live? The Emmy-nominated actor behind the sly and ingenious character Tracy Jordan on the award-winning hit sitcom 30 Rock, whose turbulent personal life often mirrors that of his fictional alter ego? Is he Chico Divine, the life of the party–any party, anytime, anywhere–getting ladies pregnant everywhere he goes? Or is he a soulful, tender family man who emerged from a hardscrabble ghetto upbringing and, against all odds, achieved superstardom, raised a solid family, prevailed over a collection of lethal bad habits, and is still ascending new heights and coming into his own? The answer is: Tracy Morgan is all that. And a bag of potato chips with a 50¢ soda. When he was just a boy living in the Tompkins Projects in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, being funny was about survival. With the right snap, Tracy could shut down the playground bullies who picked on him and his physically disabled older brother. And with a wild enough prank, he could exact revenge on whoever stole his Pumas at the community pool. Later, being funny was about escape–from the untouchable sadness of his father's death, from the desperation of the drug dealer's trade, from the life-and-death battles waged on the streets of the South Bronx in the age of crack. But these days being funny is about living his dream–a dream born in the comedy clubs of Harlem and realized on shows like Martin and Saturday Night Live, where he was a cast member for seven years, and in movies like The Longest Yard and Half-Baked. With brutal honesty and his trademark take-no-prisoners humor, Tracy tells the story of his rise to fame, with all its highs and its many lows–from the very public battles with alcohol and diabetes that threatened both his career and his life to the private and poignant end of his twenty-year marriage. In his singularly warped and brilliant way he muses on family, love, sex, race, politics, ambition, and what it takes to bring the funny. Hilarious, inspiring, searing, and touching, I Am the New Black is a fascinating peek inside the minds of one of the most compelling and defining comedians of our time.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/59220 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Strength in What Remains Author: Tracy Kidder Narrator: Tracy Kidder Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 35 minutes Release date: August 25, 2009 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.11 of Total 9 Ratings of Narrator: 4.25 of Total 4 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Tracy Kidder, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of the bestsellers The Soul of a New Machine, House, and the enduring classic Mountains Beyond Mountains, has been described by the Baltimore Sun as the “master of the non-fiction narrative.” In this new book, Kidder gives us the superb story of a hero for our time. Strength in What Remains is a wonderfully written, inspiring account of one man’s remarkable American journey and of the ordinary people who helped him–a brilliant testament to the power of will and of second chances. Deo arrives in America from Burundi in search of a new life. Having survived a civil war and genocide, plagued by horrific dreams, he lands at JFK airport with two hundred dollars, no English, and no contacts. He ekes out a precarious existence delivering groceries, living in Central Park, and learning English by reading dictionaries in bookstores. Then Deo begins to meet the strangers who will change his life, pointing him eventually in the direction of Columbia University, medical school, and a life devoted to healing. Kidder breaks new ground in telling this unforgettable story as he travels with Deo back over a turbulent life in search of meaning and forgiveness. An extraordinary writer, Tracy Kidder once again shows us what it means to be fully human by telling a story about the heroism inherent in ordinary people, a story about a life based on hope.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/58848 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Every Patient Tells A Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis Author: Lisa Sanders Narrator: Lisa Sanders Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 10 hours 10 minutes Release date: August 11, 2009 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.7 of Total 10 Ratings of Narrator: 4.5 of Total 2 Genres: Medicine & Naturopathy Publisher's Summary: A riveting exploration of the most difficult and important part of what doctors do, by Yale School of Medicine physician Dr. Lisa Sanders, author of the monthly New York Times Magazine column 'Diagnosis,' the inspiration for the hit Fox TV series House, M.D. 'The experience of being ill can be like waking up in a foreign country. Life, as you formerly knew it, is on hold while you travel through this other world as unknown as it is unexpected. When I see patients in the hospital or in my office who are suddenly, surprisingly ill, what they really want to know is, ‘What is wrong with me?’ They want a road map that will help them manage their new surroundings. The ability to give this unnerving and unfamiliar place a name, to know it—on some level—restores a measure of control, independent of whether or not that diagnosis comes attached to a cure. Because, even today, a diagnosis is frequently all a good doctor has to offer.' A healthy young man suddenly loses his memory—making him unable to remember the events of each passing hour. Two patients diagnosed with Lyme disease improve after antibiotic treatment—only to have their symptoms mysteriously return. A young woman lies dying in the ICU—bleeding, jaundiced, incoherent—and none of her doctors know what is killing her. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Lisa Sanders takes us bedside to witness the process of solving these and other diagnostic dilemmas, providing a firsthand account of the expertise and intuition that lead a doctor to make the right diagnosis. Never in human history have doctors had the knowledge, the tools, and the skills that they have today to diagnose illness and disease. And yet mistakes are made, diagnoses missed, symptoms or tests misunderstood. In this high-tech world of modern medicine, Sanders shows us that knowledge, while essential, is not sufficient to unravel the complexities of illness. She presents an unflinching look inside the detective story that marks nearly every illness—the diagnosis—revealing the combination of uncertainty and intrigue that doctors face when confronting patients who are sick or dying. Through dramatic stories of patients with baffling symptoms, Sanders portrays the absolute necessity and surprising difficulties of getting the patient’s story, the challenges of the physical exam, the pitfalls of doctor-to-doctor communication, the vagaries of tests, and the near calamity of diagnostic errors. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Sanders chronicles the real-life drama of doctors solving these difficult medical mysteries that not only illustrate the art and science of diagnosis, but often save the patients’ lives.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/58914 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45 Author: Barbara W. Tuchman Narrator: Pam Ward Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 29 hours 2 minutes Release date: August 1, 2009 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In this Pulitzer Prize–winning biography, Barbara Tuchman explores American relations with China through the experiences of one of our men on the ground. In the cantankerous but level-headed “Vinegar Joe,” Tuchman found a subject who allowed her to perform, in the words of the National Review, “one of the historian’s most envied magic acts: conjoining a fine biography of a man with a fascinating epic story.” Joseph Stilwell was the military attaché to China in 1935 to 1939, commander of United States forces, and allied chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek in 1942–44. His story unfolds against the background of China’s history, from the revolution of 1911 to the turmoil of World War II, when China’s Nationalist government faced attack from Japanese invaders and Communist insurgents.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/58922 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Ecce Homo Author: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche Narrator: Stephen Van Doren Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 4 hours 13 minutes Release date: July 23, 2009 Ratings: Ratings of Narrator: 2 of Total 1 Genres: Lessons in Philosophy Publisher's Summary: Ecce Homo, which is Latin for “behold the man,” is an autobiography like no other. Deliberately provocative, Nietzsche subverts the conventions of the genre and pushes his philosophical positions to combative extremes, constructing a genius-hero whose life is a chronicle of incessant self-overcoming. Written in 1888, a few weeks before his descent into madness, the book passes under review all of Nietzsche’s previous works so that we, his “posthumous” readers, can finally understand him on his own terms. He reaches final reckonings with his many enemies, including Richard Wagner, German nationalism, “modern men” in general, and above all, Christianity, proclaiming himself the Antichrist. Ecce Homo is the summation of an extraordinary philosophical career, a last great testament to Nietzsche’s will. A main purpose of the book was to offer Nietzsche’s own perspective on his work as a philosopher and human being. Ecce Homo also forcefully repudiates those interpretations of his previous works purporting to find support there for imperialism, anti-Semitism, militarism, and social Darwinism. Nietzsche strives to present a new image of the philosopher and of himself as a philosopher. He expounds upon his life as a child, his tastes as an individual, and his vision for humanity. According to one of Nietzsche’s most prominent English translators, Walter Kaufmann, this book offers “Nietzsche’s own interpretation of his development, his works, and his significance.” Within this work, Nietzsche is self-consciously striving to present a new image of the philosopher and of himself. On these grounds, some consider Ecce Homo a literary work comparable in its artistry to Van Gogh’s paintings.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/58283 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Whittaker Chambers: A Biography Author: Sam Tanenhaus Narrator: Edward Lewis Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 18 hours 34 minutes Release date: May 19, 2009 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Whittaker Chambers is the first biography of this complex and enigmatic figure. Drawing on dozens of interviews and on materials from forty archives in the United States and abroad—including still-classified KGB dossiers—Tanenhaus traces the remarkable journey that led Chambers from a sleepy Long Island village to center stage in America's greatest political trial and then, in his last years, to a unique role as the godfather of post-war conservatism. This biography is rich in startling information about Chambers' days as New York's 'hottest literary Bolshevik'; his years as a Communist agent and then defector, hunted by the KGB; his conversion to Quakerism; his secret sexual turmoil; his turbulent decade at Time magazine, where he rose from the obscurity of the book-review page to transform the magazine into an oracle of apocalyptic anti-Communism. But all this was a prelude to the memorable events that began in August 1948, when Chambers testified against Alger Hiss in the spy case that changed America. Whittaker Chambers goes far beyond all previous accounts of the Hiss case, re-creating its improbable twists and turns and disentangling the motives that propelled a vivid cast of characters in unpredictable directions. A rare conjunction of exacting scholarship and narrative art, Whittaker Chambers is a vivid tapestry of twentieth century history.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/58222 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Creating Equal: My Fight against Race Preferences Author: Ward Connerly Narrator: Ward Connerly Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 57 minutes Release date: April 29, 2009 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: This is the story of a man who searched his conscience, decided that the American Dream should be colorblind, and then set out to change the rules. Part memoir, part history lesson, and part road map, Creating Equal tells how a black man fought against affirmative action in California and Washington state. It begins in segregated Louisiana with a hard-working, resilient family that refused to be destroyed by personal tragedy or to be defined by race. This is where Ward Connerly grew up. In 1993, he would be called to make the most difficult decision of his life: to convince the regents of the University of California to end affirmative action. Two years later, he did the same thing for Washington state.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/54972 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America Author: Jay Mathews Narrator: Paul Boehmer Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 11 hours 3 minutes Release date: April 8, 2009 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: When Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin signed up for Teach for America right after college and found themselves utter failures in the classroom, they vowed to remake themselves into superior educators. They did that—and more. In their early twenties, by sheer force of talent and determination never to take no for an answer, they created a wildly successful fifth-grade experience that would grow into the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), which today includes sixty-six schools in nineteen states and the District of Columbia. KIPP schools incorporate what Feinberg and Levin learned from America's best, most charismatic teachers: lessons need to be lively; school days need to be longer (the KIPP day is nine and a half hours); the completion of homework has to be sacrosanct (KIPP teachers are available by telephone day and night). Chants, songs, and slogans such as 'Work hard, be nice' energize the program. Illuminating the ups and downs of the KIPP founders and their students, Mathews gives us something quite rare: a hopeful book about education.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/55091 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Autobiography of John Stuart Mill Author: John Stuart Mill Narrator: Noah Waterman Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 57 minutes Release date: April 2, 2009 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Mill’s autobiography deals with but one part of a life, the life of the mind-but a mind that ranks as one of the most remarkable and significant of the nineteenth century. The book memorably depicts the emergence of a brilliant child prodigy, the product of an extraordinary education that both hastened his development and brought him to the brink of suicide by the age of twenty-one; illumined with equal clarity is the story of John Stuart Mill’s renewed commitment to life, and of the further conflicts that marked his long evolution toward maturity as a major philosopher and social thinker. Superb in its dispassionate objectivity, the Autobiography stands as a work of enduring stature and relevance, the final testament of a rare and luminous intelligence.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/55093 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Coming Out of the Ice: An Unexpected Life Author: Victor Herman Narrator: Christopher Hurt Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 13 hours 49 minutes Release date: April 2, 2009 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.6 of Total 15 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In 1931, a young American named Victor Herman accompanied his parents to the Soviet Union, where his father was to set up a Ford Motor Company plant. In 1938, he was inexplicably thrown into a Soviet prison. It was forty-five years before he was able to return to America. His was a common nightmare during the Stalin years. Those who survived imprisonment and torture were either sent north to hard labor in the icy forests and mines or into exile. Victor Herman was one of the few who survived. During his life in and out of Russian prisons, he fell in love with a Russian gymnast, who followed him into exile. She lived with him and their child for a year in Siberia in a cave chopped out of ice. Theirs was a romance destined to thrive even under desperate conditions.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/55094 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Charles de Gaulle: A Biography Author: Don Cook Narrator: Frederick Davidson Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 22 hours 45 minutes Release date: April 2, 2009 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: This magnificent volume by veteran European correspondent Don Cook is the first major biography of de Gaulle written by an American from an American perspective. Rich with new anecdotal material, it offers fresh evaluations and sheds new light on Europe’s most controversial and enigmatic general, politician, and statesman. Arrogant, haughty, single-minded in war, politics, and his personal life, Charles de Gaulle ranks in many ways as the most powerful personality of an epoch blessed—or cursed—with powerful men. Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Truman, Kennedy, and Khrushchev all locked horns with de Gaulle, and all eventually bowed to his wishes. This exciting biography takes full measure of the man and his times, when great soldiers and statesmen fought center stage and the fate of the world hung in the balance.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/54399 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Magnificent Century Author: Thomas B. Costain Narrator: David Case Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 14 hours 23 minutes Release date: January 6, 2009 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: The Magnificent Century, the second volume of Costain's A History of the Plantagenets, covers Henry III's long and turbulent reign, from 1216 to 1272. During his lifetime Henry was frequently unpopular, unreliable and inconsistent. Yet his reign saw spectacular advancement in the arts, sciences and theology, as well as in government. Despite all, it was truly a magnificent century. "Combines a love of the subject with factual history. . .a great story." (San Francisco Chronicle)

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/53963 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Against Medical Advice Author: Hal Friedman, James Patterson Narrator: Kevin T. Collins Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 13 minutes Release date: October 20, 2008 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.38 of Total 16 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 3 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In this inspiring true story, a child struggles with Tourette's syndrome-and overcomes extraordinary challenges with the help of his loving parents. Cory Friedman woke up one morning when he was five years old with the uncontrollable urge to twitch his neck. From that day forward his life became a hell of irrepressible tics and involuntary utterances, and Cory embarked on an excruciating journey from specialist to specialist to discover the cause of his disease. Soon it became unclear what tics were symptoms of his disease and what were side effects of the countless combinations of drugs. The only certainty is that it kept getting worse. Simply put: Cory Friedman's life was a living hell. Against Medical Advice is the true story of Cory and his family's decades-long battle for survival in the face of extraordinary difficulties and a maddening medical establishment. It is a heart-rending story of struggle and triumph with a climax as dramatic as any James Patterson thriller.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/117748 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Pocahontas: My Own Story Author: Capt. John Smith Narrator: Jonathan Reese Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 3 hours 0 minutes Release date: October 20, 2008 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In the early seventeenth century, Captain John Smith led a company of English settlers to found the colony of Jamestown in Virginia. Here is Smith's own account of his adventures there and his relationship with the beautiful Indian princess, Pocahontas. Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, the powerful chief of about thirty tribes of Indians living in Virginia. When Captain John Smith was captured by these Indians in 1607, he was brought before Powhatan, who sentenced him to death. Sixteen-year-old Pocahontas convinced her father to spare Captain Smith's life, thus becoming a friend of the settlers and eventually influencing her father to be friendly, too. Years later, she saved the lives of the entire colony by secretly warning Captain Smith of another intended attack.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/124865 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Author: Harriet Jacobs Narrator: Elizabeth Klett Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 29 minutes Release date: October 13, 2008 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.2 of Total 5 Ratings of Narrator: 1 of Total 2 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Harriet Jacobs' autobiography, written under the pseudonym Linda Brent, details her experiences as a slave in North Carolina, her escape to freedom in the north, and her ensuing struggles to free her children. The narrative was partly serialized in the New York Tribune, but was discontinued because Jacobs' depictions of the sexual abuse of female slaves were considered too shocking. It was published in book form in 1861.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/124711 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Army Life in a Black Regiment Author: Thomas W Higginson Narrator: Felbrigg Herriot Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 9 minutes Release date: October 13, 2008 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 2.67 of Total 3 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson records the adventures of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the United States during the Civil War.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/124866 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Story of My Life-Helen Keller Author: Helen Keller Narrator: George Cooney Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 4 hours 0 minutes Release date: October 13, 2008 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.93 of Total 14 Ratings of Narrator: 4.33 of Total 3 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Helen Keller overcame the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of deafness and blindness to become an icon of perseverance, respected and honored by readers, historians, and activists. Her autobiography The Story of My Life, published in the United States in 1903, is still read today for its ability to motivate and reassure readers. Helen began working on The Story of My Life while a student at Radcliffe College with help from John Albert Macy, a Harvard professor and future husband of Helen's first teacher and lifelong companion, Anne Sullivan. In the book Keller recounts the first twenty-two years of her life, from her early childhood illness that left her blind and deaf through her second year at Radcliffe College.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/53699 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Black List Author: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Elvis Mitchell Narrator: With Contributers, Elvis Mitchell Format: Abridged Audiobook Length: 1 hour 44 minutes Release date: September 16, 2008 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 2 of Total 1 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: In The Black List, twenty-five prominent African-Americans of various professions, disciplines, and backgrounds offer their own stories and insights on the struggles, triumphs, and joys of black life in America and, in the process, redefine 'black list' for a new century. As seen in original portraits by renowned photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and in a series of incisive interviews conducted by award-winning journalist, critic, academic, and radio host Elvis Mitchell, this group exemplifies today's most accomplished, determined African-Americans, whose lives and careers form a trail of inspiration and example for people of all races. Spanning the arts, sports, politics, and business, the diverse accomplishments and lives of these remarkable individuals create a kaleidoscope of ideas and experiences, and provide the framework for a singular conver-sation about the influence of African-Americans on this country and on our world. The Black List is: Slash - Toni Morrison - Keenen Ivory Wayans - Vernon Jordan - Faye Wattleton - Marc Morial - Serena Williams - Lou Gossett Jr. - Russell Simmons - Lorna Simpson - Mahlon Duckett - Zane - Al Sharpton - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - William Rice - Thelma Golden - Sean Combs - Susan Rice - Chris Rock - Suzan-Lori Parks - Steve Stoute - Richard Parsons - Dawn Staley - Colin Powell - Bill T. Jones