Fiction Memoir

Acclaimed author Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior broke new ground when it was first published 35 years ago, weaving autobiography, history, folklore, and fantasy in to a candid and revelatory story about the daughter of Chinese immigrants in mid-20th century California.

Francis Pegahmagabow has long been considered the most prolific killing machine of the First World War as he has been credited with over 378 deaths. This book chronicles his reputation as both a sniper and scout as the Canadian/British Army allowed him to roam freely throughout the "No Man's Land" region of France where he singlehandedly took down German troops.

April 2004: Dan Mills and his platoon of snipers flew into Southern Iraq, part of an infantry battalion sent to win hearts and minds. They were soon fighting for their lives. Back home we were told they were peacekeeping. But there was no peace to keep. Because within days of arriving in theatre, Mills and his men were caught up in the longest, most sustained firefight British troops had faced for over 50 years.

"Peut-on nommer son propre sang ? Et décrire la première blessure, ce moment où, paraissant au jour, le sang se refuse encore à la vie ? À supposer qu'on se rappelle sa circoncision, pourquoi cet acte de mémoire serait-il une confession ? L'aveu de quoi, au juste ? Et de qui ? À qui ? Rôdant autour de ces questions, essayant, comme au clavier, une voix juste au-dedans de moi, je tente de dire de longues, [...] phrases, et de les murmurer au plus près de l'autre qui pourtant les aspire, soupire, expire, les dicte même."

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh gives intimate access to the mind of one of the most brilliant dramatists of his century, whose plays reshaped the American theater and the nation's sense of itself. This astute, deeply researched biography sheds a light on Tennessee Williams's warring family, his guilt, his creative triumphs and failures, his sexuality and numerous affairs, his misreported death, even the shenanigans surrounding his estate.

Here at Audible, we know just how much of an impact a voice can have on a story - taking simple words and filling them with elation, wonderment, tragedy, or pure satisfaction. We rely on our narrators every day to bring our favorite stories and characters to life - to introduce us to new authors and genres, or even to a new (perhaps longer) commute. And though our narrators are the best story tellers in the business, it's usually someone else's that they're telling.

First published in 1923, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is the fictionalized biography of Jesse Livermore, one of the greatest speculators who ever lived. Now, almost 90 years later, it remains the most widely read, highly recommended investment book ever written. Generations of investors have found that it has more to teach them about themselves and other investors than years of experience in the market. They have also discovered that its trading advice and keen analyses of market price movements rings true.

A startling and revelatory examination of Nabokov’s life and works—notably Pale Fire and Lolita—bringing new insight into one of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic authors. Novelist Vladimir Nabokov witnessed the horrors of his century, escaping Revolutionary Russia then Germany under Hitler, and fleeing France with his Jewish wife and son just weeks before Paris fell to the Nazis. He repeatedly faced accusations of turning a blind eye to human suffering to write artful tales of depravity. But does one of the greatest writers in the English language really deserve the label of amoral aesthete bestowed on him by so many critics?

It is the early 60s and Ann, who is Jewish, and Ty, who is Black, are college students excited to meet each other's families. Along the way they encounter potentially violent racially charged situations as their parents cope with children in the forefront of changes yet to come. Ty and Ann learn about their lovers' community and families as they struggle with the interracial relationship. And we, the listeners, have a window into exactly how far we've come in the last half century in America. Or have we?

Au début des années soixante, Thompson, alors journaliste à San Francisco, est fasciné par les Hell's Angels. Son article sur ces seigneurs de la route fait sensation, il se lance dans la version longue : un an passé à rouler et à écrire à leurs côtés. Mais l'équipée se termine sauvagement : parce qu'il refuse de partager ses royalties, les Angels abandonnent l'homme de lettres sur une route, à moitié mort et le crâne défoncé à coups de pierres.

It was the most remarkable political about-face in American history. During the Civil War, General James Longstreet fought tenaciously for the Confederacy. He was alongside Lee at Gettysburg (and counseled him not to order the ill-fated attacks on entrenched Union forces there). He won a major Confederate victory at Chickamauga and was seriously wounded during a later battle. After the war, Longstreet moved to New Orleans, where he dramatically changed course. He supported Black voting and joined the newly elected, integrated postwar government in Louisiana.

Hollywood. Saturday night. A broken taillight leads to a routine traffic stop. It shouldn’t have changed the lives of the four men involved, but it did. The Onion Field is the frighteningly true story of a fatal collision of destinies that would lead two young cops and two young robbers to a deserted field on the outskirts of Los Angeles, towards a bizarre execution and its terrible aftermath.

Based on select writings from a collection of more than two thousand Dutch diaries written during World War II in order to record this unparalleled time, and maintained by devoted archivists, The Diary Keepers illuminates a part of history we haven’t seen in quite this way before, from the stories of a Nazi sympathizing police officer to a Jewish journalist who documented daily activities at a transport camp.

Written in 1966, Tarantula is a collection of poems and prose that evokes the turbulence of its time and provides a unique perspective on Bob Dylan’s creative evolution. It captures Dylan at a crucial juncture in his artistic development, showcasing the imagination of a revolutionary musician who was able to combine the humanity and compassion of his folk music roots with the surrealism of modern art and the intensity of the Delta blues. Angry, funny, and elusive, the poems and prose in this collection reflect the concerns found in Dylan’s most seminal music.

A blend of autobiography and fiction, the book opens on the day his close friend, Pop, a celebrated hunter, leaves Ernest in charge of the safari camp and news arrives of a potential attack from a hostile tribe. Drama continues to build as his wife, Mary, pursues the great black-maned lion that has become her obsession. Spicing his depictions of human longings with sharp humor, Hemingway captures the excitement of big-game hunting and the unparalleled beauty of the scenery.

An epic story told by a unique voice in Ameri­can medicine, One Doctor describes life-changing experiences in the career of a distinguished physi­cian. In riveting first-person prose, Dr. Brendan Reilly takes us to the front lines of medicine today.

Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is one of the most notorious texts in English literature. As recently as 1963, an unexpurgated edition was the subject of a trial, yet in the 18th century John Cleland's open celebration of sexual enjoyment was a best-selling novel. Fanny's story, as she falls into prostitution and then rises to respectability, takes the form of a confession that is vividly colored by copious and explicit physiological details of her carnal adventures.

She was leaning against the door. Her smile was a sickly twisted grimace; the sort a prisoner gives a judge when he's asked if he has anything to say before he's sentenced. Russell Haxby is a ruthless used-car salesman obsessed with manipulating and cavorting with married women. In this classic of hard-boiled fiction, Charles Willeford crafts a wry, sardonic tale of hypocrisy, intrigue, and lust set in San Francisco in the early '50s.

A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share.

At the young age of 16, Andy Adams left his San Antonio home to follow his dream of becoming a cowboy. Going on long drives with some of the 19th century's hardiest cowboys, he learned his trade through many adventurous years of trial and error. This account of his true experiences includes dusty cattle drives, brandings, stampedes, dangerous river crossings, and remarkable encounters with the Blackfoot, Oglala, and Platte Indian tribes.