Nonfiction Biography

Amazing women with a story to tell. Join Mae West as she shakes up the entertainment industry with her wit and wisdom or create colorful art pieces with Yayoi Kusama that are larger than life itself. These women in history defied the expectations of conventional society to live the lives they chose, regardless of what others thought.

Among these biographies, listeners will find aviators and artists, politicians and pop stars, athletes and activists. The exceptional men featured include artist Aaron Douglas, civil rights leader John Lewis, dancer Alvin Ailey, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, musician Prince, photographer Gordon Parks, tennis champion Arthur Ashe, and writer James Baldwin.

Featuring 18 trailblazing Black women in American history, Little Leaders educates and inspires as it relates true stories of breaking boundaries and achieving beyond expectations. Among these biographies, listeners will find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things - bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come.

As a child he dreamt of changing South Africa; as a man he changed the world. Nelson Mandela spent his life battling apartheid and championing a peaceful revolution. He spent 27 years in prison and emerged as the inspiring leader of the new South Africa. He became the country’s first Black president and went on to live his dream of change.

Sister Siren takes us on the journey of loving someone in active addiction with riveting stories of critical moments the author stepped into with the addict she loves. Michaela’s intellectual, emotional, and spiritual curiosity takes a unique approach to addiction with daring experiential rigor, respect, and commitment to find the love that exists in all relationships, however imperfect or difficult it can be at times.

Austin Channing Brown’s first encounter with race in America came at age seven, when she discovered that her parents had named her Austin to trick future employers into thinking she was a white man. Growing up in majority-white schools and churches, Channing Brown writes, “I had to learn what it means to love Blackness,” a journey that led to a lifetime spent navigating America’s racial divide. For students navigating a time of racial hostility, and for adults and educators who care for them, I’m Still Here is an empowering look at the experiences of young Black kids.

On July 28, 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife left their house in Western Massachusetts to visit relatives. Hawthorne and his 5-year-old son Julian stayed behind. How father and son got on together for the next three weeks is the subject of Twenty Days with Julian & Little Bunny, by Papa, a tender and funny extract from Hawthorne's notebooks, perhaps one of the earliest accounts in literature of a father caring for a young child.

Are you looking for an inspirational audiobook to inspire the inner genius of your kids? Can you imagine your little one having so much fun listening, they prefer it over screen time? Then, you will love our children-friendly biography David Attenborough! Use this exciting biography to instill timeless values and principles in your child. Sir David Frederick Attenborough’s work tells the story of a man whose curiosity and wonder for the natural world around him transformed the way people interacted with the environment.

After Zaila Avant-garde became the first African American student to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2021, she turned into an overnight sensation. People wanted to know who she was and how she'd achieved so much while so young. Zaila shares about her family, her accomplishments, her experience of being homeschooled, and so much more in order to motivate and uplift other kids who have small-, medium-, and even big-sized dreams.

In a heartwarming first-person account, dePaola retells his experiences at home and in school when he was a boy. 26 Fairmount Avenue is full of humor, drama, suspense and just the day to day ups and downs of a little boy's life.

A horse's spirit called out for help and in a mysterious way, I was the one that heard her weary spirit's call. Today, I am so thankful that I kept my promise to never give up on my Krizta, not just for her sake, but for my own. Krizta was the first memeber of my American Horse Family. Krizta taught me that a horse forms the rider. She became my greatest teacher. After Krizta retired, she and Cairo, the next horse in the family, took on the responsibility of raising four young foals, Mysti, Keanu, Sebastian and Hannover.

Eddie Rickenbacker was a World War I Flying Ace, a Medal of Honor winner, and even a racecar driver. But did you know that his first attempt at flying was to ride his bicycle off the roof of his house while holding an umbrella?

From the New York Times bestselling author of First Man comes a sweeping saga involving two extraordinary—and extraordinarily different—adventurers who have only one thing in common: the ambition to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat . . . alone. With gripping and insightful prose, James R. Hansen brings to life John Fairfax and Tom McClean's expeditions, from their battle with the elements to their own inner demons. Completely Mad is a nail-biting, epic tale of endurance, and listeners will be gripped until the end to find out who won.

Americans are more familiar with his signature than with the man himself. In this spirited account of John Hancock's life, Brooke Barbier depicts a patriot of fascinating contradictions—a child of enormous privilege who would nevertheless become a voice of the common folk; a pillar of society uncomfortable with radicalism who yet was crucial to independence. Orphaned young, Hancock was raised by his merchant uncle, whose business and vast wealth he inherited—including household slaves, whom Hancock later freed. By his early thirties, he was one of New England's most prominent politicians.

The murder of Sarah Payne, Adam the Thames Torso, the London bombings, the Night Stalker and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. The solving of all these cases can be linked to one man: Ray Fysh, a beer-swigging Charlton Athletic fan from Woolwich, a natural raconteur, and also one of the finest forensic detectives the country has ever seen. Ray began work for the Met Police in the 1970s when forensic investigation was seen as little more than a geeky side show, only in existence to confirm or eliminate evidence. But by the mid '90s Ray and his team had made huge progress in their field.

Between 1930 and 1932, Henry Ford sent 450 of his Detroit employees plus their families to live in Gorky, Russia, to operate a new manufacturing facility. This is the true story of one of those families—Carl and Elisabeth Werner and their young daughter Margaret—and their terrifying life in Russia under brutal dictator Joseph Stalin.

Patton's Shadow by Nathan C. Jones, a leading authority on George S. Patton, offers a definitive account of the creation of the Patton legend and what it illuminates about American culture and the worship of heroes. Jones traces how the persona of Patton, a brash and brilliant general in the European theater of World War II, transcended the individual man and became a cultural icon and byword for triumphal American might.

In 1976, Di Rushing and her husband, Sam decided to open the first winery in Mississippi. Their business was thriving by 1990, with eight national award-winning wines, a beautiful vineyard, and a successful restaurant. But in March of 1990, a series of unforeseen events rocked the operation. After the Rushings discovered one of the tour guides, Ray Russell, selling drugs in the winery parking lot, they fired him. He responded with a terrorizing vengeance that persisted over the next nine months.

March 31, 1985. Two white patrol officers in search of a gang member followed a pickup truck carrying seven young Black men up a dirt driveway in the Encanto neighborhood of San Diego. Minutes later, gunshots rang out, and the truck's driver, Sagon Penn, fled the scene in an officer's patrol car. Penn was an idealist who believed in the power of Buddhist chants to bring about the oneness of humanity. The two police officers were rising stars in one of the most progressive police departments in the country, yet one that had suffered more officers killed in the line of duty than any other.

World War II was raging, with thousands of American soldiers fighting overseas against the injustices brought on by Hitler. Back on the home front, the injustice of discrimination against African Americans was playing out as much on Main Street as in the military. Enlisted black men were segregated from white soldiers and regularly relegated to service duties. At Fort Benning, Georgia, First Sergeant Walter Morris’s men served as guards at The Parachute School while the white soldiers prepared to be paratroopers.