Listen to the Best Full Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, Memoirs

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?: A Memoir by Séamas O'reilly

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/405460 [https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/405460] to listen full audiobooks. Title: Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?: A Memoir Author: Séamas O'reilly Narrator: Séamas O'reilly Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 0 minutes Release date: June 7, 2022 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 2 Ratings of Narrator: 3 of Total 2 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: A heart-warming and hilarious family memoir of growing up as one of eleven siblings raised by a single dad in Northern Ireland at the end of the Troubles. Séamas O’Reilly’s mother died when he was five, leaving him, his ten (!) brothers and sisters, and their beloved father in their sprawling bungalow in rural Derry. It was the 1990s; the Troubles were a background rumble, but Séamas was more preoccupied with dinosaurs, Star Wars, and the actual location of heaven than the political climate. ­ An instant bestseller in Ireland, Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is a book about a family of loud, argumentative, musical, sarcastic, grief-stricken siblings, shepherded into adulthood by a man whose foibles and reticence were matched only by his love for his children and his determination that they would flourish. “In this joyous, wildly unconventional memoir, Séamas O'Reilly tells the story of losing his mother as a child and growing up with ten siblings in Northern Ireland during the final years of the Troubles as a raucous comedy, a grand caper that is absolutely bursting with life.”―Patrick Radden Keefe, NYT bestselling author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain One of NPR’s Best Books of the Year

Upper Bohemia: A Memoir by Hayden Herrera

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/406949 [https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/406949] to listen full audiobooks. Title: Upper Bohemia: A Memoir Author: Hayden Herrera Narrator: Cynthia Farrell Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 21 minutes Release date: June 22, 2021 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: A New Yorker Best Book of 2021 A “touching, heartbreaking, and exceptional” (Town & Country) coming-of-age memoir by the daughter of artistic, bohemian parents—set against a backdrop of 1950s New York, Cape Cod, and Mexico. Hayden Herrera’s parents each married five times; following their desires was more important to them than looking after their children. When Herrera was only three years old, her parents separated, and she and her sister moved from Cape Cod to New York City to live with their mother and their new hard-drinking stepfather. They saw their father only during the summers on the Cape, when they and the other neighborhood children would be left to their own devices by parents who were busy painting, writing, or composing music. These adults inhabited a world that Herrera’s mother called “upper bohemia,” a milieu of people born to privilege who chose to focus on the life of the mind. Her parents’ friends included such literary and artistic heavyweights as artist Max Ernst, writers Edmund Wilson and Mary McCarthy, architect Marcel Breuer, and collector Peggy Guggenheim. On the surface, Herrera’s childhood was idyllic and surreal. But underneath, the pain of being a parent’s afterthought was acute. Upper Bohemia captures the tension between a child’s excitement at every new thing and her sadness at losing the comfort of a reliable family. For her parents, both painters, the thing that mattered most was beauty—and so her childhood was expanded by art and by a reverence for nature. But her early years were also marred by abuse and by absent, irresponsible adults. As a result, Herrera would move from place to place, parent to parent, relative to family friend, and school to school—eventually following her mother to Mexico. The stepparents and stepsiblings kept changing too. Intimate and honest, Upper Bohemia “captures an enchanted but erratic childhood in a rarefied milieu with the critical but appreciative eye of a seasoned art historian” (The Wall Street Journal). It is a celebration of a wild and pleasure-filled way of living—and a poignant reminder of the toll such narcissism takes on the children raised in its grip.

Measuring Up: A Memoir of Fathers and Sons by Dan Robson

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/398385 [https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/398385] to listen full audiobooks. Title: Measuring Up: A Memoir of Fathers and Sons Author: Dan Robson Narrator: Dan Robson Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 25 minutes Release date: May 11, 2021 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: SHORTLISTED for the 2022 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize   “Dan Robson’s book is a heart-wrenching portrait of grief. Anyone who has lost a parent will recognize it, know it intimately as you roll through the stages and finally come to the realization that a parent’s ultimate gift to a child is showing them how to live.”—Tanya Talaga, bestselling author of Seven Fallen Feathers     A tender memoir of fathers and sons, love and loss, and learning to fill boots a size too big. Dan Robson’s father is a builder, a fixer. A man whose high-school education is enough not only to provide for his family, but to build a successful business. Rick Robson holds things up. When he dies, nothing in his son’s world feels steady anymore. In a very real sense, the home his father had built is suddenly fragile. Without its natural caretaker, the house will fall to pieces—and his family shows all the same signs of crumbling. Dan is hit especially hard. He knows he is not the man his father was. Dan never learned the blue-collar skills he admired, because his father wanted him to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. Now that his father is gone, the acknowledgment of his sacrifices and the sheer longing to be close to him again in some way draw Dan to the tools that lie unused in the garage. So begins Dan’s year of learning the skills his father’s hands had long mastered, and trying to fill the steel-toe boots left behind. Measuring Up is the story of that journey. Robson picks up where his father left off, working on the house and the truck, as much for the family as for himself. In much the same way that Michael Pollan comes to know his house inside-out in A Place of My Own, Robson learns the mysteries and proud satisfaction of plumbing, carpentry, wiring, and drywalling, and comes to understand how our homes are built. He also comes to see how his home was built by his father, uncovering more than one heartbreaking reminder of the kind of man his father was, and what he meant to his family. Tender and unflinching, Measuring Up is a story of love, mourning, and what it means to use your calloused hands to make the world around you a better place to live.

To the Greatest Heights: Facing Danger, Finding Humility, and Climbing a Mountain of Truth by Vanessa O'brien

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/403848 [https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/403848] to listen full audiobooks. Title: To the Greatest Heights: Facing Danger, Finding Humility, and Climbing a Mountain of Truth Author: Vanessa O'brien Narrator: Vivienne Leheny Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 11 hours 55 minutes Release date: March 30, 2021 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Travel to the top of the world’s highest mountains with this this riveting and uplifting memoir that “is a rare mix of heart-stopping adventure and powerful self-reflection” (Johanna Garton, author of Edge of the Map) by Vanessa O’Brien, record-breaking American British explorer. Long before she became the first American woman to summit K2 and the first British woman to return from its summit alive, Vanessa O’Brien was a feisty suburban Detroit teenager forced to reinvent her world in the wake of a devastating loss that destroyed her family. Making her own way in the world, Vanessa strove to reach her lofty ambitions. Soon, armed with an MBA and a wry sense of humor, she climbed the corporate ladder to great success, but after the 2009 economic meltdown, her career went into a tailspin. She searched for a new purpose and settled on an unlikely goal: climbing Mount Everest. When her first attempt ended in disaster, she trudged home, humbled but wiser. Two years later, she made it to the top of the world. And then she kept going. Grounded by a cadre of wise-cracking friends and an inimitable British spouse, Vanessa held her own in the intensely competitive world of mountaineering, summiting the highest peak on every continent, and skiing the last degree to the North and South Poles. She set new speed records for the Seven Summits, receiving a Guinness World Record and the Explorers Grand Slam, and finally made peace with her traumatic past. During her attempt on K2, she very nearly gave up. But on the “savage mountain,” which kills one out of every four climbers who summit, Vanessa evolved from an adventurer out to challenge herself to an explorer with a high-altitude perspective on a changing world—and a new call to share her knowledge and passion across the globe. Told with heart and humor, To the Greatest Heights is a “vicariously engaging addition to the literature on mountaineering as well as a beacon of inspiration” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Man with a Van: My Story by Drew Pritchard

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/411801 [https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/411801] to listen full audiobooks. Title: Man with a Van: My Story Author: Drew Pritchard Narrator: Drew Pritchard Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 53 minutes Release date: February 18, 2021 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3 of Total 3 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. 'When I see something old, that I think is beautiful, special, valuable, it's not about the money. It's about being in another time and place.' Star of TV's Salvage Hunters, Drew Pritchard will go to the greatest lengths for the best deals. He discovered the casts Lord Elgin made of his infamous marbles in a school garage, and broke the bank to buy the tool box Malcolm Campbell used when he set the water speed record in 1934. He made a million. Lost it. And made it again. The face of the compulsively fascinating business of finding and restoring lost treasures, visionary Drew takes us up and down the country, into garages, factories, schools and pubs, digging out incredible items from that 'other time and place'. Then by lovingly restoring them, he brings our history back to life. A flat cap among silver spoons and old school ties, our favourite no-bullshit expert may be a one-off, but his story makes us all dream of that obscure piece of antiquity gathering dust in the garden shed... ©Drew Pritchard 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021