Biographies & Memoirs

From her first day at Westwind Cremation & Burial, 23-year-old Caitlin Doughty threw herself into her curious new profession. Coming face-to-face with the very thing we go to great lengths to avoid thinking about, she started to wonder about the lives of those she cremated and the mourning families they left behind, and found herself confounded by people's erratic reactions to death. Exploring our death rituals - and those of other cultures - she pleads the case for healthier attitudes around death and dying.

In this long-awaited and candid memoir, Hitchens re-traces the footsteps of his life to date, from his childhood in Portsmouth, with his adoring, tragic mother and reserved Naval officer father; to his life in Washington DC, the base from which from he would launch fierce attacks on tyranny of all kinds. Along the way, he recalls the girls, boys and booze; the friendships and the feuds; the grand struggles and lost causes; and the mistakes and misgivings that have characterised his life.

Superstar comedian and Hollywood box-office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include: the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and you have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself since Old Yeller.

This is a biography of James Baldwin, author, one-time preacher, and civil rights activist. He chose David Leeming, a close friend and colleague, to write his biography and granted him access to his correspondence. Leeming traces his life from his birth in Harlem in 1924 to his self-imposed exile in Europe, his later years as political activist, and his public funeral in 1987.

This memoir is soaked in the sunshine of Corfu, where Gerald Durrell lived as a boy, surrounded by his eccentric family - as well as puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies.

Looking back over his life, from schoolboy crushes (on girls and boys) to discovering the power of making people laugh (in the Cambridge Footlights with David Mitchell), and from losing his beloved mother to becoming a husband and father, Robert Webb considers the absurd expectations boys and men have thrust upon them at every stage of life.

Few companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes listeners inside Google headquarters - the Googleplex - to explain how Google works.

In her captivating memoir Through the Leopard's Gaze, Njambi McGrath details the harrowing circumstances of her life as a young girl in Kenya, who one fateful night was beaten to a pulp and left for dead. Thirteen-year-old Njambi, fearing her assailant would return to finish her, courageously escaped, walking through the night in the Kenyan countryside, risking wild animals, robbers and murderers, before being picked up by two shabbily dressed but safe men.  

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an 1100-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe and built her back up again. At 22, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. After her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State - alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than an idea: vague, outlandish, and full of promise.

One of the inspirations for the major motion picture Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Keira Knightley. This is the true story of a 24-hour period on Everest when members of three separate expeditions were caught in a storm and faced a battle against hurricane-force winds, exposure, and the effects of altitude, which ended the worst single-season death toll in the peak's history.

Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time. 

Billions of you have watched their videos, and millions of you have followed them on social media. So here we go: it's time to back up, because YouTube superstars The Sidemen are finally here in audiobook form, and they're dishing the dirt on each other as well as the YouTuabe universe. The guys are behind the mic, and it’s about to get messy.

The 50th Law, combines the unique talents of hip hop and pop culture icon 50 Cent (aka Curtis Jackson) and Robert Greene, best-selling author of The 48 Laws of Power. This is a "bible" for success in life and work based on a single principle: fear nothing. Containing intimate stories from 50 Cent's life on the streets and in the boardroom; his rise to worldwide fame and acclaim after the release of his album Get Rich or Die Tryin'.

A reissue of this classic title, updated with never-before-published material from the original taped interviews and with a new introduction by Andrew Morton that reflects on the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the original publication of Diana: Her True Story. One of the world's best-known biographers, Andrew Morton's groundbreaking and controversial biography Diana: Her True Story changed the public's perception of the British monarchy and became an instant global best seller.

Lara Maiklem has scoured the banks of the Thames for over 15 years, in pursuit of the objects that the river unearths: from Neolithic flints to Roman hair pins, medieval buckles to Tudor buttons, Georgian clay pipes to Victorian toys. These objects tell her about London and its lost ways of life. Moving from the river's tidal origins in the west of the city to the point where it meets the sea in the east, Mudlarking is a search for urban solitude and history on the River Thames, what Lara calls 'the longest archaeological site in the world'.

For the very first time, Finding Freedom goes beyond the headlines to reveal unknown details of Harry and Meghan’s life together, dispelling the many rumours and misconceptions that plague the couple on both sides of the pond....

Sir Michael Caine - perhaps best known as gang leader Charlie Croker in 60s crime caper The Italian Job - tells the stories of remarkable heists and extraordinary robberies from around the world, as remembered by the masterminds, detectives, victims, journalists and witnesses....

For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare - poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself....

Drummer with The Police, Stewart Copeland, sets out to uncover the truth about his father, Miles Axe Copeland ll - musician, raconteur, international businessman... and, it turns out, secret CIA operative....

It’s the week before Easter in 1971, and at the local power plant in rural Lapland, the workers are heading out for the morning shift. But something’s different - a safe has been robbed, and no one knows how. In Vietas, award-winning crime author Jenny Rogneby explores....

Bryony Gordon is a respected journalist, a number one best-selling author and an award-winning mental health campaigner....

This much we do know: Sophie Toscan du Plantier was murdered days before Christmas in 1996, her broken body discovered at the edge of her property near the town of Schull in West Cork, Ireland....

A funny, insightful memoir by much-loved documentary maker Louis Theroux, taking us on a weird and wonderful journey through two decades of groundbreaking television....

After 25 years of 'sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine', Chef and novelist Anthony Bourdain decided to tell all....

Ross Edgley famously ran a marathon pulling a 1.4-tonne car and climbed a rope the height of Everest (8,848 m), after living with Yamabushi warrior monks in Japan and partaking in Shamanic pain rituals with fire ants in the Amazon jungle....

Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids, and the hospital parking meter earns more than you.... 

The slap you in your face, stop you in your tracks, colour run from your face moment that changed everything. Six speakers from across the globe unravel the moment that redefined how they perceive themselves and how they view the world – put together with arresting sound design....

Some crimes are so horrific they attract the harshest punishment possible: a sentence that means the guilty will die behind bars. From ‘the Crossbow Cannibal’ to Moors murderer Myra Hindley, journalist Julian Druker explores the cases of eight criminals with whole life orders.... 

In Search Of Black History with Bonnie Greer brings you face-to-face with the people you never knew existed. People whose stories tell us a different tale about who we all are....

The long-awaited, rambling, tender and very funny memoir from Adam Buxton....

It’s the $10 million heist you’ve never heard of. In a matter of months, dozens of truckloads disappeared from American highways. But what were they carrying? Nuts....

For the first time, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson opens up about his amazing comeback - from tragic personal loss to thriving businessman and cable’s highest-paid executive - in this unique self-help guide, his first since his blockbuster New York Times best seller....

Part inspiration, part memoir, Untamed explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet the expectations of the world and instead dare to listen to and trust in the voice deep inside us.... 

The third and most ambitious of Michael Palin's adventures is a voyage of epic proportions - the circumnavigation of the Pacific Rim....

At the age of 17, after a childhood in an fostered family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay....

No one is born a leader. But through sheer determination and by confronting life’s challenges, Ant Middleton has come to know the meaning of true leadership....

A woman disappears on her way to work. A man is convicted of her murder. But this case is different. Though the police believe they have the right man, key components of the prosecution case are missing....

To the Woman is Audible UK’s flagship podcast series for International Women’s Day. Season two is hosted by June Sarpong OBE - a former To the Woman (Season 1) contributor and the BBC’s first Director of Creative Diversity....

Growing up in a poor Yiddish speaking home in 1950s London, Lillian – then just a teenager – marries charming older man Raymond. One day he takes their children to the local park. But he never returns. When they reappear 40 years later – the search for the truth begins....

Imagine having three life-coaches who had been through the toughest mental and physical challenges; a crack team of problem-solvers who knew in their day job that one mistake could be the difference between life - and death....

Tara Westover and her family grew up preparing for the End of Days but, according to the government, she didn’t exist....