Listen free for 30 days
-
Body Counts
- A Memoir of Politics, Sex, Aids, and Survival
- Narrated by: David Drake
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: LGBTQ+, Biographies & Memoirs
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £15.59
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
And the Band Played On
- Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
- By: Randy Shilts
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 31 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Upon it's first publication 20 years ago, And The Band Played On was quickly recognized as a masterpiece of investigatve reporting. An international best seller, a nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and made into a critically acclaimed movie, Shilts' expose revealed why AIDS was allowed to spread unchecked during the early 80's while the most trusted institutions ignored or denied the threat. One of the few true modern classics, it changed and framed how AIDS was discussed.
-
-
A real time capsule
- By Jim on 17-06-14
-
All the Young Men
- How One Woman Risked It All to Care for the Dying
- By: Ruth Coker Burks, Kevin Carr O'Leary
- Narrated by: Ruth Coker Burks
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1986, 26-year-old Ruth Coker Burks visits a friend in hospital when she notices that the door to one of the patient's rooms is painted red. The nurses are reluctant to enter, drawing straws to decide who will tend to the sick person inside. Out of impulse, Ruth herself enters the quarantined space and begins to care for the young man who cries for his mother in the last moments of his life.
-
-
Exceptional
- By JE on 04-02-21
-
Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic
- By: Richard A. McKay
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Patient Zero, Richard A. McKay presents a carefully documented and sensitively written account of the life of Gaetan Dugas, a gay man whose skin cancer diagnosis in 1980 took on very different meanings as the HIV/AIDS epidemic developed - and who received widespread posthumous infamy when he was incorrectly identified as patient zero of the North American outbreak.
-
Hold Tight Gently
- Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS
- By: Martin Duberman
- Narrated by: Anthony Bowden
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1995, the FDA approved the release of protease inhibitors, the first effective treatment for AIDS. For countless people, the drug offered a reprieve from what had been a death sentence; for others, it was too late. In the US alone, over 318,000 people had already died from AIDS-related complications - among them the singer Michael Callen and the poet Essex Hemphill. Meticulously researched and evocatively told, Hold Tight Gently is the celebrated historian Martin Duberman’s poignant memorial to those lost to AIDS and to two of the great unsung heroes....
-
How to Survive a Plague
- The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS
- By: David France
- Narrated by: Rory O'Malley
- Length: 24 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How to Survive a Plague by David France is the riveting, powerful and profoundly moving story of the AIDS epidemic and the grass-roots movement of activists, many of them facing their own life-or-death struggles, who grabbed the reins of scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease.
-
-
A piece of history that needs to be shared
- By Ellie Moore on 08-01-21
-
Queer Intentions
- A (Personal) Journey Through LGBTQ+ Culture
- By: Amelia Abraham
- Narrated by: Amelia Abraham
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today, the options and freedoms on offer to LGBTQ+ people living in the West are greater than ever before. But is same-sex marriage, improved media visibility and corporate endorsement all it’s cracked up to be? At what cost does this acceptance come? And who is getting left behind, particularly in parts of the world where LGBTQ+ rights aren’t so advanced? Combining intrepid journalism with her own personal experience, Amelia Abraham searches for the answers to these urgent challenges, as well as the broader question of what it means to be queer in 2019.
-
-
Mixed
- By Martin on 01-01-22
-
And the Band Played On
- Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
- By: Randy Shilts
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 31 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Upon it's first publication 20 years ago, And The Band Played On was quickly recognized as a masterpiece of investigatve reporting. An international best seller, a nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and made into a critically acclaimed movie, Shilts' expose revealed why AIDS was allowed to spread unchecked during the early 80's while the most trusted institutions ignored or denied the threat. One of the few true modern classics, it changed and framed how AIDS was discussed.
-
-
A real time capsule
- By Jim on 17-06-14
-
All the Young Men
- How One Woman Risked It All to Care for the Dying
- By: Ruth Coker Burks, Kevin Carr O'Leary
- Narrated by: Ruth Coker Burks
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1986, 26-year-old Ruth Coker Burks visits a friend in hospital when she notices that the door to one of the patient's rooms is painted red. The nurses are reluctant to enter, drawing straws to decide who will tend to the sick person inside. Out of impulse, Ruth herself enters the quarantined space and begins to care for the young man who cries for his mother in the last moments of his life.
-
-
Exceptional
- By JE on 04-02-21
-
Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic
- By: Richard A. McKay
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Patient Zero, Richard A. McKay presents a carefully documented and sensitively written account of the life of Gaetan Dugas, a gay man whose skin cancer diagnosis in 1980 took on very different meanings as the HIV/AIDS epidemic developed - and who received widespread posthumous infamy when he was incorrectly identified as patient zero of the North American outbreak.
-
Hold Tight Gently
- Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS
- By: Martin Duberman
- Narrated by: Anthony Bowden
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1995, the FDA approved the release of protease inhibitors, the first effective treatment for AIDS. For countless people, the drug offered a reprieve from what had been a death sentence; for others, it was too late. In the US alone, over 318,000 people had already died from AIDS-related complications - among them the singer Michael Callen and the poet Essex Hemphill. Meticulously researched and evocatively told, Hold Tight Gently is the celebrated historian Martin Duberman’s poignant memorial to those lost to AIDS and to two of the great unsung heroes....
-
How to Survive a Plague
- The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS
- By: David France
- Narrated by: Rory O'Malley
- Length: 24 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How to Survive a Plague by David France is the riveting, powerful and profoundly moving story of the AIDS epidemic and the grass-roots movement of activists, many of them facing their own life-or-death struggles, who grabbed the reins of scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease.
-
-
A piece of history that needs to be shared
- By Ellie Moore on 08-01-21
-
Queer Intentions
- A (Personal) Journey Through LGBTQ+ Culture
- By: Amelia Abraham
- Narrated by: Amelia Abraham
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today, the options and freedoms on offer to LGBTQ+ people living in the West are greater than ever before. But is same-sex marriage, improved media visibility and corporate endorsement all it’s cracked up to be? At what cost does this acceptance come? And who is getting left behind, particularly in parts of the world where LGBTQ+ rights aren’t so advanced? Combining intrepid journalism with her own personal experience, Amelia Abraham searches for the answers to these urgent challenges, as well as the broader question of what it means to be queer in 2019.
-
-
Mixed
- By Martin on 01-01-22
-
Hillary the Other Woman
- A Political Memoir
- By: Dolly Kyle
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dolly Kyle met former president Clinton ("Billy", as she calls him) on a Hot Springs golf course when she was 11 and he was almost 13. It was colpo de fulmine (the thunderbolt) at first sight. Their friendship grew throughout high school and college. It became a decades-long affair that lasted despite marriages and politics - all the way to the threshold of the White House, when she became a political liability and he threatened to destroy her, as Hillary had done to so many of his other women over the years.
-
The Real Romney
- By: Michael Kranish, Scott Helman
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mitt Romney has masterfully positioned himself as the front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Even though he's become a household name, the former Massachusetts governor remains an enigma to many in America, his character and core convictions elusive, his record little known. Who is the man behind that high-wattage smile? In this definitive, unflinching biography by Boston Globe investigative reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, listeners will finally discover the real Romney.
-
Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut
- Misadventures in the Counterculture
- By: Paul Krassner
- Narrated by: David Letwin
- Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Uncensored, uncontained, and thoroughly demented, the memoirs of Paul Krassner are back in an updated and expanded edition. Paul Krassner, "father of the underground press" (People magazine), founder of the Realist, political radical, Yippie, and award-winning stand-up satirist, shares his stark-raving adventures with the likes of Lenny Bruce, Abbie Hoffman, Norman Mailer, Ken Kesey, Groucho Marx, and Squeaky Fromme, revealing the patriarch of counterculture’s ultimate, intimate, uproarious life on the fringes of society.
-
West Wingers
- Stories from the Dream Chasers, Change Makers, and Hope Creators Inside the Obama White House
- By: Gautam Raghavan - editor
- Narrated by: Gautam Raghavan, Michael Strautmanis, Brad Jenkins, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In these moving and revealing personal stories, 18 Obama staffers bring us deep inside the presidency, offering intimate accounts of how they made it to the White House, what they witnessed, and what they accomplished there. In each one we see the human face of government, staffers devoting themselves to the issues that have defined their lives.
-
Undaunted
- Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back
- By: Jackie Speier
- Narrated by: Jackie Speier
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jackie Speier was twenty-eight when she joined Congressman Leo Ryan’s delegation to rescue defectors from cult leader Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. Ryan was killed on the airstrip tarmac. Jackie was shot five times at point-blank range. While recovering from what would become one of the most harrowing tragedies in recent history, Jackie had to choose: Would she become a victim or a fighter? The choice to survive against unfathomable odds empowered her with a resolve to become a vocal proponent for human rights.
-
-
Undaunted
- By Mary Harling Kelly Creedon on 29-05-21
-
The New American Revolution
- The Making of a Populist Movement
- By: Kayleigh McEnany, Sean Hannity - foreword
- Narrated by: Kayleigh McEnany
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Political writer and official RNC spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany spent months traveling throughout the United States conducting interviews with Americans whose powerful and moving stories were forgotten or intentionally ignored by our leaders. They discussed their deeply personal stories and the issues that are most important to them. The New American Revolution chronicles both the losses of these grassroots voters as well as their ultimate victory in November 2016.
-
Becoming
- By: Michelle Obama
- Narrated by: Michelle Obama
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it - in her own words and on her own terms.
-
-
Very Disappointed
- By Marie on 19-06-19
-
The Matriarch
- Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty
- By: Susan Page
- Narrated by: Kate Levy
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A vivid biography of former first lady Barbara Bush, one of the most influential and underappreciated women in American political history.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Colin McIntosh on 14-04-21
-
Betty Ford
- First Lady, Women's Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer
- By: Lisa McCubbin Hill
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer is the inspiring story of an ordinary Midwestern girl thrust onto the world stage and into the White House under extraordinary circumstances. Setting a precedent as first lady, Betty Ford refused to be silenced by her critics as she publicly championed equal rights for women and spoke out about issues that had previously been taboo - breast cancer, depression, abortion, and sexuality.
-
Off the Sidelines
- Raise Your Voice, Change the World
- By: Kirsten Gillibrand
- Narrated by: Kirsten Gillibrand, Susan Denaker, Hillary Clinton
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fourteen years before Kirsten Gillibrand succeeded Hillary Rodham Clinton as senator from New York, she heard her future mentor say these life-changing words: "Decisions are being made every day in Washington, and if you are not part of those decisions, you might not like what they decide, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself." A young corporate lawyer at the time, Gillibrand felt as if she’d been struck by lightning. She instantly knew that her voice - all women’s voices - were essential to shaping the future of this country, and that she had a greater purpose in life.
-
Make Trouble
- Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead: My Life Story
- By: Cecile Richards, Lauren Peterson - contributor
- Narrated by: Cecile Richards
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Cecile Richards - the president of Planned Parenthood, daughter of the late Governor Ann Richards, featured speaker at the Women's March on Washington, and "the heroine of the resistance" (Vogue) - comes a story about learning to lead and make change, based on a lifetime of fighting for women's rights and social justice.
-
Real Queer America
- LGBT Stories from Red States
- By: Samantha Allen
- Narrated by: Samantha Allen
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Real Queer America, Samantha Allen takes us on a cross-country road-trip stretching all the way from Provo, Utah to the Rio Grande Valley to the Bible Belt to the Deep South. Her motto for the trip: "Something gay every day." Making pit stops at drag shows, political rallies, and hubs of queer life across the heartland, she introduces us to scores of extraordinary LGBT people working for change, from the first openly transgender mayor in Texas history to the manager of the only queer night club in Bloomington, Indiana, and many more.
Summary
The founder of POZ magazine shares "a captivating...eyewitness account from inside the AIDS epidemic" (Next) and "a moving, multidecade memoir of one gay man's life" (San Francisco Chronicle). As a politics-obsessed Georgetown freshman, Sean Strub arrived in Washington, DC, from Iowa in 1976, with a plum part-time job running a senate elevator in the US Capitol. He also harbored a terrifying secret: his attraction to men. As Strub explored the capital's political and social circles, he discovered a parallel world where powerful men lived double lives shrouded in shame. When the AIDS epidemic hit in the early 1980s, Strub was living in New York and soon found himself attending "more funerals than birthday parties". Scared and angry, he turned to radical activism to combat discrimination and demand research. Strub takes you through his own diagnosis and inside ACT UP, the organization that transformed a stigmatized cause into one of the defining political movements of our time. From the New York of Studio 54 and Andy Warhol's Factory to the intersection of politics and burgeoning LGBT and AIDS movements, Strub's story crackles with history. He recounts his role in shocking AIDS demonstrations at St. Patrick's Cathedral as well as at the home of US Senator Jesse Helms. With an astonishing cast of characters, including Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Keith Haring, Bill Clinton, and Yoko Ono, this is a vivid portrait of a tumultuous era "[with] the suspense and horror of Paul Monette's memoir Borrowed Time and the drama of Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart.... What a lot of action - and life - there is in this gripping book." (The Washington Post). Photo: Iowa City Press-Citizen
More from the same
What listeners say about Body Counts
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ms CT Clarke
- 16-02-20
Missed opportunity
This book should have been titled "The Ego has Landed". It's basically 13 hours of the author name-checking who he met and with whom he slept.
There's precious little talk about the impact of HIV, AIDs and the politics surround that but a LOT of famous names whom the author has met. Frankly that's not what I bought the book for.
The narrator is excellent but the book really needs an editor. And to be re-advertised to make it clear what the book is about; the author's ego.
For those who didn't live through the 1980's it could have been a history lesson of the fear of that time. There were the odd flash of that (making HIV+ people eat off disposable plates etc) but most of the book is about Strub's sex life. Nor does he really go into detail about the medical side of how treatments changed and improved. Yes, there's a little about experimental trials and treatments but only in the context of his lovers taking any experimental treatment going.
It's such a wasted opportunity of a book and I genuinely don't understand why the rating is so high. DEFINITELY avoid if you're not from the USA because the content is split 50% Strub's lovers, 30% USA politics, 10% AIDs medical, 10% social history. And I'm probably being generous to the AIDs/social history in that.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Susie
- 18-08-15
An Inspiration to Act Up!
With page-turning prose and encounters to make Andy Warhol jealous, this exceptional memoir of the AIDS epidemic and Act Up is the only history you need to understand the fight for respect and action when it felt like the world was going up in flames.
Strub takes you from the closeted world of Beltway politicians, where where outward prudery butts heads with acts of desire, to New York City, a place where he finally felt safe to come out, just as strong leadership was needed to get the rest of the world to take notice and take action against HIV/AIDS.
A superb recording with exceptional narration by David Drake, "Body Counts" is an inspiration.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Carter Hooper
- 05-09-15
A Knockout Account of the Battle Against AIDS
Would you listen to Body Counts again? Why?
Oh yeah, Strub weaves important milestones and facts in the battle against AIDS with personal tales from the front. It's one man's story but you learn a lot of the history of HIV, from initial denial of the scourge by the nation (and by gay men), to the widespread fear and panic, the initial push to get federal funding and recognition from the Regan and Bush administrations, the failure of Clinton's, the fight for treatments and drug approval, all the way to the thoughtful reflections as the author recovered from near death, and as AIDS and HIV, along with the intense activism, moved to back burners. With Sean Stub finding a renewed vigor to fight the mind-boggling horrors of criminalizing people with HIV, my money's on Strub and justice.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Strub himself, of course. One's man's story, struggles and fight that pretty much encompasses the whole history of the disease. He brings to the front important people that may have been lost to time, like the pivotal activism of Stephen Gendin, POZ columnist and important in FDA drug approval reform. Strub recounts his friendships with Keith Haring, Gore Vidal, John Berendt-there's, so there's plenty of celebrities here, though none told just for kicks or name dropping, only for their importance in his amazing life.
Which character – as performed by David Drake – was your favorite?
Strub again. Nuanced performance.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
AIDS. Has. Met. Its. Match.
Any additional comments?
One of the best parts of the book are Strub's accounts of his youthful job as elevator operator in the U.S. Capital. Really funny interactions with some powerful people. Secret passages, alcoholic senators...good stuff.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Ray Pruett
- 19-12-21
So many memories unearthed
Sean is a great story teller and his tales of growing up through the 70’s and the 80’s health crisis of AIDS was moving and accurate. Those of us that survived should read this book and remember our years of act up advocacy and celebrate this wonderful life! Thank you so much, Sean.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Debbie Abbott
- 30-07-20
Fantastic!
This is easily one of my favorite books ever. It is so funny, poignant, and heartfelt. It offers a personal view of HIV/AIDs, the gay community, activism, politics, friendship, and both romantic and sexual relationships. Sean Strub is a wonderful writer that, on more than one occasion, made me cry and laugh hysterically in equal measure. The narrator is wonderful in pace and enunciation. I was never bored and the stories were never dulll. Its just as entertaining as it is truly educational.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Laura
- 29-05-20
Beautiful and Brave
Such a fantastic illustration of how one person from one community from one family can provide so much value to so many. Thank you for sharing who you are with the rest of us.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- SBG
- 27-04-18
Great
Wonderful book, beautifully written -- a perfect storm of history, science, and honest personal experience. The only drawback -- and not a big one -- was the narrator, who, though clearly talented, added an unnecessary breathy theatricality to the performance. Especially given Sean Strub's own elegant, understated, restrained vocals. The emotions ring loud and clear and don't need emoting. That said, the book is brilliant. A true stroll back down an inspirational if painful memory lane.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Connie
- 12-01-18
narrator was a bit over dramatic
very powerful and a great follow up to and the band played on. I wish he had read it himself
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Irene Z.
- 31-12-17
Compelling, heart wrenching, inspiring.
This is a wonderfully written memoir. Full of insightful anecdotes, it offers a wonderful viewpoint of the LGBT and AIDS cultures of the latter part of the 20th century. The narration is great, and I felt entirely engaged the entire time. I absolutely recommend this book.