New Reviews: Biography & Memoir

Sheila Heti's latest meditative work comes alive with Kate Berlant's expressive narration. This compilation has an unusual conceit: Heti chose sentences from 10 years of her journal-keeping and then organized them according to the first letter of the first word of each sentence. Consistent themes emerge, including romantic entanglements, financial struggles, writing joys and... Read More

Rob Shapiro captures the viewpoint of Brent Cummings, an Iraq War veteran who leads cadets with his moral conviction. Shapiro emphasizes the shock Cummings feels at Donald Trump's election and his worry that his country is falling apart because of the president's divisiveness. Brent's neighbor, Michael, is a man with politically polar opposite views. Shapiro excels at dialogue... Read More

This biography of playwright and poet August Wilson contains both narrative and brief passages from some of his plays. Thus, the narrator has to be both storyteller and actor. Dion Graham excels at both. His rich voice carries the biography along nicely, but it is when he recites lines from plays such as FENCES and quotations from figures in Wilson's past that Graham really... Read More

Author/narrator Amy Tan takes up bird watching to counteract the negativity and discord in the world. Tan is a joy to listen to--a charming and warm presence, with a dollop of self-deprecation, as she chronicles her learning journey. She exudes joy and wonder as a hummingbird feeds from her hand. There is anguish when, to avoid spreading a disease among the Pine Siskins, she... Read More

Sam Dewhurst-Phillips's sonorous narration sets the right tone for this true story of Frederick Rutland, a double-dealing British war hero who spied for Japan in the run-up to Pearl Harbor. Like his Hollywood friend Boris Karloff, Rutland was a man who wore many masks. He earned the nickname "Rutland of Jutland" for his heroics during the 1916 Battle of Jutland. His engineering... Read More

Narrator Cheryl Smith engages listeners with this audiobook, part memoir, part nature and social activism. O'Kane, who spent most of her career as a human rights journalist and social activist, became an "accidental birder" in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Her life and worldview changed when she began noticing and observing birds outside of her destroyed home in New Orleans.... Read More

Performing this revealing look at the complexities of the revered jazz pioneer Billie Holiday, actress Maya Days connects with every ounce of the brilliance and tragedy of the singer's life. Strategic pauses in Days's phrasing and spot-on dialect for dialogue make her sentences sing with auditory variety. But it's her heartfelt resonance with Holiday's difficult life that makes... Read More

Ellen Adair handles this biography of Pete Rose beautifully, with clear enunciation and pronunciation, letting the rich and troubled life of baseball's all-time hits leader stand for what it is. Rose was a homegrown Cincinnati guy who went on to star for the Reds. But his off-field pursuits--gambling, an extramarital affair, and a lack of solid friendships--mar his legacy.... Read More

The privileged world of the spirited Isabella Stewart Gardner is aptly captured by the patrician voice of narrator Maggie-Meg Reed. Born in 1840 to a wealthy family in New York City, Isabella married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner and proceeded to both dazzle and confuse proper Boston elites. Reed softens her tone when "Mrs. Jack" suffers the death of her only child, to recover,... Read More

Renowned VILLAGE VOICE dance critic Deborah Jowitt has written an informative biography of the legendary modern dance choreographer, performer, and teacher Martha Graham. Erin Bennett delivers a sophisticated yet relaxed performance of the text. Three cheers for an enchanting effort so well matched to the book at hand. Bennett's tone and intonation are solid--in all respects... Read More

Julie Chavez projects the cheer and passion that have earned her recognition for her podcast, "Ask a Librarian." Here she writes about a time of personal crisis when she was juggling the demands of her job and taking sole care of her sons when her husband was frequently traveling for work. Suddenly, she found herself experiencing a mental health crisis that manifested as panic... Read More

Narrating her memoir, Sloane Crosley delivers ironic humor that balances the horror of back-to-back traumas. Admitting the unlikelihood and disorientation of what happened, Crosley links the vulnerability she felt at a burgled apartment and, a month later, at the suicide of her boss and friend, Russell. Their shared history in the shifting publishing industry serves as a... Read More

Amy Lin's husband was running a virtual half-marathon when he dropped dead for no discoverable reason. He was 32 years old. She was left absolutely broken. Lin's performance of her memoir, told in vignettes of meeting and losing Kurtis, is so staggeringly beautiful that it will break your heart. Her grief is so obviously raw and her memories of their life together so full of... Read More

Nadia Davis, an attorney who is the ex-wife of a former California attorney general, shares her recovery from various traumas to help those who are facing similar challenges. Davis tells her story with unapologetic honesty and power. She describes how she healed from the physical and psychological pain of a car accident that nearly killed her, spousal abuse, addiction, and... Read More

Pop culture drag star RuPaul's soft narration opens with sensory details that evoke the power of memory. His gentle voice allows listeners to enter early scenes of his life in San Diego that are not always easy--waiting for his father who never shows up, arriving home for lunch to find a locked door. Within those scenes are wise reflections about the world around him and his... Read More

Shayla Lawson presents their collection of wide-ranging travel essays in a low, measured tone that mirrors the essays themselves. Lawson's voice is crisp and clear, with a professional cadence that never sounds lofty or removed; instead, Lawson sounds calm, centered, and curious. In essays set in locales across the globe--Egypt, Bermuda, Japan, the Netherlands, and more--Lawson... Read More

Memoirs are often best when they're read by the author, and Lucy Sante's intimate and poignant account of her journey from assigned-male-at-birth to female-presenting is sometimes raw, sometimes soft, and altogether genuine. Her own voice delivering vignettes from her life resonates with authenticity. Sante's lifelong success as a writer comes through in her near-poetic... Read More

Barbara Benjamin-Creel's clear voice and strong performance bring Mendez's memoir to life. Mendez began her nearly thirty-year career in the CIA as a "contract wife"--an administrator who was the spouse of a CIA agent. Embarking into this "man's world," she used her brains, grit, and persistence to become an intelligence agent herself and eventually rose to be the chief of... Read More

Every Holocaust memoir offers a unique perspective. This audiobook shows its horrors through the eyes of innocent children, Stefan and Marion Hess. Tavia Gilbert delivers their story of life with their parents in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with tenderness and care. She manages to depict the reality and fragility of their existence without surrendering its fleeting moments... Read More

Through this audiobook, listeners will come to see Civil Rights pioneer John Lewis as a living bridge from Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., to President Barack Obama. The force behind the concept of "good trouble," Lewis was inspired to become a minister and to join the Civil Rights movement after hearing King preach over the radio. Lewis was just a boy at the time. His life,... Read More

Author and narrator Uché Blackstock sounds authentic and urgent in this plea for medical practitioners to combat the racism that still exists in all aspects of healthcare. Dr. Blackstock virtually grew up in the hospital where her mother practiced as a kidney doctor. Blackstock is appalled at the gaping systemic disparities she observed during her stints at a well-resourced... Read More

Ana Osorio's youthful voice seems an appropriate vehicle for recounting the story of a young Venezuelan reporter who experiences the personal and political upheaval that is taking place under the government of Hugo Chavez. Poignant moments occur throughout the audio; for example, Ramón imagines that a coup might rescue her from having to finish homework. Osorio's voice takes on... Read More

Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez powerfully narrates her memoir of her experiences in the broken immigration system of the United States and her fight for a better future. Gutierrez's family was split up when her parents' visas expired and they were sent back to Mexico. A high school freshman, she was left alone to raise herself and her younger brother in Arizona. Gutierrez's... Read More

British performance artist and writer Travis Alabanza narrates their own expansive exploration of race, gender, and trans identity. Throughout this engaging production, they reject the expectation of a tidy response to the "When did you know . . . " question and the demands to perform according to narrowly defined gender parameters. Alabanza shares their experiences growing up... Read More

History consists of events conducted mostly by men and recorded by men. In her clear, uncompromising voice, Philippa Gregory turns the tables, taking listeners through 900 years of abuse and betrayals, yearnings and near-miraculous accomplishments of women. Frequent interjections by Clare Corbett, Tania Rodrigues, Nneka Okoye, James Goode, and Joe Jameson provide voices for the... Read More

Michael Langan's narration infuses curiosity and delight into this memoir and guidebook on sustainability. The authors moved into a 1930s lodge when Peter accepted work as a forester in northwestern Germany. Langan's gentle, uplifting tone captures their enthusiastic but not fanatical attitude during their quest for self-sustainability and small-scale farming. Through his... Read More

Literature specialists may be familiar with the four writers featured in this group biography--Mary Sidney, Aemelia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary, and Anne Clifford--but most listeners will not be. This is in part because their work was generally ignored or suppressed. Ramie Targoff is interested in why that happened, considering that three of the women were countesses, well... Read More

Clara Kim narrates her mother's memoir. The initial chapters describe Nguon's early years in Cambodia, which were filled with the abundance of her mother's gifted cooking and the love of her older siblings. Interspersed are joyfully remembered recipes. Sadly, Kim's narration fails to capture the elegance of this memoir's language. Later, when Pol Pot's genocide necessitates... Read More

Kim Bretton infuses Rebecca May Johnson's food memoir with a quiet but breathless energy that makes it feel almost like a page-turner. Johnson spent more than 10 years cooking the same recipe for a simple tomato sauce hundreds of times. In this memoir, she investigates how we think about recipes, combining food writing, literary criticism, feminist scholarship, and social... Read More

Essayist and novelist Leslie Jamison chooses the tone and pacing of her narration as carefully as she selects the details of her powerful writing. These qualities, along with her candidness, invite listeners deep into her memories, which include the flower-filled hospital room where she stayed after delivering her daughter and desperate Internet searches for relief from her... Read More

Hanif Abdurraqib's latest book is a transcendent feat of poetry, memoir, and--well, magic. His narration is as breathless and beautiful as his prose; this book is epic in every sense of the word. It's an ode to his hometown of Columbus, Ohio; a love letter to basketball; a meditation on home and belonging; and an exploration of faith, Blackness, music, and place. He delivers... Read More

Lyz Lenz narrates her memoir about the end of her marriage and the start of her new life as an "ex-wife." While Lenz had been told that the end of her marriage would be the end of her family, she soon discovered that leaving her unhappy marriage gave her more fulfillment and love than she ever had before. Using her personal experience as a springboard, Lenz delves into the... Read More

David de Vries narrates the autobiography of Ludwig Bemelmans, known best as the creator of the beloved Madeline children's books and for his distinct style of illustrations. The audiobook includes the author's observations and activities in Hollywood during the 1950s, with a particular focus on his friendship with the glamorous late-in-life "First Lady of Interior Decoration,"... Read More

Rob Henderson's flat tone may reflect the substance of his life. Still, his material engages as he describes how his three names represent the first people who abandoned him. He frames his early life as a series of eight moves from one foster home to the next. As he describes his eventual adoption by a loving family as he neared his teens, his characterizations deepen, and the... Read More

Every one of performer Billy Dee Williams's well-lived 86 years can be heard in this candid memoir. Williams's somewhat tired vocal demeanor sharply contrasts with his cool and crisp delivery of the fascinating events of his life, beginning with his childhood appearance in a Broadway show. He has a tinge of a New York City accent. And--make no mistake--his frequent odd pauses... Read More

Cindy Kay narrates Dr. Fei-Fei Li's memoir of her life at the vanguard of artificial intelligence (AI) with an emotionally attuned ear. As a teenager, Li's family emigrated from China to the United States, a move that led to both opportunities and challenges. Kay sensitively conveys the author's confidence and vulnerability; her expansive delivery allows listeners to experience... Read More