Artists, Writers & Musicians

Ghost Empire

• UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 57 mins)
• By Richard Fidler
• Narrated By Richard Fidler
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Ghost Empire is a rare treasure - an utterly captivating blend of the historical and the contemporary, realised by a master storyteller. In 2014, Richard Fidler and his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul. Fired by Richard's passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire - centred around the legendary Constantinople - we are swept into some of the most extraordinary tales in history. The clash of civilisations, the fall of empires, the rise of Christianity, revenge, lust, murder.

Working Class Boy

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 41 mins)
• By Jimmy Barnes
• Narrated By Jimmy Barnes
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Raw, gritty, compassionate, surprising and darkly funny - Australian legend Jimmy Barnes' unforgettable childhood memoir. A household name, an Australian rock icon, the elder statesman of OzPubRock - there isn't an accolade or cliché that doesn't apply to Jimmy Barnes. But long before Cold Chisel and Barnesy, long before the tall tales of success and excess, there was the true story of James Dixon Swan - a working class boy whose family made the journey from Scotland to Australia in search of a better life.

Fight Like a Girl

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 38 mins)
• By Clementine Ford
• Narrated By Clementine Ford
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Online sensation, fearless feminist heroine and scourge of trolls and misogynists everywhere, Clementine Ford is a beacon of hope and inspiration to thousands of Australian women and girls. Her incendiary debut, Fight Like a Girl, is an essential manifesto for feminists new, old and soon to be and exposes just how unequal the world continues to be for women.

On Writing

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 59 mins)
• By Stephen King
• Narrated By Stephen King
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In June of 1999, Stephen King was hit by a van while walking along the shoulder of a country road in Maine. Six operations were required to save his life and mend his broken body. When he was finally able to sit up, he immediately started writing. This book - part biography, part a collection of tips for the aspiring writer - is the extraordinary result.

Born to Run

• UNABRIDGED (18 hrs and 16 mins)
• By Bruce Springsteen
• Narrated By Bruce Springsteen

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl's halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That's how this extraordinary autobiography began. Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to this audio the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs.

Scar Tissue

• UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 53 mins)
• By Anthony Kiedis
• Narrated By Rider Strong

In 1983 four self-described 'knuckleheads' burst out of the neo-punk rock scene in LA with their own unique brand of cosmic hard-core mayhem funk. Over 20 years later, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, against all the odds, have become one of the most successful bands in the world. Though the band has gone through many incarnations, Anthony Kiedis, the group's lyricist and dynamic lead singer, has been there for the whole rollercoastar ride.

A Life in Parts

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 51 mins)
• By Bryan Cranston
• Narrated By Bryan Cranston
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Bryan Cranston landed his first role at seven, when his father, a struggling actor and director, cast him in a commercial. Soon Bryan was haunting the local movie theater, reenacting scenes with his older brother. Acting was clearly his destiny - until one day his father disappeared. As a young man on a classic cross-country motorcycle trip, he found himself stranded at a rest area in the Blue Ridge Mountains. To pass the time, he read a tattered copy of Hedda Gabler, and in a flash he found himself face-to-face with his original calling.

Just Kids

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 53 mins)
• By Patti Smith
• Narrated By Patti Smith

In 1967, a chance meeting between two young people led to a romance and a lifelong friendship that would carry each to international success never dreamed of. The backdrop is Brooklyn, Chelsea Hotel, Max’s Kansas City, Scribner’s Bookstore, Coney Island, Warhol’s Factory and the whole city resplendent. Among their friends, literary lights, musicians and artists such as Harry Smith, Bobby Neuwirth, Allen Ginsberg, Sandy Daley, Sam Shepherd, William Burroughs, etc

How to Make Gravy

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 23 mins)
• By Paul Kelly
• Narrated By Paul Kelly

Paul Kelly is a uniquely gifted storyteller, and here, using his lyrics as starting points, he reads stories of his life and his songs, including "Before Too Long", "To Her Door", "Leaps And Bounds", "Don't Start Me Talking", "Dumb Things", "From Little Things Big Things Grow" and "How to Make Gravy". Mirroring the structure of his legendary A to Z shows - where he performs around a hundred of his songs alphabetically over four nights - Kelly describes the highs and lows of performing, the art of songwriting, being on the road with the band, tales of his childhood, family, friends and fellow musicians.

The Autobiography of Gucci Mane

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 29 mins)
• By Gucci Mane, Neil Martinez-Belkin
• Narrated By Guy Lockard
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

For the first time, Gucci Mane tells his story in his own words. It is the captivating life of an artist who forged an unlikely path to stardom and personal rebirth. Gucci Mane began writing his memoir in a maximum-security federal prison. Released in 2016, he emerged radically transformed. He was sober, smiling, focused, and positive - a far cry from the Gucci Mane of years past. Born in rural Bessemer, Alabama, Radric Delantic Davis became Gucci Mane in East Atlanta, where the rap scene is as vibrant as the dope game.

Alan Partridge: Nomad

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 5 mins)
• By Alan Partridge
• Narrated By Alan Partridge
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In Alan Partridge: Nomad, Alan dons his boots, windcheater and scarf and embarks on an odyssey through a place he once knew - it's called Britain - intent on completing a journey of immense personal significance. Diarising his ramble in the form of a 'journey journal', Alan details the people and places he encounters, ruminates on matters large and small and, on a final leg fraught with danger, becomes not a man (because he was one to start off with) but a better, more inspiring example of a man.

A Walk in the Woods

• ABRIDGED (6 hrs and 2 mins)
• By Bill Bryson
• Narrated By Bill Bryson

The Appalachian Trail covers 14 states, and over 2,000 miles. It stretches along the East Coast of the United States, from Maine in the north to Georgia in the south. It is famous for being the longest continuous footpath in the world. (Compare this with the Pennine Way, which is a mere 250 miles long.) It snakes through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in America, as well as through some of its most poverty-stricken and primitive backwoods areas.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 12 mins)
• By Maya Angelou
• Narrated By Maya Angelou
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Maya Angelou's six volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a Black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement, and celebration. In this first volume of her six books of autobiography, Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the 1930s. She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother's lover.

May I Have Your Attention Please?

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 11 mins)
• By James Corden
• Narrated By James Corden
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

As far back as he can remember James Corden has only ever wanted to be in one place: in front of you, doing something to make you laugh, cry, shout, or giggle uncontrollably. At the age of 4, he grandstanded throughout his baby sister’s christening, standing on a chair in front of the whole congregation, pulling faces and cracking everyone up. Despite himself, the vicar was impressed. And from then on he couldn’t get enough of the spotlight, even when it always seemed to avoid him. Throughout his teens, he and his Dad trudged up and down towards London....

How Proust Can Change Your Life

• UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 6 mins)
• By Alain de Botton
• Narrated By Nicholas Bell

For anyone who ever wondered what Marcel Proust had in mind when he wrote the one-and-a-quarter-million words of In Search of Lost Time (while bedridden no less), Alain de Botton has the answer. For, in this stylish, erudite and frequently hilarious book, de Botton dips deeply into Proust’s life and work - his fiction, letter, and conversations – and distils from them that rare self-help manual: one that is actually helpful.

So, Anyway...: The Autobiography

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 36 mins)
• By John Cleese
• Narrated By John Cleese

John Cleese describes his nerve-racking first public appearance, at St Peter's Preparatory School at the age of eight and five-sixths; his endlessly peripatetic homelife, with parents who seemed incapable of staying in any house for longer than six months; his first experiences in the world of work, as a teacher who knew nothing about the subjects he was expected to teach; his hamster-owning days at Cambridge; and his first encounter with the man who would be his writing partner for over two decades, Graham Chapman.

Autobiography

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 44 mins)
• By Morrissey
• Narrated By David Morrissey
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Steven Patrick Morrissey was born in Manchester on May 22nd 1959. Singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Smiths (1982-1987), Morrissey has been a solo artist for twenty-six years, during which time he has had three number 1 albums in England in three different decades.Achieving eleven Top 10 albums (plus nine with the Smiths), his songs have been recorded by David Bowie, Nancy Sinatra, Marianne Faithfull, Chrissie Hynde, Thelma Houston, My Chemical Romance and Christy Moore, amongst others.

The Mighty Franks: A Memoir

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 7 mins)
• By Michael Frank
• Narrated By Michael Frank
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

A story at once extremely strange and entirely familiar - about families, innocence, art and love. This hugely enjoyable, totally unforgettable memoir is a classic in the making. 'My aunt called our two families the Mighty Franks. But, she said, you and I, Lovey, are a thing apart. The two of us have pulled our wagons up to a secret campsite. We know how lucky we are. We're the most fortunate people in the world to have found each other, isn't it so?'

The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 47 mins)
• By John le Carré
• Narrated By John le Carré
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

'Out of the secret world I once knew, I have tried to make a theatre for the larger worlds we inhabit. First comes the imagining, then the search for reality. Then back to the imagining, and to the desk where I'm sitting now.' The Pigeon Tunnel, John le Carré's memoir and his first work of nonfiction, is a thrilling journey into the worlds of his 'secret sharers' - the men and women who inspired some of his most enthralling novels - and a testament to the author's extraordinary engagement with the last half century.

Island Home: A Landscape Memoir

• UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 2 mins)
• By Tim Winton
• Narrated By David Tredinnick
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

'I grew up on the world's largest island.' This apparently simple fact is the starting point for Tim Winton's beautiful, evocative and sometimes provocative memoir of how this unique landscape has shaped him and his writing. For over 30 years, Winton has written novels in which the natural world is as much a living presence as any character.

What Is It All but Luminous: Notes from an Underground Man

• UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 8 mins)
• By Art Garfunkel
• Narrated By Art Garfunkel

From the golden-haired, curly-headed half of Simon & Garfunkel - a memoir (of sorts): artful, moving, lyrical; the making of a musician; the evolution of a man, a portrait of a lifelong friendship and collaboration that became one of the most successful singing duos of their time. Art Garfunkel writes about his life before, during, and after Simon & Garfunkel...about their folk-rock music in the roiling age that embraced and was defined by their pathbreaking sound.

South and West: From a Notebook

• UNABRIDGED (2 hrs and 51 mins)
• By Joan Didion
• Narrated By Kimberly Farr
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles. Here is one such draft that traces a road trip she took with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. She interviews prominent local figures, describes motels, diners, a deserted reptile farm, a visit with Walker Percy, a ladies' brunch at the Mississippi Broadcasters' Convention.

American Legends: The Life of Dr. Seuss

• UNABRIDGED (59 mins)
• By Charles River Editors
• Narrated By Jim D. Johnston

Ted Geisel: Few Americans are familiar with that name, but as kids, everyone comes across the books he wrote under the famous pseudonym Dr. Seuss. Initially, readers knew Dr. Seuss as a World War II political cartoonist (if at all), and his first attempt at a children's book, "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street", was rejected over two dozen times by publishers. It was not until the 1950s that Dr. Seuss began publishing some of his most famous and revered titles, including "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

The Autobiography of Gucci Mane

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 29 mins)
• By Gucci Mane, Neil Martinez-Belkin
• Narrated By Guy Lockard
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

For the first time, Gucci Mane tells his story in his own words. It is the captivating life of an artist who forged an unlikely path to stardom and personal rebirth. Gucci Mane began writing his memoir in a maximum-security federal prison. Released in 2016, he emerged radically transformed. He was sober, smiling, focused, and positive - a far cry from the Gucci Mane of years past. Born in rural Bessemer, Alabama, Radric Delantic Davis became Gucci Mane in East Atlanta, where the rap scene is as vibrant as the dope game.

Phillis Wheatley: The Life and Legacy of the Slave Who Became Colonial America's Most Famous Poet

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 9 mins)
• By Charles River Editors
• Narrated By Scott Clem

Phillis Wheatley has always been a difficult figure for people to wrap their minds around. She fits no easy stereotypes that historians or contemporaries liked to use to classify their subjects. Her "career" has always escaped definition. In the 18th century, enslaved people were not supposed to have been educated, certainly not to the level that Wheatley was. In a time and place where slaves were rarely taught to read, they were obviously not expected to write better poetry than the vast majority of their peers.

Hemingway's Brain

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 26 mins)
• By Andrew Farah
• Narrated By Andrew Farah

Hemingway's Brain is an innovative biography and the first forensic psychiatric examination of Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway. After committing 17 years to researching Hemingway's life and medical history, Andrew Farah, a forensic psychiatrist, has concluded that the writer's diagnoses were incorrect. Contrary to the commonly accepted diagnoses of bipolar disorder and alcoholism, Farah provides a comprehensive explanation of the medical conditions that led to Hemingway's suicide.

101 Amazing Facts About Eminem

• UNABRIDGED (30 mins)
• By Jack Goldstein, Frankie Taylor
• Narrated By Kent Harris

In this fascinating audiobook, narrator Kent Harris talks us through 101 amazing facts about the world's most famous rapper. Covering subjects such as his background, music, relationships and much more, this is an ideal audiobook for everyone from the casual listener right through to Eminem's biggest fan!

A Sick Life: TLC 'n Me: Stories from On and Off the Stage

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 37 mins)
• By Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins
• Narrated By Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

A Sick Life chronicles Tionne's journey from a childhood spent in and out of the hospital, told she wouldn't live to see 30 or have children, to becoming the superstar musician who is still living out her life's dream of performing. For the first time, Tionne will tell her full life story - the diagnosis, the tumultuous rise to fame, the life in the spotlight, and the hard-fought advocacy work.

Good Things Happen Slowly: A Life in and out of Jazz

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 25 mins)
• By Fred Hersch
• Narrated By Fred Hersch, Steven Jay Cohen
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Jazz could not contain Fred Hersch. Hersch's prodigious talent as a sideman - a pianist who played with the giants of the 20th century in the autumn of their careers, including Art Farmer and Joe Henderson - blossomed further in the '80s and beyond into a compositional genius that defied the boundaries of bop, sweeping in elements of pop, classical, and folk to create a wholly new music.

Dead Woman Laughing: An Actor's 'Take' from Both Sides of the Camera

• UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 44 mins)
• By Daphne Ashbrook
• Narrated By Daphne Ashbrook
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Witty, self-effacing and painfully honest, the themes of life, death and laughter come together as Daphne Ashbrook recounts her many on- and off-screen scrapes with mortality. Packed with rich anecdotes from her career in TV, stage and film, this refreshingly candid and conversational memoir spans a childhood in a theatrical family to pulling back the curtain of Hollywood, revealing the glamour and ridiculousness of a business mired in a struggle between art and profit.

A Life of My Own

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 38 mins)
• By Claire Tomalin
• Narrated By Dame Penelope Wilton
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin. As one of the best biographers of her generation, Claire Tomalin has written about great novelists and poets to huge success. Now she turns to look at her own life. This enthralling memoir follows her through triumph and tragedy in about equal measure, from the disastrous marriage of her parents and the often difficult wartime childhood that followed to her own marriage to the brilliant young journalist Nicholas Tomalin.

Happiness: The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 14 mins)
• By Heather Harpham
• Narrated By Heather Harpham
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Happiness begins with a charming courtship between hopelessly attracted opposites: Heather, a world-roaming California girl, and Brian, an intellectual, homebody writer, kind and slyly funny but loath to leave his Upper West Side studio. Their magical interlude ends, full stop, when Heather becomes pregnant - Brian is sure he loves her, only he doesn't want kids.

Hurt Road: The Music, the Memories, and the Miles Between

• UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 49 mins)
• By Mark Lee
• Narrated By Mark Lee
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Third Day guitarist Mark Lee is no stranger to heartache and hopes deferred; the road to success is never traveled without missteps along the way. Life is messy and uncertain and full of surprises. And one of the best things he's ever done is let go of his expectations about how life should be in order to embrace life as it is: a moment-by-moment walk with God. Hurt Road is the engaging true story of a man who, as a teen, found in music a refuge from the uncertainties of life.

At the Strangers' Gate

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 43 mins)
• By Adam Gopnik
• Narrated By Adam Gopnik

When Adam Gopnik and his soon-to-be-wife, Martha, left the comforts of home in Montreal for New York, the city then, much like today, was a pilgrimage site for the young, the arty, and the ambitious. But it was also becoming a city of greed, where both life's consolations and its necessities were increasingly going to the highest bidder. At the Strangers' Gate builds a portrait of this particular moment in New York through the story of this couple's journey....

Martin Sharp: His Life and Times

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 2 mins)
• By Joyce Morgan
• Narrated By Daniel Koek
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

This is the beautifully told story of charismatic and unconventional pop artist Martin Sharp, from his lonely privileged childhood to the heady days of the underground magazine Oz to Swinging London and beyond. Sharp blurred the boundaries of high art and low; he drew rock stars and reprobates into his world, collaborated with Eric Clapton, obsessively championed eccentric singer Tiny Tim, was haunted by Sydney's Luna Park and, paradoxically, became a recluse whose phone never stopped ringing.

The Best of Us: A Memoir

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 35 mins)
• By Joyce Maynard
• Narrated By Joyce Maynard

In 2011, when she was in her late 50s, beloved author and journalist Joyce Maynard met the first true partner she had ever known. Jim wore a rakish hat over a good head of hair; he asked real questions and gave real answers; he loved to see Joyce shine, both in and out of the spotlight; and he didn't mind the mess she made in the kitchen. He was not the husband Joyce imagined, but he quickly became the partner she had always dreamed of.

What I Found in a Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musician's Guide to Rebuilding America's Communities - One Coffee Shop, Dog Run, and Open-Mike Night at a Time

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 4 mins)
• By Dar Williams
• Narrated By Dar Williams

Dubbed by The New Yorker as "one of America's very best singer-songwriters", Dar Williams has made her career not in stadiums but touring America's small towns. She has played their venues, composed in their coffee shops, and drank in their bars. She has seen these communities struggle but has also seen them thrive in the face of postindustrial identity crises. Here, Williams muses on why some towns flourish while others fail, examining elements from the significance of history and nature to the uniting power of public spaces and food.

Maximum Volume: The Life of Beatles Producer George Martin: The Early Years, 1926-1966

• UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 6 mins)
• By Kenneth Womack
• Narrated By Paul Woodson

Maximum Volume offers a glimpse into the mind, the music, and the man behind the sound of the Beatles. George Martin's working-class childhood and musical influences profoundly shaped his early career in the BBC's Classical Music department and as head of the EMI Group's Parlophone Records. Out of them flowed the genius behind his seven years producing the Beatles' incredible body of work, including such albums as Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Abbey Road.

Somebody to Love: The Life, Death and Legacy of Freddie Mercury

• UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 4 mins)
• By Matt Richards, Mark Langthorne
• Narrated By Tim Bruce
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

When Freddie Mercury died in 1991, aged just 45, the world was rocked by the vibrant and flamboyant star's tragic secret that he had been battling AIDS. That Mercury had even been diagnosed came as a shock to his millions of fans, with his announcement coming less than 24 hours before his death. In Somebody to Love, biographers Mark Langthorne and Matt Richards skilfully weave Freddie Mercury's incredible pursuit of musical greatness with Queen, his upbringing and his endless search for love with the story of a terrible disease.

Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!: 2000AD and Judge Dredd: The Secret History

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 55 mins)
• By Pat Mills
• Narrated By Pat Mills
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

As 2000AD and Judge Dredd celebrate their 40th birthday in 2017, Pat Mills at last writes the definitive history of the Galaxy's Greatest Comic and the turbulent, extraordinary and exciting events that shaped it. The story begins in a garden shed in Scotland sometime in 1971...Pat Mills is the creator of 2000AD and one of the comic's top writers.