Showing results by publisher "Random House Audio" in Biographies & Memoirs

In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era.

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.

Master of the Senate, told with an abundance of rich detail that could only have come from Caro’s peerless research, is both a galvanizing portrait of the man himself—the titan of Capital Hill, volcanic, mesmerizing—and a definitive and revelatory study of the workings and personal and legislative power.

In Campfire Stories: Close Calls, Steven Rinella invites seasoned hunters, anglers, adventurers, and outdoor professionals to share their tales of perilous adventures in the natural world, from run-ins with black bears and grizzlies to bad falls and severe hypothermia.

More than 20 years ago, Frances Mayes - widely published poet, gourmet cook, and travel writer - introduced readers to a wondrous new world when she bought and restored an abandoned Tuscan villa called Bramasole. Under the Tuscan Sun inspired generations to embark on their own journeys.

Told with humor and honesty, A Clean Mess is Tiffany Jenkins’s story of how she learned to live and feel for the first time without numbing herself with drugs—and how she discovered inner reserves of strength she didn’t know she had. From her tentative first days of sobriety, to seeing two pink lines on a pregnancy test weeks later, to navigating anxiety, a new marriage, and motherhood at the same time, to surviving betrayal and divorce, Jenkins shows how she got through it all when her crutches and Band-Aids were taken away from her.

From the creators of the New York Times bestselling audio series Campfire Stories and MeatEater's American History comes a new audiobook original that immerses listeners into the brutal and unforgiving world of the professional buffalo hunters who drove America's most iconic wildlife species to the brink of extinction.

Captain Liz Clark spent her youth dreaming of traveling the world by sailboat and surfing remote waves. When she was 22, she met a mentor who helped turn her desire into reality. Embarking on an adventure that most only fantasize about, she set sail from Santa Barbara, California, as captain of her 40-foot sailboat, Swell, headed south in search of surf, self, and the wonder and learning that lies beyond the unbroken horizon.

In Jawbreaker, Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the CIA's most decorated officers, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

Dr. Jamison is one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive (bipolar) illness; she has also experienced it firsthand. For even while she was pursuing her career in academic medicine, Jamison found herself succumbing to the same exhilarating highs and catastrophic depressions that afflicted many of her patients, as her disorder launched her into ruinous spending sprees, episodes of violence, and an attempted suicide.

As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special operatives whose job was to organize and arm the resistance in Nazi-occupied France. After the war, Atkins courageously committed herself to a dangerous search for 12 of her most cherished women spies who had gone missing in action. Drawing on previously unavailable sources, Sarah Helm chronicles Atkins’s extraordinary life and her singular journey through the chaos of post-war Europe.

The Color of Everything is a thrilling tale of risk and adventure, written by a man who has done it all: he’s stood at the top of the world, climbed imposing mountain faces alone in the dark and become the only American to summit an 8,000-meter peak in winter. But it is also the story of a tumultuous life--a stirring, lyrical memoir that captures the profound musings of a brilliant and unquiet mind grappling with the meaning of success, the cost of fame, addiction, and whether it is possible to outrun your demons.

By August 1968, the American space program was in danger of failing in its two most important objectives: to land a man on the moon by President Kennedy's end-of-decade deadline and to triumph over the Soviets in space. With its back against the wall, NASA made an almost unimaginable leap: It would scrap its usual methodical approach and risk everything on a sudden launch, sending the first men in history to the moon - in just four months.

At twenty-seven, when Melissa Arnot Reid accepted a tank of oxygen just short of the summit of Mount Everest, she felt ravaged by defeat. Driven by a relentless, lifelong quest to prove to herself, her family, and the world that she was enough, she had set herself an incredible goal—to become the first American woman to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen. The failure battered her spirit and left her struggling to keep her tenuous grip on hope.

A transformative 300-mile walk along Japan’s ancient pilgrimage routes and through depopulating villages inspires a heartrending remembrance of a long-lost friend, documented in poignant, imaginative prose and remarkable photography.

Ashwin is arguably the greatest match-winner for India in Test cricket. The fastest man to 300 Test wickets, he was a part of the team that won the 2011 World Cup in the ODI format. In T20 cricket, he has won two IPL titles and a Champions League T20. He is a feisty offspinner and more than a handy batter. But that’s only half the tale.

When Navy SEAL Adam Brown woke up on March 17, 2010, he didn’t know he would die that night in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan—but he was ready. In a letter to his children, not meant to be seen unless the worst happened, he wrote, “I’m not afraid of anything that might happen to me on this earth, because I know no matter what, nothing can take my spirit from me.”

At twenty-five years old, Parvati Shallow was plunged into fame and fortune after becoming the million-dollar winner of the reality television series Survivor. But despite her success, the ghosts of her traumatic past, coupled with the harsh glare of the public eye, kept her locked in a survival cycle of fear and shame that sabotaged her self-confidence and eroded her self-trust.

How did the US Navy - the branch of the US military tasked with patrolling the oceans - ever manage to produce a unit of raiders trained to operate on land? And how, against all odds, did that unit become one of the world’s most elite commando forces, routinely striking thousands of miles from the water on the battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, even Central Africa?

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.