Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Biographies & Memoirs

When Sandra Leigh was seven years old, she fell into the role of protector of her mother and three younger siblings. One winter night, she ushered her mother out of the house during one of her father’s tirades, and then snuck her back into the dark home through a window. Sandra was used to events like these; what she wasn’t used to were the mountains and nature surrounding her new home in West Virginia.

In this perceptive, compelling essay, Katharine Murphy offers a profile of Anthony Albanese in motion – a piece about character, the balance of forces, and the mood of the nation. Are Albanese and his party up for change? Are Australians up for it? What does the new prime minister embody, if anything? Has the centre of the polity shifted, with the success of the Teals and the Greens? Where could – and should – the new government be ambitious?

In February 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers in the Russian Ural Mountains died mysteriously on an elevation known as Dead Mountain. Eerie aspects of the incident—unexplained violent injuries, signs that they cut open and fled the tent without proper clothing or shoes, a strange final photograph taken by one of the hikers, and elevated levels of radiation found on some of their clothes—have led to decades of speculation over what really happened.

In the first six weeks after her son was born, Jamila Rizvi felt isolated, exhausted and frustrated - as if the world she knew had disappeared forever. Then her salvation came in the form of a letter. A dear friend - who had been there herself - wrote to tell her that she would get through this. That she was seen and supported. That she was not alone. Now Jamila wants to pay it forward to other new mothers.

The dramatic story of freelance photographer Daniel Rye, who was held hostage for 13 months by ISIS, as told by an award-winning writer. In a tense and riveting narrative, The ISIS Hostage details freelance photographer Daniel Rye's 13-month ordeal at the hands of the Islamic State after he was captured in Syria, and the misery inflicted upon him, and 19 other hostages, by the British guards, which included Jihadi John. This compelling account also follows Daniel's family and the nerve-wracking negotiations with his kidnappers.

Will Chaffey is 18 when he boards a plane in New York bound for Australia. Taking time off to work and travel, Will meets an enigmatic wanderer and herpetologist. Together they cross the inland desert to the tropical northwest coast, home to the saltwater crocodile, a known man-eater and a predator who has been hunting since the age of the dinosaurs. They devise a plan to explore the remote Prince Regent River, a trek so dangerous it had never been attempted by outsiders.

What is the role of the writer? Prophet? High priest of art? Court jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain - or excuse! - their activities, looking at what costumes they have assumed, what roles they have chosen to play. In her final chapter she takes up the challenge of the title: if a writer is to be seen as "gifted", who is doing the giving and what are the terms of the gift?

Doug Stanhope has been drunkenly stumbling down the back roads and dark alleys of stand-up comedy for over a quarter of a century, roads laden with dank bars, prostitutes, cheap drugs, farm animals, evil dwarfs, public nudity, menacing third-world police, psychotic breaks, sex offenders, and some understandable suicides. You know, just for levity. While other comedians were seeking fame, Stanhope was seeking immediate gratification, dark spectacle, or sometimes just his pants.

This fascinating book charts the relationship between Mark Rowlands, a rootless philosopher, and Brenin, his extraordinarily well-travelled wolf. More than just an exotic pet, Brenin exerted an immense influence on Rowlands as both a person and, strangely enough, as a philosopher, leading him to reevaluate his attitude toward love, happiness, nature, and death.

When Jeanette Winterson left home at 16 because she was in love with a woman, Mrs. Winterson asked her: "Why be happy when you could be normal?" This book is the story of a life's work to find happiness. It is the story of how the painful past returned to haunt Jeanette's later life, and send her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her real mother. It is also a book about other people's stories, showing how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, a life raft which supports us when we are sinking.

When Marco Pierre White's mother died when he was just six years old, it transformed his life. Soon his father was urging him to earn his own keep, and by 16 he was working in his first restaurant. White went on to learn from some of the best chefs in the country, such as Albert Roux, Raymond Blanc and Pierre Koffmann. He survived the intense pressure of hundred-hour weeks in the heat of the kitchen, developed his own style and then struck out on his own.

This major best-selling memoir of a poverty-stricken childhood in Liverpool is one of the most harrowing but uplifting books you will ever hear. When Helen Forrester's father went bankrupt in 1930, she and her six siblings were forced into utmost poverty and slum surroundings in Depression-ridden Liverpool. The running of the household and the care of the younger children all fell on 12-year-old Helen. Writing about her experiences later in life, Helen Forrester shed light on an almost forgotten part of life in Britain.

When Greg's straight best friend Dale tells him he's spending the summer at Marine Corps boot camp on Parris Island, all Greg hears is "summer" and "camp." So, he signs up too. Never mind that he's underweight, out of shape—and gay, which is illegal in the U.S. military at the time. Yes, it's insanely dangerous for both of them. But as fate would have it, the Few and the Proud turn out to be a bunch of oddballs and eccentrics—and a brotherhood is born.

Hello there. Welcome to my autobiography. Throughout this audiobook I talk about my life and work, including Little Britain, Come Fly with Me, Bridesmaids, Les Miserables, Alice in Wonderland and, of course, Shooting Stars. The thing is, this is a bit different to most memoirs you may have listened to, because it comes in the form of an A-Z. Anyway, I hope you buy it at least twice. Thank you.

She was 17 years old on a Christmas Eve flight 40 years ago to join her father for Christmas when the unimaginable happened. The Lockheed L-188A Electra, on the way from Lima to Pucallpa, flew directly into a thunderstorm. A strike of lightning left the plane incinerated and Juliane Diller (Koepcke) still strapped to her plane seat falling through the night air two miles above the Earth. Her survival is unexplainable and considered a modern-day miracle. Her mother was among the 91 dead and Juliane the sole survivor.

This book follows Agrippina as a daughter born to the expected heir to Augustus’ throne and who was then orphaned; as a sister to Caligula, who raped his sisters and showered them with honours until they attempted rebellion against him and were exiled; as a seductive niece and then wife to Claudius, who gave her access to near unlimited power; and then as a mother to Nero, who adored her until he killed her. She was 44 when she died.

Just in time for the 2012 Olympics - prepare to peek into the mind of a champion with this newly updated edition of Michael Phelps’ autobiography, Beneath the Surface. In this candid memoir, Phelps talks openly about his battle with attention deficit disorder, the trauma of his parents’ divorce, and the challenges that come with being thrust into the limelight.

Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met - a man who lounges in boxer shorts, who loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates "like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972". His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the church's country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents' rectory, their two worlds collide.

Mark Colvin is a broadcasting legend. He is the voice of ABC Radio’s leading current affairs program PM; he was a founding broadcaster for the groundbreaking youth station Double J; he initiated The World Today program; and he’s one of the most popular and influential journalists in the twittersphere. Mark has been covering local and global events for more than four decades. He has reported on wars, royal weddings and everything in between. In the midst of all this he discovered that his father was an MI6 spy.

The Motorcycle Diaries is Che Guevara's diary of his journey to discover the continent of Latin America while still a medical student, setting out in 1952 on a vintage Norton motorcycle together with his friend Alberto Granado, a biochemist. It captures, arguably as much as any book ever written, the exuberance and joy of one person's youthful belief in the possibilities of humankind tending toward justice, peace, and happiness.