Personal Memoirs

Heavily tattooed and foul-mouthed, Nadia Bolz-Weber, a former stand-up comic, sure as hell didn't consider herself to be religious-leader material - until the day she ended up leading a friend's funeral in a smoky downtown comedy club. Surrounded by fellow alcoholics, depressives, and cynics, she realized: These were her people. Maybe she was meant to be their pastor. Using life stories, Nadia uses humorous narrative and poignant honesty to portray a woman who is both deeply faithful and deeply flawed, giving hope to the rest of us along the way.

Eight true crime stories of murder and mayhem. In my first audiobook as a true crime author I've started with a few of the stories that have haunted me for some time. Some of these stories are unbelievable in their brutality while others are astounding in the stupidity of the killers. This collection of stories are from all around the globe and have no common thread between them other than that they are both thought provoking and disturbing. The stories included in this anthology are dark and creepy and will leave you with a new understanding of just how fragile the human mind can be.

Harrison Scott Key was born in Memphis, but he grew up in Mississippi, among pious, Bible-reading women and men who either shot things or got women pregnant. At the center of his world was his larger-than-life father - a hunter, a fighter, and a football coach. Harrison, with his love of books and excessive interest in hugging, couldn't have been less like Pop, and when it became clear that he was not able to kill anything very well or otherwise make his father happy, he resolved to become everything his father was not.

On the morning of October 7, 2023, Israelis awoke to a harrowing reality. Not only were hundreds of rockets being launched from Gaza into Israeli population centers, but the security border had also been breached by several thousand Hamas terrorists. Carnage, not seen since the Second World War, ensued. Elkana Cohen, Captain of an Elite Commando Unit was called, along with thousands of other reservists, to prepare for war. One that will have to ensure nothing less than Israel's survival.

Matt Dahlia was a recent college grad with no direction in his life: his business was dead on arrival and all his friends had left town. He was broke and searching for belonging in a world that didn’t understand him. That is, until he serendipitously met Thomas, who not only felt the same way he did, but had a project in mind: Together, along with two more like-minded strangers, they were going to move into a one-bedroom apartment and film themselves doing 30 things they had never done before in 30 days.

Before Madeleine Albright turned twelve, her life was shaken by the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia—the country where she was born—the Battle of Britain, the near total destruction of European Jewry, the Allied victory in World War II, the rise of communism, and the onset of the Cold War. Albright's experiences, and those of her family, provide a lens through which to view the most tumultuous dozen years in modern history.

Camille Kouchner's childhood was marked by sun-drenched summers in the south of France, where a vibrant cast of family and friends would gather at their Sanary-sur-Mer house. This familia grande, which included much of the country's elite, spent memorable days and nights laughing, debating, drinking, and dancing. But a long-held secret poisoned Camille's memories.

Fred and Rose West are virtually unique in British criminal history: a husband and wife who loved and killed together. During their long relationship, the Wests murdered a series of young women, burying the remains of nine victims under their home at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, including those of their daughter. What was left of Fred West's eight-year-old stepdaughter was dug up from under the Wests' previous Gloucester home; his first wife and nanny were buried in open country.

Why is religion still around in the 21st century? Why do so many still believe? And how do various traditions still shape the way people experience everything from sexuality to politics, whether they are religious or not? In Why Religion? Elaine Pagels looks to her own life to help address these questions. Drawing upon the perspectives of neurologists, anthropologists, and historians, as well as her own research, Pagels opens unexpected ways of understanding persistent religious aspects of our culture.

Paul Scheer has entertained countless fans and podcast listeners with stories about the odd, wild, and absurd details of his life. Yet these tales have pointed to deeper, more difficult truths that the actor and comedian has kept to himself. Now, he is finally ready to share those truths for the first time—but, of course, with a healthy dose of humor.

One of our best-loved actors, Michael Caine has starred in over 100 films in his six-decade career, spanning classic movies like Alfie, Zulu, and The Italian Job (the inspiration for the book title) to playing Alfred opposite Christian Bale's Batman in Christopher Nolan's blockbuster Dark Knight trilogy. Caine has excelled in every kind of role - with a skill that's made it look easy. As he says, "Small parts can lead to big things. And if you keep doing things right, the stars will align when you least expect it."

Kate Spencer lost her mom to cancer when she was 27. In The Dead Moms Club, she walks listeners through her experience of stumbling through grief and loss and helps them to get through it, too. This isn't a weepy, sentimental story but rather a frank, up-front look at what it means to go through gruesome grief and come out on the other side.

Before cell phones that fit in the palm of your hand and slim laptops that fit snugly into briefcases, computers were like strange, alien vending machines. They had cryptic switches, punch cards, and pages of encoded output. But in 1975, a young engineering wizard named Steve Wozniak had an idea: What if you combined computer circuitry with a regular typewriter keyboard and a video screen?

In this unflinching, unforgettable memoir, Regina Louise tells the true story of overcoming neglect in the US foster-care system. Drawing on her experience as one of society’s abandoned children, she tells how she emerged from the cruel, unjust system, not only to survive, but to flourish. After years of jumping from one fleeting, often abusive home to the next, Louise meets a counselor named Jeanne Kerr. For the first time in her young life, Louise knows what it means to be seen, wanted, understood, and loved.

It’s not like she’s the only woman to ever have a baby. At 35. On her own. But Anne Lamott makes it all fresh in her now-classic account of how she and her son and numerous friends and neighbors and some strangers survived and thrived in that all-important first year. From finding out her baby is a boy (and getting used to the idea) to finding out her best friend and greatest supporter, Pam, will die of cancer (and not getting used to that idea), with a generous amount of wit and faith (but little piousness), Lamott narrates the great and small events making up a woman’s life.

After surviving both the failed chicken farm - and marriage - immortalized in The Egg and I, Betty MacDonald returns to live with her mother and desperately searches to find a job to support her two young daughters. With the help of her older sister Mary, Anybody Can Do Anything recounts her failed, and often hilarious, attempts to find work during the Great Depression.

This is the second volume of true, heinous child-abuse stories.

In this remarkable dual memoir, film legend Martin Sheen and accomplished actor/filmmaker Emilio Estevez recount their lives as father and son. In alternating chapters—and in voices that are as eloquent as they are different—they narrate stories spanning more than 50 years of family history, and reflect on their journeys into two different kinds of faith.

Award-winning journalist Dolly Alderton survived her 20s (just about) and in Everything I Know About Love, she gives an unflinching account of the bad dates and squalid flat-shares, the heartaches and humiliations and most importantly, the unbreakable female friendships that helped her to hold it all together. Glittering with wit, heart and humour, this is an audiobook to press into the hands of every woman who has ever been there or is about to find themselves taking that first step towards the rest of their lives.

Deena Kastor was a star youth runner with tremendous promise, yet her career almost ended after college, when her competitive method - run as hard as possible, for fear of losing - fostered a frustration and negativity and brought her to the brink of burnout. On the verge of quitting, she took a chance and moved to the high altitudes of Alamosa, Colorado, where legendary coach Joe Vigil had started the first professional distance-running team. There she encountered the idea that would transform her running career: the notion that changing her thinking - shaping her mind to be more encouraging, kind, and resilient - could make her faster than she’d ever imagined possible.