Biography & Memoir Audiobooks

Choose some amazing biography and memoir audiobooks that inspire, fascinate and change lives. Our diverse selection of biography and memoir audiobooks narrate the captivating stories of both famous figures and everyday people who triumph over life’s adversities. Put in your earbuds for intimate access to real-life stories of some of the world’s most impressive subjects.

Choose some amazing biography and memoir audiobooks that inspire, fascinate and change lives. Our diverse selection of biography and memoir audiobooks narrate the captivating stories of both famous figures and everyday people who triumph over life’s adversities. Put in your earbuds for intimate access to real-life stories of some of the world’s most impressive subjects.

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We're shining a light on the hottest new releases and binge-worthy audiobooks you don't want to miss.
Boat Baby
Audiobook

Boat Baby

byVicky Nguyen

In a memoir where heroism meets humor, NBC News anchor and correspondent Vicky Nguyen tells the story of her family’s daring escape from communist Vietnam and her unlikely journey from refugee to reporter with laughter and fierce love. Starting in 1975, Vietnam’s “boat people”—desperate families seeking freedom—fled the Communist government and violence in their country any way they could, usually by boat across the South China Sea. Vicky Nguyen and her family were among them. Attacked at sea by pirates before reaching a refugee camp in Malaysia, Vicky’s family survived on rations and waited months until they were sponsored to go to America. But deciding to leave and start a new life in a new country is half the story…figuring out how to be American is the other. Boat Baby is Vicky’s memoir of growing up in America with unconventional Vietnamese parents who didn’t always know how to bridge the cultural gaps. It’s a childhood filled with misadventures and misunderstandings, from almost stabbing the neighborhood racist with a butter knife to getting caught stealing Cosmo in the hope of learning Do You Really Think You Know Everything About Sex? Vicky’s parents approached life with the attitude, “Why not us?” In the face of prejudice, they taught her to be gritty and resilient, skills Vicky used as she combatted stereotyping throughout her career, fending off the question “Aren’t you Connie Chung?” to become a leading Asian American journalist on television. She delivers a uniquely transparent account of her life, revealing how she negotiated her salary in a competitive industry, the challenges of starting a family, and the struggle to be a dutiful daughter. Funny, nostalgic, and poignant, Boat Baby is a testament to the messy glue that bonds a family. In the tradition of We Are Dreamers by Simu Liu and Dear Girls by Ali Wong, Vicky Nguyen offers an optimistic story full of heart that illuminates the promise of what America can be.

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About Biography & Memoir

The biography and memoir genre casts a light on the inner workings of real people’s lives, thoughts, and feelings. Though grouped together, biography and memoir do diverge. Although they share common themes — both are nonfiction accounts of someone’s life — memoir relies on a writer’s personal experiences, documented in their own words, while biography is an account of a person’s life as written by someone else. Both biographies and memoirs have long histories, as our societal desire to document our lives and the lives of those around us is seemingly innate. Memoir and biography can grapple with a wide variety of people, themes, settings, and ideas. The genre is far-reaching, encompassing the memoirs of celebrities alongside deeply moving personal accounts of war or illness; Anne Frank’s diary is just as much a memoir as Anthony Bourdain’s travels across the world. David Sedaris, Frank McCourt, Roxane Gay, Joan Didion, and many other voices have shaped the genre, while others have worked to expand the definition, like Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel takes on the form. Adventure, family, sexuality, art, history, LGBTQIA+ experience, medical struggles, sports, the military — all of these topics and more find home in the biography and memoir audiobook genre.

The biography and memoir genre casts a light on the inner workings of real people’s lives, thoughts, and feelings. Though grouped together, biography and memoir do diverge. Although they share common themes — both are nonfiction accounts of someone’s life — memoir relies on a writer’s personal experiences, documented in their own words, while biography is an account of a person’s life as written by someone else. Both biographies and memoirs have long histories, as our societal desire to document our lives and the lives of those around us is seemingly innate. Memoir and biography can grapple with a wide variety of people, themes, settings, and ideas. The genre is far-reaching, encompassing the memoirs of celebrities alongside deeply moving personal accounts of war or illness; Anne Frank’s diary is just as much a memoir as Anthony Bourdain’s travels across the world. David Sedaris, Frank McCourt, Roxane Gay, Joan Didion, and many other voices have shaped the genre, while others have worked to expand the definition, like Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel takes on the form. Adventure, family, sexuality, art, history, LGBTQIA+ experience, medical struggles, sports, the military — all of these topics and more find home in the biography and memoir audiobook genre.