Biographies on Audio

Wake County Public Libraries own several hundred biographies on audio; here is a small sample:

Updated 3/10

The Big Rich: the Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes by Bryan Burrough (338.2 BURRO)
Bryan Burrough reveals how four Texas oil tycoons transformed America. Rising from humble beginnings through hard work and shrewd dealings, they shifted the balance of power in American politics. While hobnobbing with movie stars and presidents, the Big Rich also created the legend of the swaggering Texas oilman with island hideaways and sprawling ranches.

The Way I Am by Eminem with Sacha Jenkins (781.649 EMINE)
A self-portrait by the controversial music artist shares his private thoughts on everything from his inner struggles to his relationship with his daughter, in an account complemented by drawings, hand-written lyrics, and previously unseen photographs.

1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History by Charles Bracelon Flood (973.709 FLOOD)
Best-selling author, renowned biographer, and Harvard graduate Charles Bracelen Flood presents the life of Abraham Lincoln in the monumental year of 1864, when the war and the election made a dramatic turn.

Crazy for the Storm: a Memoir of Survival by Norman Ollestad (979.40 OLLES )
On February 19, 1979, blinded by a blizzard, a small chartered plane crashed into the side of a massive mountain. Eleven-year-old Norman Ollestad, his father, his father's girlfriend, and the pilot were in the crash. After a nine-hour nightmare, only little Norman remained alive. Here, Norman Ollestad chronicles his harrowing experience and epic fight for survival.

The Politician: an Insider’s Account of John Edwards's Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal that Brought Him Down by Andrew Young (B EDWARDS)
In this eye-opening look into the underside of modern American politics, Andrew Young presents a riveting account of presidential hopeful John Edwards's meteoric rise and scandalous fall. Young, a former Edwards campaign staffer, offers a truly disturbing, even shocking perspective on the risks taken and tactics employed by a man determined to rule the most powerful nation on Earth.

Happens Every Day: an All-Too-True Story by Isabel Gillies (B GILLIES)
The actress describes her life after she moved with her husband, Josiah, and her two young sons from New York City to Oberlin, Ohio, where her husband got a teaching job, and how he left her and the children a few months later.

True Compass by Edward Kennedy (B KENNEDY)
In this landmark autobiography, five years in the making, Senator Edward M. Kennedy tells his extraordinary personal story – of his legendary family, politics, and 50 years at the center of national events.

Oprah: a Biography by Kitty Kelley (B OPRAH)
Based on three years of research and reporting as well as 850 interviews with sources, many of whom have never before spoken for publication, Oprah is the first comprehensive biography of one of the most influential, powerful and admired public figures of our time, by the most widely read biographer of our era.

Not Becoming My Mother: and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way by Ruth Reichl (B REICHL)
Bestselling author Ruth Reichl embarks on a clear-eyed, openhearted investigation of her mother's life, piecing together the journey of a woman she comes to realize she never really knew. Looking to her mother's letters and diaries, Reichl confronts the painful transition her mother made from a hopeful young woman to an increasingly unhappy older one and realizes the tremendous sacrifices she made to make sure her daughter's life would not be as disappointing as her own.

Crazy Love: a Memoir by Leslie Morgan Steiner (B STEINER)
This memoir recounts the author's marriage to a man she subsequently discovered had been brutally abused as a child, her terror in the face of his escalating attacks on her, and her efforts to escape the marriage when she realized that her husband might kill her.

The Art of Making Money: the Story of a Master Counterfeiter by Jason Kersten (B WILLIAMS)
Art Williams spent his boyhood in a comfortable middle-class existence in 1970s Chicago, but his idyll was shattered when, in short order, his father abandoned the family, his bipolar mother lost her wits, and Williams found himself living in one of Chicago's worst housing projects. He took to crime almost immediately, starting out with petty theft before graduating to robbing drug dealers. Eventually a man nicknamed DaVinci taught him the centuries-old art of counterfeiting.