Beautiful Memoir

Octavio Cesar Martinez writes on the subject of forgiveness with engaging honesty, humility, and depth. His deeply personal story is raw, inviting us into his suffering and struggle as he recounts his painful and abusive childhood, growing into a life of rage. But he also leads us into his experience of freedom and joy, without denial or sugar-coating. As Octavio learns to forgive, so do we. If you have been hurt or betrayed, this audiobook is for you. If you have thought about revenge, or imagined punishing someone for their misdeeds, this audiobook is for you.

Constance was always a California dreamer, though her circumstances gave her no right to be. She grew up in 1980s San Diego as the fourth of nine children. The crowded two-bedroom apartment where she spent her childhood was far from a safe cocoon that could nurture her dreams into reality. Constance began caring for her siblings while she was still a child herself, stepping in for her overwhelmed mother and her often absent, unpredictable father.

In 2018, I didn’t merely come out MtF transgender, I discovered I was trans in the first place - as much news to me as it became to the world. On December 31, 2017, to quote the movie, Hot Fuzz, I had "a great big bushy beard". A year later, I was growing breasts! What's it like to be a trans woman? Even crazier, what's it like to not know you're trans for your first 50+ years? It's a roller-coaster of joy, heartbreaking sadness, difficult trials and transformations, and tons of comic relief - like any life...

This is the true story of each of the spiritual "Gang of four" and their master and deep inspiration Neem Karol Baba.

"Bunny told me there were secrets about me that she would take to the grave, secrets that no one would ever hear, including me...." Tom Wilson always felt something wasn't quite right. His parents, Bunny and George, were much older than other kids' parents. There were no baby photos of him in the house. At school, classmates called him Indian, despite his parents' Irish-Quebecois background. And as he got older, friends, lovers and even family members remarked on his uncanny resemblance to Bunny's closest relative, her niece Janie Lazare....

In The Most Beautiful, a title inspired by the hit song Prince wrote about their legendary love story, Mayte Garcia for the first time shares the deeply personal story of their relationship and offers a singular perspective on the music icon and their world together: from their unconventional meeting backstage at a concert (and the long-distance romance that followed) to their fairy-tale wedding (and their groundbreaking artistic partnership) to the devastating losses that ultimately dissolved their relationship.

Ann Hedreen's story of what it was like to become a mom just as her own beautiful, brainy mother began to lose her mind to an unforgiving disease. Arlene was a copper miner’s daughter who was divorced twice, widowed once, raised six kids singlehandedly, survived the turbulent ‘60s, and got her BA and MA at 40 so she could support her family as a Seattle schoolteacher - only to start showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease in her late 50s, taking Ann and her siblings on a long descent they never could have anticipated or imagined.

A memoir of the haunting and redemptive events of the acclaimed writer's life - the betrayal of a con-man father; a murder-suicide in his family's house; the presence of an oyster catcher - each one, as the saying goes, stranger than fiction. In the hands of Howard Norman, author of The Bird Artist and What Is Left the Daughter, life's arresting strangenessis made into a profound, creative, and redemptive memoir.

Even when you follow all the rules, life can go very wrong.... Dennis Mansfield and his wife, Susan, planned for and expected every parent's dream, but instead lived every parent's nightmare. This haunting memoir tells the story of a father who diligently followed all the parenting rules that he learned from conservative Christian "experts" - yet life with his son Nate went terribly wrong when the young man died at 27 of drug-related causes.

Sarah Thebarge, a Yale-trained physician assistant, nearly died of breast cancer at age 27, but that did not end her deeply felt spiritual calling to medical missions in Africa. Risking her own health, she moved to Togo, West Africa - ranked by the United Nations as the least happy country in the world - to care for sick and suffering patients. Serving without pay in a mission hospital, she pondered the intersection of faith and medicine in her quest to help make the world "well".

The Most Beautiful Girl is a heartbreaking yet uplifting memoir of a daughter, her father, and the healing power of music. The story opens with a scene at Johnny Cash's funeral when author Tamara Saviano is struck with grief about unfinished business with her father. Robert Ruditys died two years before Cash, and hadn't spoken to his only daughter for more than a decade before that. Her grief led the author on a journey to rediscover her father and examine the lost relationship with a man she once loved.

Birdie dreams of becoming a professional artist, but the constraints of society demand she marries well. In order to fulfil her dreams, she makes a deal with her parents: to let her spend a year at the St. Agnes School of Art in Cornwall, after which she will return home and marry the insufferable but influential and wealthy Charles Bonham, as per her parents' wishes. Birdie however, has no intention of ever going back. Free of responsibility for the first time, she finds herself surrounded by a crew of bohemian artists who show her just how dizzying independence can be.

We all know the fairy-tale. An everyday girl meets her Prince Charming, they get married, have children and ride off into the sunset. Sadly, this isn't always the case and Christine McGuinness is keen to change the stereotype that marriage, fame and fortune brings an easy and blissful life. This is Christine's first audiobook, where she tells the world her life story for the very first time. While telling her story, Christine was diagnosed with autism, as revealed in this book for the very first time.

Young, cocksure, handsome and absurdly talented, Australian actor Heath Ledger shot to prominence with his first Hollywood film "10 Things I Hate About You": and a star was born. With huge charisma and smouldering looks lighting up the screen in a series of subsequent films, Heath was soon established as Hollywood A-list, dating a series of beauties such as Heather Graham and Naomi Watts, and living every young man's dream.

Katie Piper was 24 and well on her way to fulfilling her dream of becoming a model. She has the world at her feet – but then she meets Daniel Lynch on Facebook. After a horrific rape and acid attack her mind, body and spirit are snatched away. This is the inspiring story of her fight to get them back.

When he was two years old, Hunter Biden was badly injured in a car accident that killed his mother and baby sister. In 2015, he suffered the devastating loss of his beloved big brother, Beau, who died of brain cancer at the age of 46. These hardships were compounded by the collapse of his marriage and a years-long battle with drug and alcohol addiction. In Beautiful Things, Hunter recounts his descent into substance abuse and his tortuous path to sobriety.

In 2016, Nuseir Yassin quit his job to travel for 1,000 consecutive days. But instead of the usual tourist traps, Nas set out to meet real people, see the places they call home, and discover what unites all of us living on this beautiful planet - from villages in Africa and slums in India, to the high-rises of Singapore and the deserts of Australia. While he journeyed from country to country, Nas uploaded a single 60-second video per day for his Nas Daily Facebook following to highlight the amazing, terrifying, inspiring and downright surprising sh*t happening all over the world.

Every day, people stop in their tracks, wondering (sometimes, out loud), "Are those all her kids?" Hollie Gyarmati makes the impossible look easy with her upbeat attitude, on-trend lip color, and party of five following her lead. She will happily tell you that she has two sets of twins in her mix, without pausing whatever mission she's on in that moment.

Despite debuting on Canada’s senior national soccer team 20 years ago, scarce is known of Atiba Hutchinson. We’ve watched him win Canadian Men’s Player of the Year six times; celebrated his club team championships; and mourned his injuries. We’ve lamented the state of Canadian soccer and cursed the lost potential—and years. Yet, we know little about Atiba’s personal life, or how he rose from suburban Brampton to becoming Canada’s most-capped national men’s team player, often described as the country’s greatest athlete you haven’t heard about.

Martha Gellhorn died in February 1998, just shy of her 90th birthday. Well before her death, she had become a legend. She reported on wars from Spain in the 1930s to Panama in the 1980s, and her travel books have become classics. Her marriage to Ernest Hemingway and affairs with legendary lovers like H. G. Wells, and her relationship with two presidents, Roosevelt and Kennedy, reflect her campaigns against tyranny and deprivation, and her outrage at the corruption and cruelty of modern governments.