Memoirs audiobooks

Bradford's History of the Plymouth Settlement
The journal of William Bradford, who served five terms as governor of the Plymouth colony, is an indispensable document of the events of early American history. His eyewitness account includes the stories of the Pilgrims’ sojourn in the Netherlands, the voyage of the Mayflower, the hardships of the New World, relations with the Indians, and the colony’s growth from an endangered enterprise to a thriving city. This edition of Bradford’s Of Plimoth Plantation presents the text in language made more accessible to the modern reader
Canyons of the Colorado, or The exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons

John Wesley Powell was a pioneer American explorer, ethnologist, and geologist in the 19th Century. In 1869 he set out to explore the Colorado and the Grand Canyon. He gathered nine men, four boats and food for ten months and set out from Green River, Wyoming, on May 24. Passing through dangerous rapids, the group passed down the Green River to its confluence with the Colorado River (then also known as the Grand River upriver from the junction), near present-day Moab, Utah.

The expedition’s route traveled through the Utah canyons of the Colorado River, which Powell described in his published diary as having …wonderful features—carved walls, royal arches, glens, alcove gulches, mo...

Adrift on an Ice-Pan

This autobiographical work describes the author’s harrowing experience caught on a small drifting piece of ice, while crossing a frozen bay by dog team on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland.

Confessions

Considered to mark the emergence of a new literary form, the unvarnished autobiography, Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau was first published in 1782, four years after his death. The philosopher and educationist whose political philosophy is credited with having inspired the French Revolution, Rousseau was a man of immense wit, talent and depth of thinking. His skill in art, music, literature and cooking along with his magnificent body of work in philosophy, politics, education and sociology have made him a legendary figure.

However, through Confessions, he aimed to present a complete picture of himself, exposing all the unsavory and shameful incidents in hi...

Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail

Ezra Meeker…was an early pioneer who traveled the Oregon Trail by ox cart as a young man. Beginning in his 70s, he worked tirelessly to memorialize the trail, repeatedly retracing the trip of his youth. This book is a memoir of those days.

Just Me
Perhaps the first memoir written by a film celebrity, Pearl White's Just Me gives a first-person account of the actress' rise to stardom. White guides us through her early childhood, her development as a performer, and finally to her breakout role in The Perils of Pauline--a role that made her the most popular "serial queen" of early cinema. Although romanticized and somewhat embellished, this book gives us a fascinating glimpse into the film industry's earliest years and the various myths of film stardom.
Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt, The
This book is a collection of Theodore Roosevelt’s published commentaries and public addresses on the general theme of the requirements for individual and collective success in the personal, civic, political, and social arenas. (Introduction by Bob Neufeld)
The Memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby

This is not a work of fiction! These are the actual memoirs of a legendary leader of partisans who bedeviled the Union army for years, almost within sight of the capitol. With only a few local men under command, John Singleton Mosby’s ability to strike fast and then melt away before an effective pursuit could be organized kept the Yankee forces awake and often snarled in knots. With daring feats like capturing a Yankee general out of his bed within his defended headquarters, Mosby made his name a synonym for guerrilla warfare. Even today you can purchase in Middleburg, Virginia, a map showing “Mosby’s Confederacy.”

The mettle of the man may be judged by the enemies he kept. Said...

My First Summer in the Sierra

The journal of nature-lover John Muir who spent the summer of 1869 walking California’s Sierra Nevada range. From French Bar to Mono Lake and the Yosemite Valley, Muir was awestruck by everything he saw. The antics of the smallest “insect people” amazed him as much as stunted thousand-year old Juniper trees growing with inconceivable tenacity from tiny cracks in the stone. Muir spent the rest of his life working to preserve the high Sierra, believing that “the clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” John Muir (1838-1914) was born in Dunbar, Scotland and grew up in Wisconsin, USA. This recording commemorates the 140th anniversary of that first summer.

Recollections of Life in Ohio, from 1813 to 1840
Recollections of Life in Ohio is the autobiography of William Cooper Howells (1807-1894), father of the American novelist William Dean Howells. The Howells were Welsh woolen mill owners. William Cooper's father brought the family to America in 1808--at a time when Great Britain actually forbid skilled workmen from emigrating, thus putting the father's practical knowledge of mill machinery in great demand. Small scale industries--paper and woolen mills, flour mills, and distilleries were sprouting apace with farms in the newly opened lands of Ohio, where the Howells settled in 1813. This was a time and place where neighbors joined together to raise log barns and husk corn, where loc...