10 Best Biography Audiobooks of All Time

There’s one thing particular about biographies.

One thing that makes them so totally different from every other sort of literature or narrative. 

Actually, Benjamin Disraeli, former Prime Minister of the UK as soon as mentioned: 

“Learn no historical past; nothing however biography, for that’s life with out concept.” 

How true.

Biographies usually paint a uncommon, outstanding, and uncooked portrait of an individual’s life, with brushstrokes which are distinctive to the writer. 

Under, I’ve put collectively an inventory of the finest biography audiobooks to hearken to in your spare time.

They’re all crafted with an unimaginable quantity of analysis and offered in an attractive method; a few of them are even learn by the authors themselves. 

These biography audiobooks will hopefully broaden your world and provide you with a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the lives of varied well-known figures – each previous and current.

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What are the Greatest Biography Audiobooks? 

Listed here are 10 of the very best biography audiobooks, together with autobiographies, memoirs, and intriguing third-party accounts:

1. Elon Musk

Written by Walter Issacson, this popular biography portrays an astonishingly intimate story of essentially the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our period, Elon Musk. 

For 2 years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his conferences, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his household, associates, coworkers, and adversaries.

In the beginning of 2022—after a 12 months marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla promoting one million automobiles, and him turning into the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to fire up dramas.

“I must shift my mindset away from being in disaster mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,” he mentioned.

Whilst he mentioned it, he was secretly shopping for up shares of Twitter, the world’s final playground.

Revealing the tales of triumphs and turmoil of the person who helped lead the world into the period of electrical autos, non-public area exploration, and synthetic intelligence, this audiobook is value a hear!

=> Listen to the “Elon Musk”: get the free audiobook here. 

2. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

American Prometheus is the primary full-scale biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb”. 

It uncovers the lifetime of the sensible physicist who led the hassle to construct the atomic bomb for his nation in a time of conflict and who later discovered himself confronting the ethical penalties of scientific progress.

Oppenheimer was the writer of a radical proposal to position worldwide controls over atomic supplies, an thought that’s nonetheless related right now.

Exhaustively researched, this biography relies on hundreds of data and letters gathered from archives in America and overseas, on large FBI recordsdata, and on near 100 interviews with Oppenheimer’s associates, kinfolk, and colleagues.

=> Listen to “American Prometheus”: get the free audiobook here.

3. Becoming

This #1 New York Times bestseller is an intimate and provoking memoir by former First Girl of america, Michelle Obama. 

This autobiography audiobook is narrated by Mrs. Obama herself and invitations readers into her world, chronicling the experiences which have formed her.

We comply with her journey, from her childhood on the South Aspect of Chicago, to her years as an government balancing the calls for of motherhood and work, to her time spent on the world’s most well-known deal with.

With honesty and vigorous wit, she describes the triumphs and disappointments, each private and non-private, that finally result in her establishing herself as a strong advocate for girls and women within the U.S. and all over the world. 

=> Take heed to “Turning into” : get the free audiobook here. 

4. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition

Found within the attic by which she spent the final years of her life, Anne Frank’s remarkable diary has since change into an irreplaceable masterpiece and an eloquent testomony to human bravery.

For 2 years through the Nazi occupation of Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish lady and her household fled their house and went into hiding within the “Secret Annex” of an previous workplace constructing. 

Reduce off from the surface world, Anne’s household confronted starvation, boredom, the fixed cruelties of residing in confined quarters, and the ever-present menace of discovery and loss of life by the Gestapo.

This narration of Anne Frank’s diary gives a strong commentary on human courage and frailty, by way of the vivid experiences of a spirited younger lady whose time on the earth was tragically lower quick.

=> Take heed to “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Younger Woman”: get the free audiobook here. 

5. Jackie: Public, Private, Secret

In this audiobook, New York Instances bestselling writer J. Randy Taraborrelli presents a recent and sometimes startling have a look at the lifetime of the legendary former first woman, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Primarily based on interviews with associates, household, and lovers over a thirty-year interval – in addition to beforehand unreleased materials from the JFK Library –  Taraborrelli paints an unforgettable new portrait of a lady whose flaws and contradictions solely serve to make her much more iconic.

“I’ve three lives,” Jackie instructed a former lover, “public, non-public and secret.”

On this revealing biography audiobook, listeners will change into intimately accustomed to all three.

=> Listen to “Jackie: Public, Private, Secret”: get the free audiobook.

6. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

Wild Swans is a household autobiography of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the breadth of eyewitness historical past.

On this engrossing document of Mao’s influence on China, writer Jung Chang opens up an uncommon window on the feminine expertise within the fashionable world. 

We acquire insights into the lifetime of her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mom’s struggles as a younger idealistic Communist; and her dad and mom’ expertise as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal through the Cultural Revolution.

Because the story of every technology unfolds, Chang exposes listeners to the cycles of battle and drama skilled by her household and thousands and thousands of others caught within the whirlwind of historical past.

=> Take heed to “Wild Swans”: get the free audiobook here. 

7. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

Titan uncovers the lifetime of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., historical past’s first billionaire and the patriarch of America’s most well-known dynasty.

On this biography audiobook, writer Ron Chernow offers us an in depth and insightful historical past of a person whose true nature has eluded three generations of historians. 

Born the son of a flamboyant snake-oil salesman and a strict mom, Rockefeller grew to become the world’s richest man by creating America’s strongest and feared monopoly, Normal Oil – an organization that refined and marketed almost 90% of the oil produced in America.

Rockefeller is called one of the controversial businessmen in our historical past. Critics charged that his empire was constructed on unscrupulous techniques: grand-scale collusion with the railroads, predatory pricing, industrial espionage, and wholesale bribery of political officers. 

But, this account, which relies on unrestricted entry to Rockefeller’s exceptionally wealthy trove of papers – goes past the stereotype of Rockfeller as a cold-blooded monster.

Somewhat, it presents a nuanced portrait of an interesting, complicated man, disclosing quite a few household scandals, tragedies, and misfortunes which have by no means earlier than come to gentle.

=> Take heed to “Titan”: get the free audiobook here.

8. When Breath Becomes Air

When Breath Becomes Air is the gripping story of an idealistic younger neurosurgeon who makes an attempt to reply the query: What makes a life value residing?

At age 36, on the verge of finishing a decade’s value of coaching as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was recognized with stage IV lung most cancers.

In the future he was a health care provider treating the dying, and the following he was a affected person struggling to dwell. And identical to that, the longer term he and his spouse had imagined evaporated.

This memoir audiobook chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical scholar on a quest for the which means of life, right into a neurosurgeon at Stanford, and at last right into a affected person and new father confronting his personal mortality.

=> Take heed to “When Breath Turns into Air”: get the free audiobook here. 

9. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

The Snowball is a biography audiobook that recounts the life and occasions of one of the revered males on the earth, Warren Buffett.

The legendary Omaha investor has by no means written a memoir, but he allowed one author, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented entry to discover his private and enterprise life.

On this biography, we discover her observations – the results of numerous hours spent asking him questions, speaking along with his household, associates and enterprise associates, opening his recordsdata, and recalling his childhood. 

Whereas a lot has been written with regards to Warren Buffet’s investing fashion, this ebook is exclusive in that it explores his bigger philosophy, which is certain up in a fancy character and the small print of his life.

=> Take heed to “The Snowball”: get the free audiobook here.

10. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

This autobiography audiobook is the debut memoir of American poet and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou.

Right here we discover a narrative that’s all of sudden joyous and painful, mysterious and memorable – a narrative that has touched the hearts of listeners worldwide.

Deserted by their dad and mom, Maya and her older brother Bailey are despatched to dwell with their grandmother and uncle within the small Southern city of Stamps in Arkansas.

There they endure the bias of the local people and undergo a number of racist incidents. Furthermore, at eight years previous, Maya is attacked by a person many occasions her age – and has to dwell with the results for a lifetime. 

After scuffling with guilt and disgrace for a few years, Maya meets a warmhearted mentor who helps her uncover that love for herself, the kindness of others, and the concepts of nice authors will enable her to set herself free, eventually. 

=> Take heed to “I Know Why the Caged Chook Sings”: get the free audiobook.

Ultimate Ideas

I hope you loved exploring this record of the very best biography audiobooks as a lot as I loved compiling it. 

As you’ll be able to see, there’s a lot selection regarding the sorts of experiences we will tune into and profit from as a part of our personal development journey.  

You possibly can hearken to the experiences of inventors, artists, businesspeople, and uncover helpful insights you could apply in your individual inventive and entrepreneurial ventures. 

Then again, you’ll be able to hearken to memoir audiobooks that share the poignant experiences of people who’ve conquered main challenges of their life and charted out their very own path to success.

There’s all the time one thing to study, even with regards to avoiding the errors that others have made. 

Which life story will you faucet into first? 

=> Get a free biography audiobook of your choice here. 

Completely happy listening! 

P.S. If you would like to put in writing a memoir of your individual, check out the best memoir writing courses here.

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