From Woman's World · Carissa Mosness · · 3m
12 memoir audiobooks for fall listening
A fall audio list led by Viola Davis, Julia Fox, Margaret Atwood, Shania Twain and other voices worth hearing firsthand.
In brief
A fall audio list led by Viola Davis, Julia Fox, Margaret Atwood, Shania Twain and other voices worth hearing firsthand. Memoirs often hit hardest on audio because the author’s own voice can carry the pauses, humor and pain that print can flatten. Originally reported by Woman's World.
Why audio wins
Memoirs make a strong case for listening because many authors narrate their own lives. The voice adds pauses, laughs and cracks that print cannot carry.
“You’re not just reading their words”
Viola Davis, unfiltered
Finding Me follows Viola Davis from Central Falls, Rhode Island, to Hollywood respect, while facing poverty, racism and being reduced to her past.
“what really happens when the cameras aren’t rolling”
A Grammy-winning listen
Davis narrates the memoir herself, and the audio won the 2023 Grammy for Best Audio Book, Narration and Storytelling Recording.
“A moving tale went on to win a Grammy”
Julia Fox survives chaos
Down the Drain has Julia Fox reading her own story of family volatility, an abusive boyfriend, a psychiatric hospital stay and heroin addiction.
“Eventually, she decided to change her life.”
Atwood looks back
Book of Lives lets Margaret Atwood trace the life behind The Handmaid’s Tale, her bond with Graeme Gibson and her dry-eyed view of fame.
“Margaret Atwood is a wonder of the world.”
Panettiere gets raw
This Is Me: A Reckoning moves past Hayden Panettiere’s public image to domestic assault, postpartum depression and private pain behind TV and movie work.
“Hayden holds nothing back”
A marriage collapses
In Strangers, Belle Burden’s 10-year marriage ends when her husband abruptly leaves. The memoir tracks the identity crisis that follows.
“her seemingly stable marriage of 10 years came crashing down”
Burden finds herself
The audiobook follows brutal honesty, setbacks and change through Burden’s own narration, making the split both intimate and painful.
“heartbreaking and uplifting”
A strange homeschool life
Homeschooled begins when Stefan Merrill Block’s mother pulls him from school at 9, saying it is stifling his creativity.
“stifling his creativity”
Mother and son unravel
As his mother’s behavior grows erratic, Block is dyed blond and forced to crawl around the house. He narrates the unsettling family story himself.
“forcing him to crawl around the house”
Amanda Lindhout dreams bigger
A House in The Sky starts with Lindhout finding escape in National Geographic, then saving waitress money to travel across Latin America and Asia.
“she would visit these beautiful places”
Held for 460 days
After becoming a TV reporter, Lindhout is abducted in Somalia in August 2008. Her memoir with Sara Corbett recounts captivity and survival.
“Amanda was held captive for 460 days.”
Presley tapes become memoir
Lisa Marie Presley asked Riley Keough to help finish her memoir in 2022. After Presley died, Keough shaped the book from her mother’s recordings.
“she knew she had to keep her promise”
Inside the Presley family
From Here to The Great Unknown covers Graceland, Elvis, marriages and family pain, narrated by Riley Keough with fresh details from Lisa Marie’s tapes.
“never-before-heard details about the Presley family”
Stephanie Foo names trauma
What My Bones Know begins with Foo outwardly thriving as a radio producer, while panic attacks point doctors toward CPTSD from childhood abuse.
“So why is she having panic attacks?”
Healing after abandonment
Foo writes and narrates how years of physical and emotional abuse, then parental abandonment, shaped her adult life and her work to heal.
“many suffer in silence”
Shania Twain returns
From This Moment On gets a new Shania Twain narration and introduction, revisiting poverty, four siblings and her mother’s domestic violence.
“she’s re-narrating it with a new introduction”
Two darker final picks
Jennette McCurdy’s memoir examines child stardom and control. Virginia Giuffre’s Nobody’s Girl recounts abuse, trafficking and Jeffrey Epstein.
“the dark reality behind her childhood fame”
In short
Memoirs often hit hardest on audio because the author’s own voice can carry the pauses, humor and pain that print can flatten.
