Captivity Memoirs

An instant #1 New York Times bestseller—Jaycee Dugard’s raw and powerful memoir, her own story of being kidnapped in 1991 and held captive for more than eighteen years. In the summer of June of 1991, I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother that loved me. I was...

A standalone psychological thriller in the Memoirs series. He built a system no one escapes. She learned how to survive it. He never stopped watching. Methodical. Patient. Precise. He doesn’t rely on chaos—he builds systems. Studies behavior. Teaches obedience. And once you’re inside… leaving isn’t part of the design. Ratchel thought survival meant enduring. It doesn’t. Kidnapped and isolated, she’s forced into a routine designed to break resistance and replace it with compliance. Every detail has a purpose. Every reaction is measured. But even systems have limits. And Ratchel...

Two victims of the infamous Cleveland kidnapper share the story of their abductions, their decade in captivity, and their final, dramatic rescue On May 6, 2013, Amanda Berry made headlines around the world when she fled a Cleveland area home and called 911, saying: “Help me, I’m Amanda Berry...

In a raw and unflinching memoir, Eli Sharabi, a survivor of 491 days in Hamas captivity, recounts the harrowing ordeal of his abduction from Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7th, 2023, the loss of his wife and daughters, and his unyielding resolve to survive. Narrated by award winning actor, Geoffrey...

“Exquisitely told…A young woman’s harrowing coming-of-age story and an extraordinary narrative of forgiveness and spiritual triumph.” —The New York Times Book Review Amanda Lindhout’s unforgettable hostage memoir recounts her fifteen-month abduction in Somalia and her extraordinary...

In the follow-up to her #1 bestselling memoir, A Stolen Life, Jaycee Dugard tells the story of her first experiences after years in captivity: the joys that accompanied her newfound freedom and the challenges of adjusting to life on her own. When Jaycee Dugard was eleven years old, she was...

The Oatman massacre is among the most famous and dramatic captivity stories in the history of the Southwest. In this riveting account, Brian McGinty explores the background, development, and aftermath of the tragedy.

Step into one of the earliest and most powerful works of American literature with A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson by Mary Rowlandson. First published in 1682, this gripping firsthand account chronicles Rowlandson’s eleven-week captivity during King Philip’s War and her struggle for survival in the harsh New England wilderness. Blending spiritual reflection, colonial history, and personal endurance, Rowlandson’s narrative offers an unfiltered glimpse into early American frontier life.

Ingrid Bettancourt tells the story of her captivity in the Colombian jungle, sharing powerful teachings of resilience, resistance, and faith...

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE In this “courageous” (The Washington Post) memoir of survival, a former captive of the Islamic State tells her harrowing and ultimately inspiring story. Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in northern Iraq...

Somewhere Inside is the electrifying, never-before-told story of Laura Ling’s capture by the North Koreans in March 2009, and the efforts of her sister, journalist Lisa Ling, to secure Laura’s release by former President Bill Clinton. This riveting true account of the first ever trial of an...

Scourge: An Exemplar Essay on the Life and Legacy of Lt Col William E. Dyess In Scourge, Paul J. Ferguson examines the life and legacy of Lieutenant Colonel William E. Dyess—not as a story of suffering alone, but as a study in responsibility carried forward under extreme conditions. Dyess endured captivity during the Second World War under circumstances that stripped away comfort, authority, and certainty. Survival would have been sufficient. Instead, Dyess chose what followed—speaking truth without accusation, returning to service without exemption, and continuing to carry obligation ...

An unforgettable World War II memoir set in Nazi-occupied France and filled with romance and adventure: a former Eastern European Jew remembers his flight from the Holocaust and his extraordinary four years in the French underground. Justus Rosenberg, now 98, has taught literature at Bard...

In 1971 William Reeder was a senior captain on his second tour in Vietnam. He had flown armed, fixed-wing OV-1 Mohawks on secret missions deep into enemy territory in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam, on his first tour. He returned as a helicopter pilot eager to experience a whole new perspective as a Cobra gunship pilot. Believing that Nixon's Vietnamization would soon end the war, Reeder was anxious to see combat action. To him, it appeared that the Americans had prevailed, beaten the Viet Cong, and were passing everything over to the South Vietnamese Army so Americans could leave.

The Yalu River Boys is the true story of the forgotten men from the forgotten war. Follow a B-29 bomber crew as it battles Russian MiG-15 fighters in the heart of MiG Alley during the Korean War. Learn the heartbreaking truth of the communist prison camp gulags, the cruelty of the North Korean enemy, and the propaganda attacks from friend and foe. Marvin King joined the US Air Force in peacetime but soon found himself in the midst of jet-age aerial combat, captured and taken into China, and later subjected to the abject horror of a place in North Korea known only as The Caves.

Mary Jemison (1743-1833) was a Scots-Irish colonial frontierswoman in Pennsylvania and New York, who was kidnapped as a youth and adopted into a Seneca family. During the Seven Years War (1758), at the age of 15, Jemison was taken from her western Pennsylvania home by a Shawnee and French raiding party and sold to two Seneca sisters who adopted her. She assimilated to their culture, survived two husbands and had eight children. In her old age, Jemison told her story to the minister James E. Seaver, who published it in 1824 as "Narrative of the Life of Mrs Mary Jemison".

Shahbaz Taseer’s memoir of his five-year-long captivity at the hands of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. In late August 2011, Shahbaz Taseer was driving to his office in Lahore when he was dragged from his car at gunpoint and kidnapped by members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)...

The dramatic story of freelance photographer Daniel Rye, who was held hostage for 13 months by ISIS, as told by an award-winning writer. In a tense and riveting narrative, The ISIS Hostage details freelance photographer Daniel Rye's 13-month ordeal at the hands of the Islamic State after he was captured in Syria, and the misery inflicted upon him, and 19 other hostages, by the British guards, which included Jihadi John. This compelling account also follows Daniel's family and the nerve-wracking negotiations with his kidnappers.

Are you a history lover? Do you like to discover new and obscure facts about historical events? If so, then you are in for a treat, because this audiobook offers precisely that. Not many people have heard of the name Olive Oatman, yet her story has been an inspiration for books, poems, television shows, and feature films. Olive Oatman was a young girl who experienced horrible tragedies throughout most of her life, but put them behind her as a young woman, and became the first female public speaker of her time.

Read the Painfully Realistic, Shocking, Yet Moving Tale of a German Soldier Whose Love for His Family Kept Him Going – “Eastern Front – 500 Letters from War” contains all the letters written by a German soldier during the war and in Soviet captivity, plus his breathtaking escape report from the Czech uranium mines in 1949 During the Second World War, Josef Chervatin was a German soldier in the 329th “Hammer” Infantry Division. He was a man thrown into the hell of the Eastern Front and found himself at the mercy of the bombs that were going off everywhere around him. It was ...