Showing results by publisher "Beacon Audiobooks" in Biographies & Memoirs

From a quiet street in a small town to the avenues of power in Washington, D.C, from the comfort of obscurity to the spotlight of radio and television, from a broken heart to a position of strength and responsibility, God wove the chords of my life in such twists and turns, it took a book to explain it all. If I knew why He called ME, I would tell you. My parents could have walked out of the pages of "Grapes of Wrath." My beginnings were unremarkable, yet God gave me a remarkable life. God's Velvet Hammer is my story.

Criminal defense lawyer Lisa Peebles was taken aback by a secretly recorded phone call and police interrogation video that surfaced in a 20-year-old kidnapping case. They held the stench of a cover-up. She recruited an investigative reporter to help unearth the truth and exonerate Gary Thibodeau, the man convicted in the 1994 kidnapping and murder of 18-year-old Heidi Allen.

Jason Molina: Riding with the Ghost details Molina’s personal trials and triumphs and reveals for the first time the true story of Molina’s last months and works, including an unpublished album unknown to many of his fans. Offering unfettered access to the mind and artistry of Molina through exclusive interviews with family, friends, and collaborators, the audiobook also explores the Midwest music underground and the development of Indiana-based label Secretly Canadian.

Nearly everything the American public has seen, read, and heard in the media for nearly 80 years about the so-called Amelia Earhart mystery is intentionally false or inadvertently misleading. The widely accepted myth that the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan during their ill-fated world-flight attempt in July 1937 is among the greatest aviation mysteries of the 20th century is an abject lie, the result of decades of government propaganda that continues unabated to this day.

The 15th century Romanian Prince Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler, is one of the most fascinating personalities of medieval history. Already during his own lifetime, his true story became obscured by a veil of myths. As a result, he has been portrayed both as a bloody tyrant - who degenerated down throughout the centuries into the fictional vampire of the same name created by Bram Stoker at the end of the 19th century - and as a national and Christian hero who bravely fought to defend his native land and all of Europe against the invading Turkish infidels.

Despite his Marxist views, young Lee Harvey Oswald associated with fascists and shared their right-wing ideology. There is physical evidence that Marine Oswald’s defection to the Soviet Union in 1959 was a CIA operation to make it seem he died in Russia. A Soviet “sleeper agent” returned to the US, who could blame for any crime.

When detectives respond to a crime scene in Orlando, Florida, during the "summer of hurricanes" in 2004, they find Charlie Brandt hanging from the rafters in the garage of his niece Michelle Jones' home. Inside the house, they find a scene of horror that reminds them of other murders.

What if you came home one day and found your husband dead in his favorite chair? This grief memoir explores the author’s experience of the unexpected death of her husband from sudden cardiac arrest a mere three months after his doctors had pronounced him hale and healthy. The author shares her experiences in the immediate aftermath of the abrupt shock of discovery, reminisces about the details of the couple’s late-in-life courtship and marriage, and imparts other experiences she has had along the grieving road in the years since becoming a widow.

In 1985, Stanley Kubrick encouraged Matthew Modine to keep a journal and take photographs while playing the lead role of Pvt. Joker - a combat correspondent - on the set of his Vietnam War film, Full Metal Jacket. In 2005, Modine published a limited edition book of his diary and photos which later became an interactive experience for the iPad. Now, with the Full Metal Jacket Diary audiobook, fans can listen to Modine as he performs his diary with sound effects and original music.

Everyone knows the story of Jerry Sandusky, the serial pedophile, the Monster. But what if that story is wrong? What if the former Penn State football coach and founder of the Second Mile is an innocent man convicted in the midst of a moral panic fed by the sensationalistic media, police trawling, and memory-warping psychotherapy? The Most Hated Man in America unfolds like a true-crime psychological thriller and is required listening for everyone, from criminologists to sports fans.

Buckminster Fuller reminds us, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.” This book provides just that model, as well as concrete practices for living it. The model is derived from ancient wisdom traditions, modeled on the pulses, cycles, and seasons of our beloved Earth Mother. It deeply grounds the listener in a “this world” spirituality that blends indigenous cosmologies, earth-honoring ritual, and time-tested models for living with modern sensibilities.

When Lerita Coleman, a 41-year-old single African-American psychology professor, learns she has only 18 months to live without a heart transplant, anxiety overwhelmed her. The daunting challenge of medical procedures, medications, and the unknowns of losing an organ that symbolized her core being haunted her. In desperation, she turned to her diseased heart for guidance about whether to live or die. What emerges are a series of remarkably wise and witty conversations with her old heart and the one she ultimately received during a transplant in 1995.

Jabali spent years being beaten, tortured, starved, sexualized, brainwashed, and confined to a dark closet in both Mexico and the United States. Jabali Smith was a six-year-old in Berkeley, California, when he was trafficked along with his sister over the border into Mexico and held captive by a messianic doomsday sex cult. Slave courageously and boldly chronicles his journey as a child slave - the escape and eventual rise from the ashes of tragedy.

My RAD Career is a roller coaster ride through Hollywood in the 1980s as seen through the eyes of one of the cult figures of the era, Bill Allen (star of the movie RAD). Starting as a teen actor on his first ill-fated film alongside a young George Clooney, Bill shares his personal and professional relationships through film and television roles with some of the greatest actors and directors of a generation. Told like you're sitting with him over drinks at a bar, Bill takes you inside the show biz bubble to reveal his most jaw-dropping experiences spanning three decades.

Do you enjoy peeking "behind the curtain" when the great and powerful reveal their true human nature? In My Time with General Colin Powell, you will learn about his tenure as Secretary of State, his professional speaking career, see his humorous side, and what a beloved humanitarian he was. General Powell was well respected and loved by people on both sides of the political divide.

In many ways, Judy Garland's rise to fame seems almost predestined. Not only was she a national sensation at a young age, but her parents and sisters were all vaudeville entertainers. On top of that, Garland's parents owned and operated a movie theater, making it all the easier to draw the conclusion that singing and acting were simply professions which she was born into by virtue of her pedigree.

In 1942, Pete Reiser was on the road to baseball superstardom. Then he crashed into a wall—an unpadded concrete outfield wall as he tried to make a game-saving catch. And for Pete, nothing was ever the same. A year earlier, at age 22, he had won a batting title, a rookie of the year award, and a pennant with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Sportswriters could not stop marveling at his skill set, highlighted by a keen batting eye, a rifle throwing arm, and speed that whisked him from home to first in three-point-six seconds.

Always at his mother's side, Frank Shankwitz spent much of his childhood on the move, frequently hungry and forever homeless. They moved around the country, sleeping in the family car as they ventured from one city to another in search of gainful employment. Frank remembers vividly those who went out of their way to show kindness and compassion. In every way, these acts of kindness fueled Frank's journey. Journey with Frank as he shares the story of his legacy; a life rooted in kindness, near-misses, and close calls. A life centered around the magic of making wishes come true.

Throughout the history of Hollywood, perhaps no actor has a reputation as unique as Johnny Depp. Depp began his career in a very traditional manner by being a teen heartthrob on shows like 21 Jump Street, but as he once admitted, "As a teenager I was so insecure. I was the type of guy that never fitted in because he never dared to choose. I was convinced I had absolutely no talent at all. For nothing. And that thought took away all my ambition too."

This is the story of how Olivia turned the physical challenges and emotional hardships she had faced since she was a little girl into an engaged life of advocacy for others. So many young people are faced with life-changing hardships—from illness and disease to loss and calamity. What Olivia Goodreau discovers through her journey with chronic Lyme, and what she has been sharing with the world, is that inside of every predicament is also a possibility.