When she was growing up in the only Black family in her Rhode Island hometown, actress Viola Davis wet the bed frequently. The target of racist bullying, she often went to school reeking of urine. Rats ate the faces of her dolls, her alcoholic father beat her mother, and she and her sisters were victims of sexual abuse.

Such real-life horror makes for what Kirkus calls a “starkly forthright memoir.” Finding Me (Harper Audio, 9 hours and 15 minutes) is a searing portrait of grinding poverty and surprising triumph and how the echoes of the first haunt the security of the second. The story is so wrenching and personal it could only be narrated by the fiery Davis herself. Winner of two Tony Awards as well as an Oscar and an Emmy, she summons a simmering rage—often speaking in clipped tones as though with barely controlled fury—at the teachers who never helped, at systems that continually punish the poor, at the racism and colorism that blocked her path to success for so long.

But like any great performer, Davis can access other emotions, too: pride in her accomplishments, deep gratitude for everyone who encouraged her, love for her family. Delivered with passion and hard-won insight, her words are a balm to anyone struggling to be seen.

Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix stand-up show, Nanette, was an unexpected tragicomic gut punch, and in Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation (Random House Audio, 13 hours and 47 minutes), the comedian explains how a self-described “financially insecure, autistic Australian genderqueer vagina-wielding situation” reshaped personal and universal trauma into a stunning work of art.

Read by the author in her sly, quirky tone, the book follows Gadsby’s childhood in rural Tasmania and the rocky path she traveled into adulthood to find her voice, rolling out against the backdrop of Tasmania’s ongoing criminalization of homosexuality.

Pulling stories together to form a cohesive and funny whole is what Gadsby excels at, and her pitch-perfect comic delivery serves her well as narrator. The “initially stiff prose” Kirkus mentions in its review isn’t evident in the audio version. This performance displays great humor—and real heart.

Foo Fighters frontman and Nirvana alumnus Dave Grohl narrates The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music (Harper Audio, 10 hours and 35 minutes) with a friendly, straightforward earnestness that cements his public persona as one of the nice guys in rock and roll. Whether he’s talking about his days as a middle-class suburban kid falling in love with the 1980s punk scene, the rise and fall of Nirvana, or buying Barbies with his daughters (he opted for a Joan Jett Barbie for himself), Grohl comes off as a likable dude who loves his life (which just happens to be a bit flashier than ours).

In the book, published before the death of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins earlier this year, Grohl name-drops with casual abandon, but each anecdote lands with a refreshing gee-whiz normality. The Storyteller is less gritty than you might expect—Kirkus writes that sometimes a lack of depth “make[s] the book feel like a missed opportunity”—but the author projects such regular-guy appeal in his narration that even casual fans will enjoy his transformation from teenage pothead to musical star.

Connie Ogle is a writer in Florida.