Audio only
Length10h 49m
About this audiobook
"A haunting memoir of disarming honesty. . . a remarkable testament to the anguish and the beauty of foreign correspondence.”—Roger Cohen, New York Times Paris bureau chief and author of An Affirming Flame
From award-winning journalist Jane Ferguson, an unflinching memoir of ambition and war—from The Troubles to the fall of Kabul.
Jane Ferguson has covered nearly every war front and humanitarian crisis of our time. She reported from Yemen as protests grew into the Arab Spring; she secured rare access to rebel-held Syria, where foreign journalists were banned, to cover its civil war. When the Taliban claimed Kabul in 2021, she was one of the last Western journalists to remain at the airport as thousands of Afghans, including some of her colleagues, struggled to evacuate.
Living with sectarian violence was nothing new to Ferguson. As a child in Northern Ireland in the 1980s and ‘90s, The Troubles meant bomb threats and military checkpoints on the way to school were commonplace. Books by Dervla Murphy and Martha Gellhorn offered solace from her turbulent family, and an opportunity to study Arabic in Yemen came as a relief—and a ticket to the life in journalism she imagined.
Without family wealth or connections, she began as a scrappy one-woman reporting team, a borrowed camera often her only equipment. Networks told her she had the wrong accent, the wrong appearance, not enough “bang-bang shoot-‘em-up.” Still, Ferguson threw herself into harm’s way time and again, determined to give voice to civilian experiences of war. In the face of grave violence and suffering, this seemed a small act of justice, no matter the risks.
Ferguson’s bold debut chronicles her unlikely journey from bright, inquisitive child to intrepid war correspondent. With an open-hearted humanity we rarely see in conflict stories, No Ordinary Assignment shows what it means to build an authentic career against the odds.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.4 (2.3K)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, StoryGraph, LibraryThing
GenreBiography and Memoir, Politics and Government
Length10 hrs 49 mins
Narrated byJane Ferguson
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateJul 11, 2023
LanguageEnglish
John Muir: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth & Letters to a Friend (Annotated)John Muir10h 13m4.7 (1.1K)$1.99 · $0.00
Invisible StormJason Kander6h 48m4.7 (3.2K)$24 · $0.00
Forever BoyKate Swenson9h 27m4.7 (5K)$29 · $0.00
You Are Worth ItKyle Carpenter, Don Yaeger8h 53m4.7 (4.8K)$29 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
Evidence Not SeenDarlene Deibler Rose11h 11m4.6 (11.9K)$29 · $0.00
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m4.7 (351)$20 · $0.00
Will You Love Me?Cathy Glass9h 5m4.6 (9.3K)$29 · $0.00
Designing Terry Pratchett’s DiscworldPaul Kidby3h 52m4.7 (343)$20 · $0.00
HostageEli Sharabi5h 25m4.6 (10.8K)$24 · $0.00
Finding MeViola Davis9h 15m4.6 (256.4K)$29 · $0.00
The Dangerous Truth about Today’s MarijuanaLaura Stack CSP, MBA9h 57m4.7 (384)$20 · $0.00
Birdie & HarlowTaylor Wolfe7h 50m4.6 (6.5K)$26 · $0.00
The Lives of BrianBrian Johnson9h 45m4.6 (3.5K)$29 · $0.00
I Am The StormJanice Dean9h4.6 (1.5K)$8 · $0.00
Black History CollectionFrederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois27h 9m4.6 (2.6K)$18 · $0.00
Just as I AmCicely Tyson16h 8m4.6 (99K)$33 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
HostageEli Sharabi5h 25m4.6 (10.8K)$24 · $0.00
KrantikariSanjeev Sanyal11h 44m4.6 (1.3K)$16 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
RiggedMollie Hemingway12h 48m4.6 (4.2K)$23 · $0.00
SledgehammerDavid Friedman8h 21m4.7 (589)$26 · $0.00
Citizenship in a Republic (Annotated)Theodore Roosevelt2h 44m4.6 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
UnthinkableJamie Raskin15h 8m4.5 (9.3K)$8 · $0.00
My Fourth Time, We DrownedSally Hayden13h 59m4.6 (2.9K)$23 · $0.00
A Revolution of Common SenseScott Jennings9h 29m4.6 (528)$29 · $0.00
Statement From the Dock at the Rivonia TrialNelson Mandela2h 18m4.6 (1.3K)$1 · $0.00
Lessons from the EdgeMarie Yovanovitch17h 11m4.5 (5.9K)$40 · $0.00
To Rescue the American SpiritBret Baier10h 12m4.5 (2.7K)$8 · $0.00
StonewalledSharyl Attkisson15h 19m4.5 (4.3K)$33 · $0.00
The World According to Orwell: 1984 & Animal FarmGeorge Orwell15h 42m4.6 (1.1K)$1 · $0.00
Basic EconomicsThomas Sowell18h 32m4.5 (29.3K)$28 · $0.00
To Rescue the RepublicBret Baier, Catherine Whitney11h 42m4.5 (8.6K)$29 · $0.00
You may also like
The Lightless SkyGulwali Passarlay11h 44m4.6 (3.4K)$29 · $0.00
My Bondage and My FreedomFrederick Douglass14h 12m4.5 (17.7K)$1.20 · $0.00
Somewhere We Are HumanReyna Grande, Sonia Guiñansaca8h 16m4.4 (789)$26 · $0.00
Black BoyRichard Wright15h 29m4.2 (67.3K)$4 · $0.00
How Dare the Sun RiseSandra Uwiringiyimana, Abigail Pesta6h 25m4.4 (9.7K)$24 · $0.00
My Brother Sam Is DeadJames Lincoln Collier, Christopher Collier4h 31m4.1 (52.9K)$20
INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRLHarriet Jacobs9h 56m4.4 (86.9K)$2 · $0.00
MothMelody Razak12h 20m4.1 (2.8K)$29 · $0.00
Dear AmericaJose Antonio Vargas6h 9m4.4 (21K)$24 · $0.00
Bull RunPaul Fleischman1h 45m3.9 (12.5K)$15
GerminalEmile Zola19h 41m4.3 (53.9K)$3.50 · $0.00
Finding Junie KimEllen Oh9h 26m4.3 (3.6K)$29 · $0.00
Other Words for HomeJasmine Warga3h 50m4.5 (42.8K)$20 · $0.00
Ask Me No QuestionsMarina Budhos4h 6m3.8 (3.4K)$20
Coming Out of the IceVictor Herman13h 49m4.6 (1.1K)$25
Kaffir BoyMark Mathabane18h 34m4.3 (17.1K)$34 · $0.00
The Best American Short Stories 2021Jesmyn Ward, Heidi Pitlor11h 54m3.9 (2.7K)$29 · $0.00
Kansas City LightningStanley Crouch9h 56m4.0 (1.4K)$23 · $0.00
The DownfallÉmile Zola26h 22m4.3 (8.6K)$2.30
FREDERICK DOUGLASS - Life Narratives of a Former American Slave, Abolitionist & Statesman (Annotated)Frederick Douglass19h 35m4.6 (1.4K)$1.99 · $0.00