Gavin Newsom Audiobooks

Young Man in a Hurry: the California governor tells his own story, in his own voice

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Who is Gavin Newsom?

Politician, vintner and now memoirist, Gavin Newsom was born in San Francisco on 10 October 1967 and has governed California since 2019. Before that he was the state’s lieutenant governor, and before that the mayor of the city he grew up in, elected in 2003 at thirty six.

His route into public life ran through business rather than law. After a political science degree at Santa Clara University he founded the PlumpJack Group, a wine and hospitality venture that expanded into more than twenty businesses. Appointed to a San Francisco commission in 1996, he was on the Board of Supervisors within two years.

He is among the more visible figures in American politics, a reliable lightning rod on housing, climate, guns and LGBTQ rights, and the author of Citizenville, a 2013 argument for using digital tools to reopen democracy. He now hosts the podcast This Is Gavin Newsom, which pointedly books guests who disagree with him.

Gavin Newsom in audiobooks

Young Man in a Hurry is the memoir, subtitled A Memoir of Discovery, and it is a more personal book than his position might lead you to expect. It goes back to a childhood split by his parents’ divorce, to severe dyslexia and the workarounds a boy invents to hide it, and to the restlessness of the title.

He reads it himself across close to eight hours, which changes the register entirely. Political memoirs handed to a professional narrator tend to sound like position papers, whereas an author reading his own account of being a struggling schoolboy has nowhere to hide. Listeners have responded well.

Take it as autobiography rather than manifesto, though readers watching American politics will find plenty to read between the lines. The audiobook sits below.