Lauran Paine has 18 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 12 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 250 ratings. The most-rated is The Vikings.
The Vikings
Summary
As raiders and explorers, the Vikings played a decisive role in the formation of Latin Christendom, and particularly of western Europe. Now, in a series of 36 vivid lectures by an honored teacher and classical scholar, you have the opportunity to understand this remarkable race as never before, studying the Vikings not only as warriors, but in all of the other roles in which they were equally extraordinary - merchants, artists, kings, raiders, seafarers, shipbuilders, and creators of a remarkable literature of myths and sagas. Professor Harl draws insights from an astonishing array of sources: The Russian Primary Chronicle (a Slavic text from medieval Kiev), 13th-century Icelandic poems and sagas, Byzantine accounts, Arab geographies, annals of Irish monks who faced Viking raids, Roman reports, and scores of other firsthand contemporary documents. Among the topics you'll explore are the profound influence of the Norse gods and heroes on Viking culture and the Vikings' extraordinary accomplishments as explorers and settlers in Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland. And with the help of archaeological findings, you'll learn to analyze Viking ship burials, rune stones and runic inscriptions, Viking wood carving, jewelry, sculpture, and metalwork. By the end of the series, you'll have a new understanding of what it meant to be a Viking and a richer appreciation of this remarkable race - a people who truly defined the history of Europe, and whose brave, adventurous, and creative spirit still survives today. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.
©2005 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2005 The Great Courses
The Wayfinders
Summary
Every culture is a unique answer to a fundamental question: What does it mean to be human and alive? In The Wayfinders, renowned anthropologist, winner of the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize, and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis leads us on a thrilling journey to celebrate the wisdom of the world's indigenous cultures. In Polynesia, we set sail with navigators whose ancestors settled the Pacific 10 centuries before Christ. In the Amazon, we meet the descendants of a true lost civilization, the Peoples of the Anaconda. In the Andes, we discover that the earth really is alive, while in Australia we experience Dreamtime, the all-embracing philosophy of the first humans to walk out of Africa. We then travel to Nepal, where we encounter a wisdom hero, a Bodhisattva, who emerges from 45 years of Buddhist retreat and solitude. And, finally, we settle in Borneo, where the last rain forest nomads struggle to survive. Understanding the lessons of this journey will be our mission for the next century. For at risk is the human legacy - a vast archive of knowledge and expertise, a catalog of the imagination. Rediscovering a new appreciation for the diversity of the human spirit, as expressed by culture, is among the central challenges of our time.
©2009 Wade Davis (P)2017 Tantor
Six-Gun Crossroad
Summary
The small town of Ballester owes its prosperity to the confluence of three big ranches - Snowshoe, Mexican Hat, and Rainbow. Its single lawman, Deputy Sheriff Percy Whittaker, known as Perc, didn't have to deal with much lawbreaking other than the occasional drunk on a Saturday night. Until a drifter named Sam Logan rode into town looking for work. The first problem came when a rider from the Snowshoe ranch provoked a gunfight with Logan, and lost. He was followed to the grave by another rider from the same ranch looking for revenge. Both killings were deemed self-defense, but it rattled the peaceful community. But when a preacher comes to town to save souls and starts by knocking out three cowboys, Perc starts to wonder if he's in over his head - or if Logan and the preacher might be working together.
©2018 Lauran Paine (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Winter Moon
Summary
Five days ago, the blowing up of the express office safe in Burnt Timbers, Montana, had gone off without a hitch for the four members of the Buck Streeter gang, netting them $28,000. Since then they have taken refuge in an abandoned shack on a plateau above the town of Brigham in northern Wyoming. With its bank and express office across the street from each other and lacking any telegraph for communication, Brigham seems like the perfect place to stage their next robbery before laying low for a while. Streeter is worried about their newest but oldest gang member, Frank Reno, who suffers from consumption and whose coughing throughout the night makes sleep difficult for them all; they need their rest in this tough, cold high country. Still, the gang is confident, and they take their time visiting and studying the lay of the land in Brigham. What they haven't taken into consideration is the snowstorm heading into northern Wyoming and, even more significantly, the determination of US Marshal John Galloway. Although 18 years as a lawman has worn down the aging Galloway, he has no fear of death, and he is committed to stopping the gang's spree of robbing and terrorizing small towns across the West, which has taken him from Texas to the Pacific Northwest to Montana. With orders coming from the Denver office, Galloway, who has learned everything he can about the four, has followed his instincts from Burnt Timbers to northern Wyoming. Galloway is convinced that Brigham will be the gang's next target, but as the icy storm sets in, the question becomes when will they strike?
©2018 Lauran Paine (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Ute Peak Country
Summary
Jackson Miggs was a loner who wintered under the Ute Peak in his log cabin. He liked people well enough, but didn't care much for crowds. He even tolerated the cowmen like Hyatt Tolman who used the high meadows around Ute Peak to graze his herd - even when the animals cropped the forage too closely and drove the elk and deer into the higher mountains. Miggs once told Frank McCoy that if he looked out a window and saw a building less than 200 feet away, he felt like things were closing in on him. In return for Jack's friendship, Frank would take Miggs' pelts out in the fall, sell them at Fort Laramie and Cheyenne, then dig up the money he had buried for Jack, and bring it to him in the spring. But this time Frank McCoy was accompanied by beautiful Beverly Shafter and a strange herd of Durham cattle driven by Denver Holt and his crew. They moved right into the grazing land that the Tolman herd had been coming to for years. There was no doubt about it - there was going to be trouble in Ute Peak country.
©2019 Lauran Paine (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Killer Gun
Summary
This is the story of spectacular gun, customised so it gives the upper hand in any gun duel, and the chaos that ensues when it’s stolen from its maker.
©1998 Lauran Paine (P)2015 Isis Publishing Ltd
Rough Justice
Summary
Sheriff Doyle Bannion tries to keep the peace in Perdition Wells, Texas, when a shooting claims the life of an innocent bystander. When a shooting takes place at the Union Eagle Saloon, Dale McAfee, foreman of John Rockland's mighty Texas Star Ranch, kills a range rider working for Clell Durham, a free-graze cowman. It's a fair fight, but it's marked by a tragic accident: The bullet that killed Durham's rider went through his body and killed an aged swamper. Several eyewitnesses tell Sheriff Doyle Bannion that the old man had ignored warning calls and continued sweeping, so Bannion rules the involuntary shooting death by misadventure. But the King Brothers see things differently - and they're bent on avenging their father's death.
©2016 Lauran Paine (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Guns in Oregon
Summary
In For Vengeance Alone, Mark Webb, an itinerant rider, finds that acting as a messenger of mercy is only the beginning of an intrigue that will find him riding for the Rafter L Ranch and confronted by a particularly fiendish form of smuggling. He is compelled to enlist the help of his father, a practising physician, and his brother, a deputy U.S. marshal. Guns in Oregon is set in the range country of the high desert region of south-eastern Oregon. Edward Given's arrival in the small ranching town of Younger causes Deputy Sheriff Jim Crawford some unease. Bill Haines, owner of the Territorial Saloon, seems to have known Given from sometime in the past. After the community savings are stolen in a daring daylight robbery, Given, Crawford and Haines form an uneasy alliance to find the thieves and recover the missing money. Finding the thieves is not difficult, the problem is what to do then…
©2004 Mona Paine (P)2013 Isis Publishing Ltd
Rain Valley
Summary
Cattle thieves are always difficult to apprehend, but when they are protected by mountainous terrain, a lawman must resort to deception to gain access. A trio of thrilling stories from one of the masters of the genre.
©2004 Mona Paine (P)2015 Isis Publishing Ltd
The Gathering Storm
Summary
A western duo, featuring a Marshal on the trail of a professional bandit, and a bloody rivalry between two gunmen.
©2003 Mona Paine (P)2017 Isis Publishing Ltd
Open Range
Summary
Now a Major Motion Picture Starring Kevin Costner The open range men are free-grazing cattlemen, those who don't own land but drive their stock through the country to graze. Boss Spearman knows that times are changing. Local ranchers are staking claims to grazing areas and building up extensive cattle empires. Boss has no quarrel with that, but he won't be intimidated or scared off. So when Denton Baxter makes it clear, by killing one man and seriously wounding another, that he intends to drive Boss and his crew out, Boss must make a stand. But getting justice is not going to be easy. Baxter practically owns Marshall Poole, and the townsfolk have no use for free grazers. Boss' only hope is the circuit-riding judge, if he can stay alive until he arrives.
©1990 Lauran Paine (P)2003 Blackstone Audiobooks
Terror in Gunsight
Summary
Forced to take a precipitous route off the rimrocks and down into an unknown valley to escape certain death by four men pursuing him, Pete Knight, a cowhand seeking a job, sees a town ahead in the distance. If he can just make it to that town, he believes he will be safe. Little does he know that he is heading into Gunsight, Wyoming, where a long-standing feud between the townsmen and the range men has reached the boiling point. Arthur Hobart, owner of the Diamond H, has issued a warning that if the people of Gunsight do not stop victimizing his cowpunchers, he's going to bring in his own law enforcer and burn the town down. And the appearance of Pete means only one thing to the townsfolk: Hobart is about to make good on his threat. When Pete is jailed, he tries to convince Sheriff Mike Mulaney to get confirmation that he is not who the Gunsighters think he is. But before the matter can be resolved, Pete is lynched in the middle of the night by five men wearing burlap hoods. When Pete's brother, Ben, a US deputy marshal, arrives seeking vengeance for his brother's hanging, he has even more reason to hate the town and what it represents than those on the Diamond H. But when Hobart tries to use Ben's arrival for his own advantage, Ben must choose between protecting the town and abandoning his trail of vengeance or standing by while Hobart's threats become reality.
©2018 Lauran Paine (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Wyoming Trails
Summary
Ryan Shanley prefers to be called Shan. It's not much, but it helps put some distance between his life during and after serving in the Union army. And he'll put even more distance between the two once he arrives in the Wyoming Territory, where he has a land grant for two square miles. On the stage to Tico, the town nearest his ranch, he meets Sarahlee Gordon. She was only planning to visit Wyoming long enough to sell the cabin she inherited from her uncle. But the attraction between the two becomes obvious on the stage and grows after they arrive. Between a blossoming relationship and the rugged territory, Shan realizes that he is not nearly as prepared as he believed himself to be, but he remains determined to build the ranch he dreamed of escaping to while serving on the front lines.
©2018 Lauran Paine (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Holding the Ace Card
Summary
In “Terror Trail”, Reno Balfor is a small rancher constantly at odds with his neighbour Arnold Gregory. Gregory runs off with some of Balfor’s prime beef, taking it up the narrow mountain passage know as Terror Trail. But what goes up must come down and Balfor will be ready for Gregory and his sons when they try riding back. In “Holding the Ace Card”, Lou Bellanger is a gunfighter who has not seen his mother since she placed him with a foster family. Now remarried, with two small children, she has hired Lou to help her in a range war. Judith’s husband, Jamie Hudson, was badly beaten by men working for the powerful ranch that wants the Hudsons to sell out and surrender their vital water rights. The matter is complicated by the attempted assassination of the local sheriff, a crime that is blamed on Lou Bellanger, turning the town against both Bellanger and the Hudsons.
©2005 Mona Paine (P)2012 Isis Publishing Ltd
Night of the Comancheros
Summary
In the first story of this Western duo, Caleb Doorn is sent to Arizona to deal with an Apache uprising. The other is the story of Buck Baylor, who fights back against the men who murdered his father and captured his mother.
©2003 Mona Paine (P)2014 Isis Publishing Ltd
Trail of Shadows
Summary
It was dusk when Todd Duncan sighted the man and his camp at a small oasis on the edge of the desert. Duncan, on his way to New Mexico to find work, knew better than to barge into a stranger's camp. After riding in and dismounting, he decided to make coffee before waking the stranger. When he called to the man, there was no response, so he walked over to find the man dead from a gunshot wound. It is then that he finds himself surrounded by Sheriff Matt Berryhill and his posse, their guns drawn. They identify the dead man as Jerry Swindin, who had been shot during an attempt to rob the express office. Assuming that Duncan is Swindin's partner, young Parton, who had shot and killed the express agent, the sheriff wastes no time arresting him, despite the fact the he claims his name is Todd Duncan and has letters to prove it. The only way to convince them that he's innocent is to track down the real killer.
©2017 Lauran Paine (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The White Bird
Summary
Though elderly buffalo hunter Sam Sloan doesn't know it when he sets out on his quest for a spirit vision and a final resting place, something is drawing him towards a fateful meeting - a meeting with his destiny.
©1997 Lauran Paine (P)2017 Isis Publishing Ltd
Deadwood Ambush
Summary
Deadwood, Dakota Territory, was filled with luckless miners and diggers, as well as more than its share of lawlessness, and more often than not, there was nothing Marshal Fred Nolan and his two deputy marshals, Wentworth and Grubb, could do. So when a teen hustler, known as Gitalong because of his crippled leg, was hoorawed by a trio of Texas drovers, the law wasn’t called in. Besides, two strangers had come to Gitalong’s aid, confronting the drovers and forcing them to give Gitalong three silver dollars. While it was the most money the teenager had ever had, he knew it would only bring him trouble. He was right. The three Texans returned with even more men, and another confrontation with the two strangers takes place that ends in one of the Texans being killed, and Gitalong trying unsuccessfully to give the money back. This time, though, Marshal Fred Nolan and his two deputies see the fight and order the Texans out of town, but not before Grubb recognizes Tevis Blankenship, a trail driver with a tough reputation. Still afraid, Gitalong heeds the advice of others and leaves town on a coach, which ends up crashing and injuring Gitalong badly. Meanwhile, Marshal Nolan’s job just got harder, because he needs to be ready to escort a bullion coach through his area, always a dangerous job.
©2020 Lauran Paine (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing