Lee Smith has 14 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 16 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 53 ratings. The most-rated is The Plot Against the President.
The Plot Against the President
Summary
Investigative journalist Lee Smith uses his unprecedented access to Congressman Devin Nunes, former head of the House Intelligence Committee, to expose the deep state operation against the president - and the American people. Investigative journalist Lee Smith's The Plot Against the President tells the story of how Congressman Devin Nunes uncovered the operation to bring down the commander-in-chief. While popular opinion holds that Russia subverted democratic processes during the 2016 elections, the real damage was done not by Moscow or any other foreign actor. Rather, this was a slow-moving coup engineered by a coterie of the American elite, the "deep state," targeting not only the president, but also the rest of the country. The plot officially began July 31, 2016, with the counterintelligence investigation that the FBI opened to probe Russian infiltration of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. But the bureau never followed any Russians. In fact, it was an operation to sabotage Trump, the candidate, then president-elect, and finally the presidency. The conspirators included political operatives, law enforcement and intelligence officials, and the press. The plot was uncovered by Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his investigative team. They understood that the target of the operation wasn't just Trump, but rather the institutions that sustain our republic. A country where operatives use the intelligence and security services to protect their privileges by spying on Americans, coordinating with the press, and using extra-constitutional means to undermine an election then undo a presidency is more like the third world than the republic envisioned by the founding fathers. Without Nunes and his team, the plot against the president - and against the country - never would have been revealed. Told from the perspective of Nunes and his crack investigators - men and women who banded together to do the right thing at a crucial moment for our democracy - the story of the biggest political scandal in a generation unfolds like a great detective novel, feels like a classic cowboy movie. The congressman from the cattle capital of California really did fight corruption in Washington. Devin Nunes took on the "deep state."
©2019 Lee Smith (P)2019 Center Street
The Permanent Coup
Summary
From the phony Russia collusion narrative to the coordinated riots laying waste to US cities, it's the same ongoing operation orchestrated by the left and targeting not just President Trump but hundreds of millions of Americans who revere their country and what it stands for. For the first time, crusading investigative journalist Lee Smith reveals who was responsible and the never before known involvement of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and senior military officials who engineered a coup against a sitting president. Beginning in late 2015, political operatives, intelligence officials, and the press pushed a conspiracy theory about Trump - he was a Russian asset and spied on his campaign and his presidency in order to undo an election. Because the ultimate goal of the anti-Trump operation is not simply to topple the president but rather to change the character and constitution of the country, the Deep State's machinations didn't stop even after Trump was cleared of charges of "colluding" with Moscow. Their efforts became even more fierce, more desperate, and more divisive, threatening to scar America permanently. In their zeal to bring down President Trump, Deep State conspirators had unwittingly revealed the origins of the anti-Trump operation and exposed corruption at the very highest levels of the Democratic party - including former Vice President Biden and his boss, Barack Obama. Lee Smith brings to this story the same incisive reporting and commentary that distinguished his runaway best seller, The Plot Against the President. His investigation, identifying crimes and abuses committed by senior US officials, was later confirmed by a major Department of Justice report. For The Permanent Coup, Smith again enjoys unrivaled and exclusive access to the main players defending America and uncovering Deep State crimes - including Congressman Devin Nunes and the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
©2020 Lee Smith (P)2020 Center Street
Oral History
Summary
Oral History, the lyrical saga of a Virginia mountain family, follows four generations of Cantrells over more than a century. With each chapter, Lee Smith, a master of regional voices, adds another branch to a family tree that sings with secrets and sadness, beauty and joy. Researching an assignment for an Oral History course, Jennifer drives to the Virginia hills where her mother and father grew up. Raised by a stepmother, the young college student wonders why her father never talks of her real mother or relatives. So from the moment she steps out of the car, Jennifer is intrigued by the mystery of her heritage. One by one, the Cantrells tell of lives filled with vitality, colored by the land and family history. Through the voices of a full cast of narrators, Lee Smith's remarkable novel becomes a truly extraordinary listening experience.
©1983 Lee Smith (P)2003 Recorded Books
The Devil's Dream
Summary
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, The Devil's Dream is an animated, lyrical novel that is meant to be savored as spoken word. Consummate storyteller Lee Smith's creation will delight anyone who enjoys the sound of language and a good story. Preacher's son Moses Bailey believed that the fiddle was the voice of the Devil and denied his wife the pleasure of the music she dearly loved. She fiddled for her three children behind her husband's back. Thus begins a magnificent 150-year saga of a musical Southern family featuring barn dances, medicine shows, the Grand Ole Opry, and the evolution of country music from hymns to rockabilly.Generations of authentic, down-home mountain people spring to life, colorful dialects and all, through the magic of several extraordinary narrators. Each chapter, a story in itself, will move listeners with its passion, emotion, warmth, and intimacy.
©1992 Lee Smith (P)1998 Recorded Books, Inc.
The Last Girls
Summary
On a bright June day in 1965, a dozen girls - classmates at a Blue Ridge women's college - launch a ramshackle raft on a trip down the Mississippi. Their journey, inspired by Huckleberry Finn, is duly reported in the Paducah, Kentucky newspaper. Thirty-five years later, four of the "girls" reunite to cruise the river again. This time, it's on the luxury steamboat The Belle of Natchez and there's no publicity. This time, when they reach New Orleans, they'll give the River the ashes of a fifth rafter: beautiful Margaret ("Baby") Ballou. Harriet Holding is a hesitant teacher who never married. Courtney Gray yearns to step away from her Southern Living-style life. Catherine Wilson, a sculptor, is a world-famous romance novelist who escapes her personal tragedies through her fiction. And finally, there's "Baby", the girl they have come to bury - along with their memories of her rebellions and betrayals. Beloved throughout the South for her powerful female characters, author Lee Smith tells a rich, imaginative story about the nature of romance, the relationship between life and fiction, the relevance of the past to the present, and the unexpected course of women's lives.
©2002 Lee Smith (P)2002 HighBridge Company
The Christmas Letters
Summary
Lee Smith is the New York Times best-selling author of The Last Girls and the recipient of a Lyndhurst Grant and a Reader's Digest Writer's Award. Library Journal calls her "one of our most accomplished authors". Here she delivers the heartwarming tale of three generations of women who record their lives in Christmas letters to the family.
©1996 Lee Smith (P)2003 Recorded Books, LLC
Fancy Strut
Summary
Lee Smith, author of the acclaimed The Last Girls, delights with a tale of dry wit. Smith has won many prizes, including the Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Academy Award in Literature.Speed, Alabama, is celebrating its sesquicentennial, 150 years of proud existence, and its whimsical inhabitants will definitely not let the event pass without a party. Eccentric resident Miss Iona is there to chronicle the events in her society column featured in the Messenger and to make sure the "zestful preparation" is carried out in a proper southern fashion. For genteel and dignified Miss Iona, that means no majorettes will be featured on the society page!
©1973 Lee Smith (P)2004 Recorded Books, LLC
Black Mountain Breakdown
Summary
A consummate storyteller in the Southern tradition, Lee Smith tugs at her listeners' heartstrings with this haunting narrative that reads like a country ballad. Touching, funny, and sad, its down-to-earth characters are somehow familiar and endearing as they do their best to meet the demands of daily life. Her mother's pride and joy, young Crystal Spangler has a keen intellect, the body of a beauty queen, and the heart of a poet. When she leaves Appalachia to attend college and follow her dreams, she faces a dazzling future. But something lurking in the shadow of Black Mountain is calling her back, something that will change her life forever. With passion, warmth, and insight, narrator Linda Stephens gradually reveals the rich irony inherent in this compelling novel. Her expressive, lyrical voice ensures the listener a delightfully vivid listening experience.
©1980 Lee Smith (P)1998 Recorded Books, LLC
Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger
Summary
Virginia native Lee Smith has won two O. Henry Awards, the Southern Book Critics Circle Award, and the Robert Penn Warren Prize for her engaging works. A collection of 14 tales - both new stories and previously published favorites - Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger is sure to delight listeners with its warm humor and unforgettable characters.
©2010 Lee Smith (P)2012 Recorded Books, LLC
On Agate Hill
Summary
Award-winning, best-selling author Lee Smith is among the most authentic voices of the South and has been hailed as one of America's most accomplished authors. In this rich and bittersweet tale, she follows the shifting fortunes of a young North Carolina girl whose life is shattered by the Civil War. Orphaned when her father falls in battle, Molly Petree is taken in by Uncle Junius on his Agate Hill plantation. But the terminally ill Junius is manipulated into marriage by his housekeeper, Selena, who inherits Agate Hill upon his death. Neglected and abused under Selena's watch, Molly escapes to a better life with help from her father's closest battlefield companion, Simon Black. But as she grows into a refined, educated woman, Molly remains haunted by tragedy. Told from the perspectives of several of its colorful characters, On Agate Hill is the literary equivalent of an heirloom quilt, and one of Smith's finest achievements.
©2006 Lee Smith (P)2006 Recorded Books LLC
Guests on Earth
Summary
When she is thirteen years old, Evalina Toussaint, the orphaned child of an exotic dancer in New Orleans, is admitted as a mental patient to Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. The year is 1936, and the hospital, under the direction of celebrity psychiatrist Robert S. Carroll, is famous for its up-to-the-minute shock therapies and for Dr. Carroll's revolutionary theory of the benefits of non-introspection. Evalina finds herself in the midst of a kaleidoscope of characters, including the estranged wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Her role as accompanist for all theatricals and programs at the hospital gives her privileged insight into the events that transpire over the twelve years leading up to a tragic 1948 fire - its mystery unsolved to this day - that killed nine women in a locked ward on the top floor, including Zelda. In Evalina Toussaint, Lee Smith has a created a narrator whose story is one of unstoppable and defiant introspection. At the risk of Dr. Carroll's ire and at all costs, Evalina listens, observes, delves, pursues, accompanies, remembers - and tells us everything. This is her wildly prescient story about a time and a place where creativity and passion, theory and medicine, fact and fiction are luminously intertwined.
©2013 Lee Smith. Recorded by arrangement with Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, a division of Workman Publishing Company, Inc. (P)2013 HighBridge Company
Saving Grace
Summary
Having justly earned her reputation as a master storyteller, Lee Smith's name evokes images of authentic country folk struggling through some of life's most arduous tests. Saving Grace adds a stunning spiritual dimension. The daughter of a snake-handling preacher who ignores the needs of his destitute family, Florida Grace doesn't think much of Jesus. He's the reason she's lived in squalor most of her life. He certainly doesn't keep her womanizing zealot of a father on the straight and narrow. In fact, Jesus hasn't been there for her through her failed marriage, or the death of her son. But in one shining moment everything changes when He calls out to her, and she returns to her roots to heed His call. Narrator Christina Moore gives perfect voice to the vulnerability and wisdom of a young woman on a turbulent spiritual journey.
©1995 Lee Smith (P)2003 Recorded Books
Dimestore
Summary
In her first work of nonfiction, Lee Smith deploys the wit, wisdom, and graceful prose for which she is beloved to conjure her early days in the small coal town of Grundy, Virginia - and beyond. For the inimitable Lee Smith, place is paramount. For 45 years, her fiction has lived and breathed with the rhythms and people of the Appalachian South. But never before has she written her own story. Set deep in the rugged Appalachian Mountains, the Grundy of Lee Smith's youth was a place of coal miners, mountain music, and her daddy's dimestore. It was in that dimestore - listening to customers and inventing life histories for the store's dolls - that she began to learn the craft of storytelling. Even though she adored Grundy, Smith's formal education and travels took her far from Virginia, though her Appalachian upbringing never left her. Dimestore's 15 essays are crushingly honest, always wise, and superbly entertaining. Smith has created both a moving, personal portrait and a broader meditation on embracing one's heritage. Hers is an inspiring story of the birth of a writer and a poignant look at a way of life that has all but vanished.
©2016 Lee Smith (P)2016 Recorded Books
Me and My Baby View the Eclipse
Summary
A storyteller in the very best southern tradition, Lee Smith pens unexpected plots vibrant with luminous prose. Her powerful short stories in Me and My Baby View the Eclipse capture those extraordinary moments in everyday life when greatness and tragedy shimmer through the surface. This collection was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.Richly satisfying, each tale portrays ordinary people meeting trouble head-on with courage and compassion: a teenaged girl coping with her father's nervous breakdown; a housewife filling her humdrum days with an eccentric lover; and a single mother struggling to hang onto her wayward son. With narrators Linda Stephens' and Tom Stechschulte's brilliant performances, these lyrical stories, made to be read aloud, will linger long in your memory.The collection includes: "Bob, a Dog"; "Mom"; "Life on the Moon"; "Tongues of Fire"; "Dreamers"; "The Interpretation of Dreams"; "Desire on Domino Island"; "Intensive Care"; and "Me and My Baby View the Eclipse".
©1990 Lee Smith (P)1998 Recorded Books, LLC