Mimi Swartz has 7 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 8 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is Power Failure.
Power Failure
Summary
From inside the walls of Enron, a lone whistleblower attempted to avert the course of events leading to the largest bankruptcy in American history. On August 16, 2001, Sherron Watkins wrote an anonymous letter to Enron's Chairman, Ken Lay, laying out problems with Enron's use of partnerships to hide debt. She warned of a possible scandal that could topple the company if investors and the news media learned of the operations. Then, she revealed her identity and confronted Lay directly. Lay did nothing, and the scandal broke, sending Enron's stock price into the basement and wiping out the life savings of many thousands of people. Hear how Enron's culture of greed and the relentless cutting of moral corners led to the ultimate disaster, as told by an insider.
©2003 Mimi Swartz (P)2003 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
True Crime from Texas Monthly
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, the following articles spotlighting true crime are now available in a bundle as an audio download: "The Cheerleader Murder Plot" by Mimi Swartz, read by Pam Dougherty "The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob" by Skip Hollandsworth, read by Bruce DuBose "A Kiss Before Dying" by Pamela Colloff, read by Staci Snell and Karissa Vacker "The Talented Mr. Khater" by Francesca Mari, read by Mallorie Rodak "Just Desserts" by Katy Vine, read by Lydia Mackay "The Cheerleader Murder Plot" by Mimi Swartz features a woman who went to extreme, murderous lengths to ensure her daughter's spot on the cheerleading squad. "The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob" by Skip Hollandsworth profiles the mysterious Peggy Jo Tallas who, disguised as a man, robbed banks and confounded police for years. "A Kiss Before Dying" by Pamela Colloff revisits the case of Betty Williams, a high school student who begged her ex to kill her. "The Talented Mr. Khater" by Francesca Mari investigates the ongoing exploits of international con artist and psychopath Youssef Khater. "Just Desserts" by Katy Vine is the story of a man who turned "keeping up with the Joneses" into the perfect crime.
©2018 Texas Monthly (P)2018 Random House Audio
The Cheerleader Murder Plot
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, Mimi Swartz's "The Cheerleader Murder Plot" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. In "The Cheerleader Murder Plot", Mimi Swartz paints a scene of a place that makes the unthinkable - the plot to murder a fellow cheerleading mother and her daughter - something within the realm of possibility. To say Channelview is a dismal place is an understatement. It's the kind of place where even the slightest bit of distinction goes a long way amidst the usual doldrum of high school, marriage, kids, repeat. It's within this setting that the likes of obsessive, helicopter moms, Wanda Holloway and Verna Heath, who live vicariously through their daughters, are given terrifying credence. When both mothers campaigned for their daughters to make the junior high cheerleading squad and only Verna's case succeeded, Wanda quickly turned what could have been friendly competition into heated, lethal rivalry. Her scheme to permanently rid the competition standing in the way of her daughter's - and more importantly, her own - success, stabs at the heart of the myth of the cheerleader in Texas and the suffocation of a forgettable, small town.
©1991 Mimi Swartz (P)2018 Random House Audio
Nationally Recognized Features from Texas Monthly
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, the following nationally recognized features are now available in a bundle as an audio download: "Still Life" by Skip Hollandsworth "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives" by Mimi Swartz "The Innocent Man, Part One" by Pamela Colloff "The Innocent Man, Part Two" by Pamela Colloff "The Witness" by Pamela Colloff "Still Life" by Skip Hollandsworth is the tragic story of John McClamrock, a high school football player paralyzed during a violent tackle, paralleled with an ongoing story of courage, perseverance, and a mother's fierce love. "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives" by Mimi Swartz is a poignant snapshot of the history of the battle for women's health care, focusing on the depletion of family planning funds by Texas' state legislature. "The Innocent Man, Part One" by Pamela Colloff explores the case of Michael Morton, who, in 1986 in Austin, Texas, was wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to life in prison. "The Innocent Man, Part Two" by Pamela Colloff details the 25 years that Michael Morton spent imprisoned and the attempts to clear his name and solve what had really happened. "The Witness" by Pamela Colloff profiles Michelle Lyons, whose job for more than a decade was to observe the final moments of death row inmates.
©2018 Pamela Colloff, Skip Hollandsworth, Mimi Swartz (P)2018 Random House Audio
Power Failure
Summary
“They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. “Don’t assume that there is a smoking gun.” Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode.... Power Failure is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be “The World’s Leading Company,” and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America. Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, Power Failure shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company’s meteoric rise in the late 1990s. At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay’s and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron’s money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush’s election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron’s praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company’s leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles. The story of Enron’s fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums. Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider’s perspective are: CEO Ken Lay, Enron’s “outside face,” who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron’s high-testosterone, anything-goes culture Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron’s mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron’s international division, who was Skilling’s sole rival to take over the company Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron’s deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron’s finance department into a “profit center,” creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron’s “profits,” while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets An unprecedented chronicle of Enron’s shocking collapse, Power Failure should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades - Barbarians at the Gate and Liar’s Poker - as one of the cautionary tales of our times.
©2003 MiMi Swartz (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc.
Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, Mimi Swartz's "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. Many Americans today feel they don't hold the reins to their own health care; for American women, health care is nothing less than a Trojan horse. With women's health care politicized more than ever, it's impossible not to wonder how we got to now. Mimi Swartz's "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives" is a vital snapshot of this history for fans of Hulu's adaption of The Handmaid's Tale or listeners of the podcast "Pod Save America". Told with immense levity and grave understanding, this article - available for the first time as an audio program - details a turning point in women's health care legislation. In 2011, Texas' state legislature went as far as any body of government has gone before in restricting women's reproductive rights. The legislature passed a sonogram law - forcing women to have an invasive sonogram 24 hours before a scheduled abortion - and cut the family planning budget from $111.5 million to just $37.9 million. To explore this moment, Swartz dips into the nuances of Texas politics, from the gritty in-fighting of a one-party state to the fight between two of Texas' most powerful women: Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood and Nancy Brinker of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. What results is a portrait of a time and state that rings like a premonition for the future of the country.
©2018 Mimi Swartz (P)2018 Random House Audio
Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart
Summary
It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. If America could send a man to the moon, shouldn’t the best surgeons in the world be able to build an artificial heart? In Ticker, Texas Monthly executive editor and two-time National Magazine Award winner Mimi Swartz shows just how complex and difficult it can be to replicate one of nature’s greatest creations. Part investigative journalism, part medical mystery, Ticker is a dazzling story of modern innovation, recounting 50 years of false starts, abysmal failures, and miraculous triumphs, as experienced by one the world’s foremost heart surgeons, O.H. “Bud” Frazier, who has given his life to saving the un-savable. His journey takes him from a small town in west Texas to one of the country’s most prestigious medical institutions, The Texas Heart Institute, from the halls of Congress to the animal laboratories where calves are fitted with new heart designs. The roadblocks to success - medical setbacks, technological shortcomings, government regulations - are immense. Still, Bud and his associates persist, finding inspiration in the unlikeliest of places. A field beside the Nile irrigated by an Archimedes screw. A hardware store in Brisbane, Australia. A seedy bar on the wrong side of Houston. Until post WWII, heart surgery did not exist. Ticker provides a riveting history of the pioneers who gave their all to the courageous process of cutting into the only organ humans cannot live without. Heart surgeons Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley, whose feud dominated the dramatic beginnings of heart surgery. Christian Barnaard, who changed the world overnight by performing the first heart transplant. Inventor Robert Jarvik, whose artificial heart made patient Barney Clark a worldwide symbol of both the brilliant promise of technology and the devastating evils of experimentation run amuck. Rich in supporting players, Ticker introduces us to Bud’s brilliant colleagues in his quixotic quest to develop an artificial heart: Billy Cohn, the heart surgeon and inventor who devotes his spare time to the pursuit of magic and music; Daniel Timms, the Brisbane biomedical engineer whose design of a lightweight, pulseless heart with but a single moving part offers a new way forward. And, as government money dries up, the unlikeliest of backers, Houston’s furniture king, Mattress Mack. In a sweeping narrative of one man’s obsession, Swartz raises some of the hardest questions of the human condition. What are the tradeoffs of medical progress? What is the cost, in suffering and resources, of offering patients a few more months, or years of life? Must science do harm to do good? Ticker takes us on an unforgettable journey into the power and mystery of the human heart.
©2018 Mimi Swartz (P)2018 Random House Audio