Alan Sklar has narrated 79 audiobooks on Listento.it by 82 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 401 ratings. The most-rated is The Mystery Method.
San Francisco Is Burning
Summary
At 5:12 a.m. on the morning of April 18, 1906, San Francisco was struck by one of the worst earthquakes in history, instantly killing hundreds. The ensuing fires that ravaged the city for days were responsible for the deaths of as many as 3,000 more. In all, 522 blocks and 28,188 buildings were leveled, and some 200,000 people dislocated. This watershed event in American history has never before been told with the richness of historical detail and insight that our foremost historian of fire, Dennis Smith, brings to it in San Francisco Is Burning. Smith cinematically recounts this terrible tragedy through the stories of the people who lived through those terrible days, from a valiant naval officer who helped save the city's piers and wharves to Eugene Schmitz, the crooked mayor, to the "debonair scoundrel" Abe Ruef, the most erudite city boss in American history. Throughout, Smith reveals many unknown details about the event, from the city's great vulnerability to fire, due to its corrupt and hasty building practices, to the widespread racism the quake unleashed and the atrocities committed by national guardsmen. Told with verve and a seasoned firefighter's knowledge, San Francisco Is Burning is the gripping and definitive account of one of the greatest disasters of the twentieth century.
©2005 Dennis Smith (P)2005 Tantor Media, Inc.
The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek
Summary
The riveting story of a dramatic confrontation between Native Americans and white settlers, a compelling conflict that unfolded in the newly created Washington Territory from 1853 to 1857. When appointed Washington's first governor, Isaac Ingalls Stevens, an ambitious military man turned politician, had one goal: to persuade (peacefully if possible) the Indians of the Puget Sound region to turn over their ancestral lands to the federal government. In return, they were to be consigned to reservations unsuitable for hunting, fishing, or grazing, their traditional means of sustaining life. The result was an outbreak of violence and rebellion, a tragic episode of frontier oppression and injustice. With his trademark empathy and scholarly acuity, Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Kluger recounts the impact of Stevens's program on the Nisqually tribe, whose chief, Leschi, sparked the native resistance movement. Stevens was determined to succeed at any cost: his hasty treaty negotiations with the Indians, marked by deceit, threat, and misrepresentation, inflamed his opponents. Leschi, resolved to save more than a few patches of his people's lush homelands, unwittingly turned his tribe and, most of all, himself into victims of the governor's relentless wrath. The conflict between these two complicated and driven men and their supporters, explosively and enormously at odds with each other, was to have echoes far into the future. Closely considered and eloquently written, The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek is a bold and long-overdue clarification of the historical record of an American tragedy, presenting, through the experiences of one tribe, the history of Native American suffering and injustice.
©2011 Richard Kluger (P)2011 Random House
The Girl with the Long Green Heart
Summary
She was every man's dream - and one man's nightmare. Johnny Hayden and Doug Rance had a scheme to take real estate entrepreneur Wallace Gunderman for all he was worth. But they needed a girl on the inside to make it work. Enter Evelyn Stone: Gunderman's secretary, his lover - and his worst enemy. Gunderman had promised to marry her, but never came through. Now she's ready to make him pay...
©1965 Fawcett Publications, Inc. (P)2009 BBC Audiobooks America
New Deal or Raw Deal?
Summary
In this shocking and groundbreaking new book, economic historian Burton Folsom, Jr., exposes the idyllic legend of Franklin D. Roosevelt as a myth of epic proportions. With questionable moral character and a vendetta against the business elite, Roosevelt created New Deal programs marked by inconsistent planning, wasteful spending, and opportunity for political gain---ultimately elevating public opinion of his administration but falling flat in achieving the economic revitalization that America so desperately needed from the Great Depression. Folsom takes a critical, revisionist look at Roosevelt's presidency, his economic policies, and his personal life. Elected in 1932 on a buoyant tide of promises to balance the increasingly uncontrollable national budget and reduce the catastrophic unemployment rate, the charismatic thirty-second president not only neglected to pursue those goals, he made dramatic changes to federal programming that directly contradicted his campaign promises. Price fixing, court packing, regressive taxes, and patronism were all hidden inside the alphabet soup of his popular New Deal, putting a financial strain on the already suffering lower classes and discouraging the upper classes from taking business risks that potentially could have jostled national cash flow from dormancy. Many government programs that are widely used today have their seeds in the New Deal. Farm subsidies, minimum wage, and welfare, among others, all stifle economic growth---encouraging decreased productivity and exacerbating unemployment. Roosevelt's imperious approach to the presidency changed American politics forever, and as he manipulated public opinion, American citizens became unwitting accomplices to the stilted economic growth of the 1930s. More than sixty years after FDR died in office, we still struggle with the damaging repercussions of his legacy.
©2009 Burton Folson, Jr. (P)2009 Tantor
Primates and Philosophers
Summary
"It's the animal in us," we often hear when we've been bad. But why not when we're good? Primates and Philosophers tackles this question by exploring the biological foundations of one of humanity's most valued traits: morality. In this provocative book, primatologist Frans de Waal argues that modern-day evolutionary biology takes far too dim a view of the natural world, emphasizing our "selfish" genes. Science has thus exacerbated our reciprocal habits of blaming nature when we act badly and labeling the good things we do as "humane". Seeking the origin of human morality not in evolution but in human culture, science insists that we are moral by choice, not by nature. Citing remarkable evidence based on his extensive research of primate behavior, de Waal attacks "Veneer Theory", which posits morality as a thin overlay on an otherwise nasty nature. He explains how we evolved from a long line of animals that care for the weak and build cooperation with reciprocal transactions. Drawing on both Darwin and recent scientific advances, de Waal demonstrates a strong continuity between human and animal behavior. In the process, he also probes issues such as anthropomorphism and human responsibilities toward animals. Based on the Tanner Lectures de Waal delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values in 2004, Primates and Philosophers includes responses by the philosophers Peter Singer, Christine M. Korsgaard, and Phillip Kitcher, and the science writer Robert Wright. They press de Waal to clarify the differences between humans and other animals, yielding a lively debate that will fascinate all those who wonder about the origins and reach of human goodness. The book is published by Princeton University Press.
©2006 Princeton University Press (P)2010 Redwood Audiobooks
Europe's Last Summer
Summary
The early summer of 1914 was the most glorious Europeans could remember. But, behind the scenes, the most destructive war the world had yet known was moving inexorably into being, a war that would continue to resonate into the 21st century. The question of how the Great War of 1914 began has long vexed historians. In a gripping narrative, Fromkin shows that hostilities were started deliberately and that two wars were waged, one serving as pretext for the other. Shedding light on such current issues as preventive war and terrorism, Fromkin provides detailed descriptions of the negotiations and incisive portraits of the diplomats, generals, and rulers as he reveals why diplomacy was destined to fail.
©2004 David Fromkin (P)2004 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Seven Dirty Words
Summary
In Seven Dirty Words, journalist and cultural critic James Sullivan tells the story of Alternative America from the 1950s to the present, from the singular vantage point of George Carlin, the Catholic boy for whom nothing was sacred. A critical biography, Seven Dirty Words is an insightful (and, of course, hilarious) examination of Carlin's body of work as it pertained to the cultural times and the man who created it, from his early days as a more-or-less conventional comedian to his stunning transformation into the subversive comedic voice of the emerging counterculture. Sullivan also chronicles Carlin's struggles with censorship and drugs, as well as the full-blown renaissance he experienced in the 1990s, both personally and professionally, when he became an elder statesman to a younger generation of comics who revered him. Seven Dirty Words is nothing less than the definitive biography of an American master who changed the world and also a work of cultural commentary that frames George Carlin's extraordinary legacy.
©2010 Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff (P)2010 Tantor
Deadly Honeymoon
Summary
Raped on her wedding night, a bride must take her own vengeance. Dave and Jill Wade come to Pennsylvania, the ink still wet on their marriage license, expecting three weeks of lakeside honeymooning bliss. All is lovely until gunshots shatter their first night together. Killers have come for the man in the next cabin, and afterward they decide to silence the happy couple, battering Dave and dragging his virgin bride into the dead man's bedroom. The Wades say nothing to the police, but afterward take a second set of vows: death for the men who ruined their honeymoon. They set out for New York, ready to take on the city's mobsters as they consecrate their marriage in blood.
©1967 Lawrence Block (P)2011 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Wikinomics
Summary
In just the last few years, traditional collaboration in a meeting room, on a conference call, and even in a convention center has been superseded by collaborations on an astronomical scale. Today, encyclopedias, jetliners, operating systems, mutual funds, and many other items are being created by teams numbering in the thousands or even millions. While some leaders fear the burgeoning growth of these massive online communities, Wikinomics proves this fear is folly. Smart firms can harness collective capability and genius to spur innovation, growth, and success. A brilliant guide to one of the most profound changes of our time, Wikinomics challenges our most deeply rooted assumptions about business and will prove indispensable to anyone who wants to understand competitiveness in the 21st century. Based on a $9-million research project led by best-selling author Don Tapscott, Wikinomics shows how masses of people can participate in the economy like never before. They are creating TV news stories, sequencing genomes, remixing their favorite music, designing software, finding cures for disease, editing school texts, inventing new cosmetics, and even building motorcycles. You'll read about: Rob McEwen, the Goldcorp, Inc., CEO who used open-source tactics and an online competition to save his company and breathe new life into an old-fashioned industry. Flickr, Second Life, YouTube, and other thriving online communities that transcend social networking to pioneer a new form of collaborative production. Mature companies, like Procter & Gamble, that cultivate nimble, trust-based relationships with external collaborators to form vibrant business ecosystems. An important look into the future, Wikinomics will be your road map for doing business in the 21st century.
©2006 Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.
Grifter's Game
Summary
Con man Joe Berlin was used to scoring easy cash off of gullible women. But that was before he met Mona Brassard - and found himself holding a stolen stash of raw heroin. Now that Joe has fallen hard for Mona, he's got to pull off the most dangerous con of his career: one that will leave him either a killer - or a corpse. Block's debut novel under his own name is a classic example of prime pulp fiction, with an ending that will astonish even the most jaded crime-fiction fan.
©1961 Lawrence Block (P)2009 BBC Audio
St. Patrick of Ireland
Summary
Ireland's patron saint has long been shrouded in legend: he drove the snakes out of Ireland; he triumphed over Druids and their super-natural powers; he used a shamrock to explain the Christian mystery of the Trinity. But his true story is more fascinating than the myths. Late in the 4th century Irish pirates captured a young, British citizen named Patricius from his parents' Roman villa. The boy was sold into slavery and sent to tend sheep in Ireland. After walking nearly 200 miles across bogs and mountains to the coast, he managed to escape on a ship full of pagan sailors and returned home to the astonishment of his family. Patrick was destined for the privileged life of nobility but, when he experienced a profound religious awakening, he decided to become a priest and return to Ireland to convert the Irish to Christianity. The Patrick who emerges is even more extraordinary than the patron saint of legend, a passionate, courageous, and very human figure who exerted an incalculable impact on the course of Irish history.
©2004 Philip Freeman (P)2004 Tantor Media, Inc.
Still Dead
Summary
Since the disbanding of the Special Homicide Investigation Team, JP Beaumont's biggest concern is pondering whether he and his wife, Mel, should finally get a dog. But one voicemail from his old friend Ralph Ames is about to change that. Through Ralph, Beau has become involved in an organization called The Last Chance, which enlists a number of retired homicide investigators to tackle long unsolved cold cases. The one that has just landed on Beau's plate is a 30-year-old missing person case. The facts are muddy at best; Janice Marie Harrison's car was found abandoned near a bridge, and scratched in the dirt nearby was the word "sorry". It's possible her death was a suicide, but her body was never found. And as Beau begins to investigate, he discovers that no one connected to Janice - not her once all-star football player widower, Anders; not her long-grieving, sister, Estelle; not sheriff Gavin Loper, who was deputy sheriff at the time of Janice's disappearance; and not Anders' second wife, Betsy - is exactly what they seem. The question is, which of them knows the truth? And why have they kept it buried?
©2017 J. A. Jance (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Off the Record
Summary
When Norman Pearlstine - as editor in chief of Time Inc. - agreed to give prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald a reporter's notes of a conversation with a "confidential source", he was vilified for betraying the freedom of the press. But in this hard-hitting inside story, Pearlstine shows that "Plamegate" was not the clear case it seemed to be, and that confidentiality has become a weapon in the White House's war on the press - a war fought with the unwitting complicity of the press itself. Watergate and the publication of the Pentagon Papers are the benchmark incidents of government malfeasance exposed by a fearless press. But as Pearlstine explains with great clarity and brio, the press' hunger for a new Watergate has made reporters vulnerable to officials who use confidentiality to get their message out, even if it means leaking state secrets and breaking the law. Prosecutors appointed to investigate the government have investigated the press instead; news organizations such as The New York Times have defended the principle of confidentiality at all costs - implicitly putting themselves above the law. Meanwhile, the use of unnamed sources has become common in everything from celebrity weeklies to the so-called papers of record. What is to be done? Pearlstine calls on Congress to pass a federal shield law protecting journalists from the needless intrusions of government; at the same time, he calls on the press to name its sources whenever possible. Off the Record is a powerful argument, with the vividness and narrative drive of the best long-form journalism. It is sure to spark controversy among the people who run the government - and among the people who tell their stories.
©2007 Norman Pearlstine (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.
Treachery
Summary
In his explosive new book, New York Times best-selling author Bill Gertz uncovers the most significant threat to U.S. national security today: America's enemies, including radical terrorist groups, are arming themselves with the world's most dangerous weapons. And they're doing it with the help of America's supposed allies. Worst of all, the United States has let it happen. Using his unparalleled access to the U.S. intelligence and defense communities, Gertz names names, revealing which of our "friends" have placed greed over principle to make America's enemies far more deadly and the world a far more dangerous place. In Treachery, Gertz tells the whole story, complete with previously unpublished classified intelligence documents, based on dozens of exclusive interviews with senior U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
©2004 Bill Gertz (P)2005 Blackstone Audiobooks
The Supreme Court
Summary
A leading Supreme Court expert recounts the personal and philosophical rivalries that forged our nation's highest court and continue to shape our daily lives. The Supreme Court is the most mysterious branch of government, and yet the Court is at root a human institution, made up of very bright people with very strong egos, for whom political and judicial conflicts often become personal. In this compelling work of character-driven history, Jeffrey Rosen recounts the history of the Court through the personal and philosophical rivalries on the bench that transformed the law - and by extension, our lives. The story begins with the great Chief Justice John Marshall and President Thomas Jefferson, cousins from the Virginia elite whose differing visions of America set the tone for the Court's first hundred years. The tale continues after the Civil War with Justices John Marshall Harlan and Oliver Wendell Holmes, who clashed over the limits of majority rule. Rosen then examines the Warren Court era through the lens of the liberal icons Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, for whom personality loomed larger than ideology. He concludes with a pairing from our own era, the conservatives William H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia, only one of whom was able to build majorities in support of his views. Through these four rivalries, Rosen brings to life the perennial conflict that has animated the Court, between those justices guided by strong ideology and those who forge coalitions and adjust to new realities. He illuminates the relationship between judicial temperament and judicial success or failure. The stakes are nothing less than the future of American jurisprudence.
©2007 Jeffrey Rosen (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.
Police State
Summary
We all want to feel safe. But safe from what and from whom? In his 60-plus years as a trial lawyer, Gerry Spence has never represented a person accused of a crime in which the police hadn't themselves violated the law. Whether by covering up their own corrupt dealings, by the falsification or manufacture of evidence, or by the outright murder of innocent civilians, those individuals charged with upholding the law break it every day - in ways more scandalous than the courts have dared admit. The police and prosecutors won't charge or convict themselves, and so the crimes of the criminal justice system are swept under the rug. Nothing changes. Too many police officers are killers on the loose, and every uninformed American is a potential next victim. Police culture is mired in the dead weight of precedent and ruled by trigger-happy tyrants. Power will march our nation over the police state precipice unless "we the people" take action. The FBI's massacre of the Weaver family at Ruby Ridge, the killing of mortally wounded Fouad Kaady by a group of police officers, the torture of teenaged Dennis Williams by cops seeking a murder confession - again and again, the question arises: When the very men and women we pay to protect us instead persecute us every day, how can we be safe? In Police State, Spence slaps a stinging indictment upon the American justice system and puts forth a plan to restore liberty and justice for all.
©2015 G.L. Spence and Lanelle P. Spence Living Trust (P)2015 Macmillan Audio
In the President's Secret Service
Summary
Secret Service agents, acting as human surveillance cameras, observe everything that goes on behind the scenes in the president's inner circle. Ronald Kessler reveals what they have seen, providing startling, previously untold stories about the presidents, from John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as about their families, Cabinet officers, and White House aides. Kessler portrays the dangers that agents face and how they carry out their missions---from how they are trained to how they spot and assess potential threats. With fly-on-the-wall perspective, he captures the drama and tension that characterize agents' lives. In this headline-grabbing book, Kessler discloses assassination attempts that have never before been revealed. He shares inside accounts of past assaults that have put the Secret Service to the test, including a heroic gun battle that took down the would-be assassins of Harry S. Truman, the devastating day that John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, and the swift actions that saved Ronald Reagan after he was shot. While Secret Service agents are brave and dedicated, Kessler exposes how Secret Service management in recent years has betrayed its mission by cutting corners, risking the assassination of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and their families. Given the lax standards, "It's a miracle we have not had a successful assassination," a current agent says. ,p>Since an assassination jeopardizes democracy itself, few agencies are as important as the Secret Service---and few subjects are as tantalizing as the inner sanctum of the White House. Only tight-lipped Secret Service agents know the real story, and Kessler is the only journalist to have won their trust.
©2009 Ronald Kessler (P)2009 Tantor
Favorite Stories of Christmas Past
Summary
Tantor Media presents a collection of some of the most popular Christmas stories read by award-winning narrators Renee Raudman and Alan Sklar. This special anthology will transport listeners back to the Christmases of their youth, when they first heard these holiday tales. From "'Twas the Night Before Christmas", Clement C. Moore's classic depiction of St. Nicholas at work, to O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi", which embodies the very spirit of Christmas, Favorite Stories of Christmas Past has something for everyone. Also included is Francis Church's moving editorial response to a little girl's Christmastime query, "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus", as well as seven other Christmas classics that can be heard and shared year after year. The classics that can be found in Favorite Stories of Christmas Past are: "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement C. Moore; "The Story of Christmas" by Nora A. Smith; "A Country Christmas" by Louisa May Alcott; "An Empty Purse" by Sarah Orne Jewett; "The Bachelor's Christmas" by Robert Grant; "The Fir Tree" by Hans Christian Andersen; "The Birds' Christmas Carol" by Kate Douglas Wiggin; "Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus" by Francis Church; "The Festival of St. Nicholas" by Mary Mapes Dodge; and "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry.
(P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.
Lucky at Cards
Summary
At cards and with women, Bill Maynard knew how to cheat.... On the mend after getting run out of Chicago, professional cardsharp Bill Maynard is hungry for some action...but not nearly as hungry as Joyce Rogers, the tantalizing wife of Bill's latest mark. Together they hatch an ingenious scheme to get rid of her husband. But in life as in poker, the other player sometimes has an ace up his sleeve. This classic "pulp" novel was originally released in 1964 as The Sex Shuffle under the pen name Sheldon Lord.
©1964 Lawrence Block (P)2007 BBC Audiobooks America