Christopher Ryan has narrated 4 audiobooks on Listento.it by 6 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 164 ratings. The most-rated is Civilized to Death.
Civilized to Death
Summary
The New York Times best-selling coauthor of Sex at Dawn explores the ways in which "progress" has perverted the way we live: how we eat, learn, feel, mate, parent, communicate, work, and die.
Most of us have instinctive evidence the world is ending - balmy December days, face-to-face conversation replaced with heads-to-screens zomboidism, a world at constant war, a political system in disarray. We hear some myths and lies so frequently that they feel like truths: Civilization is humankind’s greatest accomplishment. Progress is undeniable. Count your blessings. You’re lucky to be alive here and now. Well, maybe we are, and maybe we aren’t. Civilized to Death counters the idea that progress is inherently good, arguing that the "progress" defining our age is analogous to an advancing disease.
Prehistoric life, of course, was not without serious dangers and disadvantages. Many babies died in infancy. A broken bone, infected wound, snakebite, or difficult pregnancy could be life-threatening. But ultimately, Ryan argues, were these pre-civilized dangers more murderous than modern scourges such as car accidents, cancers, cardiovascular disease, and a technologically prolonged dying process? At a time when our ecology, our society, and our own sense of selves feels increasingly imperiled, an accurate understanding of our species’ long prelude to civilization is vital to a clear sense of the ultimate value of civilization - and its costs. In Civilized to Death, Ryan makes the claim that we should start looking backward to find our way into a better future.
©2019 Christopher Ryan (P)2019 Simon & Schuster
Jeremiah Bourne in Time
Summary
Jeremiah Bourne is a boy with a remarkable gift. He can travel in time. Not by using a time machine, or stepping through a dimensional portal. It just happens to him, as though by accident. One minute he’s in the present day, the next, he’s 100 years in the past, standing in the London of 1910. Jeremiah has two questions: how did he get there - and how can he get back? On his quest for the answers, he enlists the help of Phyllis Stokes of The Society for Theosophical Research and her equally eccentric brother, Roger Allcot Standish, magistrate, spiritualist and dedicated nudist. He encounters the sadistic Mr and Mrs Grout and the ruthless Ed Viney, thief, gang member and slitter of throats. And he arouses the disapproval of Clementina Quentinbloom, the head of a home for ‘Fallen Girls’, by befriending Daisy Wallace, a girl ahead of her time. Can Jeremiah get home? What is the connection between Clementina’s establishment and Doctor Henry Davenant Hythe, the humanitarian and eugenicist? And does Jeremiah’s gift of time travel have something to do with his mother’s sudden disappearance, all those years ago? Directed by Barnaby Edwards Produced by David Richardson Executive Producers: Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
©2018 Big Finish Productions (P)2018 Big Finish Productions
Doctor Who: Tenth Doctor Novels Volume 4
Summary
Christopher Ryan, Georgia Moffett and Will Thorp are the readers of these three original stories featuring the Tenth Doctor, as played on TV by David Tennant. Join the Doctor on these journeys in Time and Space. In The Taking of Chelsea 426, he visits a city-size colony floating on the clouds of Saturn, just as some familiar foes arrive: the Sontarans. In Autonomy, an unspeakable terror is lurking on Level Zero of Hyperville, the hi-tech, 24-hour entertainment complex where the stage is set for a battle with the Autons. In The Krillitane Storm, the Doctor finds medieval Worcester threatened by the legendary Devil’s Huntsman, in reality a menace he has encountered before. The Taking of Chelsea 426 by David Llewellyn. Read by Christopher Ryan. Autonomy by Daniel Blythe. Read by Georgia Moffett. The Krillitane Storm by Christopher Cooper. Read by Will Thorp. Based on the hit BBC TV series. Text (c) David Llewellyn 2009, Daniel Blythe 2009, Christopher Cooper 2009 Doctor Who theme music composed by Ron Grainer and arranged by Murray Gold TARDIS sound effect composed by Brian Hodgson
©2019 BBC Worldwide Ltd (P)2019 BBC Worldwide Ltd
Doctor Who: The Taking of Chelsea 426
Summary
The Chelsea Flower Show - hardly the most exciting or dangerous event in the calendar, or so Doctor thinks. But this is Chelsea 426, a city-sized future colony floating on the clouds of Saturn, and the flowers are much more than they seem.
As the Doctor investigates, a familiar foe arrives, and the stakes suddenly get much higher. The Sontarans have plans of their own, and they're not here to arrange flowers.
Available exclusively on download, look out for The Krillitane Storm and Autonomy with more exclusive unabridged readings to come.
©2009 David Llewellyn (P)2010 BBC Audiobooks Ltd