David Stifel has narrated 103 audiobooks on Listento.it by 79 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 1,428 ratings. The most-rated is Awaken Online: Catharsis.
Scorpion in the Sea
Summary
On a calm night off the Florida coast, a fishing boat vanishes without a trace. Something deadly is hiding in US waters, and the Navy brass would rather bury the truth than face it. It's Montgomery's war now. Brash and unconventional, Mike Montgomery is hardly regulation Navy. At his side, Diane Martinson, the Chief of Staff's wife - smart, tough...and his lover. Under his command, the USS Goldsborough - a World War II-era destroyer thundering toward a showdown of water and fire. With the arrival of P. T. Deutermann-retired Navy captain, former arms control negotiator within the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and ex-commander of at destroyer squadron - today's naval thriller just climbed to a whole new level.
©1992 George Mason University Press (P)2020 Tantor
Dante and the Early Astronomer
Summary
Explore the evolution of astronomy from Dante to Einstein, as seen through the eyes of trailblazing Victorian astronomer Mary Acworth Evershed. In 1910, Mary Acworth Evershed (1867-1949) sat on a hill in southern India staring at the moon as she grappled with apparent mistakes in Dante's Divine Comedy. Was Dante's astronomy unintelligible? Or was he, for a man of his time and place, as insightful as one could be about the sky? As the 20th century began, women who wished to become professional astronomers faced difficult cultural barriers, but Evershed joined the British Astronomical Association and, from an Indian observatory, became an experienced observer of sunspots, solar eclipses, and variable stars. From the perspective of one remarkable amateur astronomer, listeners will see how ideas developed during Galileo's time evolved or were discarded in Newtonian conceptions of the cosmos and recast in Einstein's theories. The result is a book about the history of science but also a poetic meditation on literature, science, and the evolution of ideas.
©2019 Tracy Daugherty (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Shield of Winter
Summary
Alana has been captured. She expected an agonizing death to follow, but instead, she now finds herself a guest of the Tsar. Locked away amidst the wealth and luxury, it isn’t long before she learns the reason she was spared - her entire life has been a lie. Her true identity lurks within, chained by magic, but with promises of untold power. It terrifies her, and yet...she must know the truth. Meanwhile, ex-soldier Devon plans a fresh rebellion in Trola. But after carving his legend in the blood of their people, he’s a marked man. He’ll have to watch his step if he’s to successfully negotiate the shifting tides of the Trolan cause - and not end up dead in the process. Either way, failure is not an option, because without an uprising, Alana will be lost to him forever.... Grab this all new epic fantasy by New York Times best-selling author Aaron Hodges.
©2018 Aaron Hodges (P)2018 Aaron Hodges
The Fiddle Is the Devil's Instrument
Summary
Introduction by Ronald Malfi From Brett J. Talley, the master of Lovecraftian terror, comes thirteen tales of the dark forces that lurk just beyond man's understanding. A scientist who opens a door between dimensions. A creature that devours the dead in World War I's no man's land. A fiddler who can bring forth the gods of old. These are but a few of the horrors retold in The Fiddle is the Devil's Instrument and Other Forbidden Knowledge. Read them if you must but do not forget: there are some things mankind was never meant to know.
©2017 Journalstone Publishing (P)2017 Journalstone Publishing
Captain James Hook and the Curse of Peter Pan
Summary
Captain Hook has been captured by the British navy and is soon to be hung. As Hook tells his life story to his captor, it becomes clear that the fearsome pirate was once a scholarly boy - until one fateful night in Port Royal when he meets the volatile Peter Pan... Raise the Jolly Roger and discover the book that opened thousands of eyes to the possibility that, once upon a time, Captain Hook was not the villain we know him to be. Since its publication in June of 2012, this original story takes you through Captain James Hook's rise to piracy, including his first confrontation with Long John Silver and his service on the Queen Anne's Revenge alongside Blackbeard at the Charleston Blockade. This book is not a retelling of the events of J. M. Barrie's beloved novel. It's a defense of the world's most famous pirate, told by the man himself. Captain Hook has reason and wit behind his hatred for Peter Pan...If only someone would listen.
©2012 Jeremiah Kleckner & Jeremy Marshall (P)2015 Jeremiah Kleckner & Jeremy Marshall
The Med
Summary
A powerful and fast-moving tale of the Navy-Marine Corps team in action, on a dangerous mission in the volatile Eastern Mediterranean. Cloaked by the mists of dawn, Task Force 61 - carrying tanks, aircraft, and over 5000 Marines - steams toward Syria with deadly intent. Their mission: rescue 100 hostages from a terrorist stronghold - alive. With realism seldom seen in military fiction, The Med is a magnificent and timely epic that brings the human drama of armed conflict compellingly to life. Driven by believable, flesh-and-blood characters, it is a painstakingly detailed portrait of amphibious warfare as only David Poyer can paint it. The Med is today's most explosive tale of international crisis, personal valor, and emotional struggle - a disturbingly plausible novel that crackles with non-stop action.
©1998 David Poyer (P)2019 Tantor
Renditions
Summary
When listeners first meet the three rough CIA Black Ops agents at the heart of this novel, they’re on an unlisted mission to the Liman Abu Zaabal prison, a special rendition site in Egypt, north of Cairo, “the perfect environment for creativity in torture”. The three operatives, Delta Force titan Washington, dangerous ex-Irish Republican Army drunk Finnen, and small-town Kansas boy (and the book’s narrator) Morgan, have been dispatched to Liman Abu Zaabal in a kind of response to their having gone off-script in an earlier undertaking. During that adventure, they killed a degenerate villain they’d only been assigned to contact (“We had been found guilty of having consciences,” as Morgan puts it). At the prison, they’re to meet torture master Ashraf Azziz and take charge of the interrogation of Nasir Kabir, who’s been rumored to have led “the Al Qaeda infiltration of Basra” and looked “more like Antonio Banderas than Omar Sharif”. The three agents have a smooth, well-practiced professional relationship characterized by both obscene banter and sincere respect for each other’s lethal capabilities, while they bond over Jameson and beer. But what they find at Abu Zaabal shocks even their jaded sensibilities (“It was as if light had vanished from the earth and humanity had been replaced by something from a black dimension”). The hard-edged book’s plot hits the ground running and immediately increases its momentum by having the three friends summarily kill both Kabir and Azziz in disgust and successfully make their escape before local authorities can apprehend them. The trio boards a jet to Yemen to facilitate a swap of high-value detainees, meeting a tough-as-nails operative there named Smith, whose beauty matches her competence in the field. Lealos also wrote Don’t Mean Nuthin’, a military thriller set in Vietnam during that incursion.
©2016 Ron Lealos (P)2018 Ron Lealos
The Law and the Lady
Summary
The Law and the Lady by Wilkie Collins A full-cast production by The Online Stage. Just days after the wedding of Valeria Brinton and Eustace Woodville, a series of strange incidents causes Valeria to believe her husband is hiding a dark secret. She discovers he has been living under a false name, and when questioned, Eustace refuses to discuss it. Upon further digging, Valeria finds Eustace had been on trial three years ago for the murder of his wife. However, the verdict had come down as the scotch verdict of not proven. This implied his guilt, but there was not enough evidence for a conviction nor did it exonerate him. Desperate to prove Eustace is innocent and to restore their newlywed bliss, Valeria stands strong in the face of adversity, meeting a very strange man named Miserrimus Dexter, who will be paramount in uncovering the truth. Cast: Valeria Macallan - Amanda Friday Eustace Macallan - Tyler Hyrchuk Old Benjamin - David Stifel Sara Macallan - Danielle Cohen Mrs. Macallan - Elizabeth Klett Miserrimus Dexter - Rob Goll Mr. Playmore - Graham Scott Major Fitz-David - Jeff Moon Ariel - Anna Grace Miss Hoighty - Leanne Yau Lady Brydehaven - Sarah Mitchell Christina Ormsay - P. J. Morgan Oliver - Alan Weyman Doctor - Marty Krz Mr. Gale - Andy Harrington Various other roles played by members of the company. Audio edited by Amanda Friday
Public Domain (P)2020 The Online Stage
"Lee Is Trapped, and Must Be Taken"
Summary
"Lee Is Trapped, and Must Be Taken": Eleven Fateful Days After Gettysburg: July 4 to July 14, 1863 focuses on the immediate aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg and addresses how Maj. Gen. George G. Meade organized and motivated his Army of the Potomac in response to President Abraham Lincoln's mandate to bring about the "literal or substantial destruction" of Gen. Robert E. Lee's retreating Army of Northern Virginia. The 11-day period after Gettysburg was a battle of wits to determine which commander better understood the information he received, and directed the movements of his army accordingly. Prepare for some surprising revelations. Woven into this account is the fate of thousands of Union prisoners who envisioned rescue to avoid incarceration in wretched Confederate prisons, and a characterization of how the Union and Confederate media portrayed the ongoing conflict for consumption on the home front. "Lee Is Trapped, and Must Be Taken" is a sequel to Thomas Ryan's Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign, the recipient of the Bachelder-Coddington Literary Award and Gettysburg Civil War Round Table Distinguished Book Award.
©2019 Thomas J. Ryan and Richard R. Schaus (P)2020 Tantor
Time to Fear
Summary
One human is willing to sacrifice hundreds in his desire to force the Dreth to start a war. A war the Dreth will deliver with vengeance. The rumor of the Witch coming back is not enough. Will Admiral Jaleck make the hard decisions? Back on Earth, John is swept up into events that will bring fire down from the heavens. Or his death. Will John, Ivy, Remy, and Amaratne survive the coming challenges, or will the Regime CIO nail their rebel bodies to the wall? Or will he worry about John so much after he destroys the Dreth and has bigger fish to fry? Not if Stephanie has anything to add to the discussion.
©2020 Michael Anderle (P)2021 Tantor
Seceding from Secession
Summary
"West Virginia was the child of the storm," concluded early Mountaineer historian and Civil War veteran Maj. Theodore F. Lang. The northwestern third of the Commonwealth of Virginia finally broke away in 1863 to form the Union's 35th state. In Seceding from Secession: The Civil War, Politics, and the Creation of West Virginia, authors Eric J. Wittenberg, Edmund A. Sargus, and Penny L. Barrick chronicle those events in an unprecedented study of the social, legal, military, and political factors that converged to bring about the birth of the West Virginia. President Abraham Lincoln, an astute lawyer in his own right, played a critical role in birthing the new state. The constitutionality of the mechanism by which the new state would be created concerned the president, and he polled every member of his entire cabinet before signing the bill. Seceding from Secession includes a detailed discussion of the 1871 US Supreme Court decision Virginia v. West Virginia, in which former Lincoln cabinet member Salmon Chase presided as chief justice over the court that decided the constitutionality of the momentous event.
©2020 Eric J. Wittenberg, Edmund A. Sargus, Jr. and Penny Barrick (P)2021 Tantor
The Moneychangers
Summary
The number-one best-selling author of the blockbuster thrillers Airport and Hotel takes on the world of high finance. Ben Roselli, president of First Mercantile American Bank and grandson of the founder, makes the shocking announcement that he's dying. With no offspring to inherit the company, Roselli knows that executive VPs Roscoe Heyward and Alex Vandervoort are the obvious candidates to succeed him. Heyward, who has been with First Mercantile for two decades, will do whatever it takes to bring in new clients and win the coveted presidency. Vandervoort, a newcomer from the Federal Reserve with a left-wing girlfriend, advocates for a socially responsible plan of growth. And now the discovery of counterfeit cash and credit card fraud threatens the future of the bank itself. From the day-to-day business dealings to the inner sanctums of the money trading center and the boardroom, Hailey's novel is a riveting tale of ambition, greed, and the US banking system.
©1975 Arthur Hailey (P)2020 Tantor
The Wild Life of Our Bodies
Summary
Biologist Rob Dunn reveals the crucial influence that other species have upon our health, our well-being, and our world in The Wild Life of Our Bodies - a fascinating tour through the hidden truths of nature and codependence. Dunn illuminates the nuanced, often imperceptible relationships that exist between homo sapiens and other species, relationships that underpin humanity's ability to thrive and prosper in every circumstance. Fans of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma will be enthralled by Dunn's powerful, lucid exploration of the role that humankind plays within the greater web of life on Earth.
©2011 Rob R. Dunn (P)2020 Tantor
Anne of Avonlea
Summary
Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery Presented by The Online Stage Following Anne of Green Gables (1908), this book was written by Lucy Maud Montgomery in 1909. From the age of 16 to 18, Anne is about to start her first term teaching at the Avonlea school. The book soon introduces Anne's new and problematic neighbor, Mr. Harrison, and his foul-mouthed parrot, as well as the twins, Davy and Dora. Other characters introduced are some of Anne's new pupils and Miss Lavendar Lewis, a sweet but lonely lady. This book sees Anne maturing slightly, even though she still cannot avoid getting into a number of her familiar scrapes, as only Anne can - some of which include selling her neighbor's cow (having mistaken it for her own), or getting stuck in a broken duck house roof while peeping into a pantry window. Narration by Susan Iannucci Featuring the voices of Amanda Friday, Elizabeth Klett, David Stifel, Tiffany Halla Colonna, Maureen Boutilier, Grace Keller Scotch, Jeff Moon, Marie Hoffman, P.J. Morgan, Ted Wenskus, Tomas Peter, Andy Harrington, Becca Maggie, and Ben Stevens. Audio edited by Susan Iannucci
Public Domain (P)2019 The Online Stage
Young Apostate
Summary
One Heretic. One Apostle. She's lost in space. He's being hunted by a world-wide government. How do you cope when you find you've lost 28 years and your homeworld is falling apart? How do you fight when you haven't been taught? How far do you run when the whole world is looking for you? How do you survive in the middle of a radioactive wasteland? Forced from hiding, John seeks a way to bring down the Regime. Joined by an unexpected ally, he flees across the globe seeking both sanctuary and answers. On the edge of known space, the Heretic has to repair a crippled ship and discover the state of the worlds she left behind. John's faith in a mythical figure return carries him forward. But how will that faith protect him from the Regime? Will the Witch of the Federation return in time to save him and a world that takes her name in vain?
©2020 Michael Anderle (P)2021 Tantor
Daughter of Fate
Summary
When Knights attack the temple of Skystead, 17-year-old Pela is the only one to escape. Her mother and the other villagers are taken, accused of worshiping the false gods. They will pay the ultimate price - unless Pela can rescue them. Pela has never left the safety of her town, let alone touched a sword. What chance does she have against the ruthless Knights of Alana? She’s not a hero. But she knows one. Her uncle Devon was a mighty warrior once, in times when magic filled the world. Age has withered his strength and he retired long ago, but maybe he will answer the call of family. Can Pela convince him to stand against the darkness one last time?
©2019 Aaron Hodges (P)2019 Aaron Hodges
1932
Summary
Two Depression-battered nations confronted destiny in 1932, going to the polls in their own way to anoint new leaders, to rescue their people from starvation and hopelessness. America would elect a Congress and a president - ebullient aristocrat Franklin Roosevelt or tarnished "Wonder Boy" Herbert Hoover. Decadent, divided Weimar Germany faced two rounds of bloody Reichstag elections and two presidential contests - doddering reactionary Paul von Hindenburg against rising radical hate-monger Adolf Hitler. The outcome seemed foreordained - unstoppable forces advancing upon crumbled, disoriented societies. A merciless Great Depression brought greater - perhaps hopeful, perhaps deadly - transformation: FDR's New Deal and Hitler's Third Reich. But neither outcome was inevitable.
©2016 David Pietrusza (P)2019 Tantor
Oathbreaker
Summary
A century since the departure of the Gods, the Three Nations are now united beneath the Tsar. Magic has been outlawed, its power too dangerous to remain unchecked. All Magickers must surrender themselves to the crown or face imprisonment and death. Alana's mundane life has just been torn apart by the emergence of her brother's magic. Now they must leave behind everything they've ever known and flee - before the Tsar's Stalkers pick up their trail. Tasked with hunting down renegade Magickers, the merciless hunters will stop at nothing to bring them before the Tsar's judgment. As the noose closes around Alana and her brother, disgraced hero Devon finds himself at odds with the law when he picks a fight with the wrong man. The former warrior has set aside his weapons, but now, caught between the renegades and the Stalkers, he is forced to pick a side - the empire, or the innocent.
©2018 Aaron Hodges (P)2018 Aaron Hodges
The Legend of the Gods: The Complete Trilogy
Summary
A century since the departure of the Gods, the Three Nations are now united beneath the Tsar. Magic has been outlawed, its power too dangerous to remain unchecked. All Magickers must surrender themselves to the crown or face imprisonment and death. Alana's mundane life has just been torn apart by the emergence of her brother's magic. Now they must leave behind everything they’ve ever known and flee - before the Tsar’s Stalkers pick up their trail. Tasked with hunting down renegade Magickers, the merciless hunters will stop at nothing to bring them before the Tsar’s judgment. As the noose closes around Alana and her brother, disgraced hero Devon finds himself at odds with the law when he picks a fight with the wrong man. The former warrior has set aside his weapons, but now, caught between the renegades and the Stalkers, he is forced to pick a side - the empire, or the innocent.
©2018 Aaron Hodges (P)2019 Aaron Hodges
Afghanistan
Summary
Afghanistan, a landlocked country in Central Asia, has improbably been at the center of international geopolitics for four decades. After the Soviet Union invaded in 1980, Afghanistan descended into an unending conflict that featured at various points most of the world's major powers. In the mid-1990s, the country entered a new phase, when the Taliban took power and imposed order based on a harsh, repressive version of Islamic law. Infamously, the sheltered Osama bin Laden, whose attack on 9/11 of the Twin Towers ushered in the global war on terror, drew tens of thousands of American troops to the country, where they remain today. In Afghanistan: What Everyone Needs to Know, leading scholar Barnett R. Rubin provides an overview of this complicated nation. After providing a concise history of Afghanistan, he explores the various peoples and cultures of the country and its relations with neighbors like Pakistan and Iran. He also provides an authoritative overview of the conflicts that have plagued the country since the Soviet invasion. Both wide-ranging and pithy, this book explains why Afghanistan matters and what its possible future might look like.
©2020 Oxford University Press (P)2020 Tantor