Dominic Hoffman has narrated 76 audiobooks on Listento.it by 87 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 1,634 ratings. The most-rated is The Starless Sea.
The Starless Sea
Summary
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Night Circus, a timeless love story set in a secret underground world - a place of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a starless sea. Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues - a bee, a key, and a sword - that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians - it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose - in both the mysterious book and in his own life. Read by Dominic Hoffman, with a full cast: Dominic Hoffman reading the Zachary Ezra Rawlins storyline Dion Graham reading the Sweet Sorrows storyline Bahni Turpin reading excerpts from the Secret Diary of Katrina Hawkins Fiona Hardingham reading The Ballad of Simon and Eleanor Allan Corduner reading Fortunes and Fables Jorjeana Marie reading Another place, another time
©2019 Erin Morgenstern (P)2019 Random House Audio
The Book of Lost Friends
Summary
New York Times best seller • From the best-selling author of Before We Were Yours comes a new historical novel: the dramatic story of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students’ lives. Best-selling author Lisa Wingate brings to life startling stories from actual "Lost Friends" advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as newly freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold away. Louisiana, 1875: In the tumultuous era of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Hannie, a freed slave; Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now destitute plantation; and Juneau Jane, Lavinia’s Creole half-sister. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following roads rife with vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of stolen inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and siblings before slavery’s end, the pilgrimage west reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope. Louisiana, 1987: For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt - until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, is suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled live oaks and run-down plantation homes lie the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.
©2020 Lisa Wingate (P)2020 Random House Audio
Wanderers
Summary
A decadent rock star. A deeply religious radio host. A disgraced scientist. And a teenage girl who may be the world’s last hope. From the mind of Chuck Wendig comes "a magnum opus...a story about survival that’s not just about you and me, but all of us, together" (Kirkus Reviews starred review). Nominated for the Bram Stoker Award Named one of the Best Books of the Year by: The Washington Post NPR The Dallas Morning News Kirkus Reviews Publishers Weekly Library Journal Polygon Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister in the grip of a strange malady. She appears to be sleepwalking. She cannot talk and cannot be woken up. And she is heading with inexorable determination to a destination that only she knows. But Shana and her sister are not alone. Soon, they are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across America, on the same mysterious journey. And like Shana, there are other "shepherds" who follow the flock to protect their friends and family on the long dark road ahead. For as the sleepwalking phenomenon awakens terror and violence in America, the real danger may not be the epidemic but the fear of it. With society collapsing all around them - and an ultraviolent militia threatening to exterminate them - the fate of the sleepwalkers depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart - or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world. In development for TV by Glen Mazzara, executive producer of The Walking Dead Look for the sequel in 2022 Praise for Wanderers "This career-defining epic deserves its inevitable comparisons to Stephen King’s The Stand." (Publishers Weekly starred review) "A suspenseful, twisty, satisfying, surprising, thought-provoking epic." (Harlan Coben, number one New York Times best-selling author of Run Away) "A true tour de force." (Erin Morgenstern, New York Times best-selling author of The Night Circus) "A masterpiece with prose as sharp and heartbreaking as Station Eleven." (Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M) "A magnum opus.... It reminded me of Stephen King’s The Stand - but dare I say, this story is even better." (James Rollins, number one New York Times best-selling author of Crucible) "An inventive, fierce, uncompromising, stay-up-way-past-bedtime masterwork." (Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World) "An American epic for these times." (Charles Soule, author of The Oracle Year)
©2019 Chuck Wendig (P)2019 Random House Audio
Exhalation
Summary
One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year A National Best Seller One of the Best Books of The Year: The Washington Post • Time Magazine • NPR • Esquire • Vox • the A.V. Club • the Guardian • Financial Times • the Dallas Morning News “Exhalation by Ted Chiang is a collection of short stories that will make you think, grapple with big questions, and feel more human. The best kind of science fiction.” (Barack Obama, via Facebook) "The universe began as an enormous breath being held." In these nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories, Ted Chiang tackles some of humanity’s oldest questions along with new quandaries only he could imagine. In “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate”, a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and second chances. In “Exhalation”, an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom”, the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will. Including stories being published for the first time as well as some of his rare and classic uncollected work, Exhalation is Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic - revelatory.
©2019 Ted Chiang (P)2019 Random House Audio
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Summary
Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us - an ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings. In best-selling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin turns to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. In Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson shows how Franklin defines both his own time and ours. The most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself. America's first great publicist, he was consciously trying to create a new American archetype. In the process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity. His guiding principle was a "dislike of everything that tended to debase the spirit of the common people". Few of his fellow founders felt this comfort with democracy so fully, and none so intuitively. In this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin's amazing life, from his days as a runaway printer to his triumphs as a statesman, scientist, and Founding Father. He chronicles Franklin's tumultuous relationship with his illegitimate son and grandson, his practical marriage, and his flirtations with the ladies of Paris. He also shows how Franklin helped to create the American character and why he has a particular resonance in the 21st century.
©2003 Walter Isaacson (P)2011 Simon & Schuster
Every Single Secret
Summary
“A true psychological thriller that will leave you breathless.” - Wendy Walker, bestselling author of All Is Not Forgotten and Emma in the Night Emotionally guarded Daphne Amos always believed she’d found a kindred spirit in her fiancé, Heath. Both very private people, they’ve kept their pasts hidden from the world, and each other, until Heath’s escalating nightmares begin to put an undeniable strain on their relationship. Determined to give their impending marriage the best chance of succeeding, Heath insists that Daphne join him on a seven-day retreat with Dr. Matthew Cerny, a psychologist celebrated for getting to the root of repressed memories. Daphne reluctantly agrees - even though the past is the last place she wants to go. The retreat’s isolated and forbidding location increases her unease, as do the doctor’s rules: they must relinquish their keys and phones, they’ll be monitored at all hours by hidden cameras, and they’re never to socialize with the other guests. One sleepless night, Daphne decides to leave her room...and only then does she realize that the institute is not at all what it seems - and that whatever’s crying out from Heath’s past isn’t meant to be heard. It’s meant to be silenced.
©2018 Emily Carpenter (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved
The Sun Is Also a Star
Summary
Now a major motion picture starring Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton! The number one New York Times best seller and National Book Award finalist from the best-selling author of Everything, Everything will have you falling in love with Natasha and Daniel as they fall in love with each other. Natasha: I'm a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I'm definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is 12 hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won't be my story. Daniel: I've always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents' high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store - for both of us. The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true? A 2017 Michael L. Printz Honor Book A New York Times Notable Book A BuzzFeed Best YA Book of the Year A POPSUGAR Best Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A Booklist Editor's Choice A New York Public Library Best Book for Teens Recipient of the John Steptoe New Talent Award A Walter Award Honor Book' "Beautifully crafted." (People Magazine) "A book that is very much about the many factors that affect falling in love, as much as it is about the very act itself...fans of Yoon’s first novel, Everything Everything, will find much to love - if not, more - in what is easily an even stronger follow up." (Entertainment Weekly) "Transcends the limits of YA as a human story about falling in love and seeking out our futures." (POPSUGAR.com)
©2016 Nicola Yoon (P)2016 Listening Library
Homegoing
Summary
Winner of the NBCC's John Leonard First Book Prize A New York Times 2016 Notable Book One of Oprah’s 10 Favorite Books of 2016 NPR's Debut Novel of the Year One of Buzzfeed's Best Fiction Books Of 2016 One of Time's Top 10 Novels of 2016 “Homegoing is an inspiration.” (Ta-Nehisi Coates) The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and 300 years of history, each life indeliably drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day. Effia and Esi are born into different villages in 18th-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of 20th-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation. Includes a PDF of the Family Tree PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2016 Yaa Gyasi (P)2016 Random House Audio
Deacon King Kong
Summary
Oprah’s Book Club Pick A New York Times best seller One of The New York Times Top 10 Books of the Year A Washington Post Notable Novel One of Time Magazine's 10 Best Novels of the Year From the author of the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird and the best-selling modern classic The Color of Water comes one of the most celebrated novels of the year. In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in South Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project's drug dealer at point-blank range. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong, James McBride's funny, moving novel and his first since his National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird. In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the White neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood's Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself. As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters - caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York - overlap in unexpected ways. When the truth does emerge, McBride shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, that the best way to grow is to face change without fear, and that the seeds of love lie in hope and compassion. Bringing both his masterly storytelling skills and his abiding faith in humanity, James McBride has written a novel every bit as involving as The Good Lord Bird and as emotionally honest as The Color of Water. Told with insight and wit, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that love and faith live in all of us.
©2020 James McBride (P)2020 Penguin Audio
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls
Summary
“If you enjoyed An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, read The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls...an absorbing commentary on love, family, and forgiveness.” (The Washington Post) “A fast-paced, intriguing story...the novel’s real achievement is its uncommon perceptiveness on the origins and variations of addiction.” (The New York Times Book Review) One of the most anticipated reads of 2019 from Vogue, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Buzzfeed, Essence, Bustle, HelloGiggles, and Cosmo! “The Mothers meets An American Marriage” (HelloGiggles) in this dazzling debut novel about mothers and daughters, identity and family, and how the relationships that sustain you can also be the ones that consume you. The Butler family has had their share of trials - as sisters Althea, Viola, and Lillian can attest - but nothing prepared them for the literal trial that will upend their lives. Althea, the eldest sister and substitute matriarch, is a force to be reckoned with, and her younger sisters have alternately appreciated and chafed at her strong will. They are as stunned as the rest of the small community when she and her husband, Proctor, are arrested, and in a heartbeat, the family goes from one of the most respected in town to utter disgrace. The worst part is, not even her sisters are sure exactly what happened. As Althea awaits her fate, Lillian and Viola must come together in the house they grew up in to care for their sister’s teenage daughters. What unfolds is a stunning portrait of the heart and core of an American family in a story that is as pause-resisting as it is important. Cast of Narrators: January LaVoy as Viola Adenrele Ojo as Althea Bahni Turpin as Lillian Dominic Hoffman as Proctor
©2019 Anissa Gray (P)2019 Penguin Audio
My Morning Routine
Summary
"The first few choices you make each morning determine whether you'll be productive and mindful all day, or whether the world will clobber you over the head." Marie Kondo performs a quick tidying ritual to quiet her mind before leaving the house. The president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, Ed Catmull, mixes three shots of espresso with three scoops of cocoa powder and two sweeteners. Fitness expert Jillian Michaels doesn't set an alarm, because her five-year-old jolts her from sleep by jumping into bed for a cuddle every morning. Part instruction manual, part someone else's diary, My Morning Routine features interviews with 64 of today's most successful people - including three-time Olympic gold medalist Rebecca Soni, Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, and General Stanley McChrystal - and offers advice on creating a routine of your own. Some routines are all about early morning exercise and spartan living; others are more leisurely and self-indulgent. What they have in common is they don't feel like a chore. Once you land on the right routine, you'll look forward to waking up. This comprehensive guide will show you how to get into a routine that works for you so that you can develop the habits that move you forward. Just as a Jenga stack is only as sturdy as its foundational blocks, the choices we make throughout our day depend on the intentions we set in the morning. Like it or not, our morning habits form the stack that our whole day is built on. Whether you want to boost your productivity, implement a workout or meditation routine, or just learn to roll with the punches in the morning, this book has you covered. Read by Will Damron, Kaleo Griffith, Dominic Hoffman, Hillary Huber, Sumalee Montano, Arthur Morey, Fred Sanders, and Karissa Vacker
©2018 Benjamin Spall and Michael Xander (P)2018 Penguin Audio
Derelict
Summary
One captain’s death might turn out to be humanity’s best chance at survival. As humanity expands into the stars, it discovers the universe is a hostile place. When Captain Slater of the USS Franklin is assigned to a deep-space reconnaissance mission, his ship is destroyed by an unknown alien race. Much to his surprise, Slater isn’t killed - he’s transformed. He is now a “derelict” - a consciousness bound to his old vessel. Slater must quickly adapt to his new existence before raiders, alien armies, and mysterious forces seek to destroy him for a second and final time.
©2020 Dean Henegar (P)2020 Dean Henegar
Higher Is Waiting
Summary
In this intimate book of inspiration, Tyler Perry writes of how his faith has sustained him in hard times, centered him in good times, and enriched his life. Higher Is Waiting is a spiritual guidebook, a collection of teachings culled from the experiences of a lifetime, meant to inspire listeners to climb higher in their own lives and pull themselves up to a better, more fulfilling place. Beginning with his earliest memories of growing up a shy boy in New Orleans, Perry recalls the moments of grace and beauty in a childhood marked by brutality, deprivation, and fear. With tenderness he sketches portraits of the people who sustained him and taught him indelible lessons about integrity, trust in God, and the power of forgiveness: his aunt Mae, who cared for her grandfather, who was born a slave, and sewed quilts that told a story of generations; Mr. Butler, a blind man of remarkable dignity and elegance, who sold penny candies on a street corner; and his beloved mother, Maxine, who endured abuse, financial hardship, and the daily injustices of growing up in the Jim Crow South yet whose fierce love for her son burned bright and never dimmed. Perry writes of how he nurtured his dreams and discovered solace in nature, and of his resolute determination to reach ever higher. Perry vividly and movingly describes his growing awareness of God's presence in his life, how he learned to tune in to His voice, to persevere through hard times, and to choose faith over fear. Here he is: the devoted son, the loving father, the steadfast friend, the naturalist, the philanthropist, the creative spirit - a man whose life lessons and insights into Scripture are a gift offered with generosity, humility, and love.
©2017 Tyler Perry (P)2017 Random House Audio
How to Love a Jamaican
Summary
“In these kaleidoscopic stories of Jamaica and its diaspora we hear many voices at once. All of them convince and sing. All of them shine.” (Zadie Smith) An O: The Oprah Magazine "Top 15 Best of the Year" A Well-Read Black Girl’s Pick Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret - Alexia Arthurs navigates these tensions to extraordinary effect in her debut collection about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and midwestern university towns, these 11 stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life. In "Light-Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands", an NYU student befriends a fellow Jamaican whose privileged West Coast upbringing has blinded her to the hard realities of race. In "Mash Up Love", a twin’s chance sighting of his estranged brother - the prodigal son of the family - stirs up unresolved feelings of resentment. In “Bad Behavior”, a couple leave their wild teenage daughter with her grandmother in Jamaica, hoping the old ways will straighten her out. In "Mermaid River", a Jamaican teenage boy is reunited with his mother in New York after eight years apart. In "The Ghost of Jia Yi", a recently murdered student haunts a despairing Jamaican athlete recruited to an Iowa college. And in “Shirley from a Small Place”, a world-famous pop star retreats to her mother's big new house in Jamaica, which still holds the power to restore something vital. Alexia Arthurs emerges in this vibrant, lyrical, intimate collection as one of fiction’s most dynamic and essential authors. Audiobook Table of Contents: LIGHT-SKINNED GIRLS AND KELLY ROWLANDS, read by Adenrele Ojo MASH UP LOVE, read by Dominic Hoffman SLACK, read by Janina Edwards BAD BEHAVIOR, read by Janina Edwards ISLAND, read by Adenrele Ojo MERMAID RIVER, read by James Fouhey THE GHOST OF JIA YI, read by Janina Edwards HOW TO LOVE A JAMAICAN, read by Dominic Hoffman ON SHELF, read by Janina Edwards WE EAT OUR DAUGHTERS, read by Janina Edwards and Adenrele Ojo SHIRLEY FROM A SMALL PLACE, read by Janina Edwards Praise for How to Love a Jamaican: "A sublime short-story collection from newcomer Alexia Arthurs that explores, through various characters, a specific strand of the immigrant experience." (Entertainment Weekly) “Gorgeous, tender, heartbreaking stories.... Arthurs is a witty, perceptive, and generous writer, and this is a book that will last.” (Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties) "Vivid and exciting...every story rings beautifully true." (Marie Claire)
©2018 Alexia Arthurs (P)2018 Random House Audio
Devotion
Summary
For readers of Unbroken comes an unforgettable tale of courage from America's "forgotten war" in Korea, by the New York Times best-selling author of A Higher Call. Devotion tells the inspirational story of the US Navy's most famous aviator duo, Lieutenant Tom Hudner and Ensign Jesse Brown, and the marines they fought to defend. A white New Englander from the country-club scene, Tom passed up Harvard to fly fighters for his country. An African American sharecropper's son from Mississippi, Jesse became the navy's first black carrier pilot, defending a nation that wouldn't even serve him in a bar. While much of America remained divided by segregation, Jesse and Tom joined forces as wingmen in Fighter Squadron 32. Adam Makos takes us into the cockpit as these bold young aviators cut their teeth at the world's most dangerous job - landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier - and a line of work that Jesse's young wife, Daisy, struggles to accept. Deployed to the Mediterranean, Tom and Jesse meet the Fleet Marines, boys like PFC "Red" Parkinson, a farm kid from the Catskills. In between war games in the sun, the young men revel on the Riviera, partying with millionaires and even befriending the Hollywood starlet Elizabeth Taylor. Then comes the war no one expected, in faraway Korea. Devotion takes us soaring overhead with Tom and Jesse and into the foxholes with Red and the marines as they battle a North Korean invasion. As the fury of the fighting escalates and the marines are cornered at the Chosin Reservoir, Tom and Jesse fly, guns blazing, to try to save them. When one of the duo is shot down behind enemy lines and pinned in his burning plane, the other faces an unthinkable choice: watch his friend die or attempt history's most audacious one-man rescue mission. A tug-at-the-heartstrings tale of bravery and selflessness, Devotion asks: How far would you go to save a friend?
©2015 Adam Makos (P)2015 Random House Audio
I Can't Breathe
Summary
A work of riveting literary journalism that explores the roots and repercussions of the infamous killing of Eric Garner by the New York City police—from the bestselling author of The Divide NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST On July 17, 2014, a forty-three-year-old black man named Eric Garner died on a Staten Island sidewalk after a police officer put him in what has been described as an illegal chokehold during an arrest for selling bootleg cigarettes. The final moments of Garner’s life were captured on video and seen by millions. His agonized last words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the nascent Black Lives Matter protest movement. A grand jury ultimately declined to indict the officer who wrestled Garner to the pavement. Matt Taibbi’s deeply reported retelling of these events liberates Eric Garner from the abstractions of newspaper accounts and lets us see the man in full—with all his flaws and contradictions intact. A husband and father with a complicated personal history, Garner was neither villain nor victim, but a fiercely proud individual determined to do the best he could for his family, bedeviled by bad luck, and ultimately subdued by forces beyond his control. In America, no miscarriage of justice exists in isolation, of course, and in I Can’t Breathe, Taibbi also examines the conditions that made this tragedy possible. Featuring vivid vignettes of life on the street and inside our Kafkaesque court system, Taibbi’s kaleidoscopic account illuminates issues around policing, mass incarceration, the underground economy, and racial disparity in law enforcement. No one emerges unsullied, from the conservative district attorney who half-heartedly prosecutes the case to the progressive mayor caught between the demands of outraged activists and the foot-dragging of recalcitrant police officials. A masterly narrative of urban America and a scathing indictment of the perverse incentives built into our penal system, I Can’t Breathe drills down into the particulars of one case to confront us with the human cost of our broken approach to dispensing criminal justice.
©2017 Matt Taibbi (P)2017 Random House Audio
The Freedom Writers Diary
Summary
Number-one New York Times best seller The 20th anniversary edition of the classic story of an incredible group of students and the teacher who inspired them, featuring updates on the students’ lives, new journal entries, and an introduction by Erin Gruwell Now a public television documentary, Freedom Writers: Stories from the Heart In 1994, an idealistic first-year teacher in Long Beach, California, named Erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. She had intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust. She was met by uncomprehending looks - none of her students had heard of one of the defining moments of the 20th century. So she rebooted her entire curriculum, using treasured books such as Anne Frank’s diary as her guide to combat intolerance and misunderstanding. Her students began recording their thoughts and feelings in their own diaries, eventually dubbing themselves the “Freedom Writers.” Consisting of powerful entries from the students’ diaries and narrative text by Erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary is an unforgettable story of how hard work, courage, and determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students. In the two decades since its original publication, the book has sold more than one million copies and inspired a major motion picture Freedom Writers. And now, with this 20th-anniversary edition, listeners are brought up to date on the lives of the Freedom Writers, as they blend indispensable takes on social issues with uplifting stories of attending college - and watch their own children follow in their footsteps. The Freedom Writers Diary remains a vital listen for anyone who believes in second chances.
©1999 The Tolerance Education Foundation (P)2006 Books on Tape
Yeager
Summary
Number-One Multi-Million-Copy Best Seller • A one-of-a-kind portrait of a true American hero: General Chuck Yeager “The secret of my success is that I always managed to live to fly another day.” General Chuck Yeager was the greatest test pilot of them all - the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound...the World War II flying ace who shot down a Messerschmitt jet with a prop-driven P-51 Mustang...the hero who defined a certain quality that all hotshot fly-boys of the postwar era aimed to achieve: the right stuff. Now he tells his whole incredible life story with the same “wide-open, full throttle” approach that has marked his astonishing career. What it was really like engaging in do-or-die dogfights over Nazi Europe. How after being shot down over occupied France, Yeager somehow managed to escape. The amazing behind-the-scenes story of smashing the sound barrier despite cracked ribs from a riding accident days before. The entire story is here, in Yeager’s own words, and in wonderful insights from his wife and those friends and colleagues who have known him best. It is the personal and public story of a man who settled for nothing less than excellence.
©1986 Chuck Yeager (P)2020 Random House Audio
Asgard
Summary
In the final chapter of the A Shrouded World saga, Jack, Trip, and Mike have brought the fight to the Whistlers’ terrifying homeworld. With the help of some unexpected allies, the crew must finally find a way to stop the enemy before they can tear through the planes of existence and destroy all life. What they don’t know, what they can’t know, is that there is so much more to the enemy than they previously thought, and defeating them may be an impossible task. Will our heroes be able to stop the enormous war machine and return home, or will they perish in the attempt? Come along on this fast-paced thrill ride to its ultimate conclusion!
©2020 Mark Tufo, John O'Brien (P)2020 Audible, Inc.
Slay
Summary
“A book that knocks you off your feet while dropping the kind of knowledge that’ll keep you down for the count. Prepare to BE slain.” (Nic Stone, New York Times best-selling author of Dear Martin and Odd One Out) Ready Player One meets The Hate U Give in this dynamite debut novel that follows a fierce teen game developer as she battles a real-life troll intent on ruining the Black Panther-inspired video game she created and the safe community it represents for black gamers. By day, 17-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game Slay. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the “downfall of the black man”. But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the Slay world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and Slay is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for “anti-white discrimination”. Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically black in a world intimidated by blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?
©2019 Brittney Morris (P)2019 Simon & Schuster