Erik Singer has narrated 30 audiobooks on Listento.it by 27 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 384 ratings. The most-rated is The Last Lecture.
The Last Lecture
Summary
"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." ( Randy Pausch) A lot of professors give talks entitled "The Last Lecture". Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave - "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" - wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come. This recording includes an interview with the author.
©2008 Randy Pausch (P)2008 Hyperion
The Magician
Summary
Nicholas Flamel appeared in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter - but did you know he really lived? And his secrets aren't safe! Discover the truth in book two of the New York Times best-selling series the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. The enemies: Dr. John Dee and Niccolo Machiavelli. Their plan: Steal the rest of what Nicholas Flamel has fought to protect. John Dee has the Book of Abraham the Mage, which means the world is on the brink of ruin. Except he's missing two crucial pages, pages that Nicholas, Sophie, Josh, and the legendary warrior Scatty have taken to Paris. But Paris is teeming with enemies - and old acquaintances like Nicollo Machiavelli. On the run and with time running out for Nicholas and his wife, Perenell, Sophie must learn the second elemental magic: Fire Magic. And there’s only one man who can teach it to her: Flamel’s old student, the Comte de Saint-Germain - alchemist, magician, and rock star. "The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel has everything you loved about Harry Potter, including magic, mystery, and a constant battle of good versus evil." (Bustle) Listen to the whole series! The Alchemyst The Magician The Sorceress The Necromancer The Warlock The Enchantress
©2008 Michael Scott (P)2008 Listening Library
Bridge to Haven
Summary
To those who matter in 1950s Hollywood, Lena Scott is the hottest rising star to hit the silver screen since Marilyn Monroe. Few know her real name is Abra. Even fewer know the price she' s paid to finally feel like she' s somebody. To Pastor Ezekiel Freeman, Abra will always be the little girl who stole his heart the night he found her, a wailing newborn abandoned under a bridge on the outskirts of Haven. Zeke and his son, Joshua - Abra' s closest friend - watch her grow into an exotic beauty. But Zeke knows the circumstances surrounding her birth etched scars deep in her heart, scars that leave her vulnerable to a fast-talking bad boy who proclaims his love and lures her to Tinseltown. Hollywood feels like a million miles from Haven, and naive Abra quickly learns what' s expected of an ambitious girl with stars in her eyes. But fame comes at an awful price. She has burned every bridge to get exactly what she thought she wanted. Now, all she wants is a way back home. In this riveting and highly anticipated tale of temptation, grace, and unconditional love, New York Times best-selling author Francine Rivers delivers big-canvas storytelling at its very best.
©2014 Francine Rivers (P)2014 Recorded Books
Blue Labyrinth
Summary
A long-buried family secret resurfaces when one of Aloysius Pendergast's most implacable enemies shows up on his doorstep as a murdered corpse. The mystery has all the hallmarks of the perfect murder, save for an enigmatic clue: a piece of turquoise lodged in the stomach of the deceased. The gem leads Pendergast to an abandoned mine on the shore of California's desolate Salton Sea, which in turn propels him on a journey of discovery deep into his family's sinister past. But Pendergast learns there is more at work than a ghastly episode of family history: he is soon stalked by a subtle killer bent on vengeance over an ancient transgression. In short order, Pendergast is caught in a wickedly clever plot, which will leave him stricken in mind and body...and may well end with his death.
©2014 Douglas Preston (P)2014 Hachette Audio
The Associate
Summary
If you thought Mitch McDeere was in trouble in The Firm, wait until you meet Kyle McAvoy. Kyle McAvoy grew up in his father's small-town law office in York, Pennsylvania. He excelled in college, was elected editor-in-chief of The Yale Law Journal, and his future has limitless potential. But Kyle has a secret, a dark one, an episode from college that he has tried to forget. The secret, though, falls into the hands of the wrong people, and Kyle is forced to take a job he doesn't want, even if it's a job most law students can only dream about. Three months after leaving Yale, Kyle becomes an associate at the largest law firm in the world, where, in addition to practicing law, he is expected to lie, steal, and take part in a scheme that could send him to prison, if not get him killed. With an unforgettable cast of characters and villains, from drug-addled trust fund kid and possible rapist Baxter Tate to quiet former math teacher Dale who shares Kyle's cubicle at the law firm, The Associate is vintage Grisham.
©2009 Belfry Holdings, Inc (P)2009 Random House Audio
Borden Chantry
Summary
The marshal's name was Borden Chantry. Young, lean, rugged, he's buried a few men in this two-bit cow town - every single one killed in a fair fight. Then, one dark, grim day a mysterious gunman shot a man in cold blood. Five grisly murders later, Chantey was faced with the roughest assignment of his life - find that savage, trigger-happy hard case before he blasts apart every man in town...one by bloody one.
©1995 Louis L'Amour (P)2018 Random House Audio
Comstock Lode (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)
Summary
The classic Western, now newly repackaged as part of Bantam's Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures program - with never-before-heard material from Louis and his son, Beau L'Amour. It was just a godforsaken mountainside, but no place on earth was richer in silver. For a bustling, enterprising America, this was the great bonanza. The dreamers, the restless, the builders, the vultures - they were lured by the glittering promise of instant riches and survived the brutal hardships of a mining camp to raise a legendary boom town. But some sought more than wealth. Val Trevallion, a loner haunted by a violent past. Grita Redaway, a radiantly beautiful actress driven by an unfulfilled need. Two fiercely independent spirits, together they rose above the challenges of the Comstock to stake a bold claim on the future. Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures is a project created to release some of the author’s more unconventional manuscripts from the family archives. In Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures: Volume 1 and Volume 2, Beau L’Amour takes the listener on a guided tour through many of the finished and unfinished short stories, novels, and treatments that his father was never able to publish during his lifetime. L’Amour’s never-before-heard first novel, No Traveller Returns, faithfully completed for this program, is a voyage into danger and violence on the high seas. Additionally, many beloved classics will be rereleased with an exclusive Lost Treasures postscript featuring previously unpublished material, including outlines, plot notes, and alternate drafts. These postscripts tell the story behind the stories that millions of audiences have come to know and cherish.
©2004 Louis L'Amour (P)2012 Random House Audio
The House
Summary
Perched on a hill overlooking San Francisco, the house was magnificent, built in 1923 by a wealthy man for the woman he adored. For her and for this house, he would spare no expense and overlook no detail, from the endless marble floors to the glittering chandeliers. Almost a century later, with the once-grand house now in disrepair, a young woman walks through its empty rooms. Sarah Anderson, a perfectly sensible estate lawyer, is about to do something utterly out of character. An elderly client has died and left her two gifts. One is a generous inheritance. The other, a priceless message: to use his money for something wonderful, something daring. And in this old house, surrounded by crumbling grandeur, Sarah knows just what it is. A respected attorney and self-described workaholic, Sarah had always lived life by the book. With a steady, if sputtering, relationship and a tiny apartment that has suited her just fine, Sarah cannot explain the force that draws her to the mansion and its history, to the story of a woman who once lived in the house, then mysteriously left it, to a child who grew up there, and a drama that unfolded in war-torn France, and to a history she never knew she had. Taking the biggest risk of her life, Sarah enlists the help of architect Jeff Parker, who shares Sarah's passion for bringing the exquisite old house back to life. As she and Jeff work to restore the home's every detail, as one relationship shatters and another begins, Sarah makes a series of powerful discoveries: about the true meaning of a dying man's last gift, about the extraordinary legacies that are passed from generation to generation, and about a future she's only just beginning to imagine. In a novel of daring and hope, of embracing life and taking chances, Danielle Steel brilliantly captures one woman's courageous choice to pour herself into a dream, and receive its gifts in return.
©2006 Danielle Steel (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Calico Joe
Summary
A surprising and moving novel of fathers and sons, forgiveness and redemption, set in the world of Major League Baseball…. Whatever happened to Calico Joe? It began quietly enough with a pulled hamstring. The first baseman for the Cubs AAA affiliate in Wichita went down as he rounded third and headed for home. The next day, Jim Hickman, the first baseman for the Cubs, injured his back. The team suddenly needed someone to play first, so they reached down to their AA club in Midland, Texas, and called up a 21-year-old named Joe Castle. He was the hottest player in AA and creating a buzz. In the summer of 1973, Joe Castle was the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone had ever seen. The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas, dazzled Cub fans as he hit home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shattered all rookie records. Calico Joe quickly became the idol of every baseball fan in America, including Paul Tracey, the young son of a hard-partying and hard-throwing Mets pitcher. On the day that Warren Tracey finally faced Calico Joe, Paul was in the stands, rooting for his idol but also for his dad. Then Warren threw a fastball that would change their lives forever…. In John Grisham’s new novel, the baseball is thrilling, but it’s what happens off the field that makes Calico Joe a classic.
©2012 Belfry Holdings, Inc (P)2012 Random House Audio
The Iron Marshal
Summary
He was a tough enforcer for a New York gang. But when young Tom Shanaghy made one too many enemies, he skipped town on a fast-moving freight. He landed in a small Kansas town that had big dreams, no name, and the need for an honest lawman. Tom figured that a knuckle-and-skull man from Five Points would be perfect for the job. He didn't know that a high-stakes cattle drive was headed his way and that leading it was a vindictive rancher bent on settling an old score, even if he had to destroy the town to do it. Tom had himself stuck in the middle of the feud before sunset on his first day in town. All he could do was hope that his years on the Bowery had left him with the smarts he needed to keep himself alive.
©1979 Louis L'Amour (P)2017 Random House Audio
The Man in the Rockefeller Suit
Summary
A real-life Talented Mr. Ripley, the unbelievable 30-year run of a shape-shifting con man. The story of Clark Rockefeller is a stranger-than-fiction twist on the classic American success story of the self-made man - because Clark Rockefeller was totally made up. The career con man who convincingly passed himself off as Rockefeller was born in a small village in Germany. At 17, obsessed with getting to America, he flew into the country on dubious student visa documents and his journey of deception began. Over the next 30 years, boldly assuming a series of false identities, he moved up the social ladder through exclusive enclaves on both coasts-culminating in a stunning 12-year marriage to a rising star businesswoman with a Harvard MBA who believed she'd wed a Rockefeller. The imposter charmed his way into exclusive clubs and financial institutions-working on Wall Street, showing off an extraordinary art collection - until his marriage ended and he was arrested for kidnapping his daughter, which exposed his past of astounding deceptions as well as a connection to the bizarre disappearance of a California couple in the mid-1980s. The story of The Man in the Rockefeller Suit is a probing and cinematic exploration of an audacious imposer - and a man determined to live the American dream by any means necessary.
©2011 Mark Seal (P)2011 Penguin Audiobooks
Brionne
Summary
Major James Brionne brought Dave Allard to trial for murder. Just before the hanging, Dave swore his brothers would take vengeance.... Four years later, the Allard boys returned to settle the score. Only Brionne's son escaped. They murdered his wife, destroyed his home, and left Brionne nothing but the charred ruins of his past to haunt him. Seeking peace and a new life, Brionne and the boy headed west. But the Allards hadn't finished with him. He knew they'd call him for a showdown - and this time he'd be ready....
©2016 Louis L'Amour (P)2016 Random House Audio
Dr. Mutter's Marvels
Summary
A mesmerizing biography of the brilliant and eccentric medical innovator who revolutionized American surgery and founded the country's most famous museum of medical oddities Imagine undergoing an operation without anesthesia performed by a surgeon who refuses to sterilize his tools - or even wash his hands. This was the world of medicine when Thomas Dent Mütter began his trailblazing career as a plastic surgeon in Philadelphia during the middle of the 19th century. Although he died at just 48, Mütter was an audacious medical innovator who pioneered the use of ether as anesthesia, the sterilization of surgical tools, and a compassion-based vision for helping the severely deformed, which clashed spectacularly with the sentiments of his time. Brilliant, outspoken, and brazenly handsome, Mütter was flamboyant in every aspect of his life. He wore pink silk suits to perform surgery, added an umlaut to his last name just because he could, and amassed an immense collection of medical oddities that would later form the basis of Philadelphia's Mütter Museum. Award-winning writer Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz vividly chronicles how Mütter's efforts helped establish Philadelphia as a global mecca for medical innovation - despite intense resistance from his numerous rivals. (Foremost among them: Charles D. Meigs, an influential obstetrician who loathed Mütter's "overly" modern medical opinions.) In the narrative spirit of The Devil in the White City, Dr. Mütter's Marvels interweaves an eye-opening portrait of 19th-century medicine with the riveting biography of a man once described as the "P. T. Barnum of the surgery room".
©2014 Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz (P)2014 Penguin Audiobooks
The Logical Leap
Summary
A groundbreaking solution to the problem of induction, based on Ayn Rand's theory of concepts. Inspired by and expanding on a series of lectures presented by Leonard Peikoff, David Harriman presents a fascinating answer to the problem of induction-the epistemological question of how we can know the truth of inductive generalizations. Ayn Rand presented her revolutionary theory of concepts in her book Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. As Dr. Peikoff subsequently explored the concept of induction, he sought out David Harriman, a physicist who had taught philosophy, for his expert knowledge of the scientific discovery process. Here, Harriman presents the result of a collaboration between scientist and philosopher. Beginning with a detailed discussion of the role of mathematics and experimentation in validating generalizations in physics-looking closely at the reasoning of scientists such as Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Lavoisier, and Maxwell-Harriman skillfully argues that the inductive method used in philosophy is in principle indistinguishable from the method used in physics.
©2010 David Harriman (P)2010 Audible, Inc.
The Bear
Summary
The epic conclusion to New York Times best-selling author, R. A. Salvatore's sweeping series, The Saga of the First King. The war of Honce drags on, and the roads and seas are littered with bodies. To everyone's stunned disbelief, Yeslnik the Fool has tipped the war's scales in his favor. The reign of the newly self-appointed King Yeslnik is already distinguished as the most bloody and merciless in Honce history. Trapped, Dame Gwydre and Father Artolivan concoct a desperate plot to join forces with Laird Ethelbert, the lesser of two vicious evils. But Ethelbert's paid assassins slew Jameston Sequin and nearly did the same to Bransen. Embittered by it all, Bransen seeks to extricate himself from the selfish goals of all of combatants. But in an odd twist of fate and crossed loyalties, Bransen sees in his old nemesis, Bannagran - the Bear of Honce and the man who slew his adoptive father - a darker image of his own heart. Allies and battle lines become tangled, motives indistinguishable as old friends become enemies and old enemies become allies. The Saga of the First King The Highwayman The Ancient The Dame The Bear
©2010 R. A. Salvatore (P)2019 Macmillan Audio
In the Company of Others
Summary
Jan Karon's new series, launched with her New York Times best-selling Home to Holly Springs, thrilled legions of Mitford devotees, and also attracted a whole new set of fans. "Lovely," said USA Today. "Rejoice!" said The Washington Post. In this second novel, Father Tim and Cynthia arrive in the west of Ireland, intent on researching his Kavanagh ancestry from the comfort of a charming fishing lodge. The charm, however, is broken entirely when Cynthia startles a burglar and sprains her already injured ankle. Then a cherished and valuable painting is stolen from the lodge owners, and Cynthia's pain pales in comparison to the wound at the center of this bitterly estranged Irish family. In the Company of Others is a moving testament to the desperate struggle to hide the truth at any cost and the powerful need to confess. Of all her winning novels, Jan Karon says this "dark-haired child" is her favorite - a sentiment listeners everywhere are certain to share.
©2010 Jan Karon (P)2010 Penguin Audio
The Postcard Killers
Summary
Paris is stunning in the summer. NYPD detective Jacob Kanon is on a tour of Europe's most gorgeous cities. But the sights aren't what draw him - he sees each museum, each cathedral, and each cafe through the eyes of his daughter's killer. The killing is simply marvelous. Kanon's daughter, Kimmy, and her boyfriend were murdered while on vacation in Rome. Since then, young couples in Paris, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, and Stockholm have been found dead. Little connects the murders other than a postcard to the local newspaper that precedes each new victim. Wish you were here. Now, Kanon teams up with the Swedish reporter Dessie Larsson, who has just received a postcard in Stockholm - and they think they know where the next victims will be. With relentless logic and unstoppable action, The Postcard Killers may be James Patterson's most vivid and compelling thriller yet.
©2010 James Patterson (P)2010 Hachette Audio
The Ancient
Summary
Searching for his long-lost father, Bransen Garibond is tricked into journeying across the Gulf of Corona to the wild lands of Vanguard, where he is pressed into service in a desperate war against the brutal Samhaist, Ancient Badden. On an Alpinadoran lake, just below Ancient Badden's magical ice castle, several societies, caught in the web of their own conflicts, are oblivious to Ancient Badden's devastating plans to destroy them. Branson becomes the link between the wars, and if he fails, all who live on the lake will perish, and all of northern Honce will fall under the shadow of the merciless and vengeful Samhaists. The Ancient is part of the Saga of the First King, a four-book series that chronicles the early days of Corona, the same world explored in Salvatore's best-selling Demon Wars saga.
©2008 R. A. Salvatore (P)2008 Macmillan Audio
The Dame
Summary
R. A. Salvatore's cast of exciting characters continue the story in war-torn Corona in The Dame, the third book in the Saga of the First King series The vast road network of Honce, completed a decade before, had brought great optimism to the people of the land. Commerce could travel more freely and so could armies, and those armies, it was hoped, would rid the land at long last of the vicious, bloody cap dwarfs and goblins. For the first time, the many individual kingdoms, the holdings of Honce, would be brought closer together, perhaps even united. For the last few years, those promises had become a nightmare to the folk, as two powerful lairds fought for supremacy of a hoped-for united kingdom. Bransen Garibond, the Highwayman, held little real interest in that fight. To him the warring lairds were two sides of the same coin. Whichever side won, the outcome for the people of Honce would be the same, Bransen believed. A journey north, however, taught Bransen that his views were simplistic at best, and that some things - like honor and true friendship - might truly matter. In R. A. Salvatore's The Dame, Bransen's road becomes a quest for the truth, of Honce and of himself, a quest to put right over wrong. That path is fraught with confusion and fraud, and a purposeful blurring of morality by those who would seek to use the Highwayman's extraordinary battle skills and popularity among the commonfolk for their own nefarious ends.
©2009 R. A. Salvatore (P)2009 Macmillan Audio
The Wisdom of Crowds
Summary
In this endlessly fascinating book, New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications: large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant. Groups are better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future. This seemingly counterintuitive notion has endless and major ramifications for how businesses operate, how knowledge is advanced, how economies are (or should be) organized and how we live our daily lives. With seemingly boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, economic behaviorism, artificial intelligence, military history, and political theory to show just how this principle operates in the real world. Despite the sophistication of his arguments, Surowiecki presents them in a wonderfully entertaining manner. The examples he uses are all down-to-earth, surprising, and fun to ponder. Why is the line in which you're standing always the longest? Why is it that you can buy a screw anywhere in the world and it will fit a bolt bought ten-thousand miles away? Why is network television so awful? If you had to meet someone in Paris on a specific day but had no way of contacting them, when and where would you meet? Why are there traffic jams? What's the best way to win money on a game show? Why, when you walk into a convenience store at 2:00 A.M. to buy a quart of orange juice, is it there waiting for you? What do Hollywood mafia movies have to teach us about why corporations exist? The Wisdom of Crowds is a brilliant but accessible biography of an idea, one with important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, conduct our business, and think about our world.
©2004 James Surowiecki (P)2004 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.