Geoffrey Blaisdell has narrated 8 audiobooks on Listento.it by 5 authors, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 4 ratings. The most-rated is What Is Art?.
The Financier
Summary
A master of literary naturalism, Dreiser is known for his great intensity and keen journalistic eye as he examines real-life subjects. This powerful novel explores the dynamics of the financial world during the Civil War and after the stock market panic caused by the Chicago fire. The first in a "trilogy of desire", The Financier tells the story of the ruthlessly dominating broker Frank Cowperwood as he climbs the ladder of success, his adoring mistress championing his every move. Based on the life of flamboyant finance captain C. T. Yerkes, Theodore Dreiser's cutting portrayal of the unscrupulous magnate Cowperwood embodies the idea that behind every great fortune there is a crime.
Public Domain (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
What Is Art?
Summary
Tolstoy claims that all good art is related to the authentic life of the broader community and that the aesthetic value of a work of art is not independent of its moral content. The book is noteworthy not only for its famous iconoclasm and compelling attacks on the aestheticist notion of "art for art's sake" but even more for its wit, its lucid and beautiful prose, and its sincere expression of the deepest social conscience. Tolstoy is an author critics typically rank alongside Shakespeare and Homer. A sustained consideration of the cultural import of art by someone who himself was an artist of the highest stature will always remain relevant and fascinating to anyone interested in the place of art and literature in society.
Public Domain (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Magnificent Ambersons
Summary
The Magnificent Ambersons chronicles the changing fortunes of three generations of an American dynasty. The family serves as a metaphor for the old society that crumbled after the Industrial Revolution, as a Midwestern town spreads and darkens into a city. George Amberson Minafer is the spoiled and arrogant grandson of the founder of the family's magnificence. Eclipsed by a new breed of industrial tycoons and land developers, whose power comes not through family connections but through financial dealings and modern manufacturing, George descends from the Midwestern aristocracy to the working class. As the wheels of industry transform the social landscape, the definitions of ambition, success, and loyalty also change. Orson Welles based his classic film of the same name on Tarkington's novel.
(P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.
Who's on First
Summary
It's 1956, and the cold war is hot. Hungary has just fallen, and Blackford Oakes is back from Budapest, puzzling over a betrayal and mourning a tragedy he couldn't prevent. But in Washington, all attention is focused on the race to put the first satellite in space. Ironically, Russia and America each have the secrets the other needs to succeed. The solution: kidnap a pair of extraordinary Russian scientists who can put the U.S. in the lead. Blackford Oakes is in charge, unaware that KGB spymaster Bolgin and a trio of vengeful Hungarian freedom fighters are hot on his trail. Oakes' life and America's future are on the line in this fast-paced thriller that offers Buckley at his best.
©1980 William F. Buckley, Jr. (P)2007 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Five Lieutenants
Summary
The dramatic true story of five brilliant young soldiers from Harvard, this is a thrilling tale of combat and heroism. Five Lieutenants tells the story of five young Harvard men who took up the call to arms in the spring of 1917 and met differing fates in the maelstrom of battle on the western front in 1918. Delving deep into the motivations, horrific experiences, and ultimate fates of this Harvard-educated quintet - and by extension, of the brilliant young officer class that left its collegiate and postcollegiate pursuits to enlist in the army and lead America's rough-and-ready doughboys - Five Lieutenants presents a unique, timeless, and fascinating account of citizen soldiers at war and of the price these extraordinary men paid while earnestly giving all they had in an effort to end "the war to end all wars." Drawing on the subjects' intimate, eloquent, and uncensored letters and memoirs, this is a fascinating microcosm of the American experience in the First World War and of the horrific experiences and hardships faced by the educated class of young men who were relied upon to lead doughboys in the trenches and, ultimately, in open battle. James Carl Nelson is a journalist who has worked as a staff writer for the Miami Herald. He is a member of the Western Front Association, which is devoted to the study of the Great War. He lives in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
©2012 James Carl Nelson (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc
Stained Glass
Summary
A matter of some delicacy: finding the perfect blue to restore the windows of a 13th-century German chapel at the Palace of St. Anselm. Blackford Oakes, fresh from his daring exploits at Windsor Castle, is in charge. But Alex Wintergrin, owner of the chapel, is far more than a charming aristocrat and congenial companion. A charismatic hero, he is rising to power, rousing his countrymen to reunite Germany. As the Cold War turns hot, Oakes is thrown into the arms of a beautiful KGB agent and onto the horns of a dilemma. He must either pull the fatal switch on a friend, or find a way to change the rules.
©1978 William F. Buckley, Jr. (P)2007 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
See You Later, Alligator
Summary
The year is 1961, the setting Havana. CIA super-secret agent Blackford Oakes has been sent there on a mission, only to find himself in the eye of an international political hurricane. President Kennedy has selected Oakes to meet with Che Guevara inside Castro's Cuba as part of his Operation Alligator, a daring plan to bring about an era of détente in East-West relations. The communists, however, have another agenda in mind: a double-cross with terrifying consequences. Soon, Oakes is trapped in Cuba, and the heat is on. Warming the climate greatly is the sultry beauty Catalina. The weather forecast: betrayal, power politics, and sudden death.
©1985 William F. Buckley Jr. (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Marco Polo, If You Can
Summary
When a shadowy Russian mole threatens to undermine the free world's defenses by infiltrating President Eisenhower's National Security Counsel, CIA super-secret agent Blackford Oakes is called in to unmask the imposter. Oakes turns the tables on the Communists by piloting a U-2 spy plane on a Gary Powers-style one-way mission behind the Iron Curtain. Sentenced to death and trapped in the depths of the Lubyanka prison, Oakes may have turned his last trick. Or has he? Master of espionage fiction and National Book Award-winner, William F. Buckley Jr. brings us another in his series of best-selling novels starring the intrepid C.I.A. agent Blackford Oakes. Set in the Cold War years of the 1950s and '60s, this politically sophisticated series takes readers behind the scenes of the major political crises of the time.
©1982 William F. Buckley Jr. (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.