George Newbern has narrated 187 audiobooks on Listento.it by 183 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 2,798 ratings. The most-rated is Influence.

187 audiobooks
Cover art for Five Presidents

Five Presidents

8 ratings

Summary

A rare and fascinating portrait of the American presidency from the number-one New York Times best-selling author of Mrs. Kennedy and Me and Five Days in November. Secret Service agent Clint Hill brings history intimately and vividly to life as he reflects on his 17 years protecting the most powerful office in the nation. Hill walked alongside Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and Gerald R. Ford, seeing them through a long, tumultuous era - the Cold War; the Cuban Missile Crisis; the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy; the Vietnam War; Watergate; and the resignations of Spiro Agnew and Richard M. Nixon. Some of his stunning, never-before-revealed anecdotes include: Eisenhower's reaction to Russian prime minister Khrushchev's refusal to talk following the U-2 incident The torture of watching himself in the Zapruder film in a Secret Service training Johnson's virtual imprisonment in the White House during violent anti-Vietnam protests His decision to place White House files under protection after a midnight phone call about Watergate The challenges of protecting Ford after he pardoned Nixon With a unique insider's perspective, Hill sheds new light on the characters and personalities of these five presidents, revealing their humanity in the face of grave decisions.

©2016 Hill McCubbin, LLC. (P)2016 Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Narrator: George Newbern
Category: History, World
Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for Sea of Silver Light

Sea of Silver Light

8 ratings

Summary

A group of adventurers searching for a cure for comatose children find themselves trapped in a sequence of virtual worlds, the only opponents of a conspiracy of the rich to live forever in a dream. Now, they are forced to make an uneasy alliance with their only surviving former enemy against his treacherous sidekick Johnny Wulgaru, a serial killer with a chance to play God forever. Few science fiction sagas have achieved the level of critical acclaim - and best-selling popularity - as Tad Williams' Otherland novels. A brilliant blend of science fiction, fantasy, and technothriller, it is a rich, multilayered epic of future possibilities.

©2002 Tad Williams (P)2015 Penguin Audio

Narrator: George Newbern
Author: Tad Williams
Length: 37 hrs and 32 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for How We Got to Now

How We Got to Now

8 ratings

Summary

From the New York Times best-selling author of Where Good Ideas Come From and Everything Bad Is Good for You, a new look at the power and legacy of great ideas. In this volume, Steven Johnson explores the history of innovation over centuries, tracing facets of modern life (refrigeration, clocks, and eyeglass lenses, to name a few) from their creation by hobbyists, amateurs, and entrepreneurs to their unintended historical consequences. Filled with surprising stories of accidental genius and brilliant mistakes - from the French publisher who invented the phonograph before Edison but forgot to include playback, to the Hollywood movie star who helped invent the technology behind Wi-Fi and Bluetooth - How We Got to Now investigates the secret history behind the everyday objects of contemporary life. In his trademark style, Johnson examines unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated fields: how the invention of air-conditioning enabled the largest migration of human beings in the history of the species - to cities such as Dubai or Phoenix, which would otherwise be virtually uninhabitable; how pendulum clocks helped trigger the industrial revolution; and how clean water made it possible to manufacture computer chips. Accompanied by a major six-part television series on PBS, How We Got to Now is the story of collaborative networks building the modern world, written in the provocative, informative, and engaging style that has earned Johnson fans around the globe.

©2014 Steven Johnson (P)2014 Penguin Audio

Narrator: George Newbern
Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for Betaball

Betaball

8 ratings

Summary

Moneyball meets The City Game in this compelling look at how the NBA champion Golden State Warriors embraced savvy business practices, next-gen science, and the corporate culture of Silicon Valley to not only produce one of the greatest basketball teams in history but also revolutionize the NBA. Discover the definitive inside account of how the Warriors, under the leadership of venture capitalist Joe Lacob and Hollywood producer Peter Guber, quickly became one of the most remarkable success stories ever, both in sports and in business. In just five years, they turned a declining franchise with no immediate hope into one of the greatest teams in basketball, a period that included the rise of All-Star point guard Stephen Curry and two NBA championships in the past three years. By operating in "beta" - always innovating, unafraid to embrace change, encouraging risk - the Warriors have become a model organization for American professional sports, instituting the best workplace principles found inside the world's most successful corporations and instilling a top-down organizational ethos that allows their employees to thrive, from the front office to the free-throw line. With in-depth access and meticulous reporting on and off the court, acclaimed journalist Erik Malinowski recounts a gripping tale of worlds colliding, a team's reinvention, ordinary people being pushed to extraordinary heights, and the Golden State Warriors' unending quest to remain the best.

©2017 Erik Malinowski (P)2017 Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Narrator: George Newbern
Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for About Grace

About Grace

8 ratings

Summary

When Anthony Doerr's The Shell Collector was published in 2002, the Los Angeles Times called his stories "as close to faultless as any writer - young or vastly experienced - could wish for." He won the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Discover Prize, Princeton's Hodder Fellowship, and two O. Henrys and shared the Young Lions Award. Now he has written one of the most beautiful, wise, and compelling first novels of recent times. David Winkler begins life in Anchorage, Alaska, a quiet boy drawn to the volatility of weather and obsessed with snow. Sometimes he sees things before they happen - a man carrying a hatbox will be hit by a bus; Winkler will fall in love with a woman in a supermarket. When David dreams that his infant daughter will drown in a flood as he tries to save her, he comes undone. He travels thousands of miles, fleeing family, home, and the future itself, to deny the dream. On a Caribbean island, destitute, alone, and unsure if his child has survived or his wife can forgive him, David is sheltered by a couple with a daughter of their own. Ultimately it is she who will pull him back into the world, to search for the people he left behind. Doerr's characters are full of grief and longing but also replete with grace. His compassion for human frailty is extraordinarily moving. In luminous prose he writes about the power and beauty of nature and about the tiny miracles that transform our lives. About Grace is heartbreaking, radiant, and astonishingly accomplished.

©2004 Anthony Doerr. All rights reserved. (P)2015 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Narrator: George Newbern
Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for The Swap

The Swap

8 ratings

Summary

"No list of thrillers is complete without Robyn Harding", proclaims Real Simple. Now the USA Today best-selling author of The Party delivers a riveting tale about the toxic relationship between two couples after a night of sexual shenanigans and the manipulative teenager with an explosive secret at the center of it all. Low Morrison is not your average teen. You could blame her hippie parents or her looming height or her dreary, isolated hometown on an island in the Pacific Northwest. But whatever the reason, Low just doesn’t fit in - and neither does Freya, a once-famous social media influencer who now owns the pottery studio in town.  After signing up for a class, Low quickly falls under Freya’s spell. And Freya, buoyed by Low’s adoration, is compelled to share her darkest secrets and deepest desires. Finally, both feel a sense of belonging...that is, until Jamie walks through the studio door. Desperate for a baby, she and her husband have moved to the island hoping that the healthy environment will result in a pregnancy. Freya and Jamie become fast friends, as do their husbands, leaving Low alone once again.  Then one night, after a boozy dinner party, Freya suggests swapping partners. It should have been a harmless fling between consenting adults, one night of debauchery that they would put behind them, but when one of the women becomes pregnant, Low finds the perfect opportunity to unleash her growing resentment.  Robyn Harding brings her acclaimed storytelling, lauded as "fast-paced, thrilling, gut-wrenching" by Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times best-selling author of Daisy Jones and the Six, to this dark and suspenseful thriller for fans of Megan Miranda and Lisa Jewell.

©2020 Robyn Harding. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for QB

QB

7 ratings

Summary

In the most candid and compelling sports memoir since Andre Agassi's riveting bestseller Open, former San Francisco 49er, Super Bowl champion, NFL MVP, and Hall of Famer Steve Young gives listeners an unprecedented and stunning inside look at what it takes to become a super-elite professional quarterback. Steve Young was not expected to become one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. A devout Mormon, he had a perfect GPA in school, studied Latin and calculus, and was blessed with a photographic memory. His mother pleaded that he not play football. But Young was determined to become the next Roger Staubach. QB tells the story of a boy with a gentle demeanor who overcame personal fears and his teammates' and coaches' indifference to reach the pinnacle of America's most violent game. Football was a test and a quest: listed eighth on the depth chart at Brigham Young University, Young was told he'd never play quarterback in college. He went on to endure intense media scrutiny as the highest-paid player in sports history before he ever stepped on the field as a professional. As a 49er, he went head-to-head with the legendary Joe Montana in what became the NFL's greatest quarterback controversy. But Young's biggest hurdles were invisible to the public: the physical pain that comes with being an ordinary-size man in a league of giants; the loneliness of playing sixteen seasons as a bachelor; and an undiagnosed case of separation anxiety that made him dread getting out of bed and caused him to vomit in locker room bathrooms before games. Through sheer grit, Young put on a helmet week after week, season after season, leading his team to a Super Bowl championship, endearing himself to both the city of San Francisco and football fans everywhere.

©2016 J. Steven Young. (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Author: Steve Young
Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for Leading Without Authority

Leading Without Authority

7 ratings

Summary

The number one New York Times best-selling author of Never Eat Alone redefines collaboration with a radical new workplace operating system in which leadership no longer demands an office, an official title, or even a physical workplace. "An actionable methodology for any team to thrive during the decade of exponential change ahead." (Peter H. Diamandis, founder of XPRIZE and Singularity University, best-selling co-author of Abundance, Bold, and The Future Is Faster Than You Think) In times of stress, we have a choice: we can retreat further into our isolated silos, or we can commit to "going higher together". When external pressures are mounting, and employees are working from far-flung locations across the globe, says best-selling author Keith Ferrazzi, we can no longer afford to waste time navigating the complex chains of command or bureaucratic bottlenecks present in most companies. But when we choose the bold new methodology of co-elevation as our operating model, we unlock the potential to boost productivity, deepen commitment and engagement, and create a level of trust, mutual accountability, and purpose that exceeds what could have been accomplished under the status quo. And you don't need any formal authority to do it. You simply have to marshal a commitment to a shared mission and care about the success and development of others as much as you care about your own. Regardless of your title, position, or where or how you work, the ability to lead without authority is an essential workplace competency. Here, Ferrazzi draws on over a decade of research and over 30 years helping CEOs and senior leaders drive innovation and build high-performing teams to show how we can all turn our colleagues and partners into teammates and truly reboot the way we work together. 

©2020 Keith Ferrazzi and Noel Weyrich (P)2020 Random House Audio

Narrator: George Newbern
Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for Moonglow

Moonglow

6 ratings

Summary

Following on the heels of his New York Times best-selling novel Telegraph Avenue, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon delivers another literary masterpiece: a novel of truth and lies, family legends, and existential adventure - and the forces that work to destroy us. In 1989, fresh from the publication of his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon traveled to his mother's home in Oakland, California, to visit his terminally ill grandfather. Tongue loosened by powerful painkillers, memory stirred by the imminence of death, Chabon's grandfather shared recollections and told stories the younger man had never heard before, uncovering bits and pieces of a history long buried and forgotten. That dreamlike week of revelations forms the basis of the novel Moonglow, the latest feat of legerdemain in the ongoing magic act that is the art of Michael Chabon. Moonglow unfolds as the deathbed confession, made to his grandson, of a man the narrator refers to only as "my grandfather". It is a tale of madness, of war and adventure, of sex and desire and ordinary love, of existential doubt and model rocketry, of the shining aspirations and demonic underpinnings of American technological accomplishment at midcentury, and, above all, of the destructive impact - and the creative power - of the keeping of secrets and the telling of lies. A gripping, poignant, tragicomic, scrupulously researched and wholly imaginary transcript of a life that spanned the dark heart of the 20th century, Moonglow is also a tour de force of speculative history in which Chabon attempts to reconstruct the mysterious origins and fate of Chabon Scientific Co., an authentic mail-order novelty company whose ads for scale models of human skeletons, combustion engines, and space rockets were once fixtures in the back pages of Esquire, Popular Mechanics, and Boy's Life. Along the way Chabon devises and reveals, in bits and pieces whose hallucinatory intensity is matched only by their comic vigor and the radiant moonglow of his prose, a secret history of his own imagination. From the Jewish slums of prewar South Philadelphia to the invasion of Germany, from a Florida retirement village to the penal utopia of New York's Wallkill Prison, from the heyday of the space program to the twilight of the American Century, Moonglow collapses an era into a single life and a lifetime into a single week. A lie that tells the truth, a work of fictional nonfiction, an autobiography wrapped in a novel disguised as a memoir, Moonglow is Chabon at his most daring, his most moving, his most Chabonesque.

©2016 Michael Chabon (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers

Narrator: George Newbern
Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for The Dirty Streets of Heaven

The Dirty Streets of Heaven

6 ratings

Summary

Bobby Dollar is an angel - a real one. He knows a lot about sin, and not just in his professional capacity as an advocate for souls caught between Heaven and Hell. Bobby’s wrestling with a few deadly sins of his own - pride, anger, even lust. But his problems aren’t all his fault. Bobby can’t entirely trust his heavenly superiors, and he’s not too sure about any of his fellow earthbound angels either, especially the new kid that Heaven has dropped into their midst, a trainee angel who asks too many questions. And he sure as hell doesn’t trust the achingly gorgeous Countess of Cold Hands, a mysterious she-demon who seems to be the only one willing to tell him the truth. When the souls of the recently departed start disappearing, catching both Heaven and Hell by surprise, things get bad very quickly for Bobby D. End-of-the-world bad. Beast of Revelations bad. Caught between the angry forces of Hell, the dangerous strategies of his own side, and a monstrous undead avenger that wants to rip his head off and suck out his soul, Bobby’s going to need all the friends he can get - in Heaven, on Earth, or anywhere else he can find them. You’ve never met an angel like Bobby Dollar. And you’ve never read anything like The Dirty Streets of Heaven. Brace yourself - the afterlife is weirder than you ever believed.

©2012 Tad Williams (P)2012 Penguin Audiobooks

Narrator: George Newbern
Author: Tad Williams
Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies

Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies

6 ratings

Summary

In the perfect companion piece to his first book, Blake Snyder delivers even more insider information gleaned from a 20-year track record as one of Hollywood's most successful spec screenwriters. Designed for screenwriters, novelists, and movie fans, this book gives listeners key breakdowns of the 50 most instructional movies from the past 30 years. From M*A*S*H to Crash, Alien to Saw, and 10 to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Snyder reveals how screenwriters in the past tackled the same challenges faced by screenwriters today.

©2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Narrator: George Newbern
Author: Blake Snyder
Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for Smaller and Smaller Circles

Smaller and Smaller Circles

6 ratings

Summary

This harrowing mystery, winner of the Philippine National Book Award, follows two Catholic priests on the hunt through Manila for a brutal serial killer. Payatas, a 50-acre dump northeast of Manila's Quezon City, is home to thousands of people who live off of what they can scavenge there. It is one of the poorest neighborhoods in a city whose law enforcement is already stretched thin, devoid of forensic resources, and rife with corruption. So when the eviscerated bodies of preteen boys begin to appear in the dump heaps, there is no one to seek justice on their behalf. In the rainy summer of 1997, two Jesuit priests take the matter of protecting their flock into their own hands. Father Gus Saenz is a respected forensic anthropologist, one of the few in the Philippines, and has been tapped by the director of the National Bureau of Investigations as a backup for police efforts. Together with his protégé, Father Jerome Lucero, a psychologist, Saenz dedicates himself to tracking down the monster preying on these impoverished boys. Smaller and Smaller Circles, widely regarded as the first Filipino crime novel, is a poetic masterpiece of literary noir, a sensitive depiction of a time and place and a fascinating story about the Catholic Church and its place in its devotees' lives.

©2015 F.H. Batacan (P)2015 Recorded Books

Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for Gone South

Gone South

5 ratings

Summary

It was hell's season, and the air smelled of burning children.... With "one of the most arresting first sentences in contemporary writing" (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), Robert McCammon unfurls his visionary masterpiece of survival, redemption, and the astonishing transformations love can create. Gone South chronicles a desperate man's journey through a desperate land, in "a gothic picaresque that mixes gritty plot and black comedy...a smoothly constructed and satisfying story" (The Wall Street Journal). Flooded by memories, poisoned by Agent Orange, Dan Lambert kills a man in a moment of fear and fury - and changes his life forever. Pursued by police and bounty hunters, Dan flees south toward the Louisiana bayous. In the swamplands he meets Arden Halliday, a young woman who bears the vivid burdens of her own past and who is searching for a legendary faith healer called the Bright Girl. Looking for simple kindness in a world that rarely shows it, bound by a loyalty stronger than love, Dan and Arden set off on a journey of relentless suspense and impassioned discovery...over dark, twisting waterways into the mysterious depths of the human heart.

©1991 McCammon Corporation. All rights reserved. (P)2015 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Narrator: George Newbern
Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for The Assassination Complex

The Assassination Complex

5 ratings

Summary

Major revelations about the US government's drone program - best-selling author Jeremy Scahill and his colleagues at the investigative website The Intercept expose stunning new details about America's secret assassination policy. When the US government discusses drone strikes publicly, it offers assurances that such operations are a more precise alternative to troops on the ground and are authorized only when an "imminent" threat is present and there is "near certainty" that the intended target will be killed. The implicit message on drone strikes from the Obama administration has been trust, but don't verify. The online magazine The Intercept exploded this secrecy when it obtained a cache of secret slides that provide a window into the inner workings of the US military's kill/capture operations in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Whether through the use of drones, night raids, or new platforms yet to be employed, these documents show assassination to be central to US counterterrorism policy. The classified documents reveal that Washington's 14-year targeted killing campaign suffers from an overreliance on flawed signals intelligence, an apparently incalculable civilian toll, and an inability to extract potentially valuable intelligence from terror suspects. This campaign, carried out by two presidents through four presidential terms, has been deliberately obscured from the public and insulated from democratic debate. The Assassination Complex allows us to understand at last the circumstances under which the US government grants itself the right to sentence individuals to death without the established checks and balances of arrest, trial, and appeal. The book includes original contributions from Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2016 First Look Media Works, Inc. (P)2016 Simon & Schuster

Available on Audible
Cover art for The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

5 ratings

Summary

A heartfelt, and riveting biography of the short life of a talented young African-American man who escapes the slums of Newark for Yale University only to succumb to the dangers of the streets - and of one's own nature - when he returns home. When author Jeff Hobbs arrived at Yale University, he became fast friends with the man who would be his college roommate for four years, Robert Peace. Robert's life was rough from the beginning in the crime-ridden streets of Newark in the 1980s, with his father in jail and his mother earning less than $15,000 a year. But Robert was a brilliant student, and it was supposed to get easier when he was accepted to Yale, where he studied molecular biochemistry and biophysics. But it didn't get easier. Robert carried with him the difficult dual nature of his existence, "fronting" in Yale, and at home. Through an honest rendering of Robert's relationships - with his struggling mother, with his incarcerated father, with his teachers and friends and fellow drug dealers - The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace encompasses the most enduring conflicts in America: race, class, drugs, community, imprisonment, education, family, friendship, and love. It's about the collision of two fiercely insular worlds - the ivy-covered campus of Yale University and Newark, New Jersey, and the difficulty of going from one to the other and then back again. It's about poverty, the challenges of single motherhood, and the struggle to find male role models in a community where a man is more likely to go to prison than to college. It's about reaching one's greatest potential and taking responsibility for your family no matter the cost. It's about trying to live a decent life in America. But most all the story is about the tragic life of one singular brilliant young man. His end, a violent one, is heartbreaking and powerful and unforgettable.

©2014 Simon & Schuster Audio (P)2014 Jeff Hobbs

Narrator: George Newbern
Author: Jeff Hobbs
Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for Patient H.M.

Patient H.M.

5 ratings

Summary

“Oliver Sacks meets Stephen King”* in this propulsive, haunting journey into the life of the most studied human research subject of all time, the amnesic known as Patient H.M. For listeners of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks comes a story that has much to teach us about our relentless pursuit of knowledge. Winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner Named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post , New York Post, NPR, The Economist, New York, Wired, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage In 1953, a 27-year-old factory worker named Henry Molaison - who suffered from severe epilepsy - received a radical new version of the then-common lobotomy, targeting the most mysterious structures in the brain. The operation failed to eliminate Henry’s seizures, but it did have an unintended effect: Henry was left profoundly amnesic, unable to create long-term memories. Over the next 60 years, Patient H.M., as Henry was known, became the most studied individual in the history of neuroscience, a human guinea pig who would teach us much of what we know about memory today.  Patient H.M. is, at times, a deeply personal journey. Dittrich’s grandfather was the brilliant, morally complex surgeon who operated on Molaison - and thousands of other patients. The author’s investigation into the dark roots of modern memory science ultimately forces him to confront unsettling secrets in his own family history and to reveal the tragedy that fueled his grandfather’s relentless experimentation - experimentation that would revolutionize our understanding of ourselves.  Dittrich uses the case of Patient H.M. as a starting point for a kaleidoscopic journey, one that moves from the first recorded brain surgeries in ancient Egypt to the cutting-edge laboratories of MIT. He takes listeners inside the old asylums and operating theaters where psychosurgeons, as they called themselves, conducted their human experiments, and behind the scenes of a bitter custody battle over the ownership of the most important brain in the world. Patient H.M. combines the best of biography, memoir, and science journalism to create a haunting, endlessly fascinating story, one that reveals the wondrous and devastating things that can happen when hubris, ambition, and human imperfection collide. “An exciting, artful blend of family and medical history.” (The New York Times) * Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

©2016 Luke Dittrich (P)2016 Random House Audio

Narrator: George Newbern
Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for Things That Matter

Things That Matter

5 ratings

Summary

From America’s preeminent columnist, named by the Financial Times the most influential commentator in the nation, a must-have collection of Charles Krauthammer’s essential, timeless writings.  A brilliant stylist known for an uncompromising honesty that challenged conventional wisdom at every turn, Krauthammer dazzled readers for decades with his keen insight into politics and government. His weekly column was a must-read in Washington and across the country. Don’t miss the best of Krauthammer’s intelligence, erudition, and wit collected in one volume.  Listeners will find here not only the country’s leading conservative thinker offering a pas­sionate defense of limited government, but also a highly independent mind whose views - on feminism, evolution and the death penalty, for example - defy ideological convention. Things That Matter also features several of Krautham­mer’s major path-breaking essays - on bioeth­ics, on Jewish destiny and on America’s role as the world’s superpower - that have pro­foundly influenced the nation’s thoughts and policies. And finally, the collection presents a trove of always penetrating, often bemused reflections on everything from border collies to Halley’s Comet, from Woody Allen to Win­ston Churchill, from the punishing pleasures of speed chess to the elegance of the perfectly thrown outfield assist. With a special, highly autobiographical introduction, in which Krauthammer reflects on the events that shaped his career and political philosophy, this indispensable chronicle takes the listener on a fascinating journey through the fashions and follies, the tragedies and triumphs, of the last three decades of American life.

©2013 Charles Krauthammer (P)2013 Random House Audio

Available on Audible
Cover art for Impossible Odds

Impossible Odds

5 ratings

Summary

A harrowing and heart-wrenching memoir of humanitarian aid worker Jessica Buchanan's kidnapping by Somali land pirates, her three months in captivity, her rescue by the Navy SEALs, and her husband's extraordinary efforts to help bring her home. In 2006, 27-year-old Jessica Buchanan arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, with a teaching degree and long-held dreams of helping to educate African children. By 2009, she had met and married the man of her dreams, a native Swede named Erik Landemalm, who worked to coordinate humanitarian aid with local authorities in Africa. With dreams of starting a family, they moved from Nairobi to Somalia, and their future couldn't have seemed brighter.... But on October 25, 2011, Jessica and a male colleague were kidnapped at gunpoint and held for ransom by an organized band of Somali land pirates. For the next three months, Jessica was terrorized by more than two dozen gangsters. She was held outdoors in filthy conditions and kept on a starvation diet while her health steadily deteriorated. Negotiations for ransom dragged on, and as the ordeal stretched into its third month, the captors grew increasingly impatient. Every terrifying moment Jessica spent suffering in captivity was matched by that of her adoring husband working behind the scenes to deal with her captors. Finally, on January 25, 2012, President Barack Obama ordered a rescue operation by a team of 24 Navy SEALs. The team killed all nine kidnappers, with no harm to the hostages, who were quickly airlifted out on a military rescue helicopter. In riveting detail, Impossible Odds details Jessica and Erik's mutual journey during those torturous months. Together they relate the events prior to the kidnapping, the drama of Jessica's fight to stay alive, and Erik's efforts to bolster and support the hunt for her while he acted as liaison between their two families, the FBI, professional hostage negotiators, and the United States government.

©2013 Jessica Buchanan and Erik Landemalm (P)2013 Simon & Schuster

Available on Audible
Cover art for The Assassination of Fred Hampton

The Assassination of Fred Hampton

5 ratings

Summary

Uncovering a cold-blooded execution at the hands of a conspiring police force, this engaging account relentlessly pursues the murderers of Black Panther Fred Hampton. Documenting the entire 14-year process of bringing the killers to justice, this chronicle also depicts the 18-month court trial in detail. Revealing Hampton himself in a new light, this examination presents him as a dynamic community leader whose dedication to his people and to the truth inspired the young lawyers of the People's Law Office, solidifying their lifelong commitment to fighting corruption. Contending with FBI stonewalling and unlimited government resources bent on hiding a darker plot, this reconstruction relates an inspiring narrative of upholding morality in one man’s memory.

©2011 Jeffrey Haas (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Narrator: George Newbern
Author: Jeffrey Haas
Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
Available on Audible
Cover art for Goodnight Beautiful

Goodnight Beautiful

5 ratings

Summary

Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award From "master of clever misdirection" (Kirkus Reviews) Aimee Molloy, author of the New York Times best seller The Perfect Mother, comes an irresistible psychological thriller featuring a newly married woman whose life is turned upside-down when her husband goes missing. Newlyweds Sam Statler and Annie Potter are head over heels, and excited to say goodbye to New York city and start a life together in Sam's sleepy hometown upstate. Or, it turns out, a life where Annie spends most of her time alone while Sam, her therapist husband, works long hours in his downstairs office, tending to the egos of his (mostly female) clientele.  Little does Sam know that through a vent in his ceiling, every word of his sessions can be heard from the room upstairs. The pharmacist's wife, contemplating a divorce. The well-known painter whose boyfriend doesn’t satisfy her in bed. Who could resist listening? Everything is fine until the French girl in the green mini Cooper shows up, and Sam decides to go to work and not come home, throwing a wrench into Sam and Annie's happily ever after.  Showcasing Molloy’s deft ability to subvert norms and culminating in the kind of stunning twist that is becoming her trademark, Goodnight Beautiful is a thrilling tale of domestic suspense that not only questions assumptions but defies expectations.

©2020 Aimee Molloy (P)2020 HarperAudio

Author: Aimee Molloy
Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
Available on Audible