Joe Barrett has narrated 272 audiobooks on Listento.it by 269 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 2,223 ratings. The most-rated is Melania and Me.
Morning Star, Midnight Sun
Summary
Following the disastrous Java Sea campaign, the Allies went on the offensive in the Pacific in a desperate attempt to halt the Japanese forces that were rampaging across the region. With the conquest of Australia a very real possibility, the stakes were high. Their target: the Japanese-held Soloman Islands, in particular the southern island of Guadalcanal. Hamstrung by arcane pre-war thinking and a bureaucratic mind-set, the US Navy had to adapt on the fly in order to compete with the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy, whose ingenuity and creativity thus far had fostered the creation of its Pacific empire. Starting with the amphibious assault on Savo Island, the campaign turned into an attritional struggle where the evenly matched foes sought to grind out a victory. Following on from his hugely successful book Rising Sun, Falling Skies, Jeffrey R. Cox tells the gripping story of the first Allied offensive of the Pacific War, as they sought to prevent Japan from cutting off Australia and regaining dominance in the Pacific.
©2018 Jeffrey R. Cox (P)2018 Tantor
Still Time
Summary
From the author of Into the Forest, a moving novel about memory, Shakespeare's green worlds, and the power of reconciliation. Until John Wilson met the warm, wise woman who became his fourth wife, the object of his most intense devotion had always been the work of William Shakespeare. From his feat of memorizing Romeo and Juliet and half a dozen other plays as a student to his evangelical zeal as a professor, John's faith in the Bard has shaped his life. But now his mental powers have been diminished by dementia, and his wife has reluctantly moved him to a residential care facility. Even there, as he struggles to understand what's going on around him, John's knowledge of the plays helps him make sense of his fractured world. Yet when his only child, Miranda - with whom he has not spoken since a devastating misunderstanding a decade ago - comes to visit, John begins to question some of his deepest convictions. In his devotion to Shakespeare, did he lose his way? Did he wrong the child who wronged him? The story of an imperfect father and a wounded daughter's efforts to achieve some authentic connection even now, Still Time celebrates redemption and the gift of second chances. It is that rare novel that ends on a resounding note of hope, reminding us that there is always time to live fully and love deeply, so long as we are alive.
©2015 Jean Hegland (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
Japan's Infamous Unit 731
Summary
This is a riveting and disturbing account of the medical atrocities performed in China during WWII. Some of the cruelest deeds of Japan's war in Asia did not occur on the battlefield, but in quiet, antiseptic medical wards in obscure parts of China. Far from front lines and prying eyes, Japanese doctors and their assistants subjected human guinea pigs to gruesome medical experiments in the name of science and Japan's wartime chemical and biological warfare research. Author Hal Gold draws upon a wealth of sources to construct a portrait of the Imperial Japanese Army's most notorious medical unit, giving an overview of its history and detailing its most shocking activities. The book presents the words of former unit members themselves, taken from remarks they made at a traveling Unit 731 exhibition held in Japan in 1994-95. They recount vivid first-hand memories of what it was like to take part in horrific experiments on men, women, and children, their motivations and reasons why they chose to speak about their actions all these years later. By showing how the ethics of normal men and women, and even an entire profession, can be warped by the fire of war, this important book offers a window on a time of human madness and the hope that history will not be repeated.
©2019 Hal Gold (P)2020 Tantor
The Saddest Words
Summary
"How do we read William Faulkner in the 21st century?" asks Michael Gorra, one of America's most preeminent literary critics. Should we still read William Faulkner in this new century? What can his works tell us about the legacy of slavery and the Civil War, that central quarrel in our nation's history? These are the provocative questions that Michael Gorra asks in this historic portrait of the novelist and his world. Born in 1897 in Mississippi, Faulkner wrote such iconic novels as Absalom, Absalom! and The Sound and the Fury, creating in Yoknapatawpha County the richest gallery of characters in American fiction, his achievements culminating in the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. But given his works' echo of "Lost Cause" romanticism, his depiction of Black characters and Black speech, and his rendering of race relations in a largely unreconstructed South, Faulkner demands a sobering reevaluation. Interweaving biography, absorbing literary criticism, and rich travelogue, The Saddest Words recontextualizes Faulkner, revealing a civil war within him, while examining the most plangent cultural issues facing American literature today.
©2020 Michael Gorra (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
366 Days in Abraham Lincoln's Presidency
Summary
For the first time ever, the intimate thoughts and political decisions of Abraham Lincoln’s entire presidency - day by day. In a startlingly innovative format, journalist Stephen A. Wynalda has constructed a painstakingly detailed day-by-day breakdown of president Abraham Lincoln’s decisions in office - including his signing of the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862; his signing of the legislation enacting the first federal income tax on August 5, 1861; and more personal incidents like the day his 11-year-old son, Willie, died. Revealed are Lincoln’s private frustrations on September 28, 1862, as he wrote to vice president Hannibal Hamlin, “The North responds to the [Emancipation] proclamation sufficiently with breath; but breath alone kills no rebels.” 366 Days in Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency includes fascinating facts like how Lincoln hated to hunt but loved to fire guns near the unfinished Washington monument, how he was the only president to own a patent, and how he recited Scottish poetry to relieve stress. As Scottish historian Hugh Blair said, “It is from private life, from familiar, domestic, and seemingly trivial occurrences, that we most often receive light into the real character.” Covering 366 nonconsecutive days (including a leap day) of Lincoln’s presidency, this is a rich, exciting new perspective of our most famous president. This is a must-have edition for any historian, military history or civil war buff, or listener of biographies.
©2010 Stephen A. Wynalda (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
Fatal Risk
Summary
Long-listed for the FT & Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2011. The true story of how risk destroys, as told through the ongoing saga of AIG From the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the subject of the financial crisis has been well covered. However, the story central to the crisis - that of AIG - has until now remained largely untold. Fatal Risk: A Cautionary Tale of AIG's Corporate Suicide tells the inside story of what really went on inside AIG that caused it to choke on risk and nearly bring down the entire economic system. The book: Reveals inside information available nowhere else, including the personal notes and records of key players such as the former Chairman of AIG, Hank Greenberg Takes listeners behind the scenes at the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Details how an understanding of risk built AIG, but a disdain for government regulators led to a run-in with New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer Fatal Risk is the comprehensive and compelling true story of the company at the center of the financial storm and how it nearly caused the entire economic system to collapse.
©2011 Roderick Boyd (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
Timbuktu
Summary
Meet Mr. Bones, the canine hero of Paul Auster's remarkable novel, Timbuktu. Mr. Bones is the sidekick and confidant of Willy G. Christmas, the brilliant, troubled, and altogether original poet-saint from Brooklyn. Like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza before them, they sally forth on a last great adventure, heading for Baltimore, Maryland, in search of Willy's high school teacher, Bea Swanson. Years have passed since Willy last saw his beloved mentor, who knew him in his previous incarnation as William Gurevitch, the son of Polish war refugees. But is Mrs. Swanson still alive? And if she isn't, what will prevent Willy from vanishing into that other world known as Timbuktu? Mr. Bones is our witness. Although he walks on four legs and cannot speak, he can think, and out of his thoughts Auster has spun one of the richest, most compelling tales in recent American fiction. By turns comic, poignant, and tragic, Timbuktu is above all a love story. Written with a scintillating verbal energy, it takes us into the heart of a singularly pure and passionate character, an unforgettable dog who has much to teach us about our own humanity. As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of Paul Auster's book, you'll also get an exclusive Jim Atlas interview that begins when the audiobook ends.
©2000 Paul Auster (P)2009 Audible, Inc.
I'm Staying with My Boys
Summary
I'm Staying with My Boys is a firsthand look inside the life of one of the greatest heroes of the Greatest Generation. Sgt. John Basilone held off 3000 Japanese troops at Guadalcanal after his 15-member unit was reduced to three men. At Iwo Jima he single-handedly destroyed an enemy blockhouse, allowing his unit to capture an airfield. Minutes later he was killed by an enemy artillery round. He was the only Marine in World War II to have received the Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross, and a Purple Heart and is arguably the most famous Marine of all time. I'm Staying with My Boys is the only family-authorized biography of Basilone. Distinctive among military biographies, the story is told in first person, allowing listeners to experience his transformation, forged in the horrors of battle, from aimless youth to war hero known as "Manila John".
©2010 Jim Proser with Jerry Cutter (P)2017 Tantor
Dark Screams, Volume Five
Summary
"Everything You've Always Wanted" by Mick Garris: It was supposed to be the night of his life - a celebration of his one hit slasher flick. But the price of admission is higher than this has-been filmmaker ever could have imagined. "The Land of Sunshine" by Kealan Patrick Burke: Although she was mute long before the affair that nearly wrecked their marriage, her silence has tortured her husband ever since. Now he will seek out what he has lost or be driven mad by remorse. "Mechanical Gratitude" by Del James: Arnold loves his '68 Camaro almost as much as he loves his wife, and he's willing to do anything to protect them both, especially after hearing strange noises coming from his garage. "The One and Only" by J. Kenner: When he was seven, Will Underwood's nanny told him she had the Sight. Years later, a broken heart sends him to New Orleans, but it's fate that leads him to Madame Darkling's Voodoo Emporium. "The Playhouse" by Bentley Little: A real-estate agent is drawn into a children's playhouse behind an abandoned property she's trying to sell and finds herself strangely reluctant to leave.
©2015 Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar (P)2015 Tantor
Immer wieder Sascha. Kurzgeschichten - Niveau: leicht
Summary
Sascha hat einen schlechten Tag. Zuerst gibt es Probleme in der Arbeit. Dann macht seine Freundin mit ihm Schluss. Warum? Weil er einen komischen Familiennamen hat: Frauenschuh! Mit diesem hässlichen Namen kann er kein schönes Leben haben, findet Sascha. In der Nacht trifft er einen Teenager mit neongrünen Joggingschuhen vor seinem Haus. Aber wer ist dieser Yannik? Warum will er Sascha helfen? Und wie? Plötzlich beginnt es zu regnen und zu donnern. Im nächsten Moment ist Sascha in dem Körper von einem anderen Mann. Auch dieser Mann heißt Sascha Frauenschuh. Ist das alles nur ein Traum? Vielleicht nicht, denn Sascha springt wieder, von einem Sascha Frauenschuh in den nächsten und immer weiter...
©2018 Angelika Bohn (P)2019 Angelika Bohn
Late to the Ball
Summary
Being a man or a woman in your early 60s is different than it was a generation or two ago, at least for the more fortunate of us. We aren't old...yet. But we sense it coming: Careers are winding down, kids are gone, parents are dying (friends, too), and our bodies are no longer youthful or even middle-aged. Learning to play tennis in your 50s is no small feat, but becoming a serious, competitive tennis player at the age of 60 is a whole other matter. It requires training the body to defy age and to methodically build one's game - the strokework, footwork, strategy, and mental toughness. Gerald Marzorati started playing the game seriously in his mid-50s. He had the strong desire to lead an examined physical life, to push his body into the "encore" of middle age. In Late to the Ball, Marzorati writes vividly about the difficulties, frustrations, and triumphs of his becoming a seriously good tennis player. He takes on his quest with complete vigor and absolute determination to see it through, providing a rich, vicarious experience involving the science of aging, his existential battle with time, and the beautiful, mysterious game of tennis.
©2016 Gerald Marzorati (P)2016 Tantor
Kennesaw Mountain
Summary
While fighting his way toward Atlanta, William T. Sherman encountered his biggest roadblock at Kennesaw Mountain, where Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Tennessee held a heavily fortified position. The opposing armies confronted each other from June 19 to July 3, 1864, and Sherman initially tried to outflank the Confederates. His men endured heavy rains, artillery duels, sniping, and a fierce battle at Kolb’s Farm before Sherman decided to attack Johnston’s position directly on June 27. Kennesaw Mountain tells the story of an important phase of the Atlanta campaign. Historian Earl J. Hess explains how this battle, with its combination of maneuver and combat, severely tried the patience and endurance of the common soldier and why Johnston’s strategy might have been the Confederates’ best chance to halt the federal drive toward Atlanta. He gives special attention to the engagement at Kolb’s Farm on June 22 and Sherman’s assault on June 27. A final section explores the Confederate earthworks preserved within the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2013 Earl J. Hess (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.