John Allen Nelson has narrated 19 audiobooks on Listento.it by 22 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.2★ across 211 ratings. The most-rated is Captivated & Entranced.
Captivated & Entranced
Summary
Only the phenomenal Nora Roberts could have created the remarkable Donovan clan. Fascinating and irresistible, the mysterious Donovan cousins share a secret that's been handed down through generations - a secret that sets them apart from ordinary beings. CaptivatedHis interest in her was purely professional...or so he told himself. Nash Kirkland had sought out Morgana Donovan, self-proclaimed witch, to help him research his latest screenplay. The hardheaded skeptic didn't believe for a minute she was what she professed to be, but Nash somehow found himself falling under her bewitching spell. Nash had never trusted his feelings. How could he be sure the irresistible passion he felt was real and not just some conjurer's trick? EntrancedObviously Sebastian Donovan was a fraud, but fiercely protective Mary Ellen Sutherland was desperate to find a missing baby and had run out of leads. So, reluctantly, the skeptical private investigator agreed to enlist Sebastian's help. Soon she had to admit - grudgingly - that this man had some pretty remarkable gifts. Especially his extraordinary ability to penetrate her tough facade and awaken her heart.
©2008 Nora Roberts (P)2008 Audible, Inc.
Fear Is Just a Four-Letter Word
Summary
Instant Wall Street Journal best seller! From the first female real estate broker on Million Dollar Listing LA, a no-nonsense guide to analyzing big egos, deflecting power plays, and taking control of any room. Behind Tracy Tutor's on-screen persona is an uncanny knack for projecting confidence in the most intimidating of circumstances. The breezy, tough-talking, utterly inimitable businesswoman has rivaled her male costars to land increasingly high-profile deals in the world of LA real estate. Now, Tracy is leveraging her years of experience to write the go-to manual for any woman struggling to convince people she's in charge. If you get thrown off course by narcissistic personalities or freaked out by high-stakes situations, don't assume you're weak. When fear is running the show, you get wrapped up in your head and start missing important cues. Yes, the people you're dealing with seem scary, but they're more predictable than you think. Once you understand them, it's easy to push the right levers of influence to get what you want. Through candid, hilarious stories of her rise through a world of misogyny and cutthroat business dealings (text message exchanges with creeps included!), Tracy offers a crash course in the psychology of power dynamics and social signaling. You'll learn: What five things you should always find out about someone before you meet them How to choose the perfect outfit for an important meeting, even when dressing on a budget When and how to use humor strategically to lighten the mood and command authority This audiobook is a must-listen for any ambitious woman who wants to win her next business confrontation before she even walks into the room.
©2020 Tracy Tutor (P)2020 Penguin Audio
History Is Wrong
Summary
Erich von Däniken again shows his flair for revealing truths that his contemporaries have missed. After closely analyzing hundreds of ancient and apparently unrelated texts, he is now ready to proclaim that human history is nothing like the world religions claim---and he has the proof! In History Is Wrong, von Däniken takes a closer look at the fascinating Voynich manuscript, which has defied all attempts at decription since its discovery, and makes some intriguing revelations about the equally incredible book of Enoch. Von Däniken also unearths the astounding story of a lost subterranean labyrinth in Ecuador said to be home to an extensive library of thousands of gold panels. He supplies evidence that the metal library has links not only to the Book of Enoch but also to the Mormons, who have spent decades searching for it, believing it to contain the history of their forefathers. And what about the mysterious lines in the desert of Nazca that resemble landing strips when viewed from the air? Archeologists claim they are ancient procession routes. "Think again!" cries von Däniken, as he reveals the data that the archeologists never even thought to check. History Is Wrong will challenge your intellect---and maybe a few long-held beliefs, too.
©2009 Erich von Daniken (P)2011 Tantor
Rules for Radical Conservatives
Summary
The vast right wing conspiracy has found its General Patton, and his name is David Kahane. Kahane's pseudonymous, satiric column for National Review Online, lampooning the Left via his Hollywood-radical persona - Stephen Colbert's liberal doppelganger - is must-listening for political aficionados of all stripes. Now, from the inside, Kahane proudly exposes the secret and not-so-secret winning strategies (and vulnerabilities) of the Left and gives desperate conservatives a roadmap to victory, in a take-no-prisoners manual modeled after Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, Machiavelli's Prince, and, of course, the Chicago Way.
©2010 David Kahane (P)2010 Tantor
Little Bets
Summary
What do Apple CEO Steve Jobs, comedian Chris Rock, prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, the story developers at Pixar films, and the Army Chief of Strategic Plans all have in common? Best-selling author Peter Sims found that all of them have achieved breakthrough results by methodically taking small, experimental steps in order to discover and develop new ideas. Rather than believing they have to start with a big idea or plan a whole project out in advance, trying to foresee the final outcome, they make a series of little bets about what might be a good direction, learning from lots of little failures and from small but highly significant wins that allow them to happen upon unexpected avenues and arrive at extraordinary outcomes. Based on deep and extensive research, including more than 200 interviews with leading innovators, Sims discovered that productive, creative thinkers and doers---from Ludwig van Beethoven to Thomas Edison and Amazon's Jeff Bezos---practice a key set of simple but ingenious experimental methods, such as failing quickly to learn fast, tapping into the genius of play, and engaging in highly immersed observation, that free their minds, opening them up to making unexpected connections and perceiving invaluable insights. These methods also unshackle them from the constraints of overly analytical thinking and linear problem solving that our education places so much emphasis on, as well as from the fear of failure, all of which thwart so many of us in trying to be more innovative.
©2011 Peter Sims (P)2011 Tantor
This Will Make You Smarter
Summary
What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to the world's most influential thinkers. Their visionary answers flow from the frontiers of psychology, philosophy, economics, physics, sociology, and more. Surprising and enlightening, these insights will revolutionize the way you think about yourself and the world. This Will Make You Smarter features Daniel Kahneman on the “focusing illusion”; Jonah Lehrer on controlling attention; Richard Dawkins on experimentation; Aubrey De Grey on conquering our fear of the unknown; Martin Seligman on the ingredients of well-being; Nicholas Carr on managing “cognitive load”; Steven Pinker on win-win negotiating; Daniel C. Dennett on benefiting from cycles; Jaron Lanier on resisting delusion; Frank Wilczek on the brain's hidden layers; Clay Shirky on the “80/20 rule”; Daniel Goleman on understanding our connection to the natural world; V. S. Ramachandran on paradigm shifts; Matt Ridley on tapping collective intelligence; John McWhorter on path dependence; Lisa Randall on effective theorizing; Brian Eno on “ecological vision”; Richard Thaler on rooting out false concepts; J. Craig Venter on the multiple possible origins of life; Helen Fisher on temperament; Sam Harris on the flow of thought; and Lawrence Krauss on living with uncertainty.
©2012 Edge Foundation, Incorporated (P)2013 Tantor
Zoo Story
Summary
Welcome to the savage and surprising world of Zoo Story, an unprecedented account of the secret life of a zoo and its inhabitants, both animal and human. Based on six years of research, the book follows a handful of unforgettable characters at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo: an alpha chimp with a weakness for blondes, a ferocious tiger who revels in Obsession perfume, and a brilliant but tyrannical CEO known as El Diablo Blanco. Zoo Story crackles with issues of global urgency: the shadow of extinction, humanity's role in the destruction or survival of other species. More than anything else, though, it's a dramatic and moving true story of seduction and betrayal, exile and loss, and the limits of freedom on an overcrowded planet - all framed inside one zoo reinventing itself for the 21st century. Thomas French, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, chronicles the action with vivid power: Wild elephants soaring above the Atlantic on their way to captivity. Predators circling each other in a lethal mating dance. Primates plotting the overthrow of their king. The sweeping narrative takes the listener from the African savannah to the forests of Panama and deep into the inner workings of a place some describe as a sanctuary and others condemn as a prison. All of it comes to life in the book's four-legged characters. Zoo Story shows us how these remarkable individuals live, how some die, and what their experiences reveal about the human desire to both exalt and control nature.
©2010 Thomas French (P)2010 Tantor
Hitler's War
Summary
A stroke of the pen and history is changed. In 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, determined to avoid war at any cost, signed the Munich Accord, ceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. But the following spring, Hitler snatched the rest of that country and pushed beyond its borders. World War II had begun, and England, after a fatal act of appeasement, was fighting a war for which it was not prepared. Now, in this thrilling, provocative, and fascinating alternate history by Harry Turtledove, another scenario is played out: What if Chamberlain had not signed the accord? What if Hitler had acted rashly, before his army was ready - would such impatience have helped him or doomed him faster? Here is an action-packed, blow-by-blow chronicle of the war that might have been - and the repercussions that might have echoed through history - had Hitler reached too far, too soon, and too fast. Turtledove uses dozens of points of view to tell this story: from American marines serving in Japanese-occupied China to members of a Jewish German family with a proud history of war service to their nation, from ragtag volunteers fighting in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain to an American woman desperately trying to escape Nazi-occupied territory - and witnessing the war from within the belly of the beast. A novel that reveals the human face of war while simultaneously riding the twists and turns that make up the great acts of history, Hitler's War is the beginning of an exciting new alternate history saga. Here is a tale of powerful leaders and ordinary people, of spies, soldiers, and traitors, of the shifting alliances that draw some together while tearing others apart. At once authoritative, brilliantly imaginative, and hugely entertaining, Hitler's War captures the beginning of a very different World War II - with a very different fate for our world today.
©2009 Harry Turtledove (P)2009 Tantor
Days of Infamy: A Novel of Alternate History
Summary
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched an attack against U.S. naval forces stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. But what if the Japanese followed up their air assault with an invasion and occupation of Hawaii? This is the question explored by Harry Turtledove in Days of Infamy, with frightening implications. With American military forces subjugated and civilians living in fear of their conquerors, there is no one to stop the Japanese from using the islands' resources to launch an offensive against America's western coast.
©2009 Harry Turtledove (P)2010 Tantor
The Lineup
Summary
A great recurring character in a series you love becomes an old friend. You learn about their strange quirks and their haunted pasts and root for them every time they face danger. But where do some of the most fascinating sleuths in the mystery and thriller world really come from? What was the real-life location that inspired Michael Connelly to make Harry Bosch a Vietnam vet tunnel rat? Why is Lee Child's Jack Reacher a drifter? How did a brief encounter in Botswana inspire Alexander McCall Smith to create Precious Ramotswe? In The Lineup, some of the top mystery writers in the world tell about the genesis of their most beloved characters - or, in some cases, let their creations do the talking.
©2009 Otto Penzler (P)2010 Tantor
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Summary
Nearly a decade after Spain's conquest of Mexico, the future of Christianity on the American continent was very much in doubt. Confronted with a hostile colonial government and Native Americans wary of conversion, the newly appointed bishop-elect of Mexico wrote to tell the King of Spain that, unless there was a miracle, the continent would be lost. Between December 9 and December 12, 1531, that miracle happened, and it forever changed the future of the continent. It was then that the Virgin Mary famously appeared to a Native American Christian convert on a hilltop outside of what is now Mexico City. The image she left imprinted on his cloak, or tilma, has puzzled scientists for centuries, and yet Our Lady of Guadalupe's place in history is profound. A continent that just months before the apparitions seemed completely lost to Christianity suddenly and inexplicably embraced it by the millions. Our Lady of Guadalupe's message of love replaced the institutionalized violence of the Aztec culture and built a bridge between two worlds - the old and the new - that were just 10 years earlier engaged in brutal warfare. Today, Our Lady of Guadalupe continues to inspire the devotion of millions. From Canada to Argentina - and even beyond the Americas - one finds great devotion to her and great appreciation for her message of love, unity, and hope. Today reproductions of the Virgin's miraculous image can be seen throughout North and South America, in churches and homes, on billboards, and even on clothing. Her shrine in Mexico City, where the miraculous image is housed to this day, is one of the most visited in the world. In Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love, Carl Anderson and Eduardo Chavez trace the history of Our Lady of Guadalupe from the 16th century to the present and discuss how her message was and continues to be an important catalyst for religious and cultural transformation.
©2009 Carl A. Anderson (P)2009 Tantor
End of the Beginning
Summary
Six weeks ago, Imperial Japanese military forces conquered and occupied the Hawaiian Islands. A puppet king sits on Hawaii's throne, his strings controlled by the general of the invasion force. American POWs, malnourished and weak, are enslaved as hard laborers until death takes them. Civilians fare little better, struggling to survive on dwindling resources. And families of Japanese origin find their loyalties divided. Meanwhile, across the United States, from Pensacola, Florida, to San Diego, the military is marshaling its forces. Steel factories and fuel refineries are operating around the clock. New recruits are enlisting and undergoing rigorous training exercises - all for the opportunity to strike back and drive the enemy from American soil.
©2009 Harry Turtledove (P)2010 Tantor
Fort Pillow
Summary
In April 1864, the Union garrison at Fort Pillow was composed of almost 600 troops, about half of them black. The Confederacy, incensed by what it saw as a crime against nature, sent its fiercest cavalry commander, Nathan Bedford Forrest, to attack the fort with about 1,500 men. The Confederates overran the fort and drove the Federals into a deadly crossfire. Only 62 of the colored Union troops survived the fight unwounded. Many accused the Confederates of massacring the black troops after the fort fell, when fighting should have ceased. The "Fort Pillow Massacre" became a Union rallying cry and cemented resolve to see the war through to its conclusion. Harry Turtledove has written a dramatic re-creation of an astounding battle, telling a bloody story of courage and hope, freedom and hatred. With brilliant characterizations of all the main figures, this is a novel that reminds us that Fort Pillow was more than a battle---it was a clash of ideas between men fighting to define what being an American ought to mean.
©2006 Hatty Turtledove (P)2009 Tantor
The Beast of Blackslope
Summary
Xena and Xander have been looking forward to their vacation in the peaceful country village of Blackslope. But when a huge monster begins to terrorize the town, the young detectives are faced with a mystery that seems impossible to solve. Sherlock Holmes, Xena's and Xander's famous ancestor, investigated the case of a horrible beast in Blackslope, but that was nearly a hundred years ago. It couldnt be the same creature after all this time...could it?
©2009 Tracy Barrett (P)2010 Listening Library
The Case that Time Forgot
Summary
Xander’s classmate gives a report at school about a famous amulet of the Egyptian god of time, Thoth. It was thought to be so powerful that it could turn back time one day every hundred years. And that day will come in a week! The amulet disappeared from a museum in London years ago. Xena and Xander’s celebrated ancestor, Sherlock Holmes, tried to find it, but with no luck. The twins are on the case—but so are some mysterious foes who are trying to thwart and perhaps even harm them! Can Xander and Xena track down what Sherlock Holmes could not?
©2010 Tracy Barrett (P)2010 Listening Library
In League with Sherlock Holmes
Summary
The latest entry in Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger’s popular Sherlock Holmes-inspired mystery series Sherlock Holmes has not only captivated readers for more than a century and a quarter, he has fascinated writers as well. It is little wonder, then, that when the renowned Sherlockians Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger invited their writer-friends and colleagues to be inspired by the Holmes canon, a cornucopia of stories sprang forth, with more than 60 of the greatest modern writers participating in four acclaimed anthologies. Now, King and Klinger have invited another 15 masters to become In League with Sherlock Holmes. The contributors to this volume include award-winning authors of horror, thrillers, mysteries, westerns, and science fiction, all bound together in admiration and affection for the original stories. The resulting stories are funny, haunting, thrilling, and surprising. All are unforgettable.
©2020 Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
Winner-Take-All Politics
Summary
We all know that the very rich have gotten a lot richer these past few decades while most Americans haven't. In fact, the exorbitantly paid have continued to thrive during the current economic crisis, even as the rest of Americans have fallen behind. Why do the "have-it-alls" have so much more? Lots of so-called experts claim to have solved this great mystery, but no one has really gotten to the bottom of it---until now. In their lively and provocative Winner-Take-All Politics, renowned political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson demonstrate that the usual suspects---foreign trade and financial globalization, technological changes in the workplace, increased education at the top---are largely innocent of the charges against them. Instead, they indict an unlikely suspect and take us on an entertaining tour of the mountain of evidence against the culprit. The guilty party is American politics. Runaway inequality and the present economic crisis reflect what government has done to aid the rich and what it has not done to safeguard the interests of the middle class. The winner-take-all economy is primarily a result of winner-take-all politics. Part revelatory history, part political analysis, part intellectual journey, Winner-Take-All Politics shows how a political system that traditionally has been responsive to the interests of the middle class has been hijacked by the super-rich. In doing so, it not only changes how we think about American politics, but also points the way to rebuilding a democracy that serves the interests of the many rather than just those of the wealthy few.
©2010 Paul Pierson and Jacob Hacker (P)2011 Tantor
Fighting With the Filthy Thirteen
Summary
In 2004 the world was first introduced to The Filthy Thirteen, a book describing the most notorious squad of fighting men in the 101st Airborne Division (and the inspiration for the movie “The Dirty Dozen”). In this long awaited work one of the squad’s integral members - and probably its best soldier - reveals his own inside account of fighting as a spearhead of the Screaming Eagles in Normandy, Market Garden, and the Battle of the Bulge. Jack Womer was originally a member of the 29th Infantry Division and was selected to be part of its elite Ranger battalion. But after a year of grueling training under the eyes of British Commando instructors, the 29th Rangers were suddenly dissolved. Bitterly disappointed, Womer asked for transfer to another elite unit, the Screaming Eagles, where room was found for him among the division’s most miscreant squad of brawlers, drunkards, and goof-offs. Beginning on June 6, 1944, however, the Filthy Thirteen began proving themselves more a menace to the German Army than they had been to their own officers and the good people of England, embarking on a year-of ferocious combat at the very tip of the Allied advance in Europe. In this work, with the help of Stephen DeVito, Jack provides an amazingly frank look at close-quarters combat in Europe, as well as the almost surreal experience of dust-bowl-era GI’s entering country after country in their grapple with the Wehrmacht, finally ending up in Hitler’s mountaintop lair in Germany itself. Throughout his fights, Jack Womer credited his Ranger/Commando training for helping him to survive, even though most of the rest of the Filthy Thirteen did not. And in the end he found the reward he had most coveted all along: being able to return to his fiancée Theresa back in the States.
©2012 Stephen C. DeVito and Jack Womer (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
An Empire of Ice
Summary
Published to coincide with the centenary of the first expeditions to reach the South Pole, An Empire of Ice presents a fascinating new take on Antarctic exploration. Retold with added information, it's the first book to place the famed voyages of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, his British rivals Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton, and others in a larger scientific, social, and geopolitical context. Efficient, well prepared, and focused solely on the goal of getting to his destination and back, Amundsen has earned his place in history as the first to reach the South Pole. Scott, meanwhile, has been reduced in the public mind to a dashing incompetent who stands for little more than relentless perseverance in the face of inevitable defeat. An Empire of Ice offers a new perspective on the Antarctic expeditions of the early 20th century by looking at the British efforts for what they actually were: massive scientific enterprises in which reaching the South Pole was but a spectacular sideshow. By focusing on the larger purpose, Edward Larson deepens our appreciation of the explorers' achievements, shares little-known stories, and shows what the Heroic Age of Antarctic discovery was really about.
©2011 Edward J. Larson (P)2011 Tantor