John Lee has narrated 329 audiobooks on Listento.it by 240 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 25,868 ratings. The most-rated is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Book 7.
The Two Popes
Summary
From the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Darkest Hour and The Theory of Everything comes the fascinating and revealing tale of two very different men - both of whom happen to live at the Vatican. In February 2013, the arch-conservative Pope Benedict XVI made a startling announcement: He would resign, making him the first pope to willingly vacate his office in over 700 years. Reeling from the news, the College of Cardinals rushed to Rome to congregate in the Sistine Chapel to pick his successor. Their unlikely choice? Francis, the first non-European pope in 1,200 years, a one-time tango-club bouncer, a passionate soccer fan, a man with the common touch. Why did Benedict walk away at the height of power, knowing his successor might be someone whose views might undo his legacy? How did Francis - who used to ride the bus to work back in his native Buenos Aires - adjust to life as leader to a billion followers? If, as the Church teaches, the pope is infallible, how can two living popes who disagree on almost everything both be right? Having immersed himself in these men's lives to write the screenplay for the upcoming motion picture The Two Popes, Anthony McCarten masterfully weaves their stories into one gripping narrative. From Benedict and Francis' formative experiences in war-torn Germany and Argentina to the sexual abuse scandal that continues to rock the Church to its foundations to the intrigue and the occasional comedy of life in the Vatican, this audiobook glitters with the darker and the lighter details of one of the world's most opaque but significant institutions. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2018 Anthony McCarten (P)2019 Macmillan Audio
SPQR III: The Sacrilege
Summary
When a sacret woman's rite in the ancient city of Rome is infiltrated by a corrupt patrician dressed in female garb, it falls to Senator Decuis Caecilius Metellus the Younger, whose investigative skills have proven indispensable in the past, to unmask the perpetrators. When four brutal slayings follow, Decius enlists the help a notorious and dangerous criminal. Together, they establish a connection between the sacrilege and the murders, and track the offenders from the lowest dregs of society to the prominent elite of the upper class, finding corruption and violence where Decius least expects it.
©1992 John Maddox Roberts. (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
The King's Commission
Summary
It's 1782. First officer on brig o'war.... Fresh from duty on the frigate Desperate in her fight with the French Capricieuse off St. Kitts, Midshipman Alan Lewrie passes his examination board for lieutenancy and finds himself commissioned first officer of the brig o'war Shrike. There's time for some dalliance with the fair sex, and then Lieutenant Lewrie must be off to patrol the North American coast and attempt to bring the Muskogees and Seminoles onto the British side against the American rebels (dalliance with an Indian maiden is just part of the mission). Then it's back to the Caribbean, to sail beside Captain Horatio Nelson in the Battle for Turks Island. Naval officer and rogue, Alan Lewrie is a man of his times and a hero for all times. His equals are Hornblower, Aubrey, and Maturin - sailors beloved by readers and listeners all over the world.
©1996 Dewey Lambdin (P)2010 Random House
Leadership in War
Summary
A comparison of nine leaders who led their nations through the greatest wars the world has ever seen and whose unique strengths - and weaknesses - shaped the course of human history, from the bestselling, award-winning author of Churchill and Napoleon "Has the enjoyable feel of a lively dinner table conversation with an opinionated guest." (The New York Times Book Review) Taking us from the French Revolution to the Cold War, Andrew Roberts presents us with a bracingly honest and deeply insightful look at nine major figures in modern history: Napoleon Bonaparte, Horatio Nelson, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, George C. Marshall, Charles de Gaulle, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Margaret Thatcher. Each one of these leaders fundamentally shaped the outcome of the war in which their nation was embroiled. Is war leadership unique, or did these leaders have something in common, traits and techniques that transcend time and place and can be applied to the essential nature of conflict? Meticulously researched and compellingly written, Leadership in War presents readers with fresh, complex portraits of leaders who approached war with different tactics and different weapons, but with the common goal of success in the face of battle. Both inspiring and cautionary, these portraits offer important lessons on leadership in times of struggle, unease, and discord. With his trademark verve and incisive observation, Roberts reveals the qualities that doom even the most promising leaders to failure, as well as the traits that lead to victory.
©2019 Andrew Roberts (P)2019 Penguin Audio
Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals
Summary
Immanuel Kant's Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, first published in 1785, lays out Kant's essential philosophy and defines the concepts and arguments that would shape his later work. Central to Kant's doctrine is the categorical imperative, which he defines as a mandate that human actions should always conform to a universal, unchanging standard of rational morality. Directly opposed to utilitarian philosophy, Kant's theories have been broadly influential since their publication and stand as a seminal contribution to ethical thought. Although Kant expanded upon the ideas defined here in his later work, including the Critique of Pure Reason and the Metaphysics of Morals, it is in his Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals that they are communicated in their most clear, concise form. This edition is the translation by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott.
Public Domain (P)2011 Tantor
A Conspiracy of Paper
Summary
Benjamin Weaver is an outsider in 18th-century London: a Jew among Christians; a ruffian among aristocrats; a retired pugilist who, hired by London's gentry, travels through the criminal underworld in pursuit of debtors and thieves. In A Conspiracy of Paper, Weaver investigates a crime of the most personal sort: the mysterious death of his estranged father, a notorious stockjobber. To find the answers, Weaver must contend with a desperate prostitute who knows too much about his past, relatives who remind him of his alienation from the Jewish faith, and a cabal of powerful men in the world of British finance who have hidden their business dealings behind an intricate web of deception and violence. Relying on brains and brawn, Weaver uncovers the beginnings of a strange new economic order based on stock speculation - a way of life that poses great risk for investors but real danger for Weaver and his family. In the tradition of The Alienist and written with scholarly attention to period detail, A Conspiracy of Paper is one of the wittiest and most suspenseful historical novels in recent memory, as well as a perceptive and beguiling depiction of the origin of today's financial markets.
©2000 David Liss (P)2019 Tantor
Istanbul
Summary
A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy - or hüzün - that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost empire. With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, unhappy parents to the gorgeous, decrepit mansions overlooking the Bosphorus; from the dawning of his self-consciousness to the writers and painters - both Turkish and foreign - who would shape his consciousness of his city. Like Joyce’s Dublin and Borges’ Buenos Aires, Pamuk’s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.
©2013 Orhan Pamuk (P)2013 Random House Audio
The Swan Thieves
Summary
Psychiatrist Andrew Marlowe has a perfectly ordered life--solitary, perhaps, but full of devotion to his profession and the painting hobby he loves. This order is destroyed when renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient. In response, Marlowe finds himself going beyond his own legal and ethical boundaries to understand the secret that torments this genius, a journey that will lead him into the lives of the women closest to Robert Oliver and toward a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism. Ranging from American museums to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late twentieth, from young love to last love, The Swan Thieves is a story of obsession, the losses of history, and the power of art to preserve human hope.
©2010 Elizabeth Kostova (P)2010 Hachette
The Lady From Zagreb
Summary
From New York Times best-selling author Philip Kerr, the much-anticipated return of Bernie Gunther in a series hailed by Malcolm Forbes as "the best crime novels around today". A beautiful actress, a rising star of the giant German film company UFA, now controlled by the Propaganda Ministry. The very clever, very dangerous propaganda minister - a close confidant of Hitler, an ambitious schemer and flagrant libertine. And Bernie Gunther, former Berlin homicide bull, now forced to do favors for Joseph Goebbels at the propaganda minister's command. This time the favor is personal. And this time nothing is what it seems. Set down amid the killing fields of Ustashe-controlled Croatia, Bernie finds himself in a world of mindless brutality where everyone has a hidden agenda. Perfect territory for a true cynic whose instinct is to trust no one.
©2015 Philip Kerr (P)2015 Penguin Audio
Orthodoxy
Summary
Written by G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy addresses foremost one main problem: How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? Chesterton writes, "I wish to set forth my faith as particularly answering this double spiritual need, the need for that mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar which Christendom has rightly named romance." Chesterton likens orthodox Christianity to a man who set out in a boat from England and was quite excited to land on an island only to soon discover he had, in fact, landed on England. "I am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before." This is Chesterton's autobiography. It is his story of finding the familiar and unfamiliar in Christianity. It is his hunt for the gorgon or griffin and in the end discovers a rhinoceros and then takes pleasure in the fact that a rhinoceros exists but looks as if it oughtn't. In Orthodoxy, Chesterton argues that people in Western society need a life of "practical romance, the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome." Drawing on such figures as Fra Angelico, George Bernard Shaw, and St. Paul to make his points, Chesterton argues that submission to ecclesiastical authority is the way to achieve a good and balanced life.
Public Domain (P)2011 Tantor
The Future of the Professions
Summary
This book predicts the decline of today's professions and describes the people and systems that will replace them. In an Internet society, according to Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind, we will neither need nor want doctors, teachers, accountants, architects, the clergy, consultants, lawyers, and many others to work as they did in the 20th century. The Future of the Professions explains how increasingly capable systems - from telepresence to artificial intelligence - will bring fundamental change in the way that the practical expertise of specialists is made available in society. The authors challenge the grand bargain - the arrangement that grants various monopolies to today's professionals. They argue that our current professions are antiquated, opaque, and no longer affordable and that the expertise of the best is enjoyed by only a few. In their place, they propose six new models for producing and distributing expertise in society. The book raises important practical and moral questions. In an era when machines can outperform human beings at most tasks, what are the prospects for employment, who should own and control online expertise, and what tasks should be reserved exclusively for people? Based on the authors' in-depth research of more than 10 professions, and illustrated by numerous examples from each, this is the first book to assess and question the relevance of the professions in the 21st century. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2015 Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
Prussian Blue
Summary
From New York Times best-selling author Philip Kerr, the much-anticipated return of Bernie Gunther, our compromised former Berlin bull and unwilling SS officer. With his cover blown, he is waiting for the next move in the cat-and-mouse game that, even a decade after Germany's defeat, continues to shadow his life. The French Riviera, 1956: The invitation to dinner was not unexpected, though neither was it welcome. Erich Mielke, deputy head of the East German Stasi, has turned up in Nice, and he's not on holiday. An old and dangerous adversary, Mielke is calling in a debt. He intends that Bernie go to London and, with the vial of Thallium he now pushes across the table, poison a female agent they both have had dealings with. But chance intervenes in the form of Friedrich Korsch, an old Kripo comrade now working for Stasi and probably there to make sure Bernie gets the job done. Bernie bolts for the German border. Traveling by night, holed up during the day, Bernie has plenty of downtime to recall the last time Korsch and he worked together. The summer of 1939: At Hitler's mountaintop retreat in Obersalzberg, the body of a low-level bureaucrat has been found murdered. Bernie and Korsch are selected to run the case. They have one week to solve the murder - Hitler is due back then to celebrate his 50th birthday. Lucky Bernie: It's his reward for being Kripo's best homicide detective. He knows what a box he's in - millions have been spent to secure Obersalzberg. It would be a disaster if Hitler were to discover a shocking murder had been committed on the terrace of his own home. But the mountaintop is home to an elite Nazi community. It would be an even bigger disaster for Bernie if one of them was the murderer. Two different eras: 1939 and 1956, 17 years apart. And yet not really apart, as the stunning climax will show when the two converge explosively.
©2017 Philip Kerr (P)2017 Penguin Audio
The Man from Berlin
Summary
In war-torn Yugoslavia, a beautiful young filmmaker and photographer - a veritable hero to her people - and a German officer have been brutally murdered. Assigned to the case is military intelligence officer Captain Gregor Reinhardt. Already haunted by his wartime actions and the mistakes he's made off the battlefield, he soon finds that his investigation may be more than just a murder, and that the late Yugoslavian heroine may have been much more brilliant - and treacherous - than anyone knew. Maneuvering his way through a minefield of political, military, and personal agendas and vendettas, Reinhardt knows that someone is leaving a trail of dead bodies to cover their tracks. But those bloody tracks may lead Reinhardt to a secret hidden within the ranks of the powerful that they will do anything to keep. And his search for the truth may kill him before he ever finds it.
©2013 Luke McCallin (P)2014 Tantor
The Hidden Treasure of Glaston (Living History Library)
Summary
Amidsgreat mystery Hugh is left in the care of Glastonbury Abbey by his father, who must flee England too swiftly to be burdened by a crippled son. Ashamed of his physical weakness yet possessed of a stout heart, Hugh finds that life at the abbey is surprisingly full in this year 1171, in the turbulent days of King Henry II. Hugh; his friend, Dickon; and their strange friend, the mad Bleheris, uncover a treasure trove and with it a deeper mystery of the sort that could only occur in Glastonbury, where Joseph of Arimithea was said to have lived out his last years. Before all is done, more is resolved than Hugh could ever have hoped.
©1946 Elenore M. Jewett (P)2015 Bethlehem Books
101 Job Interview Questions You'll Never Fear Again
Summary
Learn the secrets to excelling at job interviews, directly from top interviewers and recruiters.
You can't prepare an answer for every interview question. So, of the thousands of questions potential employers might ask, which ones will they ask? And what should you say?
After extensive research among hundreds of interviewers and thousands of interviewees, finally here's the book that will give you the answer.
101 Job Interview Questions You'll Never Fear Again is based on direct input from top interviewers. It offers powerful preparation techniques, the lowdown on how to answer the most common questions, and - above all - how to adopt a winning mind-set at interviews, one that will help you stand out from the pack and land the job.
From classic questions like "tell me about yourself" and "what are your greatest weaknesses?" to puzzlers like "sell me this pen" and "how many traffic lights are there in New York?", James Reed reveals what interviewers are really asking and gives you the best possible answers.
©2016 James Reed (P)2016 Penguin Audio
Vampire Crusader
Summary
The immortal knight, Sir Richard of Ashbury, hunts his nemesis through centuries of war.... AD 1190, England. A young knight's family is slaughtered. As the lords of Europe seek to retake Jerusalem from the mighty Saladin, Sir Richard swears an oath of vengeance against Earl William de Ferrers, who has returned from the dead with an insatiable thirst for violence. Richard stalks William and his savage knights across Europe to the Holy Land, fights in the crusades' bloodiest battles alongside Richard the Lionheart and unearths a secret of great evil under the hills of Palestine.
©2015 Dan Davis (P)2018 Tantor
The Other Side of Silence
Summary
From New York Times best-selling author Philip Kerr, the much anticipated return of Bernie Gunther in a series hailed by The Daily Beast as "the best crime novels around today". Once I'd been a good detective in Kripo, but that was a while ago, before the criminals wore smart gray uniforms and nearly everyone locked up was innocent. Being a Berlin cop in 1942 was a little like putting down mousetraps in a cage full of tigers. The war is over. Bernie Gunther, our sardonic former Berlin homicide detective and unwilling SS officer, is now living on the French Riviera. It is 1956, and Bernie is the go-to guy at the Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat, the man you turn to for touring tips or if you need a fourth for bridge. As it happens, a local writer needs just that - someone to fill the fourth seat in a regular game that is the usual evening diversion at the Villa Mauresque. Not just any writer. Perhaps the richest and most famous living writer in the world: W. Somerset Maugham. And it turns out it is not just a bridge partner that he needs; it's some professional advice. Maugham is being blackmailed - perhaps because of his unorthodox lifestyle. Or perhaps because of something in his past, because once upon a time, Maugham worked for the British secret service, and the people now blackmailing him are spies. As Gunther fans know, all roads lead back to the viper's nest that was Hitler's Third Reich and to the killing fields that spread like a disease across Europe. Even in 1956, peace has not come to the continent: Now the Soviets have the H-bomb, and spies from every major power feel free to make all of Europe their personal playground.
©2016 Philip Kerr (P)2016 Penguin Audio
To Thunderous Applause
Summary
Strength. Honor. Death. The fighting season continues, with Goll realizing he might have killed one opponent too many. Confronting the wrath of a dead gladiator’s stable, he discovers a much more vengeful force behind a slew of blood matches. While the gladiators fight within the Pit, Brozz fights for his life in a much different arena. Escaping an attempt on his life, Borchus finds refuge with an old friend. Struggling to both recover from his wounds and find a purpose in a little village, Halm of Zhiberia discovers that giving up a pit fighter’s life isn’t quite as it easy seems. Nor is it solely one man’s decision. And all the while, in the west, a monstrous enemy makes itself known and positions itself to strike at both the games and Sunja’s heart. This is blood sport at its finest. At its worst. At its longest.
©2018 Keith C. Blackmore (P)2019 Podium Publishing
The One from the Other
Summary
Bernie Gunther, the tough, fast-talking noirish detective who made his first appearance in March Violets, takes center stage in this twist-filled thriller that turns Philip Kerr’s German trilogy into a surprise-filled quartet. Fans have had to wait 15 years for Bernie’s resurrection. They will not be disappointed. Munich, 1949: Amid the chaos of defeat, it’s a place of dirty deals, rampant greed, fleeing war criminals, and all the backstabbing intrigue that prospers in the aftermath of war. It is also a place where a private eye can find a lot of not-quite-reputable work: cleaning up the Nazi past of well-to-do locals, abetting fugitives in their flight abroad, sorting out rival claims to stolen goods. It’s work that fills Bernie with disgust - but it also fills his sorely depleted wallet. Then a woman seeks him out. Her husband has disappeared. She’s not looking to get him back - he’s a wanted man who ran one of the most vicious concentration camps in Poland. She just wants confirmation that he’s dead. It’s a simple enough job. But in postwar Germany, nothing is simple - nothing is what it appears to be. Taking the case, Bernie takes on far more than he’d bargained for, and he soon finds himself on the run, facing enemies on every side. Because in a defeated and divided Germany, it’s hard to know friends from enemies, the one from the other.
©2007 Philip Kerr (P)2007 Books on Tape
10 1/2 Things No Commencement Speaker Has Ever Said
Summary
The antidote to those cotton-candy platitudes that are all too familiar to anyone who’s ever worn a mortarboard, Wheelan’s 10 head-turning aphorisms - backed up by a PhD in public policy and extensive social science research - set the record straight. Readers everywhere agreed, turning a Dartmouth Class Day speech that had gone viral into a best-selling book.Whether praising the time “wasted” in fraternity basements; mentioning that, frankly, the worst days of your life still lie ahead; or simply asking that graduates avoid wreaking the kind of havoc that others before them have, Wheelan softens his candid conclusions with good-natured charm and tales of unconventional success. With cartoons sprinkled throughout to keep things light, this volume makes a perfect gift for graduates of all ages.
©2012 Charles Wheelan (P)2013 Audible, Inc.