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.
Surviving Lockdown
Summary
The year 2020 has been the year of the virus, and it will not be a mere footnote in history. This book reflects on the unprecedented changes to our lives and the impact on our behavior as we lived through social isolation during the global COVID-19 pandemic. From sociable creatures of habit, we were forced into a period of uncertainty, restriction, and risk, physically separated from families and friends. Packed with guidance and coping strategies for lockdown, this book, authored by top psychologist David Cohen, explores the impact of this widespread quarantine on our relationships, our children, our mental health, and our daily lives. Benedictine monks, hermit popes, Dorothy Sayers, Daniel Defoe (who made the isolated Robinson Crusoe a hero), Sigmund Freud, and a rabbi's angry dog are all among the cast of characters as we are taken on a whistle-stop tour through plagues in history and brain science, to the importance of introspection and how to make meaning from lockdown. In his trademark entertaining style, Cohen examines the psychology behind our behavior during this unusual time to discover what we can learn about human nature, what lessons we can learn for the future - and whether we will apply them.
©2021 David Cohen (P)2021 Tantor
The Reading Life
Summary
The revered teacher and best-selling author reflects on the power, importance, and joy of a life dedicated to reading books in this delightful collection drawn from his wide body of writings. More than 50 years after his death, revered intellectual and teacher C. S. Lewis continues to speak to booklovers, thanks not only to his intellectual insights on Christianity but also his wondrous creative works and deep reflections on the literature that influenced his life. Beloved for his instructive novels including The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, and The Chronicles of Narnia as well as his philosophical books that explored theology and Christian life, Lewis was a lifelong writer and book lover. Cultivated from his many essays, articles, and letters, as well as his classic works, The Reading Life provides guidance and reflections on the love and enjoyment of books. Engaging and enlightening, this well-rounded collection includes Lewis’ reflections on science fiction, why children’s literature is for all ages, and why we should revisit two old books for every new one we read or listen to. A window into the thoughts of one of the greatest public intellectuals of our time, this collection reveals not only why Lewis loved the written word, but what it means to learn through literature from one of our wisest and most enduring teachers.
©2019 C. S. Lewis (P)2019 HarperAudio
Vampire Khan
Summary
The immortal knight battles an unstoppable horde of Mongol vampires. AD 1253. The immortal William de Ferrers sits at the right hand of the great Mongol Khan while his hordes conquer Persia and Syria. Soon, nothing will separate them from Christendom itself. And so Richard of Ashbury must cross the barbarian wilderness to destroy the threat to Christendom and fulfill his oath of vengeance. To face the terrifying might of the Mongols, Richard must assemble a company of allies from the Templars, the Assassins, Abbasid Saracens, and even Mongol renegades. Together, they will wage a bloody war on the vampire khan.
©2018 Dan Davis (P)2020 Tantor
Blackett's War
Summary
In March 1941, after a year of unbroken and devastating U-boat onslaughts, the British War Cabinet decided to try a new strategy in the foundering naval campaign. To do so, they hired an intensely private, bohemian physicist who was also an ardent socialist. Patrick Blackett was a former navy officer and future winner of the Nobel Prize; he is little remembered today, but he and his fellow scientists did as much to win the war against Nazi Germany as almost anyone else. As director of the World War II antisubmarine effort, Blackett used little more than simple mathematics and probability theory - and a steadfast belief in the utility of science - to save the campaign against the U-boat. Employing these insights in unconventional ways, from the washing of mess hall dishes to the color of bomber wings, the Allies went on to win essential victories against Hitler's Germany. Here is the story of these civilian intellectuals who helped to change the nature of 20th-century warfare. Throughout, Stephen Budiansky describes how scientists became intimately involved with what had once been the distinct province of military commanders - convincing disbelieving military brass to trust the solutions suggested by their analysis. Budiansky shows that these men above all retained the belief that operational research and a scientific mentality could change the world. It's a belief that has come to fruition with the spread of their tenets to the business and military worlds, and it started in the Battle of the Atlantic, in an attempt to outfight the Germans, but most of all to outwit them.
©2013 Stephen Budiansky (P)2013 Tantor
Secret Ingredients
Summary
Since its earliest days, The New Yorker has been a tastemaker - literally. As the home of A. J. Liebling, Joseph Wechsberg, and M. F. K. Fisher, who practically invented American food writing, the magazine established a tradition that is carried forward today by irrepressible literary gastronomes including Calvin Trillin, Bill Buford, Adam Gopnik, Jane Kramer, and Anthony Bourdain. Now, in this indispensable collection, The New Yorker dishes up a feast of delicious writing on food and drink, from every age of its fabled 80-year history. There are memoirs, short stories, tell-alls, and poems - ranging in tone from sweet to sour and in subject from soup to nuts. M. F. K. Fisher pays homage to “cookery witches,” those mysterious cooks who possess “an uncanny power over food,” while John McPhee valiantly trails an inveterate forager and is rewarded with stewed persimmons and white-pine-needle tea. There is Roald Dahl’s famous story “Taste,” in which a wine snob’s palate comes in for some unwelcome scrutiny, and Julian Barnes’s ingenious tale of a lifelong gourmand who goes on a very peculiar diet for still more peculiar reasons. Adam Gopnik asks if French cuisine is done for, and Calvin Trillin investigates whether people can actually taste the difference between red wine and white. We journey with Susan Orlean as she distills the essence of Cuba in the story of a single restaurant, and with Judith Thurman as she investigates the arcane practices of Japan’s tofu masters. Closer to home, Joseph Mitchell celebrates the old New York tradition of the beefsteak dinner, and Mark Singer shadows the city’s foremost fisherman-chef. Selected from the magazine’s plentiful larder, Secret Ingredients celebrates all forms of gustatory delight.
©2007 David Remnick (P)2007 Books on Tape
A General History of the Pyrates
Summary
"I presume we need make no Apology for giving the Name of a History to the following Sheets, though they contain nothing but the Actions of a Parcel of Robbers." (From the book) This work was published in 1724, under the pseudonym Captain Charles Johnson, by an unknown British author, usually assumed to be Daniel Defoe. This work is the prime source for the biographies of many well-known pirates of that era and shaped the popular notions about pirates of the day. Included are Blackbeard, Black Bart, Jolly Roger, Anne Bonny (aka Anne Bonn), Edward Teach, Henry Avery, Mary Read, and many more.
©2016 Daniel Defoe (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Stolen Crown
Summary
Katherine Woodville's sister never gave her a choice. A happy girl of modest means, Kate hardly expected to become a maker of kings. But when her sister impulsively marries King Edward IV in secret, Katherine's life is no longer hers to control.
©2010 Susan Higginbotham (P)2013 Tantor
The Stalin Epigram
Summary
The Stalin Epigram is a masterful rendering of the life of Osip Mandelstam, one of Russia's greatest poets of the 20th century. His heroic protest against the Stalin regime---particularly his outspoken criticism of the collectivization that drove millions of Russian peasants to starvation---finally reached its apex in 1934. When he composed a searing indictment of Stalin in a 16-line poem, secretly passed from person to person through recitation, the poet was arrested. It is widely accepted that Stalin himself was directly involved in Mandelstam's exile and his death in a Siberian transit camp in 1938. A master of historical detail and cultural authenticity, best-selling author Robert Littell based this novel in part on a memorable, intimate meeting with Mandelstam's wife in 1979. Narrated by Mandelstam's wife, his friends Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova, and Mandelstam himself, this lucid account of the relationships between the artists, politicians, and proletariat of Stalinist Russia is an astounding moment in history brought to life by a perceptive, immensely talented writer.
©2006 Robert Littell (P)2009 Tantor
The Dream Universe
Summary
A vivid and captivating narrative about how modern science broke free of ancient philosophy, and how theoretical physics is returning to its unscientific roots In the early 17th century, Galileo broke free from the hold of ancient Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. He drastically changed the framework through which we view the natural world when he asserted that we should base our theory of reality on what we can observe rather than pure thought. In the process, he invented what we would come to call science. This set the stage for all the breakthroughs that followed - from Kepler to Newton to Einstein. But in the early 20th century when quantum physics, with its deeply complex mathematics, entered into the picture, something began to change. Many physicists began looking to the equations first and physical reality second. As we investigate realms further and further from what we can see and what we can test, we must look to elegant, aesthetically pleasing equations to develop our conception of what reality is. As a result, much of theoretical physics today is something more akin to the philosophy of Plato than the science to which the physicists are heirs. In The Dream Universe, Lindley asks what is science when it becomes completely untethered from measurable phenomena?
©2020 David Lindley (P)2020 Random House Audio
Little Demon in the City of Light
Summary
A delicious account of a murder most gallic - think CSI Paris meets Georges Simenon - whose lurid comibation of sex, brutality, forensics, and hypnotism riveted first a nation and then the world. Little Demon in the City of Light is the thrilling - and so wonderfully French - story of a gruesome 1889 murder of a lascivious court official at the hands of a ruthless con man and his pliant mistress and the international manhunt, sensational trial, and an inquiry into the limits of hypnotic power that ensued. In France at the end of the 19th century a great debate raged over the question of whether someone could be hypnotically compelled to commit a crime in violation of his or her moral convictions. When Toussaint-Augustin Gouffé entered 3, rue Tronson du Coudray, he expected nothing but a delightful assignation with the comely young Gabrielle Bompard. Instead, he was murdered - hanged! - by her and her companion Michel Eyraud. The body was then stuffed in a trunk and dumped on a riverbank near Lyon. As the inquiry into the guilt or innocence of the woman the French tabloids dubbed the "Little Demon" escalated, the most respected minds in France debated whether Gabrielle Bompard was the pawn of her mesmerizing lover or simply a coldly calculating murderess. And, at the burning center of it all: Could hypnosis force people to commit crimes against their will?
©2014 Steven Levingston (P)2014 Blackstone Audio
The Hedge School
Summary
It is perilous to be a Catholic in the Ireland of 1735, and it's almost more than can be borne for 15-year-old Padraic Fitzbrian. Nearly 100 years before, Lord Protector Cromwell of England had put down the Irish rebellion confiscating lands, killing priests, outlawing the Mass, and prohibiting education of any kind for Irish Catholics. Padraic and his two friends, Liam and Rose, are in their last year as scholars in the forbidden and risky all-weathers classroom under the hedgerow. Fiery Padraic, whose family lands had been seized so long before, chafes under the injustice as though it were yesterday, making trouble for himself and those around him. Liam, as determined a patriot, holds the hope of being able to fight for his people's freedom in an entirely different way. And warm-hearted Rose, gifted with pluck, is also thankfully rich in good sense. Behind the scenes, a mysterious figure called Kestrel stirs the fires of Irish identity, and Padraic longs to do as much. Harmless adventures mount into dangerous trouble as the three young people strive, in each new difficulty, to take hold of the faith and patience that brings freedom amidst the worst tyranny. Gloria Whelan is a National Book Award winner for Young People's Literature and author of many books, including The Miracle of St. Nicholas.
©2015 Gloria Whelan (P)2015 Bethlehem Books
A Risk Worth Taking
Summary
The New York Times best-selling author of Starting Over and An Ocean Apart returns with his strongest work to date - a heartwarming story of love, compassion, and redemption After the dot-com bubble burst, Dan Porter is laid off from his job and must decide what is truly important. His wife of 20 years, Jackie, a beautiful and successful managing director for a clothing designer, no longer connects with him. His teenagers Josh, Nina and Millie are distant and confusing. Jackie is tempted by the attentions of a younger man at her office, and thanks to an opportunity suggested by a magazine article, Dan finds himself contemplating a drastic change in his life. A Risk Worth Taking is an engrossing, thought-provoking novel of a man who has to discover what he really values in his work, marriage, and life. Robin Pilcher writes fluidly, and is endlessly interested in the details of his characters' lives. He has written a poignant and moving story about the real choices adults face when they start taking stock of their lives.
©2004 Robin Pilcher (P)2004 Audio Renaissance, a dicision of Holtzbrink Publishers, LLC and Books on Tape, Inc.
Aftermath
Summary
It is 1989 and the disease resulting from the testing of experimental bioweapons has ravaged much of the world. The UK and Europe are in chaos as the virus spreads uncontrollably. The US, nominally arriving in force to offer military and humanitarian assistance to their allies, are posturing dangerously with the east and failing to unite over the common enemy of humanity. As command and control are ramping up operations over the British Isles and Europe, the remnants of Johnson's Yeomanry and the scattered troops consolidate their position on their island stronghold and begin to look to the future, but events beyond their knowledge and control force them into desperate action. Peter, alone by choice and oddly thriving, finds himself suddenly responsible for the life of someone other than himself. Adapting with ease, the young boy begins to show the difference between nature and nurture. Elsewhere, other survivors stake their own claims to land and resources, but the inexplicable swarms of undead threaten to gather and dissipate constantly.
©2018 DHP Publishing (P)2019 Tantor
Forging Destiny
Summary
The highly anticipated sequel to Reclaiming Honor is finally here. Best-selling and award-winning author of Stiger’s Tigers and the Karus Saga, Marc Alan Edelheit has teamed up again with national best-selling author Quincy J. Allen to deliver an epic fantasy adventure, told from the perspective of dwarves. A Pariah amongst dwarves, Tovak bears the burden of his people’s disdain and his family’s disgrace. And yet, Tovak has proven himself in battle, shown his courage in risking life and limb to save his comrades. Though not everyone accepts him, he has finally found his place as a skirmisher and member of the Baelix Guard Company. Armed with his faith in his god, ample determination, and unquenchable courage, Tovak soldiers forward. Dispatched on a dangerous mission against the Horde that could mean life or death for his people, his section is sent behind enemy lines. Everything hinges upon the mission’s success. However, something is not quite right with Tovak. He can feel a power he does not understand building within, guiding his steps forward toward what seems to be destiny. He fears he is losing his mind, but he will not shy away from duty, for in the struggle to come, the warband needs every sword. And make no mistake, desperate times and hard fighting lie ahead. Tovak might just be the key to his people’s salvation, or perhaps even their downfall...for the gods are involved in the fight that is to come. Struggling against his past and the stigma of being a pariah, Tovak must unravel the meaning of this power building within him and forge his own destiny - or die trying. Set upon the world of Tannis, some years before the arrival of Karus and the Lost Legio IX, this book is a Last War novel.
©2020 Marc Edelheit (P)2021 Audible, Inc.
An Ocean Apart
Summary
For six dreadful months, David Corstorphine has tried to come to terms with his young wife's death while caring for his three motherless children. Try as he may, David is unable to return to work, and his only form of solace comes from working in the garden of his parents' estate in the Scottish countryside. Dispatched unexpectedly to New York, David's family hopes that the impromptu business trip will help him get back on his feet. But the journey proves both disastrous and heartening. David finds himself settling in comfortably among the strangers of a seaside Long Island town and takes a job as a gardener. But it is the people he meets, the pain he confronts, and the joy he is able to once again experience that prove to be magically transformative - and as David learns to accept his enormous loss, he is able to open his heart to love once again. Writing with deep sensitivity to human frailty, desires and joys that listeners of his mother, Rosamunde Pilcher, have come to cherish, Robin Pilcher's An Ocean Apart will be embraced by generations in years to come.
©1999 Robin Pilcher (P)2020 Tantor
Small Magic
Summary
Escape to worlds full of adventure and magic in the first-ever Terry Brooks short-story collection, featuring both new and fan-favorite stories from all three of his major literary worlds: Shannara, Magic Kingdom, and The Word and the Void. Here are heroes fighting new battles and struggling to conquer the ghosts of the past. Here are quests both small and far reaching; heroism both intimate and vast. Here we learn of Garet Jax’s childhood, see how Allanon first located Shea Ohmsford, and follow an old wing-rider at the end of his life. Here we see Knights of the Word fighting demons within and without, and witness Ben Holiday and his daughter each trying to overcome the unique challenges that Landover offers. This collection of 11 tales is a must-have addition to the Terry Brooks canon - a delightful way to spend time with favorite characters, and a wonderful reminder of what makes a Brooks story such a timeless classic.
©2021 Terry Brooks (P)2021 Random House Audio
About the Blood
Summary
Strength. Honor. Death. Once every year, in the city of Sunja, gladiators meet within the arena known as Sunja’s Pit. Some men enter for the lure of fortune, some for the fame, and some simply for the fight. The games continue for days until a champion is finally crowned. Or until all involved perish. The fighting season continues, and as a result, Goll prepares to participate once again in the games while one man plots revenge upon the returning Kree. Growing weary of the insolent Prajus, golden-faced Gastillo seeks to strike a bargain with the wine merchant Nexus, which would rid him of his troublesome gladiator and provide him with the wealth to forever leave the games. Seeking death, Pig Knot wanders the alleys and backstreets of Sunja and discovers the city of his birth does not favor him in the least. The captured Jackals embrace the Pit and discover the arena sands favor them. And the Perician Weapon - now called Wonder - faces perhaps his most telling match yet. This is blood sport at its finest. At its worst. At its longest.
©2018 Keith C. Blackmore (P)2019 Podium Publishing
Witch World: Estcarp Cycle Trilogy
Summary
Set on a planet in a parallel universe where magic is a reality, these three high fantasy novels from the Witch World series transport you to the eastern continent of Estcarp, illustrating why prolific author Andre Norton was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Trey of Swords: An ancient blade of incredible power that holds the spirit of the ancient hero Tolar will forge young Yonan into the greatest weapon in Witch World. Only Yonan and his loyal friend Uruk can stop the dreaded Targi, the near-invincible warlock who leads the Darkness. With Yonan and Uruk missing in the past, the untrained witch Crytha must hold back the Darkness alone by countering the power of the vile sorceress Laidan with the help of a lethal, legendary blade. Ware Hawk: Tirtha, last of a decimated clan, must return to her family’s ancient stronghold of Hawkholme. For protection, she hires Nirel, once a proud Falconer, now a blank shield for hire, who survives by using his gift for seeing the future in his dreams. But he cannot see everything, and a Dark One is determined to stop them. The Gate of the Cat: When she tries to help an injured wildcat, Kelsie McBlair is transported from the Scottish Highlands to a world where magic users, mighty heroes and terrible monsters dwell. There, she embarks on an incredible adventure, accompanied by a cynical witch who doesn’t trust her and a young warrior sworn to protect her. Kelsie will prove to be the only one who can face off against the Lord of the Dark himself....
©2018 Andre Norton (P)2021 Podium Audio
The Frozen Shroud
Summary
Death has come twice to Ravenbank, a remote community in England’s Lake District, each time on Halloween. Just before the First World War, a young woman’s corpse was found, with a makeshift shroud frozen to her battered face. Her ghost - the Faceless Woman - is said to walk through Ravenbank on Halloween. Five years ago, another woman, Shenagh Moss, was murdered, and again her face was covered to hide her injuries. Daniel Kind, a specialist in the history of murder, becomes fascinated by the old cases and wonders whether the obvious suspects really did commit the crimes. He spends Halloween at a party in Ravenbank - only to find death returning to this beautiful but isolated spot. Once more, the victim is a woman; once more her damaged face is shrouded from view.
©2013 Martin Edwards (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Young Philby
Summary
An elegant, twisty spy story by a true master of the craft. Best-selling novelist Robert Littell employs all his considerable skills in telling the story of Kim Philby through the eyes of more than 20 true-life characters. As each layer is revealed, the question arises: Who really was this man? When Kim Philby fled to Moscow in 1963, he became the most infamous double agent in history. A member of Britain's intelligence service since World War II, he had risen to become their chief officer in Washington, D.C. after the war. The exposure of other members of the group of double agents known as the Cambridge Five led to the revelation that he had been working for Russia for even longer than he had been part of MI6. Yet he escaped, and spent the last 25 years of his life in Moscow. In Young Philby, Robert Littell tells the story of the spy's early years. In the words of his friends, lovers, and Soviet handlers, we see the development of a fascinating, flawed man who kept people guessing about his ideals and allegiances until the very end.
©2012 Robert Littell (P)2012 Macmillan Audio