John Pruden has narrated 178 audiobooks on Listento.it by 158 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 2,266 ratings. The most-rated is American Sniper.
Elminster in Hell
Summary
Hell hath such fury... On the world of his birth he's all but a god, but when an ancient evil banishes him to the depths of the Nine Hells, he's just another lost soul. Elminster, Sage of Shadowdale, Chosen of Mystra, faces his most desperate struggle - to survive, to escape, to cling to his very sanity - and all the forces of the inferno are rallied against him.
©2002 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy Unabridged
Summary
America's economy is in shambles. . . . Its citizens are terrified and dissatisfied. . . . Could it all have been planned by a secret elite one hundred years ago? The New World Order. Hitler referred to it in his diaries. President George H. W. Bush foretold of it in his speeches. Formed by a secretive global elite, the group seeking this new order has taken hold of the nation and perhaps the world. Its influence pervades every reach of American society, from the products we buy at the grocery store to the topics of evening news programs. But could it also be true that the New World Order caused one of the greatest financial catastrophes of our time? For years, best-selling author and legendary conspiracy researcher Jim Marrs has exposed information that the mainstream corporate media has refused to report. Now, with a crisis upon us, Marrs has yet again unearthed the lies to expose the insidious alliances that make up a secret world. Consider this: In 1910, a handful of the world's most powerful government and corporate men gathered on Jekyll Island to discuss matters at a private hunting lodge. The agenda? First, the overthrow of the sitting American president; second, the creation of a central bank, one headed by a succession of elitists who would unconstitutionally control America's money and its economy for decades. . . . Flash forward one hundred years. Never before have the American people been so unhappy. Apathy and paralysis are the nation's guiding principles. Public education has repeatedly failed. More and more Americans rely on overpriced pills for remedies to fabricated illnesses. The average American household spends eight hours a day in front of the television, ruled by the vague fears of terrorist attacks and economic collapse. Control of the mass media has devolved to a mere five multinational corporations.
©2010 Jim Marrs (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers
Hot Lights, Cold Steel
Summary
When Michael Collins decided to become a surgeon, he was totally unprepared for the chaotic life of a resident at a major hospital. A natural overachiever, Collins' success in college and medical school led to a surgical residency at one of the most respected medical centers in the world, the famed Mayo Clinic. But compared to his fellow residents, Collins felt inadequate and unprepared. All too soon the euphoria of beginning his career as an orthopedic resident gave way to the feeling he was a counterfeit, an imposter who had infiltrated a society of brilliant surgeons. This story of Collins' four-year surgical residency traces his rise from an eager but clueless first-year resident to accomplished chief resident in his final year. With unparalleled humor he recounts the disparity between people's perceptions of a doctor's glamorous life and the real thing: a succession of run-down cars that are towed to the junkyard, long weekends moonlighting at rural hospitals, a family that grows larger every year, and a laughable income.
©2005 Michael J. Collins, MD (P)2017 Tantor
Believe
Summary
From Buck Brannaman, best-selling author of The Faraway Horses, Believe: A Horseman's Journey continues to chronicle Buck's efforts as a catalyst and mentor through the stories of thirteen people with whom he has worked.
©2004 Buck Brannaman and William Reynolds (P)2011 Tantor
The Harvard Psychedelic Club
Summary
It is impossible to overstate the cultural significance of the four men described in Don Lattin's The Harvard Psychedelic Club. Huston Smith, tirelessly working to promote cross-cultural religious and spiritual tolerance. Richard Alpert, aka Ram Dass, inspiring generations with his mantra "be here now". Andrew Weil, undisputed leader of the holistic medicine revolution. And, of course, Timothy Leary, the charismatic, rebellious counterculture icon and LSD guru. Journalist Don Lattin provides the funny, moving inside story of the "Cambridge Quartet", who crossed paths with the infamous Harvard Psilocybin Project in the early '60s and went on to pioneer the mind/body/spirit movement that would popularize yoga, vegetarianism, and Eastern mysticism in the Western world.
©2010 Don Lattin (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Humans Need Not Apply
Summary
Audie Award, Business/Personal Development, 2017. After billions of dollars and 50 years of effort, researchers are finally cracking the code on artificial intelligence. As society stands on the cusp of unprecedented change, Jerry Kaplan unpacks the latest advances in robotics, machine learning, and perception powering systems that rival or exceed human capabilities. Driverless cars, robotic helpers, and intelligent agents that promote our interests have the potential to usher in a new age of affluence and leisure - but, as Kaplan warns, the transition may be protracted and brutal unless we address the two great scourges of the modern developed world: volatile labor markets and income inequality. He proposes innovative, free-market adjustments to our economic system and social policies to avoid an extended period of social turmoil. His timely and accessible analysis of the promise and perils of artificial intelligence is a must-listen for business leaders and policy makers on both sides of the aisle.
©2015 Jerry Kaplan (P)2016 Tantor
Armageddon Averted
Summary
Featuring extensive revisions to the text as well as a new introduction and epilogue - bringing the book completely up to date on the tumultuous politics of the previous decade and the long-term implications of the Soviet collapse - this compact, original, and engaging book offers the definitive account of one of the great historical events of the last 50 years. Combining historical and geopolitical analysis with an absorbing narrative, Kotkin draws upon extensive research, including memoirs by dozens of insiders and senior figures, to illuminate the factors that led to the demise of Communism and the USSR. The new edition puts the collapse in the context of the global economic and political changes from the 1970s to the present day. Kotkin creates a compelling profile of post-Soviet Russia, and he reminds us, with chilling immediacy, of what could not have been predicted - that the world's largest police state, with several million troops, a doomsday arsenal, and an appalling record of violence, would liquidate itself with barely a whimper. Throughout the book, Kotkin also paints vivid portraits of key personalities. Using recently released archive materials, for example, he offers a fascinating picture of Gorbachev, describing this virtuoso tactician and resolutely committed reformer as "flabbergasted by the fact that his socialist renewal was leading to the system's liquidation" - and more or less going along with it. At once authoritative and provocative, Armageddon Averted illuminates the collapse of the Soviet Union, revealing how "principled restraint and scheming self-interest brought a deadly system to meek dissolution".
©2001 Stephen Kotkin (P)2018 Tantor
The Varieties of Religious Experience
Summary
First published in 1905, The Varieties of Religious Experience is a collection of lectures given at the University of Edinburgh in 1901 and 1902. William James was a psychologist and, as such, his interest in religion was not that of a theologian but of a scientist. In these 20 lectures, he discusses the nature and origin of religious belief. The average believer is one who has inherited his religion, but this will not do for James's inquiry. He must find those believers who have a voracious religious faith because these people have also often experienced a number of peculiar psychological episodes, including having visions, hearing voices, and falling into trances. Students of psychology and those interested in the mental process of belief will find these lectures informative.
Public Domain (P)2011 Tantor
The Faraway Horses
Summary
"I've started horses since I was 12 years old and have been bit, kicked, bucked off and run over. I've tried every physical means to contain my horse in an effort to keep from getting myself killed. I started to realize that things would come much easier for me once I learned why a horse does what he does. This method works well for me because of the kinship that develops between horse and rider." —Buck Brannaman In The Faraway Horses, Buck Brannaman shares his renowned methods for horse training and provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse into Robert Redford's movie The Horse Whisperer, for which he was the technical adviser.
©2001 Buck Brannaman and William Reynolds (P)2011 Tantor
The Princess Diaries
Summary
She's just a New York City girl living with her artist mom... News flash: Dad is prince of Genovia. (So that's why a limo always meets her at the airport!) Downer: Dad can't have any more kids. (So no heir to the throne.) Shock of the century: Like it or not, Mia is prime princess material. The worst part: Princess lessons from her dreaded grandmere, the dowager princess of Genovia, who thinks Mia has a thing or two to learn before she steps up to the throne. Well, her father can lecture her until he's royal-blue in the face about her princessly duty, no way is she moving to Genovia and leaving Manhattan behind. But what's a girl to do when her name is PRINCESS AMELIA MIGNONETTE GRIMALDI THERMOPOLIS RENALDO?
©2000 Meggin Cabot (P)2001 Random House, Inc., Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group
The Only Rule Is It Has to Work
Summary
It's the ultimate in fantasy baseball: You get to pick the roster, set the lineup, and decide on strategies - with real players, in a real ballpark, in a real playoff race. That's what baseball analysts Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller got to do when an independent minor-league team in California, the Sonoma Stompers, offered them the chance to run its baseball operations according to the most advanced statistics. We tag along as Lindbergh and Miller apply their number-crunching insights to all aspects of assembling and running a team, following one cardinal rule for judging each innovation they try: It has to work. We meet colorful figures like general manager Theo Fightmaster and boundary-breakers like the first openly gay player in professional baseball. Even José Canseco makes a cameo appearance. Will their knowledge of numbers help Lindbergh and Miller bring the Stompers a championship, or will they fall on their faces? Will the team have a competitive advantage or is the sport's folk wisdom true after all? Will the players attract the attention of big-league scouts, or are they on a fast track to oblivion?
©2016 Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller (P)2016 Tantor
Spellstorm
Summary
Rumors race around Cormyr regarding the mythical "lost spell", a powerful enchantment designed centuries ago by the presumed dead god of spells - a spell long thought lost to the ages. Found by some magicless merchant, rumor has it the lost spell is to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. It is a powerful lure, and archwizards of every stripe descend upon the merchant, only to be trapped with him inside his manor by a vicious spellstorm - escape impossible, and their magic useless with the interference from the storm. Moreover, they find themselves faced with the infamous Elminster of Shadowdale, who claims he's just there to decide who gets the lost spell. Yet he clearly has an agenda of his own. But before Elimster can put whatever plan he has in motion, archwizards start dying.
©2015 Wizards of the Coast LLC. (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
Elminster's Daughter
Summary
A woman scorned... All her life, Narnra of Waterdeep wondered who her father is. Amid the squalor of the streets, through the danger she faces daily as a thief in the City of Splendors, she speculates on whom the mysterious wizard might be who left her mother to raise a fatherless child. Now she's discovered that it's no less a person than Elminster of Shadowdale, mightiest mage in all Faerian. And her anger is as boundless as his power.
©2004 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Death Masks
Summary
Ed Greenwood, who is synonymous with the Forgotten Realms, leads listeners through a story that combines the rollicking fantasy adventure for which he is famous with a murder mystery-thriller. That's what, four lords dead? Revealed in death to have been Masked Lords, three more citizens had been murdered over the preceding day and night: the Sembian wine seller and collector Oszbur Malankar; the half-elf sorceress and artisan Dathanscza Meiril; and the moneylender, landlord, and investor Ammasker Gwelt. All of Waterdeep now knew someone was killing the Lords of Waterdeep one by one. Yet that was about where truth ended and speculation - however plausible - began. The broadsheets were full of wild conjecture. Who was behind this? The ousted Lord Neverember? The Zhentarim, the Cult of the Dragon, or some other Outland Power? The Xanathar? Some cabal of guilds or nobles planning a coup? The rumors would rage on whether the Open Lord Laeral Silverhand did something or not. That was the trouble with rumors: Once loosed, they roamed free like snarling, untamed beasts, with no simple way of stopping them. And all rumors aside, Waterdeep has become... A city of murderers!
©2016 Wizards of the Coast LLC. (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
The Hunter Killers
Summary
The Extraordinary Story of the First Wild Weasels, the Band of Maverick Aviators Who Flew the Most Dangerous Missions of the Vietnam War A gripping chronicle of the band of maverick aviators who signed on for the suicidal, dangerous top-secret "Wild Weasel" missions during the Vietnam War - which used controversial and revolutionary tactics to combat Soviet missile technology - from New York Times best-selling author Dan Hampton. On July 24, 1965, Soviet advisors to North Vietnam launched an SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM), blowing an American F-4 Phantom out of the sky - the first of several kills using this menacing system. To counter this new weaponry, stunned Pentagon officials created a classified program - "Wild Weasel I" - pairing experimental equipment with a highly select group of electronic warfare officers and fighter pilots to combat this deadly threat. The men who did this became the "Hunter Killers" - and it is time to know their names. Fifty years later Dan Hampton provides a cockpit view of this highly classified military program that was a radical departure from conventional fighter jet tactics. These courageous, daring, and skilled warriors risked their lives to fight the SAMs and save their brother aviators. Using firsthand accounts and declassified documents from both sides of the conflict, The Hunter Killers takes listeners into the skies and up close to the bloody duels that left half the Weasels dead or captured. At its center are the men who risked everything to fight the most dangerous antiaircraft weapons the world had seen. Acclaimed Texas historian Stephen L. Moore's Texas Rising, the official companion to the epic History series of the same name, brings to life the violent Texas frontier and the Rangers' heroic deeds during the Texas Revolution. Texas Rising is an unforgettable history of this iconic band of fighters.
©2015 Ascalon, LLC (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers
Altamont
Summary
In this breathtaking cultural history filled with exclusive, never-before-revealed details, celebrated rock journalist Joel Selvin tells the definitive story of the Rolling Stones' infamous Altamont concert in San Francisco, the disastrous historic event that marked the end of the idealistic 1960s. In the annals of rock history, the Altamont Speedway Free Festival on December 6, 1969, has long been seen as the distorted twin of Woodstock - the day that shattered the '60s' promise of peace and love when a concertgoer was killed by a member of the Hells Angels, the notorious biker club acting as security. While most people know of the events from the film Gimme Shelter, the whole story has remained buried in varied accounts, rumor, and myth - until now. Altamont explores rock's darkest day, a fiasco that began well before the climactic death of Meredith Hunter and continued beyond that infamous December night. Joel Selvin probes every aspect of the show - from the Stones' hastily planned tour preceding the concert to the bad acid that swept through the audience to other deaths that also occurred that evening - to capture the full scope of the tragedy and its aftermath. He also provides an in-depth look at the Grateful Dead's role in the events leading to Altamont, examining the band's behind-the-scenes presence in both arranging the show and hiring the Hells Angels as security. The product of 20 years of exhaustive research and dozens of interviews with many key players, including medical staff, Hells Angels members, the stage crew, and the musicians who were there, Altamont is the ultimate account of the final event in rock's formative and most turbulent decade.
©2016 Joel Selvin (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
The End of Heart Disease
Summary
The New York Times best-selling author of Eat to Live, Super Immunity, The End of Diabetes, and The End of Dieting presents a scientifically proven, practical program to prevent and reverse heart disease, the leading cause of death in America - coinciding with the author's new medical study revealing headline-making findings. Dr. Joel Fuhrman, one of the country's leading experts on preventative medicine, offers his science-backed nutritional plan that addresses the leading cause of death in America: heart disease. An expert in the science of food, Dr. Fuhrman speaks directly to listeners who want to take control of their health and avoid taking medication or undergoing complicated, expensive surgery - the two standard treatments prescribed today. Following the model of his previous programs that have successfully tackled conditions from diabetes to dieting, Dr. Fuhrman's plan begins with the food we eat. He focuses on a high nutrient per calorie ratio, with a range of options for different needs and conditions. He shows us what to remove and what to add to our diets for optimum heart health, provides menu plans and recipes for heart-healthy meals and snacks, and includes helpful questions for doctors and patients. By understanding heart disease and its triggers, Dr. Fuhrman gives us the knowledge to counterattack this widespread epidemic and lead longer, healthier lives. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2016 Joel Fuhrman, MD (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
The Earth Is Weeping
Summary
With the end of the Civil War, the nation recommenced its expansion onto traditional Indian tribal lands, setting off a wide-ranging conflict that would last more than three decades. In an exploration of the wars and negotiations that destroyed tribal ways of life even as they made possible the emergence of the modern United States, Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail. He illuminates the encroachment experienced by the tribes and the tribal conflicts over whether to fight or make peace and explores the squalid lives of soldiers posted to the frontier and the ethical quandaries faced by generals who often sympathized with their native enemies. As the action moves from Kansas and Nebraska to the Southwestern desert to the Dakotas and the Pacific Northwest, we encounter a pageant of fascinating characters including Custer, Sherman, Grant, and a host of other military and political figures as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Red Cloud. For the first time, The Earth Is Weeping brings them all together in the fullest account to date of how the West was won.
©2016 Peter Cozzens (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Plague of Spells
Summary
Lovecraftian Horror in Faern! Blue fire sears the face of Faern, leaving the twisted and mutilated dead in its wake. But a rare few escape death - and suffer some mystical mutation. Raidon Kane is one of those who survives, the wake of blue fire burning the sigil of the amulet he wears into his chest and binding him with all the power and responsibility it entails. With everyone he knows and cares about dead, Raidon must find within himself the strength to lead the fight against the rise of an elder evil the likes of which would be the end of mortal kind. Award-winning game designer Bruce R. Cordell depicts the rise of a monstrous nation of elder evil as only he can in this brand-new trilogy Abolethic Sovereignty. Dedicated to showcasing one of the most fascinating new aspects of the changed face of Faern, this trilogy is packed with the exciting battles, wizardry, and monsters that are the hallmark of Forgotten Realms novels as well as introducing a new never-before-seen element of Lovecraftian horror to Faern.
©2008 Wizards of the Coast, LLC (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
The Final Mission of Extortion 17
Summary
On August 6, 2011, a US Army CH-47D Chinook helicopter approached a landing zone in Afghanistan 40 miles southwest of Kabul. The helicopter, call sign Extortion 17, was on a mission to reinforce American and coalition special operations troops. It would never return. Insurgents fired at the Chinook, severed one of its rear rotor blades, and brought it crashing to the ground. All 38 onboard perished instantly in the single greatest moment of sacrifice for Americans in the war in Afghanistan. Those killed were some of the United States' most highly trained and battle-honed commandos, including 15 men from the Gold Squadron of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, known popularly as SEAL Team 6, which had raided a Pakistan compound and killed Osama bin Laden just three months earlier. The downing of Extortion 17 spurred a number of conspiracy theories, such as the idea that the shootdown was revenge for bin Laden's death. In The Final Mission of Extortion 17, Ed Darack debunks this theory and others and uncovers the truth behind this mysterious tragedy. His account of the brave pilots, crew, and passengers of Extortion 17 and the events of that fateful day is interwoven into a rich, complex narrative that also discusses modern joint combat operations, the history of the Afghan war to that date, US helicopter use in Afghanistan, and the new and evolving military technologies and tactics being developed to mitigate such tragedies now and in the future.
©2017 Ed Darack (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.