Lance Guest has narrated 3 audiobooks on Listento.it by 3 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.2★ across 18 ratings. The most-rated is Christmas Eve, 1914.
Christmas Eve, 1914
Summary
"Drawing from historic events and written especially for audio by two-time Emmy Award winner Charles Olivier, this stellar production transports the listener behind British lines on the Western Front during the first Christmas of WWI, when, of all things, German and English soldiers declared an unofficial truce to bury their dead, sing carols, and give thanks. The cast's excellent naturalistic acting and superb dialogue bring out the human side of a conflict in which the enemy lay entrenched only a few hundred yards away. Spot-on sound effects and motion-picture-style original music create sonic depth and atmosphere. Riveting, touching, and timeless, this production is destined to become a family favorite at Christmas for years to come. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2016." (AudioFile magazine) Audie Award Finalist, Audio Drama, 2016 "Gentlemen, maybe war takes a holiday today." This mesmerizing audio drama takes you to the dismal trenches of World War I. It is here, under the constant threat of exploding shells and artillery, that British and German soldiers live in deplorable conditions. Braving the merciless cold and crushing exhaustion and hunger, the men conduct patrols and fight, often to the death, to advance mere inches in the frozen No Man’s Land that lies between them. But on Christmas Eve, the Western Front gives way to a miracle of grace, as soldiers from both sides emerge from their trenches to greet each other, share their meager rations, and bury the dead for an unofficial and temporary truce. Drawing upon the unforgettable true story of history’s most transcendent ceasefire, this Audible Original, a finalist for the 2016 Audie Award for Best Audio Drama, commemorates an astonishing moment of peace—and celebration of man’s capacity for kindness—in the midst of total war. A full cast performance of a heart-wrenching script written by Emmy Award-winner Charles Olivier and produced by Dawn Prestwich (The Killing), Christmas Eve, 1914 is the perfect reminder of how holiday hope can be found in the unlikeliest of places. At the story’s end, listeners will also enjoy a performance of the classic carol, "Il Est Ne" by Tom Tom Club. The ensemble cast includes Damon Herriman, Cameron Daddo, Xander Berkeley, James Scott, Lance Guest, Nate Jones, Cody Fern, John Beck, Gabe Greenspan, and Heiko Obermoeller.
©2014 Audible Inc. (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Pen Pal
Summary
Tiyo Attallah Salah-El died in 2018 on “Slow Death Row” while serving a life sentence in a Pennsylvania prison. He was a man with a dizzying array of talents and vocations: author, scholar, teacher, musician, and activist: he was the founder of the Coalition for the Abolition of Prisons. He was also, as is apparent from the letters written over a decade and half to his friend Paul Alan Smith that make up this book, an extraordinarily eloquent correspondent. Tiyo’s missives present a vivid picture of the tribulations faced by those incarcerated, especially the nearly 60 percent who are non-white: habitual racism, arbitrary lockdowns, brutal beatings and hospitalizations, stifling heat and bitter cold. Here too are descriptions of Tiyo’s individual struggles with cancer, aging, and the sirens of personal demons. Tiyo’s refusal to succumb to such hardships is evident in dispatches that are generous, philosophical and often laugh-out-loud funny. Through them we learn of his many friendships, including those with the historian Howard Zinn, a range of activist/advocate supporters on the outside, and two fellow inmates who were leaders of the Black liberation group MOVE. At a time when the appalling racial bias of America’s police and criminal justice system is under the spotlight as never before, Pen Pal is both a vital intervention and moving portrait of someone whose physical confinement could never extinguish an extraordinary free spirit.
©2020 O/R Books (P)2020 New Deal Mfg. Co.
The Civil War
Summary
One hundred and fifty years after the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter, the Civil War still captures the American imagination, and its reverberations can still be felt throughout America's social and political landscape. Louis P. Masur's The Civil War: A Concise History offers a masterful and eminently listenable overview of the war's multiple causes and catastrophic effects. Masur begins by examining the complex origins of the war, focusing on the pulsating tensions over states rights and slavery. The book then proceeds to cover, year by year, the major political, social, and military events, highlighting two important themes: how the war shifted from a limited conflict to restore the Union to an all-out war that would fundamentally transform Southern society, and the process by which the war ultimately became a battle to abolish slavery. Masur explains how the war turned what had been a loose collection of fiercely independent states into a nation, remaking its political, cultural, and social institutions. But he also focuses on the soldiers themselves, both Union and Confederate, whose stories constitute nothing less than America's Iliad. In the final chapter, Masur considers the aftermath of the South's surrender at Appomattox and the clash over the policies of reconstruction that continued to divide president and Congress, conservatives and radicals, Southerners and Northerners for years to come. In 1873, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley wrote that the war had "wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." From the vantage of the war's sesquicentennial, this concise history of the entire Civil War era offers an invaluable introduction to the dramatic events whose effects are still felt today.
©2011 Louis P. Masur (P)2011 Audible, Inc.