Lydia Mackay has narrated 9 audiobooks on Listento.it by 10 authors. The most-rated is In Short Measures.
True Crime from Texas Monthly
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, the following articles spotlighting true crime are now available in a bundle as an audio download: "The Cheerleader Murder Plot" by Mimi Swartz, read by Pam Dougherty "The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob" by Skip Hollandsworth, read by Bruce DuBose "A Kiss Before Dying" by Pamela Colloff, read by Staci Snell and Karissa Vacker "The Talented Mr. Khater" by Francesca Mari, read by Mallorie Rodak "Just Desserts" by Katy Vine, read by Lydia Mackay "The Cheerleader Murder Plot" by Mimi Swartz features a woman who went to extreme, murderous lengths to ensure her daughter's spot on the cheerleading squad. "The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob" by Skip Hollandsworth profiles the mysterious Peggy Jo Tallas who, disguised as a man, robbed banks and confounded police for years. "A Kiss Before Dying" by Pamela Colloff revisits the case of Betty Williams, a high school student who begged her ex to kill her. "The Talented Mr. Khater" by Francesca Mari investigates the ongoing exploits of international con artist and psychopath Youssef Khater. "Just Desserts" by Katy Vine is the story of a man who turned "keeping up with the Joneses" into the perfect crime.
©2018 Texas Monthly (P)2018 Random House Audio
Lost and Found
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, Katy Vine's "Lost and Found" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. Katy Vine's "Lost and Found" is a thoughtful and uplifting look into a refugee community in the heart of Texas at a time when political sentiment surrounding refugees and immigration turned increasingly negative. Texas is known nationwide for accepting a high ratio of refugees admitted to the United States. Though most end up in Houston, the smaller city of Amarillo has become a harbor for new immigrants looking to start anew. One key part of the vital Amarillo refugee community is Evelyn Lyles, a woman in her 60s who volunteers her time to help families assimilate and learn the ways of their new homeland. Her help ranges from assisting new families with the myriad forms and paperwork required of them; rallying community support to pay for steep medical bills; or simply, serving as a friendly, generous neighbor. "Lost and Found" is a snapshot as life as a refugee, honing in on a few families, each with their own struggles and obstacles, their own dreams and hopes for the future, and the common thread of a helping hand in Evelyn.
©2016 Katy Vine (P)2018 Random House Audio
The Missing JFK Assassination Film
Summary
The Missing JFK Assassination Film is not the typical JFK assassination book. This book does not attempt to answer the question of who killed John F. Kennedy; instead it addresses why we should question the actions of those involved and why the truth was withheld from the people. Though copies of Orville Nix's film exist, the original film is missing. Why? The FBI confiscated Orville's camera for several months, then returned it in pieces. Were these actions sinister, or were they just examples of governmental incompetence? The Missing JFK Assassination Film exposes information about the House Select Committee staff's involvement in the missing film. Author Gayle Nix Jackson's interviews with people who were close to Orville and the film will shed light on the government's involvement with the filmmaker. Gayle Nix Jackson is the granddaughter of Orville Nix. As his eldest granddaughter, Nix Jackson shares experiences growing up with her beloved grandfather and how his views changed after that fatal day. Hearing his story precipitated the quest Jackson is still on to find the film. Her grandfather was there that day for a reason, and if the original Nix film could be located, modern-day technology could determine if there was indeed another person behind the stockade fence or not. Questions still abound today as to whether or not the film was altered. Finding the original Nix film would answer one of the most enduring questions related to this horrific event: Was there a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963? Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for listeners interested in history - books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times best seller or a national best seller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2014 Gayle Nix Jackson; First Skyhorse Publishing edition 2016 (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
Just Desserts
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, Katy Vine's "Just Desserts" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins led a perfectly adequate middle class life in Corsicana, Texas. Mr. Jenkins, Sandy, worked as an accountant at Collin Street Bakery, world-famous for their fruitcakes. Kay, Mrs. Jenkins, was the more outgoing of the two, the one that friends and neighbors actually noticed and didn't mind talking to. Feelings of adequacy and invisibility weighed on Sandy, and were only compounded by his admiration of boss bakery owner, Bob McNutt, a man who reminded him daily that others were respected and were living more luxurious lives than he. One day, Sandy decided to seize a bit of that respect and finer life he admired so much in McNutt for himself. With just a bit of manipulation of the bakery's accounts, Sandy wrote the first of many checks in the company's name to pay for the life of luxury he envisioned was his right. Combining a quintessential tale of living outside one's means with the addiction of committing a crime time and again without getting caught, Katy Vine delivers the hard-to-imagine story of the Jenkinses and their mysterious rise through Corsicana society.
©2016 Katy Vine (P)2018 Random House Audio
Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, Mimi Swartz's "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. Many Americans today feel they don't hold the reins to their own health care; for American women, health care is nothing less than a Trojan horse. With women's health care politicized more than ever, it's impossible not to wonder how we got to now. Mimi Swartz's "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives" is a vital snapshot of this history for fans of Hulu's adaption of The Handmaid's Tale or listeners of the podcast "Pod Save America". Told with immense levity and grave understanding, this article - available for the first time as an audio program - details a turning point in women's health care legislation. In 2011, Texas' state legislature went as far as any body of government has gone before in restricting women's reproductive rights. The legislature passed a sonogram law - forcing women to have an invasive sonogram 24 hours before a scheduled abortion - and cut the family planning budget from $111.5 million to just $37.9 million. To explore this moment, Swartz dips into the nuances of Texas politics, from the gritty in-fighting of a one-party state to the fight between two of Texas' most powerful women: Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood and Nancy Brinker of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. What results is a portrait of a time and state that rings like a premonition for the future of the country.
©2018 Mimi Swartz (P)2018 Random House Audio
Cops and Robbers
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, Katy Vine's "Cops and Robbers" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. Law enforcement in Hidalgo County would joke that without the drug trade, half the business in the county would fail. Others would say of the region in South Texas that you'd be hard pressed to meet a local who didn't know a drug dealer. The sentiment of the local culture and economy relying on the drug trade would turn from harmless to hostile when the line between drug busters and drug dealers began to blur. In "Cops and Robbers," listeners are introduced to members of the Panama Unit, a group of young, eager sheriff's deputies and police officers tasked with drug busting along the active dealing border between Texas and Mexico. The unit was created by Guadalupe "Lupe" Treviño, a popular, charismatic sheriff looking to right the wrongs of his predecessor, who had been charged with extrotion and drug trafficking. Treviño placed his arrogant son in charge of the unit, a move that many questioned and one that would be the downfall of the sheriff's office. Katy Vine explores Southern Texas's fragile relationship with the drug trade and its border with Mexico through this larger than life story of what happened to some of Texas's finest when taking part in the drug trade became more worthwhile than stopping it.
©2015 Texas Monthly (P)2018 Random House Audio
Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart
Summary
It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. If America could send a man to the moon, shouldn’t the best surgeons in the world be able to build an artificial heart? In Ticker, Texas Monthly executive editor and two-time National Magazine Award winner Mimi Swartz shows just how complex and difficult it can be to replicate one of nature’s greatest creations. Part investigative journalism, part medical mystery, Ticker is a dazzling story of modern innovation, recounting 50 years of false starts, abysmal failures, and miraculous triumphs, as experienced by one the world’s foremost heart surgeons, O.H. “Bud” Frazier, who has given his life to saving the un-savable. His journey takes him from a small town in west Texas to one of the country’s most prestigious medical institutions, The Texas Heart Institute, from the halls of Congress to the animal laboratories where calves are fitted with new heart designs. The roadblocks to success - medical setbacks, technological shortcomings, government regulations - are immense. Still, Bud and his associates persist, finding inspiration in the unlikeliest of places. A field beside the Nile irrigated by an Archimedes screw. A hardware store in Brisbane, Australia. A seedy bar on the wrong side of Houston. Until post WWII, heart surgery did not exist. Ticker provides a riveting history of the pioneers who gave their all to the courageous process of cutting into the only organ humans cannot live without. Heart surgeons Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley, whose feud dominated the dramatic beginnings of heart surgery. Christian Barnaard, who changed the world overnight by performing the first heart transplant. Inventor Robert Jarvik, whose artificial heart made patient Barney Clark a worldwide symbol of both the brilliant promise of technology and the devastating evils of experimentation run amuck. Rich in supporting players, Ticker introduces us to Bud’s brilliant colleagues in his quixotic quest to develop an artificial heart: Billy Cohn, the heart surgeon and inventor who devotes his spare time to the pursuit of magic and music; Daniel Timms, the Brisbane biomedical engineer whose design of a lightweight, pulseless heart with but a single moving part offers a new way forward. And, as government money dries up, the unlikeliest of backers, Houston’s furniture king, Mattress Mack. In a sweeping narrative of one man’s obsession, Swartz raises some of the hardest questions of the human condition. What are the tradeoffs of medical progress? What is the cost, in suffering and resources, of offering patients a few more months, or years of life? Must science do harm to do good? Ticker takes us on an unforgettable journey into the power and mystery of the human heart.
©2018 Mimi Swartz (P)2018 Random House Audio
Social Studies from Texas Monthly
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, the following articles focusing on Texas society are now available in a bundle as an audio download: "Busting Out of Mexico" by Jan Reid, read by Bruce DuBose "Showdown at Waggoner Ranch" by Gary Cartwright, read by Bruce DuBose "Cops and Robbers" by Katy Vine, read by Lydia Mackay "Lost and Found" by Katy Vine, read by Lydia Mackay "The Trouble With Innocence" by Michael Hall, read by Christopher Ryan Grant "Busting Out of Mexico" by Jan Reid details the unbelievable story of an eclectic group of Texans who broke Americans out of a Mexican jail. "Showdown at Waggoner Ranch" by Gary Cartwright is the saga of the Waggoner family and their fight over the inheritance of the second largest ranch in Texas. "Cops and Robbers" by Katy Vine investigates the Panama Unit, a group of police officers tasked with cleaning up the drug trade along the Southern Texas and Mexico border who instead became a part of it. "Lost and Found" by Katy Vine profiles the refugee community of Amarillo, Texas, and one woman who volunteers to help them settle into their new lives. "The Trouble with Innocence" by Michael Hall explores one man's journey through the Texas justice and prison system and asks how, after seeking innocence for 39 years, he could deny his own exoneration.
©2018 Katy Vine, Michael Hall, Gary Cartwright, and Jan Reid (P)2018 Random House Audio
In Short Measures
Summary
In his three novellas, In Short Measures, Strong Conspirators, and Sally Forth, Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual love - and the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades. Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelity - what are one's obligations toward one's spouse, one's family, and one's heart? In the first novella, In Short Measures, these questions are bound up in a writer's work and a long-ago love. In the second, Strong Conspirators, an unforeseen, cataclysmic event calls for responses from a husband and wife that have never been rehearsed because they have never been required nor even imagined. In Sally Forth, a pair of old friends is forced to explore lost youth and lost love relative to maturity, marriage, and the passage of time. Profoundly thought provoking and satisfying, these novellas are beautifully written, with plot twists from beginning to end that will captivate the listener.
©2015 Michael Ruhlman (P)2015 Audible, Inc.