Patrick Lawlor has narrated 240 audiobooks on Listento.it by 216 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 4,357 ratings. The most-rated is It.
It
Summary
It: Chapter Two - soon to be a major motion picture in 2019! Stephen King’s terrifying, classic number one New York Times best seller, “a landmark in American literature” (Chicago Sun-Times) - about seven adults who return to their hometown to confront a nightmare they had first stumbled on as teenagers…an evil without a name: It. Welcome to Derry, Maine. It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real. They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But the promise they made 28 years ago calls them reunite in the same place where, as teenagers, they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children. Now, children are being murdered again, and their repressed memories of that terrifying summer return as they prepare to once again battle the monster lurking in Derry’s sewers. Readers of Stephen King know that Derry, Maine, is a place with a deep, dark hold on the author. It reappears in many of his books, including Bag of Bones, Hearts in Atlantis, and 11/22/63. But it all starts with It. “Stephen King’s most mature work.” (St. Petersburg Times) “It will overwhelm you…to be read in a well-lit room only.” (Los Angeles Times).
©1980 Stephen King (P)2010 Penguin Audio
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
Summary
A sweeping and groundbreaking history of the age of dinosaurs, from one of our finest young scientists. The dinosaurs. 66 million years ago, the Earth's most fearsome and spectacular creatures vanished. Today their extraordinary true story remains one of our planet's great mysteries. In this stunning narrative spanning more than 200 million years, Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field - discovering 10 new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork - masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy. Captivating and revelatory, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a book for the ages. Brusatte traces the evolution of dinosaurs from their inauspicious start as small shadow dwellers - themselves the beneficiaries of a mass extinction caused by volcanic eruptions at the beginning of the Triassic period - into the dominant array of species every wide-eyed child memorizes today, T. rex, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, and more. This gifted scientist and writer re-creates the dinosaurs' peak during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, when thousands of species thrived, and winged and feathered dinosaurs, the prehistoric ancestors of modern birds, emerged. The story continues to the end of the Cretaceous period, when a giant asteroid or comet struck the planet and nearly every dinosaur species (but not all) died out, in the most extraordinary extinction event in earth's history, one full of lessons for today as we confront a "sixth extinction". Brusatte also recalls compelling stories from his globe-trotting expeditions during one of the most exciting eras in dinosaur research - which he calls "a new golden age of discovery" - and offers thrilling accounts of some of the remarkable findings he and his colleagues have made, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs; monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex; and paradigm-shifting feathered raptors from China. An electrifying scientific history that unearths the dinosaurs' epic saga, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs will be a definitive and treasured account for decades to come.
©2018 Stephen Brusatte (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
Summary
Blasting clichéd career advice, the contrarian pundit and creator of Dilbert recounts the humorous ups and downs of his career, revealing the outsized role of luck in our lives and how best to play the system. Scott Adams has likely failed at more things than anyone you’ve ever met or anyone you’ve even heard of. So how did he go from hapless office worker and serial failure to the creator of Dilbert, one of the world’s most famous syndicated comic strips, in just a few years? In How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Adams shares the game plan he’s followed since he was a teen: invite failure in, embrace it, then pick its pocket. No career guide can offer advice that works for everyone. As Adams explains, your best bet is to study the ways of others who made it big and try to glean some tricks and strategies that make sense for you. Adams pulls back the covers on his own unusual life and shares how he turned one failure after another - including his corporate career, his inventions, his investments, and his two restaurants - into something good and lasting. There’s a lot to learn from his personal story, and a lot of entertainment along the way. Adams discovered some unlikely truths that helped to propel him forward. For instance: Goals are for losers. Systems are for winners. "Passion" is bull. What you need is personal energy. A combination of mediocre skills can make you surprisingly valuable. You can manage your odds in a way that makes you look lucky to others. Adams hopes you can laugh at his failures while discovering some unique and helpful ideas on your own path to personal victory. As he writes: "This is a story of one person’s unlikely success within the context of scores of embarrassing failures. Was my eventual success primarily a result of talent, luck, hard work, or an accidental just-right balance of each? All I know for sure is that I pursued a conscious strategy of managing my opportunities in a way that would make it easier for luck to find me."
©2013 Scott Adams (P)2019 Penguin Audio
What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars
Summary
Tim Ferriss Book Club Selection Jim Paul's meteoric rise took him from a small town in Northern Kentucky to governor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, yet he lost it all - his fortune, his reputation, and his job - in one fatal attack of excessive economic hubris. In this honest, frank analysis, Paul and Brendan Moynihan revisit the events that led to Paul's disastrous decision and examine the psychological factors behind bad financial practices in several economic sectors. This book - winner of a 2014 Axiom Business Book award gold medal - begins with the unbroken string of successes that helped Paul achieve a jet-setting lifestyle and land a key spot with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. It then describes the circumstances leading up to Paul's $1.6 million loss and the essential lessons he learned from it - primarily that, although there are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in them, all losses come from the same few sources. Investors lose money in the markets either because of errors in their analysis or because of psychological barriers preventing the application of analysis. While all analytical methods have some validity and make allowances for instances in which they do not work, psychological factors can keep an investor in a losing position, causing him to abandon one method for another in order to rationalize the decisions already made. Paul and Moynihan's cautionary tale includes strategies for avoiding loss tied to a simple framework for understanding, accepting, and dodging the dangers of investing, trading, and speculating. Also included is a bonus hour-long interview between co-author Brendon Moynihan and noted investor, business advisor, and best-selling author Tim Ferriss.
©2013 Brendan Moynihan (P)2014 Tim Ferriss
Launch
Summary
The start of everything is critically important - and every truly successful product or business starts with a successful launch. Unfortunately most entrepreneurs put all their focus into "getting the doors open" without giving much thought to creating a great launch. However, since 1996, Jeff Walker has been obsessed with creating hugely successful launches in our increasingly digital world. During those years Jeff created an unbroken string of amazing successes for himself and his clients. Operating tiny businesses in an almost underground society, they've collectively done over $400 million in sales. Launch is the "how to" manual for using Jeff's formula to follow a path of success - to create a product or business launch that gives you nearly instant momentum, sales, and positioning.
©2014 Jeff Walker (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Generation Kill
Summary
They were called a generation without heroes. Then they were called upon to be heroes. Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the 23 Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam. They were a new breed of American warriors unrecognizable to their forebears - soldiers raised on hip-hop, Internet porn, Marilyn Manson, video games, and The Real World, a band of born-again Christians, dopers, Buddhists, and New Agers who gleaned their precepts from kung fu movies and Oprah Winfrey. Cocky, brave, headstrong, wary, and mostly unprepared for the physical, emotional, and moral horrors ahead, the "First Suicide Battalion" would spearhead the blitzkrieg on Iraq and fight against the hardest resistance Saddam had to offer. Generation Kill is the funny, frightening, and profane firsthand account of these remarkable men, of the personal toll of victory, and of the randomness, brutality, and camaraderie of a new American war.
©2008 Evan Wright (P)2008 Tantor
DisneyWar
Summary
The dramatic inside story of the downfall of Michael Eisner - Disney chairman and CEO - and the scandals that drove America's best-known entertainment company to civil war. "When You Wish Upon a Star", "Whistle While You Work", "The Happiest Place on Earth" - these are lyrics indelibly linked to Disney, one of the most admired and best-known companies in the world. So when Roy Disney, chairman of Walt Disney Animation and nephew of founder Walt Disney, abruptly resigned in November 2003 and declared war on chairman and chief executive Michael Eisner, he sent shock waves through the entertainment industry, corporate boardrooms, theme parks, and living rooms around the world - everywhere Disney does business and its products are cherished. Drawing on unprecedented access to both Eisner and Roy Disney, current and former Disney executives and board members, as well as thousands of pages of never-before-seen letters, memos, transcripts, and other documents, James B. Stewart gets to the bottom of mysteries that have enveloped Disney for years: What really caused the rupture with studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, a man who once regarded Eisner as a father but who became his fiercest rival? How could Eisner have so misjudged Michael Ovitz, a man who was not only "the most powerful man in Hollywood" but also his friend, whom he appointed as Disney president and immediately wanted to fire? What caused the break between Eisner and Pixar chairman Steve Jobs, and why did Pixar abruptly abandon its partnership with Disney? Why did Eisner so mistrust Roy Disney that he assigned Disney company executives to spy on him? How did Eisner control the Disney board for so long, and what really happened in the fateful board meeting in September 2004, when Eisner played his last cards? DisneyWar is an enthralling tale of one of America's most powerful media and entertainment companies, the people who control it, and those trying to overthrow them. It tells a story that - in its sudden twists, vivid, larger-than-life characters, and thrilling climax - might itself have been the subject of a Disney classic - except that it's all true.
©2005 James B. Stewart. All rights reserved. (P)2017 Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Conquistador
Summary
It was a moment unique in human history: the face-to-face meeting between two men from civilizations a world apart. In 1519 Hernán Cortés arrived on the shores of Mexico, determined not only to expand the Spanish empire but to convert the natives to Catholicism and carry off a fortune in gold. That he saw nothing paradoxical in his intentions is one of the most remarkable and tragic aspects of this unforgettable story. In Tenochtitlán, Cortés met his Aztec counterpart, Montezuma: king, divinity, and commander of the most powerful military in the Americas. Yet in less than two years, Cortés defeated the entire Aztec nation in one of the most astounding battles ever waged. The story of a lost kingdom, a relentless conqueror, and a doomed warrior, Conquistador is history at its most riveting.
©2008 Buddy Levy (P)2008 Tantor
The Conundrum
Summary
Hybrid cars, fast trains, compact florescent lightbulbs, solar panels, carbon offsets: Everything you've been told about being green is wrong. The quest for a breakthrough battery or a 100-mpg car is a dangerous fantasy. We are consumers, and we like to consume greenly and efficiently. But David Owen argues that our best intentions are still at cross-purposes to our true goal: living sustainably while caring for our environment and the future of the planet. Efficiency, once considered the holy grail of our environmental problems, turns out to be part of the problem - we have little trouble turning increases in efficiency into increases in consumption. David Owen's elegant narrative, filled with fascinating information and anecdotes, takes you through the history of energy and the quest for efficiency. Owen introduces the listener to some of the smartest people working on solving our energy problems. He details the arguments of efficiency's proponents and its antagonists - and in the process overturns most traditional wisdom about being green. This is a book that will change how you look at the world. Scientific geniuses will not invent our way out of the energy and economic crisis we're in. We already have the technology and knowledge we need to live sustainably. But will we do it? That is the conundrum.
©2011 David Owen (P)2012 Tantor
F*ck Feelings
Summary
Other self-help books claim to reveal the path to happiness, but F*ck Feelings warns that convincing yourself that there is such a path will actually lead you to feel like a true failure. What the Bennetts can promise you is that you can manage any situation life throws at you if you can keep your sense of humor, bend your wishes to fit reality, restrain your feelings, manage bad behavior, and do what you think is right. Life is hard. It's not fair. Our feelings cloud our rationality, and we become tangled in our efforts to achieve the impossible or change the unchangeable. In this groundbreaking, entirely sensible, and funny book, the Bennetts open the shrinks' secret solution manual and show you how to find a new kind of freedom by working toward realistic goals and doing the best with what you can control. They address the most common problems Dr. Bennett's patients bring to his private practice and give you a script for going forward. With no-bullshit advice from a Harvard-educated shrink freed of all jargon and patronization by his smart-ass, comedy-writer daughter, F*ck Feelings is the cut-to-the-chase therapy session you've been looking for. Contains mature themes.
©2015 F*CK Feelings LLC (P)2015 Tantor
The Blue Zones of Happiness
Summary
In this inspiring book, Buettner offers game-changing tools for setting up your life to be the happiest it can be. In this illuminating book, you'll: Meet the world's Happiness All-Stars - inspiring individuals whose ways of boosting well-being can influence your home and community as well. Discover the three strands of happiness - pleasure, purpose, and pride - that weave together in different ways in the world's happiest places. Use the Blue Zones Happiness Test to pinpoint areas in your life where change could bring more happiness - and then find practical steps to make those changes. Learn what researchers on happiness consider the top ways to create personal and nationwide happiness, as revealed by a blue-ribbon panel of world experts convened for this book. Boost your own happiness with the Happiness Power 9 - Buettner's final assessment of the most important lessons to be learned from the world's happiest people and places.
©2017 Dan Buettner (P)2017 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Seven Days That Divide the World
Summary
What did the writer of Genesis mean by "the first day"? Is it a literal week or a series of time periods? If I believe that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, am I denying the authority of Scripture? In response to the continuing controversy over the interpretation of the creation narrative in Genesis, John Lennox proposes a succinct method of reading and interpreting the first chapters of Genesis without discounting either science or Scripture. With examples from history, a brief but thorough exploration of the major interpretations, and a look into the particular significance of the creation of human beings, Lennox suggests that Christians can heed modern scientific knowledge while staying faithful to the biblical narrative. He moves beyond a simple response to the controversy, insisting that Genesis teaches us far more about the God of Jesus Christ and about God's intention for creation than it does about the age of the earth. With this book, Lennox offers a careful yet accessible introduction to a scientifically savvy, theologically astute, and Scripturally faithful interpretation of Genesis.
©2011 John C. Lennox (P)2011 Zondervan
Conviction
Summary
Juan Martinez, the fiery prosecutor who convicted notorious murderer Jodi Arias for the disturbing killing of Travis Alexander, speaks for the first time about the shocking investigation and sensational trial that captivated the nation. Through two trials, America watched with bated breath as Juan Martinez fought relentlessly to convict Jodi Arias of Murder One for viciously stabbing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander to death. What emerged was a story wrought with sex, manipulation, and deceit that stunned the public at every turn. Arias, always playing the wronged and innocent woman, changed her story continually as her bizarre behavior surrounding the crime and its aftermath came to light. Unwavering, Arias and her defense team continued to play off the salacious details of the case, until she was finally found guilty and - controversially - sentenced to life behind bars. Now, speaking openly for the first time, prosecutor Juan Martinez will unearth new details from the investigation that were never revealed at trial, exploring key facts from the case and the pieces of evidence he chose to keep close to the vest. Throughout the trials, his bullish and unfaltering prosecution strategy was both commended and criticized, and in his book, Martinez will illuminate the unique tactics he utilized in this case and how they lead to a successful conviction, and - for the first time - discuss how he felt losing the death penalty sentence he’d pursued for years. Going beyond the news reports, Martinez will explore the truth behind the multiple facades of Jodi Arias. Sparring with her from across the stand, Martinez came to know Arias like no one else could, dissecting what it took for a seemingly normal girl to become a deluded, cunning, and unrepentant murderer. With new stories from behind the scenes of the trial and Martinez’s own take on his defendant, the book takes you inside the mind of Jodi Arias like never before and is the definitive account of the case that shocked America.
©2016 Juan Martinez (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
The Hero's Journey
Summary
Joseph Campbell, arguably the greatest mythologist of the twentieth century, was certainly one of our greatest storytellers. This masterfully crafted book interweaves conversations between Campbell and some of the people he inspired, including poet Robert Bly, anthropologist Angeles Arrien, filmmaker David Kennard, Doors drummer John Densmore, psychiatric pioneer Stanislov Grof, Nobel laureate Roger Guillemen, and others. Campbell reflects on subjects ranging from the origins and functions of myth, the role of the artist, and the need for ritual to the ordeals of love and romance. With poetry and humor, Campbell recounts his own quest and conveys the excitement of his lifelong exploration of our mythic traditions, what he called “the one great story of mankind.” Cover photographs of Joseph Campbell © Joseph Campbell Foundation and used with permission.
©1990 Joseph Campbell Foundation (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved
Quick Change: A litRPG Publisher's Pack
Summary
Contains books one and two of Quick Change, a litRPG adventure series. Slyborn, book one Seth Andersen, a UX designer, was driving home from a bad day at work when his world changed, literally. Seth is instantly transferred to the world of Morgenheim, where knights in shining armor and magic are normal, and citizens must actually “level up” to get stronger. Seth is given the chance to choose a boon from a list of incredible super powers, but accidentally chooses seemingly the most useless power in the list. Can he make it on his own in this world of magic and monsters? Spire, book two The only way out is up. Seth and the Adventurers’ Guild survived their clash with the Howlingshields and have been rebuilding the last few months. While Seth is mostly used to life in the land of Morgenheim, he’s struggling with the responsibilities that come with being a high level member in the guild. While completing a quest as a favor to his friend Pahan, Seth inadvertently catches the attention of Djinia, goddess of adventurers, and is given a seemingly impossible quest that will require the help of the Adventurers’ Guild and their primary rivals, the Transportation Guild. When the two groups aren’t sabotaging each other, their combined might overcomes numerous dungeons with surprising ease...until they catch sight of a thin spire stretching high into the sky at the center of a mysterious desert.
©2020 C.T. O'Leary (P)2021 Podium Audio
Going to Pieces without Falling Apart
Summary
Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart shows us that happiness doesn't come from any kind of acquisitiveness, be it material or psychological. Happiness comes from letting go. Weaving together the accumulated wisdom of his two worlds - Buddhism and Western psychotherapy - Mark Epstein shows how "the happiness that we seek depends on our ability to balance the ego's need to do with our inherent capacity to be." He encourages us to relax the ever-vigilant mind in order to experience the freedom that comes only from relinquishing control. Drawing on events in Epstein's own life and stories from his patients, Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart teaches us that only by letting go can we start on the path to a more peaceful and spiritually satisfying life.
©1998 Mark Epstein (P)2015 Tantor
Dark Guardian
Summary
Jaxon Montgomery is a woman hunted. Trained by the Special Forces, honed by a traumatic childhood, she is a policewoman with an undisputed reputation. She meets her match when she is set up to be murdered by an enemy. Hunted on all sides, she can only turn to the mysterious stranger who seems more dangerous than any other she has ever known. He ran with the wolves.... Materialized from the mists.... Hijacked the very heavens to his whims....
©2002 Christine Feehan (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers
A Boy Called Bat
Summary
The first book in a funny, heartfelt, and irresistible young middle grade series starring an unforgettable young boy on the autism spectrum, from acclaimed author Elana K. Arnold and with illustrations by Charles Santoso. For Bixby Alexander Tam (nicknamed Bat), life tends to be full of surprises—some of them good, some not so good. Today, though, is a good-surprise day. Bat’s mom, a veterinarian, has brought home a baby skunk, which she needs to take care of until she can hand him over to a wild-animal shelter. But the minute Bat meets the kit, he knows they belong together. And he’s got one month to show his mom that a baby skunk might just make a pretty terrific pet. "This sweet and thoughtful novel chronicles Bat’s experiences and challenges at school with friends and teachers and at home with his sister and divorced parents. Approachable for younger or reluctant readers while still delivering a powerful and thoughtful story" (from the review by Brightly.com, which named A Boy Called Bat a best book of 2017).
©2017 Elana K. Arnold (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Grandma Gatewood's Walk
Summary
Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than $200. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, atop Maine's Mount Katahdin, she sang the first verse of "America, the Beautiful" and proclaimed, "I said I'll do it, and I've done it." Grandma Gatewood, as the reporters called her, became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, as well as the first person - man or woman - to walk it twice and three times. The public attention she brought to the little-known footpath was unprecedented. Her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult stretches led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail from extinction.
©2014 Ben Montgomery (P)2014 Tantor
The Forgotten 500
Summary
The astonishing, never-before-told story of the greatest rescue mission of World War II: when the OSS set out to recover more than 500 airmen trapped behind enemy lines. During a bombing campaign, hundreds of American airmen were shot down in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. Local Serbian villagers risked their own lives to give refuge to the soldiers, and for months the airmen lived in hiding, waiting for rescue. In 1944, Operation Halyard was born. The risks were incredible. The starving Americans in Yugoslavia had to construct a landing strip: without tools, without alerting the Germans, and without endangering the villagers. And the rescue planes had to make it through enemy airspace and back: without getting shot down themselves. Classified for over half a century for political reasons, the full account of this unforgettable story of loyalty, self-sacrifice, and bravery is now being told for the first time. The Forgotten 500 is the breathtaking, behind-the-scenes look at the greatest escape of World War II.
©2007 Gregory A. Freeman (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.