Peter Francis James has narrated 26 audiobooks on Listento.it by 30 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 2,868 ratings. The most-rated is The Handmaid's Tale.
The Handmaid's Tale
Summary
Audie Award, Fiction, 2013 Margaret Atwood's popular dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale explores a broad range of issues relating to power, gender and religious politics. Multiple Golden Globe award winner Claire Danes (Romeo and Juliet, The Hours) gives a stirring performance of this classic in speculative fiction, one of the most powerful and widely read novels of our time. After a staged terrorist attack kills the president and most of Congress, the government is deposed and taken over by the oppressive and all controlling Republic of Gilead. Offred, now a Handmaid serving in the household of the enigmatic Commander and his bitter wife, can remember a time when she lived with her husband and daughter and had a job, before she lost even her own name. Despite the danger, Offred learns to navigate the intimate secrets of those who control her every move, risking her life in breaking the rules in hopes of ending this oppression. Cover art by Fred Marcellino. Used with permission of Pippin Properties, Inc.
©1985 Margaret Atwood (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
The Diabetes Code
Summary
From acclaimed author Dr. Jason Fung, a revolutionary guide to reversing diabetes. Dr. Jason Fung forever changed the way we think about obesity with his best-selling book, The Obesity Code. Now he has set out to do the same for type 2 diabetes. Today, most doctors, dietitians, and even diabetes specialists consider type 2 diabetes to be a chronic and progressive disease - a life sentence with no possibility of parole. But the truth, as Dr. Fung reveals in this paradigm-shifting book, is that type 2 diabetes is reversible. Writing with clear, persuasive language, he explains why conventional treatments that rely on insulin or other blood-glucose-lowering drugs can actually exacerbate the problem, leading to significant weight gain and even heart disease. The only way to treat type 2 diabetes effectively, he argues, is proper dieting and intermittent fasting - not medication. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2018 Jason Fung (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
The Book of Joy
Summary
Two great spiritual masters share their own hard-won wisdom about living with joy even in the face of adversity. The occasion was a big birthday. And it inspired two close friends to get together in Dharamsala for a talk about something very important to them. The friends were His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The subject was joy. Both winners of the Nobel Prize, both great spiritual masters and moral leaders of our time, they are also known for being among the most infectiously happy people on the planet. From the beginning the book was envisioned as a three-layer birthday cake: their own stories and teachings about joy, the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness, and the daily practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. Both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu have been tested by great personal and national adversity, and here they share their personal stories of struggle and renewal. Now that they are both in their 80s, they especially want to spread the core message that to have joy yourself, you must bring joy to others. Most of all, during that landmark week in Dharamsala, they demonstrated by their own exuberance, compassion, and humor how joy can be transformed from a fleeting emotion into an enduring way of life. Narration credits: Douglas Carlton Abrams, read by the author Dalai Lama, read by Francois Chau Desmond Tutu, read by Peter Francis James
©2016 Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu (P)2016 Penguin Audio
The Wim Hof Method
Summary
The only definitive work authored by Wim Hof on his powerful method for realizing our physical and spiritual potential. Narrated by Olympic and world champion short track speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno. “This method is very simple, very accessible, and endorsed by science. Anybody can do it, and there is no dogma, only acceptance. Only freedom.” (Wim Hof) Wim Hof has a message for each of us: “You can literally do the impossible. You can overcome disease, improve your mental health and physical performance, and even control your physiology so you can thrive in any stressful situation.” With The Wim Hof Method, this trailblazer of human potential shares a method that anyone can use - young or old, sick or healthy - to supercharge their capacity for strength, vitality, and happiness. Wim has become known as “The Iceman” for his astounding physical feats, such as spending hours in freezing water and running barefoot marathons over deserts and ice fields. Yet his most remarkable achievement is not any record-breaking performance - it is the creation of a method that thousands of people have used to transform their lives. In his gripping and passionate style, Wim shares his story and the three pillars of his method: Breath - His unique practices to change your body chemistry, infuse yourself with energy, and focus your mind Cold - Safe, controlled, shock-free practices for using cold exposure to enhance your cardiovascular system and awaken your body’s untapped strength Mindset - Build your willpower, inner clarity, sensory awareness, and innate joyfulness in the miracle of living Wim Hof is a man on a mission: to transform the way we live by reminding us of our true power and purpose. “This is how we will change the world, one soul at a time,” Wim says. “We alter the collective consciousness by awakening to our own boundless potential. We are limited only by the depth of our imagination and the strength of our conviction.” PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Wim Hof and Elissa Epel, PhD (P)2020 Sounds True
Red at the Bone
Summary
Named one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2019 by LitHub and The Millions. Called one of the Top 10 Literary Fiction titles of Fall by Publishers Weekly. An extraordinary new novel about the influence of history on a contemporary family, from the New York Times best-selling and National Book Award-winning author of Another Brooklyn and Brown Girl Dreaming. Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. Moving forward and backward in time, with the power of poetry and the emotional richness of a narrative 10 times its length, Jacqueline Woodson's extraordinary new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of this child. As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of 16-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the soundtrack of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own ceremony - a celebration that ultimately never took place. Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class, and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives - even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be. Read by Jacqueline Woodson, with Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Sabe), Peter Francis James (Po’Boy), Shayna Small (Iris), and Bahni Turpin (Melody)
©2019 Jacqueline Woodson (P)2019 Penguin Audio
Old Yeller
Summary
When a novel like Huckleberry Finn or The Yearling comes along, it defies customary adjectives because of the intensity of the response it evokes in the reader. Such a tale is Old Yeller; to listen to this eloquently simply story of a boy and his dog in the Texas hill country is an unforgettable and deeply moving experience.
©1956 Fred Gipson (P)2009 HarperCollins Publishers
Native Son
Summary
Now an HBO Film! "If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son." (Henry Louis Gates Jr.) Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.
©1993 Ellen Wright (P)2008 HarperCollins Publishers
Devil in the Grove
Summary
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize “A must-read, cannot-put-down history.” (Thomas Friedman, New York Times) Arguably the most important American lawyer of the 20th century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the US Supreme Court when he became embroiled in a case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and to cost him his life. In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor with the help of Sheriff Willis V. McCall, who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve. When a White 17-year-old girl cried rape, McCall pursued four young Black men who dared envision a future for themselves beyond the groves. The Ku Klux Klan joined the hunt, hell-bent on lynching the men who came to be known as "the Groveland Boys". Associates thought it was suicidal for Marshall to wade into the "Florida Terror", but the young lawyer would not shrink from the fight despite continuous death threats against him. Drawing on a wealth of never-before-published material, including the FBI's unredacted Groveland case files, as well as unprecedented access to the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund files, Gilbert King shines new light on this remarkable civil rights crusader.
©2012 Gilbert King (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers
Black Boy
Summary
Richard Wright's powerful and eloquent memoir of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. At once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment, Black Boy is a poignant record of struggle and endurance - a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time. When it exploded onto the literary scene in 1945, Black Boy was both praised and condemned. Orville Prescott of the New York Times wrote that "if enough such books are written, if enough millions of people read them maybe, someday, in the fullness of time, there will be a greater understanding and a more true democracy." Yet from 1975 to 1978, Black Boy was banned in schools throughout the United States for "obscenity" and "instigating hatred between the races." The once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a black boy. Enduring poverty, hunger, fear, abuse, and hatred while growing up in the woods of Mississippi, Wright lied, stole, and raged at those around him - whites indifferent, pitying, or cruel, and blacks resentful of anyone trying to rise above their circumstances. Desperate for a different way of life, he made his way north, eventually arriving in Chicago, where he forged a new path and began his career as a writer. At the end of Black Boy, Wright sits poised with pencil in hand, determined to "hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo." Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate.
©2009 Richard Wright (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers
The Living Blood
Summary
This sequel to My Soul to Keep, from best-selling author and two-time Bram Stoker Award finalist Tananarive Due, is a breathtaking supernatural thriller. After the disappearance of her immortal husband, David, Jessica Jacobs-Wolde must come to terms with the healing blood David gave to her and their daughter, Fana. As Fana’s powers grow, mother and daughter are swept into an epic battle to determine the fate of humankind.
©2001 Tananarive Due (P)2004 Recorded Books, LLC
How to Feed a Dictator
Summary
“Amazing stories.... Intimate portraits of how [these five ruthless leaders] were at home and at the table.” (Lulu Garcia-Navarro, NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday) Anthony Bourdain meets Kapuscinski in this chilling look from within the kitchen at the appetites of five of the 20th century's most infamous dictators, by the acclaimed author of Dancing Bears. What was Pol Pot eating while two million Cambodians were dying of hunger? Did Idi Amin really eat human flesh? And why was Fidel Castro obsessed with one particular cow? Traveling across four continents, from the ruins of Iraq to the savannahs of Kenya, Witold Szablowski tracked down the personal chefs of five dictators known for the oppression and massacre of their own citizens - Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Uganda’s Idi Amin, Albania’s Enver Hoxha, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and Cambodia’s Pol Pot - and listened to their stories over sweet-and-sour soup, goat-meat pilaf, bottles of rum, and games of gin rummy. Dishy, deliciously listenable, and dead serious, How to Feed a Dictator provides a knife’s-edge view of life under tyranny.
©2020 Witold Szablowski; Antonia Lloyd-Jones - translation (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Run
Summary
It's a winter evening in Boston and the temperature has drastically dropped as a blizzard approaches the city. On this fateful night, Bernard Doyle plans to meet his two adopted sons, Tip the older, and more serious and Teddy, the affectionate dreamer, at a Harvard auditorium to hear a speech given by Jesse Jackson. Doyle, an Irish Catholic and former Boston mayor, has done his best to keep his two sons interested in politics, from the day he and his now deceased wife became their parents, through their childhoods, and now in their lives as college students. Though the two boys are African-American, the bonds of the family's love have never been tested. But as the snow begins to fall, an accident triggers into motion a series of events that will forever change their lives. Run is at its very center, is a novel about what truly defines family and the lengths we will go to protect our children. As she did in her best-selling novel Bel Canto, Patchett beautifully weaves together seemingly disparate lives to show how intimately humans can connect. Stunning and powerful, Run is sure to engage any Patchett fan and bring her even more admirers.
©2007 Ann Patchett (P)2007 HarperCollins Publishers
The Plague of Doves
Summary
Louise Erdrich's mesmerizing new novel, her first in almost three years, centers on a compelling mystery. The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation. The descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, their lives intertwine; only the youngest generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of the role the past continues to play in their lives. Evelina Harp is a witty, ambitious young girl, part Ojibwe, part white, who is prone to falling hopelessly in love. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a seductive storyteller, a repository of family and tribal history with an all-too-intimate knowledge of the violent past. Nobody understands the weight of historical injustice better than Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, a thoughtful mixed blood who witnesses the lives of those who appear before him, and whose own love life reflects the entire history of the territory. In distinct and winning voices, Erdrich's narrators unravel the stories of different generations and families in this corner of North Dakota. Bound by love, torn by history, the two communities' collective stories finally come together in a wrenching truth. The Plague of Doves is one of the major achievements of Louise Erdrich's considerable oeuvre, a quintessentially American story and the most complex and original of her books.
©2008 Louise Erdrich (P)2008 HarperCollins Publishers
Primary Colors
Summary
Primary Colors is the riveting story of a governor-from-a-small-state's quest for the presidency, and a jaded Beltway insider's search for a leader to believe in. Spending nearly a year on the New York Times bestseller list, this blockbuster novel has sold well over one million copies. Primary Colors offers a richly detailed look at life on the political stump. As former congressional aide Henry Burton is dazzled and lured into presidential hopeful Jack Stanton's fledgling campaign, he becomes a cog in Stanton's unstoppable political machine. Burton illuminates, through his actions and observations, the sometimes seamy, sometimes steamy and sometimes surprisingly noble ascent to the presidency. Filled with spin doctors, power brokers, and loyal followers, this story of a presidential race spans the spectrum from bedroom farce to high moral drama. Narrated with commanding presence by Peter Francis James, Primary Colors paints such an authentic picture of national politics that it's become one of the most talked-about political novels.
©1997 Anonymous (P)1997 RECORDED BOOKS
My Soul to Keep
Summary
From the award-winning master of horror and Afrofuturism Tananarive Due comes a modern classic of dark introspection. When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost. Now, his immortal brethren have decided David must return and leave his family in Miami. Instead, David vows to invoke a forbidden ritual to keep Jessica and his daughter with him forever. Harrowing, engrossing, and skillfully rendered, My Soul to Keep traps Jessica between the desperation of immortals who want to rob her of her life and a husband who wants to rob her of her soul. With deft plotting and an unforgettable climax, this tour de force reminiscent of early Anne Rice will win Due a new legion of fans.
©1997 Tananarive Due (P)2002 Recorded Books
Past Due
Summary
A defense attorney who lives his life in shades of gray, Victor Carl fights all the right fights for all the wrong reasons. With a failing legal practice, a dead-end love life, and a pile of unpaid traffic tickets, Victor skates on the razor's edge of legal ethics in search of the easy buck. But the one absolute in Victor's life is loyalty, especially to a client, even if he happens to be dead. Like Joey Cheaps, a no-account who takes a knife to the throat down on the waterfront, but not before he shares with his lawyer his part in a terrible crime. With his client murdered, Victor must search for a killer. But solving the crime means investigating the darkest spot in Joey Cheap's misspent youth, sending Victor on a twisting journey that leads to a missing suitcase stuffed with money, photographs of a mysterious naked woman, and a Supreme Court justice with a secret to hide. And most dangerous of all, Victor steps into the crosshairs of a vengeful enemy with a past full of pain and a taste for blood. As thrilling as it is darkly evocative, Past Due is a superb tale of crime and justice that takes the intrepid Victor Carl into brilliant new territory and confirms William Lashner's place among the top suspense writers of our time.
©2004 William Lashner (P)2004 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Breaking the Chains
Summary
Generations of American history students grew up believing that slave rebellion was relatively rare, that slaves accepted their lot and became attached to their masters, and that they were ultimately liberated with little or no effort of their own. Liberally sprinkled with quotations from Civil War-era blacks, both slave and free, Breaking the Chains gives readers a well-researched look at the lives of real slaves. From their African abductions, through their brave resistance to harsh plantation owners, to their roles in the Civil War, their own indomitable spirits shine through as the driving force behind their emancipation. Written by a teacher, world lecturer, and consultant to the Smithsonian Institution, this compelling look at history is an educational eye-opener for history buffs of all ages. Peter Francis James’ vivid narration gives listeners the impression of being in the presence of firsthand witnesses to one of the most turbulent periods of US history.
©1990 William Loren Katz (P)1998 Recorded Books
Junebug
Summary
In the dingy Auburn Street project where Junebug lives, ten is the age when young boys start joining gangs and helping drug dealers. Junebug has watched his friend, Darnell, drift away in a sleek, dark-windowed car. He has seen his Aunt Jolita, surrounded by a cloud of jewelry and perfume, strut off with silent gang leaders. Junebug’s mother works hard to keep him and his little sister safe. So do the librarian and the tutor who set up a reading room in the basement of the graffiti-coated apartment building. But Junebug is afraid; his tenth birthday is coming up soon. Alice Mead is a former teacher in inner-city schools. In Junebug, she gently portrays a dangerous world as seen through the eyes of a child who refuses to give up his optimism and hope. The voice of narrator Peter Francis James adds a warmth to this tale that allows Junebug to step from the page into the listener’s heart.
©1995 Alice Mead (P)1996 Recorded Books
Bull Run
Summary
Winner of the Newbery Medal, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and a Publishers Weekly Best book of 1993, Bull Run has become a modern classic of historical fiction for young adults. In this brilliant narrative, Fleischman re-creates the first great battle of the Civil War from the points of view of sixteen different participants. Through an unflinching narrative of the battle of Bull Run, human faces begin to emerge from the faded pages of history. Read by a varied cast of narrators, the characters on both sides spring to vivid life as they share their feelings as the battle of Bull Run rages around them. Intimate and instructive, this recording is a tour de force that will please parents and teachers who are looking for a way to interest youngsters in reading and history. The complete list of narrators includes George Guidall, Christina Moore, Andy Paris, Peter Francis James, Barbara Caruso, Robert Sevra, Johnny Heller, Tom Stechschulte, Richard Poe, Paul Hecht, John McDonough, Jeff Woodman, Sam Gray, Richard Davidson, Sally Darling, and Mark Hammer.
©1993 Paul Fleischman (P)1995 Recorded Books
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing
Summary
"Such is our task, and such lies before us all: Liberty or Death." In the summer of 1775, fleeing from a death sentence, Octavian and his tutor, Dr. Trefusis, escape through rising tides and pouring rain to find shelter in British-occupied Boston. Sundered from all he knows, Octavian hopes to find safe harbor. But in the midst of war, no place is safe. The city of Boston itself is under siege. What follows is a tale of skirmish and flame, flight and fury, and battle on sea and land. Seeking both the truth of his past and some hope for his future, Octavian encounters generous thieves, pious carpenters, delicate lords, noble cowherds, bedazzled scientists, and murderous rebels - as this astonishing narrative escalates to its startling climax.
©2008 M. T. Anderson (P)2008 Listening Library