Peter Riegert has narrated 4 audiobooks on Listento.it by 7 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.9★ across 31 ratings. The most-rated is The Yiddish Policemen's Union.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Summary
For 60 years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the federal district of Sitka, a temporary safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the district is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end. Homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the district police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. And in the cheap hotel where Landsman has washed up, someone has just committed a murder - right under his nose. When he begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy, word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, and Landsman finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, evil, and salvation that are his heritage. At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.
©2007 Michael Chabon (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
Amazing Fantastic Incredible
Summary
Stan Lee - comic book legend and cocreator of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Incredible Hulk, and a legion of other Marvel superheroes - shares his iconic legacy and the story of how modern comics came to be. Stan Lee is a man who needs no introduction. The most legendary name in the history of comic books, he has been the leading creative force behind Marvel Comics and has brought to life - and into the mainstream - some of the world's best-known heroes and most infamous villains throughout his career. His stories - filled with superheroes struggling with personal hang-ups and bad guys who possess previously unseen psychological complexity - have added wit and subtlety to a field previously locked into flat portrayals of good versus evil. Lee put the human in superhuman and in doing so created a new mythology for the 20th century. Stan Lee tells the story of his life with the same inimitable wit, energy, and offbeat spirit that he brought to the world of comics. Moving from his impoverished childhood in Manhattan to his early days writing comics, through his military training films during World War II and the rise of the Marvel empire in the 1960s to the current resurgence in movies, Amazing Fantastic Incredible documents the life of a man and the legacy of an industry and career. Funny, moving, and incredibly honest, this beautiful memoir is a must-have for collectors and fans of comic books and graphic novels of every age.
©2015 Stan Lee (P)2015 Simon & Schuster
The New Joys of Yiddish
Summary
More than a quarter of a century ago, Leo Rosten published the first comprehensive and hilariously entertaining lexicon of the colorful and deeply expressive language of Yiddish. Said to "give body and soul to the Yiddish language", The Joys of Yiddish went on to become an indispensable tool for writers, journalists, politicians and students, as well as a perennial best seller for three decades. Rosten described his book as “a relaxed lexicon of Yiddish, Hebrew, and Yinglish words often encountered in English, plus dozens that ought to be, with serendipitous excursions into Jewish humor, habits, holidays, history, religion, ceremonies, folklore, and cuisine - the whole generously garnished with stories, anecdotes, epigrams, Talmudic quotations, folk sayings, and jokes.” To this day, it is considered the seminal work on Yiddish in America - a true classic and a staple in the libraries of Jews and non-Jews alike. With the recent renaissance of interest in Yiddish, and in keeping with a language that embodies the variety and vibrancy of life itself, The New Joys of Yiddish brings Leo Rosten’s masterful work up to date. Revised for the first time by Lawrence Bush in close consultation with Rosten’s daughters, it retains the spirit of the original - with its wonderful jokes, tidbits of cultural history, Talmudic and Biblical references, and tips on pronunciation - and enhances it with hundreds of new entries and thoughtful commentary on how Yiddish has evolved over the years.
©2001 The Rosten Family LLC (P)2001 Random House, Inc.
The Lawgiver
Summary
For more than 50 years, legendary author Herman Wouk has dreamed of writing a novel about the life of Moses. Finally, at age 96, he has found an ingeniously witty way to tell the tale in The Lawgiver, a romantic and suspenseful epistolary novel about a group of people trying to make a movie about Moses in the present day. The story emerges from letters, memos, emails, journals, news articles, recorded talk, tweets, Skype transcripts, and text messages. At the center of The Lawgiver is Margo Solovei, a brilliant young writer-director who has rejected her rabbinical father’s strict Jewish upbringing to pursue a career in the arts. When an Australian multi-billionaire promises to finance a movie about Moses if the script meets certain standards, Margo does everything she can to land the job, including a reunion with her estranged first love, an influential lawyer with whom she still has unfinished business. Two other key characters in the novel are Herman Wouk himself and his wife of more than 60 years, Betty Sarah, who, almost against their will, find themselves entangled in the Moses movie when the Australian billionaire insists on Wouk’s stamp of approval. As Wouk and his characters contend with Moses and marriage, the force of tradition, rebellion, and reunion, The Lawgiver reflects the wisdom of a lifetime. Inspired by the great 19th-century novelists, one of America’s most beloved 20th-century authors has now written a remarkable 21st-century work of fiction.
©2012 Simon & Schuster Audio; 2012 Herman Wouk