Philip Benoit has narrated 10 audiobooks on Listento.it by 13 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 111 ratings. The most-rated is Kane and Abel.
Kane and Abel
Summary
William Lowell Kane and Abel Rosnovski, one the son of a Boston millionaire, the other a penniless polish immigrant-born on the same day near the turn of the century on opposite sides of the world - are brought together by fate and the quest of a dream. Two men - ambitious, powerful, ruthless - are locked in a relentless struggle to build an empire, fueled by their all-consuming hatred. Over 60 years and three generations, through war, marriage, fortune, and disaster, Kane and Abel battle for the success and triumph that only one man can have...
©1979, 2009 Jeffrey Archer (P)2009 Macmillan Audio
The French and Indian War and the Conquest of New France
Summary
The French and Indian War was the world's first truly global conflict. When the French lost to the British in 1763, they lost their North American empire along with most of their colonies in the Caribbean, India, and West Africa. In The French and Indian War and the Conquest of New France, the only comprehensive account from the French perspective, William R. Nester explains how and why the French were defeated. He explores the fascinating personalities and epic events that shaped French diplomacy, strategy, and tactics and determined North America's destiny. What began in 1754 with a French victory - the defeat at Fort Necessity of young Lieutenant Colonel George Washington - quickly became a disaster for France. The cost in soldiers, ships, munitions, provisions, and treasure was staggering. France was deeply in debt when the war began, and that debt grew with each year. Nester describes missed diplomatic and military opportunities as well as military defeats late in the conflict. Nester masterfully weaves his narrative of this complicated war with thorough accounts of the military, economic, technological, social, and cultural forces that affected its outcome. Listeners learn not only how and why the French lost, but how the problems leading up to that loss in 1763 foreshadowed the French Revolution almost 25 years later. One of the problems at Versailles was the king's mistress, the powerful Madame de Pompadour, who encouraged Louis XV to become his own prime minister. The bewildering labyrinth of French bureaucracy combined with court intrigue and financial challenges only made it even more difficult for the French to succeed. Ultimately, France lost the war because Versailles failed to provide enough troops and supplies to fend off the English enemy.
©2014 William R. Nester (P)2016 Redwood Audiobooks
The Death of Humanity
Summary
Do you believe human life is inherently valuable? Unfortunately, in the secularized age of state-sanctioned euthanasia and abortion-on-demand, many are losing faith in the simple value of human life. To the disillusioned, human beings are a cosmic accident whose intrinsic value is worth no more than other animals. The Death of Humanity explores our culture's declining respect for the sanctity of human life, drawing on philosophy and history to reveal the dark road ahead for society if we lose our faith in human life.
©2016 Richard Weikart (P)2016 Regnery Publishing
Timeless Tales of Beatrix Potter
Summary
Beatrix Potter's amazing universe of animals dressed in human clothing has taught and entertained children for over a century. This volume brings together 21 of Potter's tales and verses in one audiobook. Hear Peter Rabbit outwit old Mr. McGregor, and Squirrel Nutkin come within a tail's length of being an owl's dinner. Listen as a family of mice save the kind tailor of Gloucester, and as Peter and Benjamin Bunny battle a barn cat. Learn how one fierce rabbit is set on the road to honesty. Although each story stands on its own, several are linked together by events and characters.
Public Domain (P)2014 Tantor
Mustang: A Novel of World War II
Summary
Climb into the cockpit with Dust Bowl farm boy Lance Roark as he arrives in England commanding a B-17 Flying Fortress at the height of World War II. A prologue, 2017's Will Rogers Medallion Gold Medal winner, Shortgrass, set the stage for young Lance as he made the crucial decision following the bombing of Pearl Harbor to depart from the pacifist doctrine of his Mennonite upbringing and go to war. Now, still cheerful and pious, he and his best friend, famed Oklahoma Sooner Waddy Young, tackle a new opponent - history's most fearsome air armada, the German Luftwaffe, which has bested every other force that has dared confront them. Audacious, cool under fire, and a born aviator, Lance piles up the missions and decorations and somehow survives to complete his tour of duty - barely. Even as he gains renown as a relentless air warrior, though, his lifelong faith is shaken as the body count of those around him mounts. Driven by a desire for vengeance against his enemies, he turns down service back Stateside to return to battle in one of America's sensational new P-51 Mustang fighter planes. As the greatest aerial war in history rages in the skies over bleeding Europe, Lance hits a low-point in his life just as a terrifying new adversary appears to challenge him. Pushed to the breaking point, he will need every bit of skill and experience he can muster in an unforgettable showdown over Dresden in the war's most legendary air raid.
©2019 John J. Dwyer (P)2020 Oghma Creative Media
North Side Hellion
Summary
Aiden McCarthy enjoys thieving and scheming much more than abiding by the morals of his Catholic, Irish-American, working-class parents. He has always been a pisser, but working for the North Side Gang feeds his youthful desire for action, rebellion, and romance. When Aiden's pa is injured in crossfire between Italian gangsters, he must balance adventure with duty to family. With his interest in the daughter of one of the Italians and a sense of justice in the midst of gangland competition, he must find his way through undercurrents of lust, social upheaval, and rebellion against Prohibition. Aiden McCarthy's story intertwines with Irish-American gang leader Dean O'Banion, a young Alphonse Capone, John Torrio, and other historical figures in this Jazz Age tapestry to satisfy adventure-seekers, romantics and history-lovers alike.
©2016 Benjamin Broeren (P)2017 Benjamin Broeren
Western Starter Library (Annotated)
Summary
This Raging Bull Publishing Box Set contains three classic Western books, including: The Outlet - Andy Adams (1905) In 1905, The Outlet was published and introduced a rarely explored side of cattle herding, the business side. There was corruption in business all over the country at the time, and this novel revealed many problems that stripped away the layers of glamour that were associated with life in the West. Through the views of the narrator, a young cowboy by the name of Tom Quirk, it shows that cattle ranching was just another means of survival in a dangerous land. The combined worth of the cattle driven in the novel is astounding and the difficulties that the cattle traders faced shocked many of the readers. Chip of the Flying U - B M Bower (1906) All of the boys at the Flying U grumbled - among themselves - when they heard that the Old Man's sister was coming to spend the summer. They didn't want a woman at the ranch, and certainly not one who had just received a medical degree! But if they'd had an inkling of what was really going to happen, they would have done more than grumble. Betty Zane - Zane Grey (1903) Inspired by the life and adventures of his own great-great grandmother, Betty Zane was Zane Grey's first novel and launched his career as a master writer of rousing frontier and Western adventures. Betty Zane is the story of the events culminating in the last battle of the American Revolution, when 200 Redcoats from British-controlled Detroit along with 400 Shawnee Indian attacked the small, wood-palisaded Ford Henry on the western frontier. The heroine of the battle - a young, spunky, and beautiful frontier girl - was Betty Zane.
©2016 Raging Bull Publishing (P)2017 Raging Bull Publishing
Shortgrass
Summary
Mennonite farm boy Lance Roark's faith is as big as the challenges he faces on his family's drought-ravaged Dust Bowl spread on the old Chisholm Trail. He can also run over, around, and away from people on the football field and is a natural-born aviator. These abilities lead him to college gridiron glory and bring him into contact with famed aviators Charles Lindbergh and Wiley Post, entertainment icons Will Rogers and Bing Crosby, best-selling young author John F. Kennedy, and President Franklin Roosevelt. As war clouds gather across the seas, Lance finds romance first with teenaged Chickasaw cowgirl and stunt flying sensation Sadie Stanton, then with beautiful oil heiress Mary Katherine Murchison, whose mesmerizing voice carries her to the heights of Big Band Era stardom. Nearly all of this crashes against his pious, peaceable ways. And it leads him into the dangerous world of America First, the Lindbergh-led organization that opposes the popular Roosevelt's covert drive toward American involvement in World War II, now ablaze in both Europe and the Pacific. When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, Lance, with his lifelong commitment never to raise his hand against another human being, faces his ultimate decision - whether to accept command of a B-17 Flying Fortress in which he would face, and inflict, mass slaughter in Nazi-occupied Europe amidst history's most fearsome war.
©2017 Oghma Creative Media (P)2018 Oghma Creative Media
Ice Bear
Summary
Prime Arctic predator and nomad of the sea ice and tundra, the polar bear endures as a source of wonder, terror, and fascination. Humans have seen it as spirit guide and fanged enemy, as trade good and moral metaphor, as food source and symbol of ecological crisis.
Eight thousand years of artifacts attest to its charisma, and to the fraught relationships between our two species. In the white bear, we acknowledge the magic of wildness: It is both genuinely itself and a screen for our imagination.
Ice Bear traces and illuminates this intertwined history. From Inuit shamans to Jean Harlow lounging on a bearskin rug, from the cubs trained to pull sleds toward the North Pole to cuddly superstar Knut, it all comes to life in this book.
With meticulous research, the author brings into focus this powerful and elusive animal. Doing so, he delves into the stories we tell about nature - and about ourselves - hoping for a future in which such tales still matter.
The book is published by University of Washington Press.
"Engelhard is a first-rate guide and very capable writer; Ice Bear makes fascinating reading." (Open Letters Monthly)
"Ice Bear is a visual National Geographic with real verbal punch!" (New York Journal of Books)
"Eminently readable. This work is expertly researched." (Alaska Magazine)
©2017 University of Washington Press (P)2018 Redwood Audiobooks
Combat Chaplain
Summary
Chaplain James D. Johnson chose to accompany his men, unarmed, on their daily combat operations, a decision made against the recommendations of his superiors. During what would be the final days for some, he offered his ministry not from a pulpit but on the battlefields - in hot landing zones and rice paddies, in hospitals, aboard ship, and knee-deep in mud. Through his compelling narration, he takes us into the hearts of frightened young boys and the minds of experienced men. In Combat Chaplain, we live for eight and one-half months with Johnson as he serves in the field with a small unit numbering 350 men. The physical price can be counted with numbers - 96 killed and over 900 wounded. Only those who paid it can understand the spiritual and psychological price, in a war that raised many difficult moral issues. "It placed my soul in the lost and found department for a while," Johnson writes. This is one man's chronicle of Vietnam and the aftermath of war, of his coming to terms with his posttraumatic "demons", and his need for healing and cleansing which led him to revisit Vietnam 28 years later. The book is published by University of North Texas Press.
©2001 James D. Johnson (P)2017 Redwood Audiobooks