Ray Childs has narrated 18 audiobooks on Listento.it by 11 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 156 ratings. The most-rated is Plato's Republic.
Plato's Republic
Summary
The Republic poses questions that endure: What is justice? What form of community fosters the best possible life for human beings? What is the nature and destiny of the soul? What form of education provides the best leaders for a good republic? What are the various forms of poetry and the other arts, and which ones should be fostered and which ones should be discouraged? How does knowing differ from believing? Several characters in the dialogue present a variety of tempting answers to those questions. Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and Glaucon all offer definitions of justice. Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus explore five different forms of republic and evaluate the merits of each from the standpoint of goodness. Two contrasting models of education are proposed and examined. Three different forms of poetry are identified and analyzed. The difference between knowing and believing is discussed in relation to the objects of each kind of thinking. © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Black Like Me
Summary
Writer John Howard Griffin (1920-1980) decided to perform an experiment in order to learn from the inside out how one race could withstand the second class citizenship imposed on it by another race. Through medication, he dyed his skin dark and left his family and home in Texas to find out. The setting is the Deep South in 1959. What began as scientific research ended up changing his life in every way imaginable. When he decided the real story was in his journals, he published them, and the storm that followed is now part of American history. As performed by Ray Childs, this first-ever recording of Black Like Me will leave each listener deeply affected. John Howard Griffin did the impossible to help bring the full effect of racism to the forefront of America's conscience.
©1989 Elizabeth Griffin-Bonazzi, Susan Griffin-Campbell, John H. Griffin, Jr., Gregory P. Griffin, and Amanda Griffin-Sanderson; 1960, 1961, 1977 John Howard Griffin (P)2004 Audio Bookshelf
Plato's Apology
Summary
Socrates is on trial for his life. He is charged with impiety and corrupting young people. He presents his own defense, explaining why he has devoted his life to challenging the most powerful and important people in the Greek world. The reason is that rich and famous politicians, priests, poets, and a host of others pretend to know what is good, true, holy, and beautiful, but when Socrates questions them, they are shown to be foolish rather than wise. © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Plato's Symposium
Summary
The dramatic nature of Plato's dialogues is delightfully evident in Symposium. The marriage between character and thought bursts forth as the guests gather at Agathon's house to celebrate the success of his first tragedy. With wit and insight, they all present their ideas about love - from Erixymachus' scientific naturalism to Aristophanes' comic fantasy. The unexpected arrival of Alcibiades breaks the spell cast by Diotima's ethereal climb up the staircase of love to beauty itself. Ecstasy and intoxication clash as Plato concludes with one of his most skillful displays of dialectic. © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Plato's Phaedo
Summary
Socrates is in prison, sentenced to die when the sun sets. In this final conversation, he asks what will become of him once he drinks the poison prescribed for his execution. Socrates and his friends examine several arguments designed to prove that the soul is immortal. This quest leads him to the broader topic of the nature of mind and its connection not only to human existence but also to the cosmos itself. What could be a better way to pass the time between now and the sunset? © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Plato's Euthyphro
Summary
In Euthyphro, Socrates is on his way to the court, where he must defend himself against serious charges brought by religious and political authorities. On the way he meets Euthyphro, an expert on religious matters who has come to prosecute his own father. Socrates questions Euthyphro's claim that religion serves as the basis for ethics. Euthyphro is not able to provide satisfactory answers to Socrates' questions, but their dialogue leaves us with the challenge of making a reasonable connection between ethics and religion. © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Mill's On Liberty
Summary
Mill's thinking about freedom in civic and social life examines fundamental principles shared among conservative, liberal, and radical politicians. The life of true philosophy stands outside the political battles that are rampant in society and seeks the political wisdom that is necessary for a good life in any age. Mill's philosophical presentation and analysis of those principles stand alongside the reflections of Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. When the officials of any government seek to change the laws that regulate individual liberty or when rhetoricians seek to change public opinion about what individuals should or should not be allowed to say or do, Mill's On Liberty serves as an effective antidote to the poisons of excessive intrusion into the lives of individuals. The present edition is specifically designed to employ the dual nature of rhetoric - oral and written language - and to utilize electronic technology to open Mill's text to contemporary listeners. © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Plato's Laches
Summary
Laches, a general in the Athenian army, saw Socrates fight bravely in the battle of Delium. When he and Nicias, another general, are asked to explain the idea of courage, they are at a loss, and words fail them. How does courage differ from thoughtless and reckless audacity? Can a lion be said to be courageous? What about small children who have little idea of the dangers they face? Should we call people courageous who do not know whether their bravery will produce good or bad consequences? What kind of education and training promotes both courage and goodness in people, whether they are young or old? Plato constantly presents courage as an essential quality for all who seek to live a good life, so what does it mean when even the bravest leaders of Athens cannot tell us what courage really is? © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Plato's Crito
Summary
The Athenian court has found Socrates guilty and sentenced him to death. While he is waiting to be executed, his friend, Crito, comes to the prison to persuade him to escape and go into exile. Socrates responds by examining the essence of law and community, probing the various kinds of law and making distinctions that go far beyond the particular issue of whether or not Socrates should escape. © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Aristotle's Poetics
Summary
Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definitions and analyses of tragedy and comedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age, when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history. Like so many other works by Aristotle, the Poetics has dominated the way we have thought about all forms of dramatic performance in Europe and America ever since. The essence of poetry lies in its ability to transcend the particulars of everyday experience and articulate universals, not merely what has happened but what might happen and what ought to happen. © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Plato's Meno
Summary
A dialogue between Socrates and Meno probes the subject of ethics. Can goodness be taught? If it can, then we should be able to find teachers capable of instructing others about what is good and bad, right and wrong, or just and unjust. Socrates and Meno are unable to identify teachers of ethics, and we are left wondering how such knowledge could be acquired. To answer that puzzle, Socrates questions one of Meno's servants in an attempt to show that we know fundamental ideas by recollecting them. © Agora Publications
©2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Hedy's Folly
Summary
What do Hedy Lamarr, avant-garde composer George Antheil, and your cell phone have in common? The answer is spread-spectrum radio: a revolutionary invention based on the rapid switching of communications signals among a spread of different frequencies. Without this technology, we would not have the digital comforts that we take for granted today. Only a writer of Richard Rhodes’s caliber could do justice to this remarkable story. Unhappily married to a Nazi arms dealer, Lamarr fled to America at the start of World War II; she brought with her not only her theatrical talent but also a gift for technical innovation. An introduction to Antheil at a Hollywood dinner table culminated in a U.S. patent for a jam- proof radio guidance system for torpedoes - the unlikely duo’s gift to the U.S. war effort. What other book brings together 1920s Paris, player pianos, Nazi weaponry, and digital wireless into one satisfying whole? In its juxtaposition of Hollywood glamour with the reality of a brutal war, Hedy’s Folly is a riveting book about unlikely amateur inventors collaborating to change the world.
©2011 Richard Rhodes (P)2011 Random House Audio
The Function of Reason
Summary
Whitehead presented these three lectures at Princeton University in 1929. Although 85 years have passed, his central thesis and his analysis remain remarkably current. The scientific materialism that Whitehead opposed with such vigor continues to dominate in academic circles, and even now those who question that worldview are often accused of being antiscientific. This is especially true in discussions of the nature of the human mind and its relation to the body (particularly the brain). It is hard to find a contemporary thinker with a better perspective on the nature and role of natural science than Whitehead, who, with Bertrand Russell, published Principia Mathematica in 1910; who taught logic and mathematics at Trinity College of Cambridge University; who taught philosophy of science at University College London; and who was a professor of philosophy at Harvard University beginning in 1924. Whitehead's cosmology is far from antiscientific, but he does explain why scientific method and technological practice alone are not able to provide a comprehensive understanding of the full range of human thought and experience. This work explains what we must do to achieve such a comprehensive understanding. © Agora Publications
©2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy
Summary
In this, his first book, Nietzsche developed a way of thinking about the arts that unites the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus as the central symbol of human existence. Although tragedy serves as the focus of this work, music, visual art, dance, and the other arts can also be viewed using Nietzsche's analysis and integration of the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The Birth of Tragedy stands alongside Aristotle's Poetics as an essential work for all who seek to understand poetry and its relationship to human life. © Agora Publications
©2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Amos Fortune
Summary
The Newbery Award winner, based on a true story! Captured by slave traders when only 15, At-mun never forgot his roots as a prince. Nor did he ever lose his princely dignity and the courage to hold his head high. Sold at auction in America and haunted by the memory of his young sister left behind in Africa, At-mun, now Amos, began his long march to freedom. He dreamed of being free and of buying the freedom of his closest friends. By the time he was 60 years old, Amos Fortune began to see those dreams come true. “It does a man no good to be free until he learns how to live,” he often said, and he left a legacy of freedom for himself and others that has immortalized his touching story for us all. Recommended for Grades 3 and up.
©1989 Elizabeth Yates (P)2007 AudioGO
Lives of the Pirates
Summary
This long-awaited new volume in the acclaimed "Lives of" series presents the fascinating true tales of both notorious and little-known pirates. Why did Blackbeard and Long John Silver go to sea? Who was Madame Cheng? How did pirates really talk? What did they eat and what did they do to pass the time during long sea voyages? Lives of the Pirates answers these and many other questions.
©2010 Kathleen Krull (P)2012 Audio Bookshelf
Boston Bruins
Summary
Skate the length of the ice with the greatest legends of Boston Bruins hockey - newly updated! Written by hockey's most authoritative author, this is the definitive collection of Boston Bruins history. In his newly revised edition of Boston Bruins: Greatest Moments and Players, “hockey maven” Stan Fischler examines the storied history of the Boston Bruins from their first game in 1924 to their epic Stanley Cup victory in 2011. Beyond the stats and facts, this veteran sportswriter brings fans off the ice and into the locker room to share a treasure trove of stories and anecdotes from this legendary franchise. Within these pages, Bruins fans will read about all of Boston hockey's most famous names—Phil Esposito, Bobby Orr, Eddie Shore, Milt Schmidt, John Bucyk, and many more.
©1999, 2012 Stan Fischler (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
The Darkest Jungle
Summary
The Darkest Jungle tells the harrowing story of America's first ship canal exploration across a narrow piece of land in Central America called the Darien, a place that loomed large in the minds of the world's most courageous adventurers in the nineteenth century. With rival warships and explorers from England and France days behind, the 27-member U.S. Darien Exploring Expedition landed on the Atlantic shore at Caledonia Bay in eastern Panama to begin their mad dash up the coast-hugging mountains of the Darien wilderness. The whole world watched as this party attempted to be the first to traverse the 40-mile isthmus, the narrowest spot between the Atlantic and Pacific in all the Americas. Leading them was the charismatic commander Isaac Strain, an adventuring 33-year-old U.S. Navy lieutenant. The party could have turned back except, said Strain, they were to a man "revolted at the idea" of failing at a task they seemed destined to accomplish. Yet Strain's party would wander lost in the jungle for another sixty nightmarish days, following a tortuously contorted and uncharted tropical river. Their guns rusted in the damp heat, expected settlements never materialized, and the lush terrain provided little to no sustenance. As the unending march dragged on, the party was beset by flesh-embedding parasites and a range of infectious tropical diseases they had no antidote for (or understanding of). In the desperate final days, in the throes of starvation, the survivors flirted with cannibalism and the sickest men had to be left behind so, as the journal keeper painfully recorded, the rest might have a chance to live. Based on the vividly detailed log entries of Strain and his officers, other period sources, and Balf's own treks in the Darien Gap, this is a rich and utterly compelling historical narrative that will thrill readers who enjoyed In the Heart of the Sea, Isaac's Storm, and other sagas of adventure at the limits of human endurance.
©2003 Todd Balf (P)2003 Random House, Inc., Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.