Richard Davidson has narrated 21 audiobooks on Listento.it by 27 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 244 ratings. The most-rated is Death's Mistress.
Death's Mistress
Summary
Onetime lieutenant of the evil Emperor Jagang, known as "Death's Mistress" and the "Slave Queen", the deadly Nicci captured Richard Rahl in order to convince him that the Imperial Order stood for the greater good. But it was Richard who converted Nicci instead, and for years thereafter she served Richard and Kahlan as one of their closest friends - and one of their most lethal defenders. Now, with the reign of Richard and Kahlan finally stabilized, Nicci has set out on her own for new adventures. Her first job being to keep the unworldly prophet Nathan out of trouble... Death's Mistress: Sister of Darkness will launch The Nicci Chronicles, Terry Goodkind's entirely new series with a cast of characters centered on one of his best-loved characters in the now-concluded Sword of Truth.
©2017 Terry Goodkind (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved
The Whisky King
Summary
At the dawn of the 20th century, two Italian men arrived in Canada amid waves of immigration. One, Rocco Perri, from southern Italy, rose from the life of a petty criminal on the streets of Toronto to running the most prominent bootlegging operation of the Prohibition era, taking over Hamilton and leading one of the country’s most influential crime syndicates. Perri was feared by his enemies and loved by the press, who featured him regularly in splashy front-page headlines. So great was his celebrity that, following the murder of his wife and business partner, Bessie Starkman, a crowd of 30,000 thronged the streets of Hamilton for her funeral. Perri's businesses - which included alcohol, drugs, gambling and prostitution - kept him under constant police surveillance. He caught the interest of one man in particular, the other arrival from Italy, Frank Zaneth. Zaneth, originally from the Italian north, joined the RCMP and became its first undercover investigator - Operative No. 1. Zaneth’s work took him across the country, but he was dogged in his pursuit of Rocco Perri and worked for his arrest until the day Perri was last seen, in 1944, when he disappeared without a trace. With original research and masterful storytelling, Cole details the fascinating rise to power of a notorious Prohibition-era Canadian crime figure twinned with the life of the man who pursued him. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2017 Trevor Cole (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
A Darkness More Than Night
Summary
Booktrack editions are essentially a new genre of digital storytelling entertainment. Music and ambient audio are added to complement and enhance the audiobook experience. It is a synchronized movie-style soundtrack that complements the narration of existing audiobooks; the tempo and rhythm of the score harmonize with action, dialogue and the characters' emotional arcs. A Darkness More Than Night: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience! LAPD Detective Harry Bosch crosses paths with FBI profiler Terry McCaleb in the most dangerous investigation of their lives. Harry Bosch is up to his neck in a case that has transfixed all of celebrity-mad Los Angeles: a movie director is charged with murdering an actress during sex and then staging her death to make it look like a suicide. Bosch is both the arresting officer and the star witness in a trial that has brought the Hollywood media pack out in full-throated frenzy. Meanwhile, Terry McCaleb is enjoying an idyllic retirement on Catalina Island when a visit from an old colleague brings his former world rushing back. It's a murder, the unreadable kind of murder he specialized in solving back in his FBI days. The investigation has stalled, and the sheriff's office is asking McCaleb to take a quick look at the murder book to see if he turns up something they've missed. McCaleb's first reading of the crime scene leads him to look for a methodical killer with a taste for rituals and revenge. As his quick look accelerates into a full-sprint investigation, the two crimes - his murdered loner and Bosch's movie director - begin to overlap strangely. With one unsettling revelation after another, they merge, becoming one impossible, terrifying case, involving almost inconceivable calculation. McCaleb believes he has unmasked the most frightening killer ever to cross his sights. But his investigation tangles with Bosch's lines, and the two men find themselves at odds in the most dangerous investigation of their lives. Booktrack is an immersive format that pairs traditional audiobook narration to complementary music. The tempo and rhythm of the score are in perfect harmony with the action and characters throughout the audiobook. Gently playing in the background, the music never overpowers or distracts from the narration so that listeners can enjoy every minute. When you purchase this Booktrack edition, you receive the exact narration as the traditional audiobook available, with the addition of music throughout.
©2017 Michael Connelly (P)2017 Hachette Audio
Off Season
Summary
September. A beautiful New York editor retreats to a lonely cabin on a hill in the quiet Maine beach town of Dead River - off season - awaiting her sister and friends. Nearby, a savage human family with a taste for flesh lurks in the darkening woods, watching, waiting for the moon to rise and night to fall. And before too many hours pass, five civilized, sophisticated people and one tired old country sheriff will learn just how primitive we all are beneath the surface...and that there are no limits at all to the will to survive.
©1981 Jack Ketchum (P)2009 Audible, Inc.
The Climb
Summary
Anatoli Boukreev’s first-hand account of the worst human disaster in the history of Mt. Everest will hold listeners spellbound. A top-rated guide and high altitude climber, Boukreev dictated the raw and powerful details of this ill-fated trek from memories and notes recorded just five days after the catastrophe. In May of 1996, 33 people went up the mountain, but only 28 returned. As two commercial expeditions climbed the world’s highest peak, poor planning, miscommunication, and an unpredictable blizzard conspired to defeat them. Although the author made it back to the safety of his tent, he defied his own pain and exhaustion to go back up the mountain. His rescue attempt saved the lives of three climbers. The events of those two fateful days prompted researchers at MIT to develop new technology that could prevent the recurrence of such a disaster. Narrators Richard M. Davidson and Nelson Runger sensitively convey the full scope of a drama and a tragedy the world hopes never to see again.
©1997 Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt (P)1998 Recorded Books, LLC
The Perfect Storm
Summary
Man’s struggle against the sea is a theme that has created some of the world’s most exciting stories. Now, in the tradition of Moby Dick comes a New York Times best seller destined to become a modern classic. Written by journalist Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm combines an intimate portrait of a small fishing crew with fascinating scientific data about boats and weather systems. In late October, North Atlantic seas are unpredictable. Still, one last good swordfish catch is a chance to start the winter with a fat wallet. As Captain Billy Tyne steers his 72-foot longboat Andrea Gail toward the Grand Banks, growing weather fronts are moving toward the same waters. The Andrea Gail is sailing into the storm of the century, one with 100 mile per hour winds and waves cresting over 110 feet. As each man on the boat faces this ultimate foe, Sebastian Junger gives the account an immediacy that fills The Perfect Storm with suspense and authenticity. Narrator Richard M. Davidson’s reading adds further drama to this unforgettable sea adventure. An interview with the author concludes the audiobook.
©1997 Sebastian Junger (P)1998 Recorded Books
The Mind's Eye
Summary
From the author of the best-selling Musicophilia (hailed as "luminous, original, and indispensable" by The American Scholar), an exploration of vision through the case histories of six individuals - including a renowned pianist who continues to give concerts despite losing the ability to read the score, and a neurobiologist born with crossed eyes who, late in life, suddenly acquires binocular vision, and how her brain adapts to that new skill. Most dramatically, Sacks gives us a riveting account of the appearance of a tumor in his own eye, the strange visual symptoms he observed, an experience that left him unable to perceive depth.
In The Mind's Eye, Oliver Sacks explores some of the most fundamental facets of human experience: how we see in three dimensions, how we represent the world internally when our eyes are closed, and the remarkable, unpredictable ways that our brains find new ways of perceiving that create worlds as complete and rich as the no-longer-visible world.
©2010 Oliver Sacks (P)2010 Random House Audio
Leading with the Heart
Summary
Mike Krzyzewski's eight trips to the Final Four and two national championships with Duke University make him one of the most successful college basketball coaches of all time. With Donald T. Phillips, the best-selling author of Lincoln on Leadership, Krzyzewski explains the techniques that have made his program so successful and offers advice on using those same strategies to excel in both your business and personal lives. Coach K's blueprint for success begins in the preseason by building the right team and allowing dynamic leaders to step forward. In the regular season, he stresses teamwork and finds ways to turn negative situations into something positive. His teams' postseason victories come from allowing time to refresh and renew their commitment as well as from focusing on the task at hand. With personal examples from his life and coaching career, Krzyzewski offers unbeatable tools for success. Narrator Richard M. Davidson's conversational style perfectly matches Coach K's relaxed tone.
©2000 Mike Krzyzewski; Foreword ©2000 Grant Hill (P)2001 Recorded Books
Isaac's Storm
Summary
At the dawn of the 20th century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." It was 1900, a year when America felt bigger and stronger than ever before. Nothing in nature could hobble the gleaming city of Galveston, then a magical place that seemed destined to become the New York of the Gulf. That August, a strange, prolonged heat wave gripped the nation and killed scores of people in New York and Chicago. Odd things seemed to happen everywhere: A plague of crickets engulfed Waco. The Bering Glacier began to shrink. Rain fell on Galveston with greater intensity than anyone could remember. Far away, in Africa, immense thunderstorms blossomed over the city of Dakar, and great currents of wind converged. A wave of atmospheric turbulence slipped from the coast of western Africa. Most such waves faded quickly. This one did not. In Cuba, America's overconfidence was made all too obvious by the Weather Bureau's obsession with controlling hurricane forecasts, even though Cuba's indigenous weathermen had pioneered hurricane science. As the bureau's forecasters assured the nation that all was calm in the Caribbean, Cuba's own weathermen fretted about ominous signs in the sky. A curious stillness gripped Antigua. Only a few unlucky sea captains discovered that the storm had achieved an intensity no man alive had ever experienced. In Galveston, reassured by Cline's belief that no hurricane could seriously damage the city, there was celebration. Children played in the rising water. Hundreds of people gathered at the beach to marvel at the fantastically tall waves and gorgeous pink sky, until the surf began ripping the city's beloved beachfront apart. Within the next few hours Galveston would endure a hurricane that to this day remains the nation's deadliest natural disaster. In Galveston alone at least 6,000 people, possibly as many as 10,000, would lose their lives, a number far greater than the combined death toll of the Johnstown Flood and 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. And Isaac Cline would experience his own unbearable loss. Meticulously researched and vividly written, Isaac's Storm is based on Cline's own letters, telegrams, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the hows and whys of great storms. Ultimately, however, it is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets nature's last great uncontrollable force. As such, Isaac's Storm carries a warning for our time.
©2011 Erik Larson (P)2020 Random House Audio
Fates Worse Than Death
Summary
Kurt Vonnegut presents in Fates Worse than Death a veritable cornucopia of his thoughts on what could perhaps best be summed up as "anti-theology", a manifesto for atheism that details Vonnegut's drift from conventional religion, even a tract evidencing belief in the divine held within each individual self--the deity within each individual person present in a universe that otherwise lacks any real order. Vonnegut was never a real optimist, and with just cause: he had an incredibly difficult life (he had been a prisoner of war, from which he drew the title for his book Slaughterhouse-Five) and suffered from failing health, which only showed him his own mortality even more than he already knew it. Still, most readers find that in the body of Vonnegut's work there is a glimmer of desperate hope. Vonnegut's continued search for meaning surely counts for a great deal as he balances hope and despair. Scholars and fans can read about Vonnegut's experiences during World War II and the after effect he felt it had on him. His religious (or antireligious) ramblings and notations are interesting and, by turns, funny and perceptive. The humor may be dark, but that does not make it any the less funny.
©1991 Kurt Vonnegut (P)2014 Audible Inc.
The Good Rat
Summary
Jimmy Breslin can sniff out a story like he can sniff out a rat. Here, he tells a lifetime of anecdotes in his inimitable New York voice, giving us a view through the keyhole of the people and places that define the Mafia: characters like Sammy the Bull, the original snitch; Gaspipe Casso, named for his weapon of choice; and hangouts like Pep McGuire's, the legendary watering hole where reporters and gangsters (all hailing from the same working-class neighborhoods) rubbed elbows and traded stories. But best of all, Breslin captures the moments in which the Mafia was made and broken. Breslin was there the night John Gotti celebrated his acquittal, for example, having bribed his way to innocence. In The Good Rat, Breslin brings together the most recent, most memorable, and the long forgotten stories to create a sharp-eyed portrait of the mob as it lived and breathed, as it sounded and survived.
©2008 Jimmy Breslin (P)2008 BBC Audiobooks America
Fault Lines
Summary
Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In Fault Lines, Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed. Rajan explains how the individual choices that collectively brought about the economic meltdown - made by bankers, government officials, and ordinary homeowners - were rational responses to a flawed global financial order in which the incentives to take on risk are incredibly out of step with the dangers those risks pose. He traces the deepening fault lines in a world overly dependent on the indebted American consumer to power global economic growth and stave off global downturns. He exposes a system where America's growing inequality and thin social safety net create tremendous political pressure to encourage easy credit and keep job creation robust, no matter what the consequences to the economy's long-term health; and where the U.S. financial sector, with its skewed incentives, is the critical but unstable link between an overstimulated America and an underconsuming world. In Fault Lines, Rajan demonstrates how unequal access to education and health care in the United States puts us all in deeper financial peril, even as the economic choices of countries like Germany, Japan, and China place an undue burden on America to get its policies right. He outlines the hard choices we need to make to ensure a more stable world economy and restore lasting prosperity.
©2010 Princeton University Press (P)2010 Audible, Inc.
Chancellorsville
Summary
A former editor of American Heritage, Stephen W. Sears has collected a wealth of new sources for this definitive portrait of one of the most dramatic battles of the Civil War. Using scores of letters and diaries written by soldiers from both Union and Confederate armies, Sears’ narrative history seeks to strip away the gloss of later commentary and restore the battle of Chancellorsville to its original voices. Chancellorsville is often touted as Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory. Prompted by a campaign that maneuvered brigades on both sides into complex positions, it culminated in the most intense hours of fighting in the entire Civil War. But when the battle was over, the price of victory had been high. Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded. Lee was committed to press north into more threatening odds. In Chancellorsville, Stephen Sears carefully traces the movements of both armies and offers fascinating vignettes of daily life within the ranks. Looking at issues from horse fodder to critical military strategy, he examines the personal and military cost of this historic clash of armies.
©1996 Stephen W. Sears (P)1997 Recorded Books
Robert E. Lee
Summary
With absorbing power, Emory M. Thomas tells the story of one of the most revered figures in American history. A story of triumph and tragedy, this stunning biography provides a fascinating glimpse at the man behind the Civil War legend. Revealing the "whole" Lee in this enthralling, detailed saga, Thomas portrays him as a man driven by the paradoxes in his own personality. Here is the Lee who is both a legend and a man. Heroic and larger than life in battle; insecure and unfulfilled in private life. Thomas presents the legendary general who inspired millions to support the southern cause, and the humble man who was amazed that thousands flocked to see him near the end of his life. This moving saga paints Lee on a canvas broader than the war that, for many, he has come to personify. Armchair historians and devoted Robert E. Lee buffs alike will enjoy this refreshingly candid portrait of an often honored historical figure.
©1995 Emory M. Thomas (P)1996 Recorded Books
Coup de Foudre
Summary
The explosive new collection by the celebrated author of Thirst and PEN/Faulkner Award finalist Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies, Coup de Foudre is the kind of groundbreaking work of literary invention Ken Kalfus' fans have come to expect. The audiobook is anchored by the full text of the provocatively topical title novella that appeared in Harper's, a sometimes farcical, ultimately tragic story about the president of an international lending institution accused of sexually assaulting a housekeeper in a New York hotel. Recalling recent news events with irony and compassion, Kalfus skewers international political gridlock and the hypocrisies of acceptable sexual conduct. In "The Moment They Were Waiting For", a murderer on death row casts a spell granting the inhabitants of his city the foreknowledge of the dates they will die. In "v. The Large Hadron Collider", a judge distracted by the faint possibility of an adulterous affair must decide whether to throw out a nuisance lawsuit that raises the even fainter possibility that the entire Earth may be destroyed. "The Un-" is a nostalgic story of a young writer's struggles as he tries to surmount the colossal, heavily guarded wall that apparently separates writers who have been published from those who have not. Varying boldly in theme, setting, and tone, the stories in Coup de Foudre share Kalfus' distinctive humor and intellect, inextricably bound with high literary ambition.
©2015 Ken Kalfus (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
Legends II: Volume IV
Summary
Fantasty fans, rejoice! Seven years after writer and editor Robert Silverberg made publishing history with Legends, the acclaimed anthology of original short novels by some of the greatest writers in fantasy finction, the long-awaited second volume is here. Each of the best-selling writers represented in these selections from Legends II returns to the fantasy universe he or she made famous throughout the world. Whether set before or after events already recounted elsewhere, whether featuring beloved characters or compelling new creations, these masterful short novels are both mesmerizing standalones - perfect introductions to the work of their authors - and indispensable additions to the epics on which they are based.
©2003 Robert Silverberg (P)2019 Random House Audio
A Life Wild and Perilous
Summary
If you have ever wondered what is was like to be an explorer in the unspoiled American West of the early 1800s, then this is the audiobook for you. Not only a groundbreaking work of American history by critically acclaimed author Robert M. Utley, A Life Wild and Perilous is also a dramatic story of innovation and survival. Here is your chance to live in the very heart of the American wilderness with legendary trappers and mountain men like Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Tom Fitzpatrick, and Jedediah Smith. You will also see how these men played a major role in pushing our national frontier from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, and fulfilling our nation’s ideal of Manifest Destiny. Breathtaking in scope, yet filled with the seemingly small decisions that changed the course of a nation, A Life Wild and Perilous is a compelling and fascinating piece of Americana. Travelogue buffs and historians alike will delight in Richard M. Davidson’s inspired telling of how the West was really won.
©1997 Robert M. Utley (P)1998 Recorded Books, LLC
The Assistant
Summary
Bernard Malamud's second novel, originally published in 1957, is the story of Morris Bober, a grocer in postwar Brooklyn, who "wants better" for himself and his family. First two robbers appear and hold him up; then things take a turn for the better when broken-nosed Frank Alpine becomes his assistant. But there are complications: Frank, whose reaction to Jews is ambivalent, falls in love with Helen Bober; at the same time he begins to steal from the store. Like Malamud's best stories, this novel unerringly evokes an immigrant world of cramped circumstances and great expectations. Malamud defined the immigrant experience in a way that has proven vital for several generations of writers.
©1957, 1985 Bernard Malamud (P)2014 Audible Inc.
The Virginian
Summary
He is the Virginian - the first fully realized cowboy hero in American literature, a near-mythic figure whose idealized image has profoundly influenced our national consciousness. This enduring work of fiction marks the birth of a legend that lives with us still.
Public Domain (P)2011 Audible, Inc.
The War Lovers
Summary
On February 15, 1898, the USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor. Although there was no evidence that the Spanish were responsible, yellow newspapers such as William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal whipped Americans into a frenzy by claiming that Spain's "secret infernal machine" had destroyed the battleship. Soon after, the blandly handsome and easily influenced President McKinley declared war, sending troops not only to Cuba but also to the Philippines, Spain's sprawling colony on the other side of the world. As Evan Thomas reveals in his rip-roaring history of those times, the hunger for war had begun years earlier. Depressed by the "closing" of the Western frontier and embracing theories of social Darwinism, a group of warmongers that included a young Teddy Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge agitated loudly and incessantly that the United States exert its influence across the seas. These hawks would transform American foreign policy and, when Teddy ascended to the presidency, commence with a devastating war without reason, concocted within the White House - a bloody conflict that would come at tremendous cost. Thrillingly written and brilliantly researched, The War Lovers is the story of six men at the center of a transforming event in U.S. history: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, McKinley, William James, and Thomas Reed, and confirms once more that Evan Thomas is a popular historian of the first rank.
©2010 Evan Thomas (P)2010 Hachette Audio