Robertson Dean has narrated 197 audiobooks on Listento.it by 213 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 3,310 ratings. The most-rated is Dark Places.
The Quiet Americans
Summary
A gripping account of four American spies at the dawn of the Cold War and the CIA's covert battles against communism, from the best-selling author of Lawrence in Arabia. "Enthralling...captivating reading, especially in the hands of a storyteller as skilled as Anderson...the climate of fear and intolerance that it describes in Washington also feels uncomfortably timely. " (Kevin Peraino, The New York Times Book Review) The Quiet Americans chronicles the exploits of the CIA's four original spies: Michael Burke, a charming former football star fallen on hard times, Frank Wisner, the scion of a wealthy Southern family, Peter Sichel, a sophisticated German Jew who escaped the Nazis, and Edward Lansdale, a brilliant ad executive. The four ran covert operations across the globe, trying to outwit the ruthless KGB in Berlin, parachuting commandos into Eastern Europe, plotting coups, and directing wars against Communist insurgents in Asia. But time and again their efforts went awry, thwarted by a combination of incompetence and ideological rigidity at the highest levels of the government. The intertwined lives of these men began in a common purpose of defending freedom, but the ravages of the Cold War led them to different fates. Two would quit the CIA in despair, stricken by the moral compromises they had to make; one became the archetype of the duplicitous and destructive American spy; and one would be so heartbroken he would take his own life. The Quiet American is the story of these four men. It is also the story of how the United States, at the very pinnacle of its power, managed to permanently damage its moral standing - a tragic outcome with consequences that echo around the world today.
©2020 Scott Anderson (P)2020 Random House Audio
On the Edge of Survival
Summary
A Malaysian cargo ship on its way from Seattle, Washington, to China ran aground off the coast of western Alaska's Aleutian Islands on December 8, 2004, during a brutal storm, leading to one of the most incredible Coast Guard rescue missions of all time. Two Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopters lifted off immediately from Air Station Kodiak during the driving storm, in an effort to rescue the ship's 18 crew members before it broke apart and sank in the freezing waters. Nine of the crew were lifted from the ship and dropped aboard a nearby Coast Guard cutter. But during attempts to save the last eight crew members, one of the Jayhawks was engulfed by a rogue wave that broke over the bow of the ship. When its engines flamed out from ingesting water, the Jayhawk crashed into the sea. The seven crew members from the ship who had been hoisted into the aircraft, along with the chopper's three-man crew, plunged into the bitterly cold ocean, where hypothermia immediately began to set in. Interviewing all the surviving participants of the disaster and given access to documents and photos, acclaimed author Spike Walker has once again crafted a white-knuckle book of survival and death in the unforgiving Alaskan waters.
©2010 Spike Walker (P)2010 Tantor
The Oath
Summary
From the prizewinning author of The Nine, a gripping insider's account of the momentous ideological war between the John Roberts Supreme Court and the Obama administration. From the moment John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States, blundered through the Oath of Office at Barack Obama's inauguration, the relationship between the Supreme Court and the White House has been confrontational. Both men are young, brilliant, charismatic, charming, determined to change the course of the nation - and completely at odds on almost every major constitutional issue. One is radical; one essentially conservative. The surprise is that Obama is the conservative - a believer in incremental change, compromise, and pragmatism over ideology. Roberts - and his allies on the Court - seek to overturn decades of precedent: in short, to undo the ultimate victory FDR achieved in the New Deal. This ideological war will crescendo during the 2011-2012 term, in which several landmark cases are on the Court's docket - most crucially, a challenge to Obama's controversial health-care legislation. With four new justices joining the Court in just five years, including Obama's appointees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, this is a dramatically - and historically - different Supreme Court, playing for the highest of stakes. No one is better positioned to chronicle this dramatic tale than Jeffrey Toobin, whose prize-winning best seller The Nine laid bare the inner workings and conflicts of the Court in meticulous and entertaining detail. As the nation prepares to vote for President in 2012, the future of the Supreme Court will also be on the ballot.
©2012 Jeffrey Toobin (P)2012 Random House Audio
What Dreams May Come
Summary
What happens to us after we die? Chris Nielsen had no idea, until an unexpected accident cut his life short, separating him from his beloved wife, Annie. Now Chris must discover the true nature of life after death. But even Heaven is not complete without Annie, and the divided soul mates will do anything to reach each other across the boundaries between life and death. When tragedy threatens to divide them forever, Chris risks his very soul to save Annie from an eternity of despair.
©1978 Richard Matheson (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Every Hidden Thing
Summary
The hunt for a dinosaur skeleton buried in the Badlands, bitter rivalries, and a forbidden romance come together in this beautifully written new novel that's Romeo and Juliet meets Indiana Jones. Somewhere in the Badlands, embedded deep in centuries-buried rock and sand, lies the skeleton of a massive dinosaur, larger than anything the late nineteenth century world has ever seen. Some legends call it the Black Beauty, with its bones as black as ebony, but to seventeen-year-old Samuel Bolt it's the "rex," the king dinosaur that could put him and his struggling, temperamental archaeologist father in the history books (and conveniently make his father forget he's been kicked out of school), if they can just quarry it out. But Samuel and his father aren't the only ones after the rex. For Rachel Cartland this find could be her ticket to a different life, one where her loves of science and adventure aren't just relegated to books and sitting rooms. Because if she can't prove herself on this expedition with her professor father, the only adventures she may have to look forward to are marriage or spinsterhood. As their paths cross and the rivalry between their fathers becomes more intense, Samuel and Rachel are pushed closer together. And with both eyeing the same prize, their budding romance seems destined to fail. But as danger looms on the other side of the hills, causing everyone's secrets to come to light, Samuel and Rachel are forced to make a decision. Can they join forces to find their quarry - and with it a new life together - or will old enmities and prejudices keep them from both the rex and each other?
©2016 Firewing Productions, Inc. (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
The Aviators
Summary
Gifted storyteller Winston Groom, the best-selling author of Forrest Gump, has written the fascinating story of three extraordinary heroes who defined aviation during the great age of flight: Charles Lindbergh, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Jimmy Doolittle. These cleverly interwoven tales of their heart-stopping adventures take us from the feats of World War I through the heroism of World War II and beyond, including daring military raids and survival at sea, and will appeal to fans of Unbroken, The Greatest Generation, and Flyboys. With the world in peril during World War II, each man set aside great success and comfort to return to the skies for his most daring mission yet. Doolittle, a brilliant aviation innovator, would lead the Tokyo Raid to retaliate for Pearl Harbor; Lindbergh, hero of the first solo flight across the Atlantic, would fly combat missions in the South Pacific; and Rickenbacker, World War I flying ace, would bravely hold his crew together while facing near-starvation and circling sharks after his plane went down in a remote part of the Pacific. Groom's rich narrative tells the intertwined stories - from broken homes to Medals of Honor (all three would receive one), barnstorming to the greatest raid of World War II, front-page triumph to anguished tragedy, and near-death to ultimate survival - of these three men who took to the sky, time and again, to become exemplars of the spirit of the "greatest generation."
©2013 Winston Groom (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Toxin Solution
Summary
Eliminate avoidable toxins, mitigate the effects of those you can't avoid, and enjoy a longer life with this essential health guide from a pioneer in integrative medicine, Dr. Joe Pizzorno - the author, teacher, practitioner, and founder of Bastyr University, the country's first and largest fully accredited university of natural medicine. Dr. Joe Pizzorno is convinced that lifelong good health rests on two key determinants: your exposure to toxins and your ability to process them in your body. While lifestyle, diet, and genetics all play major roles in well-being, many symptoms of declining health and chronic disease are rooted in toxic overload - our exposure to a barrage of chemicals, heavy metals, radiation, electromagnetic frequencies, and pollution that are the byproducts of modern life. While the human body has an innate capacity to detoxify, it cannot cope with the elevated levels of toxins we are exposed to today. Most alarmingly, this toxic overload has helped transform once rare diseases into epidemics affecting people of all ages. In The Toxin Solution, Dr. Pizzorno provides the proven detox and tailored methods he has developed to heal toxic overload and restore health in just eight weeks. With this essential guide, you will learn how to avoid toxins in food and the products you use, mend your gut and prepare for detox, support your body in releasing the chemicals, and repair some of the damage toxins have caused. Fortunately, our bodies have a tremendous capacity for healing and recovery. With The Toxin Solution, you will discover how releasing and avoiding toxins can help you to feel better today - and every day for the rest of your life. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2017 Joseph Pizzorno, ND (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Hiroshima Diary
Summary
The late Dr. Michihiko Hachiya was director of the Hiroshima Communications Hospital when the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the city. Though his responsibilities in the appalling chaos of a devastated city were awesome, he found time to record the story daily, with compassion and tenderness. Dr. Hachiya's compelling diary was originally published by the UNC Press in 1955, with the help of Dr. Warner Wells of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was a surgical consultant to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission and who became a friend of Dr. Hachiya. In a new foreword, John Dower reflects on the enduring importance of the diary 50 years after the bombing.
©1983, 1995 The University of North Carolina Press. Foreword by John W. Dower by the University of North Carolina Press. (P)2014 Tantor
Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba
Summary
In this widely hailed book, NPR correspondent Tom Gjelten fuses the story of the Bacardi family and their famous rum business with Cuba's tumultuous experience over the last 150 years to produce a deeply entertaining historical narrative. The company Facundo Bacardi, launched in Cuba in 1862, brought worldwide fame to the island, and in the decades that followed, his Bacardi descendants participated in every aspect of Cuban life. With his intimate account of their struggles and adventures across five generations, Gjelten brings to life the larger story of Cuba's fight for freedom, its tortured relationship with America, the rise of Fidel Castro, and the violent division of the Cuban nation.
©2017 Tom Gjelten (P)2017 Penguin Audio
Defiant Joy
Summary
You may be aware that G. K. Chesterton authored influential Christian biographies and apologetics. But you may not know the larger-than-life Gilbert Keith Chesterton himself - not yet. Equally versed in poetry, novels, literary criticism, and journalism, he addressed politics, culture, and religion with a towering intellect and a soaring wit. Chesterton engaged his world through the written word. He carried on lively, public discussions with the social commentators of his day, continually challenging them with civility, humility, erudition, and his ever-sharp sense of humor. Today's listener can find the same treasures, for as Chesterton said, "What a man can believe depends upon his philosophy, not upon the clock or the century." In Kevin Belmonte's fresh new biography, you'll get to know the real G. K. Chesterton and his literary and cultural accomplishments. A giant of his time, Chesterton continues to live large in the imaginations of 21st-century listeners.
©2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
No True Glory
Summary
Fallujah: Iraq's most dangerous city unexpectedly emerged as the major battleground of the Iraqi insurgency. For 20 months, one American battalion after another tried to quell the violence, culminating in a bloody, full-scale assault. Victory came at a terrible price: 151 Americans and thousands of Iraqis were left dead. The epic battle for Fallujah revealed the startling connections between policy and combat that are a part of the new reality of war. The Marines had planned to slip into Fallujah "as soft as fog". But after four American contractors were brutally murdered, President Bush ordered an attack on the city, against the advice of the Marines. The assault sparked a political firestorm, and the Marines were forced to withdraw amid controversy and confusion, only to be ordered a second time to take a city that had become an inferno of hate and the lair of the archterrorist al-Zarqawi. Based on months spent with the battalions in Fallujah and hundreds of interviews at every level (senior policymakers, negotiators, generals, and soldiers and Marines on the front lines) No True Glory is a testament to the bravery of the American soldier and a cautionary tale about the complex, and often costly, interconnected roles of policy, politics, and battle in the twenty-first century.
©2005 Bing West (P)2005 Books on Tape
The Twilight of the Bombs
Summary
Here is the culminating volume in Richard Rhodes’s monumental and prizewinning history of nuclear weapons, offering the first comprehensive narrative of the challenges faced in a post-Cold War age. The past 20 years have transformed our relationship with nuclear weapons drastically. With extraordinary depth of knowledge and understanding, Rhodes makes clear how the five original nuclear powers—Russia, Great Britain, France, China, and especially the United States—have struggled with new realities. He shows us how the stage was set for a second tragic war when Iraq secretly destroyed it's nuclear infrastructure and reveals the real reasons George W. Bush chose to fight a second war in Iraq. We see how the efforts of U.S. weapons labs laid the groundwork for nuclear consolidation in the former Soviet Union, how and why South Africa secretly built and then destroyed a small nuclear arsenal, and how Jimmy Carter’s private diplomacy prevented another Korean War. We also see how the present day represents a nuclear turning point and what hope exists for our future. Rhodes assesses the emerging threat of nuclear terrorism and offers advice on how our complicated relationships with North Korea and South Asia should evolve. Finally, he imagines what a post-nuclear world might look like, suggesting what might make it possible. Powerful and persuasive, The Twilight of the Bombs is an essential work of contemporary history.
©2010 Richard Rhodes (P)2010 Random House
Black Site
Summary
When the towers fell on September 11, 2001, nowhere were the reverberations more powerfully felt than at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Almost overnight, the intelligence organization evolved into a warfighting intelligence service, constructing what was known internally as "the Program": a web of top-secret detention facilities intended to help prevent future attacks on American soil and around the world. With Black Site, former deputy director of the CIA Counterterrorist Center Philip Mudd presents a full, never-before-told story of this now-controversial program, directly addressing how far America went to pursue al-Qa'ida and prevent another catastrophe. Heated debates about torture were later ignited in 2014 after the US Senate published a report of the Program, detailing the CIA's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" to draw information from detainees. The report, Mudd posits, did not fully address key questions: How did the officials actually come to their decisions? What happened at the detention facilities - known as "Black Sites" - on a day-to-day basis? What did they look like? How were prisoners transported there? And how did the officers feel about what they were doing? Black Site seeks answers to these questions and more.
©2019 Philip Mudd (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
America's Bank
Summary
The tumultuous era and remarkable personalities that unexpectedly birthed the Federal Reserve, from renowned financial writer Roger Lowenstein Until the election of Woodrow Wilson the United States - alone among developed nations - lacked a central bank. Ever since the Revolutionary War, Americans had desperately feared the consequences of centralizing the nation's finances under government control. However, in the aftermath of a disastrous financial panic, Congress was persuaded - by a confluence of populist unrest, widespread mistrust of bankers, ideological divisions, and secretive lobbying - to approve the landmark 1913 Federal Reserve Act. Writing in a rich and untapped historical vein, Roger Lowenstein - acclaimed financial journalist and best-selling author of When Genius Failed and The End of Wall Street - reveals the drama-filled, unlikely story of how America created the Federal Reserve, thereby taking its first steps onto the world stage as a global financial power. America's Bank showcases Lowenstein at his very finest: illuminating complex financial and political issues with striking clarity, infusing the debates of our past with all the gripping immediacy of today, and painting unforgettable portraits of Gilded Age bankers, presidents, and politicians. With America's Bank, Lowenstein focuses on the four men at the heart of the drama to create the Federal Reserve. These are Paul Warburg, a refined, German-born financier, recently relocated to New York, who was horrified at America's primitive finances; Rhode Island's Nelson W. Aldrich, the reigning power broker in the US Senate and an archetypal Gilded Age legislator; Carter Glass, the ambitious but little-known Virginia congressman who chaired the House Banking and Currency Committee at a crucial moment of political transition; and, of course, President Woodrow Wilson....
©2015 Roger Lowenstein (P)2015 Penguin Audio
Dear Committee Members
Summary
Finally a novel that puts the "pissed" back into "epistolary." Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the midwest. His department is facing draconian cuts and squalid quarters, while one floor above them the Economics Department is getting lavishly remodeled offices. His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels. His star (he thinks) student can't catch a break with his brilliant (he thinks) work Accountant in a Bordello, based on Melville's Bartleby. In short, his life is a tale of woe, and the vehicle this droll and inventive audiobook uses to tell that tale is a series of hilarious letters of recommendation that Fitger is endlessly called upon by his students and colleagues to produce, each one of which is a small masterpiece of high dudgeon, low spirits, and passive-aggressive strategies. We recommend Dear Committee Members to you in the strongest possible terms.
©2014 Julie Schumacher (P)2014 Random House Audio
You Should Have Left
Summary
From the internationally best-selling author of Measuring the World and F, an eerie and supernatural tale of a writer's emotional collapse. "It is fitting that I'm beginning a new notebook up here. New surroundings and new ideas, a new beginning. Fresh air." This passage is from the first entry of a journal kept by the narrator of Daniel Kehlmann's spellbinding new novel. It is the record of the seven days that he, his wife, and his four-year-old daughter spend in a house they have rented in the mountains of Germany - a house that thwarts the expectations of the narrator's recollection and seems to defy the very laws of physics. He is eager to finish a screenplay for a sequel to the movie that launched his career, but something he cannot explain is undermining his convictions and confidence, a process he is recording in this account of the uncanny events that unfold as he tries to understand what, exactly, is happening around him - and within him.
©2017 Daniel Kehlmann (P)2017 Random House Audio
Reading Judas
Summary
Two leading, best-selling experts on the Gnostic gospels weigh in on the meaning of the controversial, newly discovered Gospel of Judas. When the Gospel of Judas was published by the National Geographic Society in April 2006, it received extraordinary media attention and was immediately heralded as a major biblical discovery that rocked the world of scholars and laypeople alike. Elaine Pagels and Karen King are the first to reflect on this newfound text and its ramifications for the story of early Christianity. In Reading Judas, the two celebrated scholars illustrate how the newly discovered text provides a window into understanding how Jesus' followers understood his death, why Judas betrayed Jesus, and why God allowed it. Most contemporary readers will find passages in the ancient Gospel of Judas difficult to comprehend outside of its context in the ancient world. Reading Judas illuminates the intellectual assumptions behind Jesus' teaching to Judas and shows how conflict among the disciples was a tool frequently used by early Christian authors to explore matters of doubt and disagreement. Presented with the elegance, insight, and accessibility that has made Pagels and King the leading voices in this field, this is a book for academics and popular audiences alike.
©2007 Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King (P)2007 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All rights reserved.
The Boyfriend
Summary
Jack Till, who has retired from the LAPD after a respected career as a homicide detective, now works as a private investigator, comfortable chasing down routine cases while visiting his 24-year-old daughter, Holly, who has Down Syndrome. But when the parents of a recently murdered young girl, about Holly's age, ask for his help when the police come up empty, Till reluctantly takes the case. It was discovered after her death that the victim had been working as a high-class prostitute, and the police are content to assume she was killed by a client, common in such a dangerous line of work. Yet as Till digs deeper, he realizes that the victim is just one of several young female escorts killed in different cities in the exact same way - all had strawberry blonde hair, and all were shot with a 9mm handgun in the sanctity of their apartments. Till must find his way around the tawdry and secretive online escort business, and decode ads placed by young women who all use false names, sometimes advertise using other women's pictures, and move from city to city every few months. Yet when Till is finally able to catch up with the killer, he finds that the man he's after is far more dangerous and volatile than he ever could have imagined. As the body count rises, Till must risk his life to find this seductive and ruthless killer whose murderous spree masks a far deadlier agenda.
©2013 Thomas Perry (P)2013 Tantor
West
Summary
In the sequel to the beloved high fantasy East, Rose sets off on a perilous journey to find her true love when he goes missing in a thrilling tale of danger, magic, adventure, and revenge. When Rose first met Charles, he was trapped in the form of a white bear. To rescue him, Rose traveled to the land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon to defeat the evil Troll Queen. Now, Rose has found her happily ever after with Charles - until a sudden storm destroys his ship and he is presumed dead. But Rose doesn’t believe the shipwreck was an act of nature, nor does she believe Charles is truly dead. Something much more sinister is at work. With mysterious and unstoppable forces threatening the lives of the people she loves, Rose must once again set off on a perilous journey. This time, the fate of the entire world is at stake. Audiobook cast of narrators: Renée Raudman as Rose Kirby Heyborne as Neddy Taylor Meskimen as Estelle Robertson Dean as White Bear Kimberly Farr as Mother Tonya Cornelisse as The Troll Queen
©2018 Edith Pattou (P)2018 Listening Library
A Pretext for War
Summary
This book says outright what many have merely hinted at: that President George W. Bush knowingly misused the findings of the erroneous and incompetent U.S. intelligence community to provide a pretext for war with Iraq. The author hones in on the systematic weaknesses of the intelligence agencies that caused them to ignore the crucial signs leading up to the attacks of 9/11. Incompetence, deception, and misinformation from these agencies simply left the door open for President Bush and his cronies, who were less interested in the capture of Osama bin Laden and the destruction of his terror network than in following a dubious agenda in Iraq. The missing "weapons of mass destruction" are merely the latest by-product of Bush's co-optation of intelligence for political ends.
©2004 James Bamford (P)2004 Books on Tape