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 Good Son
Summary
The number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Day John Died delivers another dramatic installment in the lives of the Kennedys - including new details about JFK, Jr., his relationship with his mother, his many girlfriends, and the night of his tragic death. Critically acclaimed author Christopher Andersen is a master of celebrity biographies - boasting 16 best sellers, among them These Few Precious Days, Mick, and William and Kate. Now in his latest thrilling book, untold details of the life and death of JFK, Jr., come to light, released in time for the 15-year marker of the tragic plane crash on July 16, 1999. At the heart of The Good Son is the most important relationship in JFK, Jr.'s life: that with his mother, the beautiful and mysterious Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Andersen explores his reactions to his mother's post-Dallas suicidal depression and growing dependence on prescription drugs (as well as men); how Jackie felt about the women in her son's life, from Madonna and Sarah Jessica Parker, to Daryl Hannah and Carolyn Bessette, to his turbulent marriage; the senseless plane crash that took his life; the aftermath of shock, loss, grief, and confusion; and much more. Offering new insights into the intense, tender, and often stormy relationship between this iconic mother and son, The Good Son is a riveting, bittersweet biography for lovers of all things Kennedy.
©2014 Christopher Anderson (P)2014 Blackstone Audio
East
Summary
Rose is the youngest of seven children, meant to replace her dead sister. Maybe because of that, she’s never really fit in. She’s always felt different, out of place, a restless wanderer in a family of homebodies. So when an enormous white bear mysteriously shows up and asks her to come away with him - in exchange for health and prosperity for her ailing family - she readily agrees. Rose travels on the bear’s broad back to a distant and empty castle, where she is nightly joined by a mysterious stranger. In discovering his identity, she loses her heart - and finds her purpose - and realizes her journey has just begun. As familiar and moving as Beauty and the Beast, yet as fresh and original as only the best fantasy can be, East is a bold retelling of the classic tale “East of the Sun and West of the Moon”, a sweeping story of grand proportions.
©2005 Edith Pattou (P)2012 Listening Library
Cuba Libre!
Summary
The surprising story of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and the scrappy band of rebel men and women who followed them. Most people are familiar with the basics of the Cuban Revolution of 1956-1959: it was led by two of the 20th century’s most charismatic figures, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara; it successfully overthrew the island nation’s US-backed dictator; and it quickly went awry under Fidel's rule. But less is remembered about the amateur nature of the movement or the lives of its players. In this wildly entertaining and meticulously researched account, historian and journalist Tony Perrottet unravels the human drama behind history’s most improbable revolution: a scruffy handful of self-taught revolutionaries - many of them kids just out of college, literature majors, and art students, and including a number of extraordinary women - who defeated 40,000 professional soldiers to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Cuba Libre!’s deep dive into the revolution reveals fascinating details: How did Fidel’s highly organized lover Celia Sánchez whip the male guerrillas into shape? Who were the two dozen American volunteers who joined the Cuban rebels? How do you make lethal land mines from condensed milk cans - or, for that matter, cook chorizo à la guerrilla (sausage guerrilla-style)? Cuba Libre! is an absorbing look back at a liberation movement that captured the world's imagination with its spectacular drama, foolhardy bravery, tragedy, and, sometimes, high comedy - and that set the stage for Cold War tensions that pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war.
©2019 Tony Perrottet (P)2019 Penguin Audio
Zero History
Summary
Hollis Henry worked for the global marketing magnate Hubertus Bigend once before. She never meant to repeat the experience. But she's broke, and Bigend never feels it's beneath him to use whatever power comes his way -- in this case, the power of money to bring Hollis onto his team again. Not that she knows what the "team" is up to, not at first. Milgrim is even more thoroughly owned by Bigend. He's worth owning for his useful gift of seeming to disappear in almost any setting, and his Russian is perfectly idiomatic - so much so that he spoke Russian with his therapist, in the secret Swiss clinic where Bigend paid for him to be cured of the addiction that would have killed him. Garreth has a passion for extreme sports. Most recently he jumped off the highest building in the world, opening his chute at the last moment, and he has a new thighbone made of rattan baked into bone, entirely experimental, to show for it. Garreth isn't owned by Bigend at all. Garreth has friends from whom he can call in the kinds of favors that a man like Bigend will find he needs, when things go unexpectedly sideways, in a world a man like Bigend is accustomed to controlling. As when a Department of Defense contract for combat-wear turns out to be the gateway drug for arms dealers so shadowy that even Bigend, whose subtlety and power in the private sector would be hard to overstate, finds himself outmaneuvered and adrift in a seriously dangerous world.
©2010 William Gibson; 2010 Penguin Audiobooks
London Calling
Summary
Martin Conway is sleeping his life away, aimless and unhappy, until the boy appears in his room. He is a long-dead English boy, and he has an urgent question to ask. Martin, for his own sanity, hopes and prays it is just a dream. But then one dream becomes two, then three, then four. And the dreams are startlingly vivid. As Martin follows the boy through the blitz-ravaged streets of London in 1940, that city's fiery dreamscape thrills and frightens him more than any place in his own drab world. Each time Martin wakes, he discovers that he has met real people and been to real places. He has also learned real things, including dark, personal secrets, that no one could have possibly known. Struggling to reconcile his dream world and the waking world, Martin slowly starts to believe in the boy, in time travel, in himself. And Martin's life, which had once seemed so pointless, takes on a great purpose that he could never have imagined.
©2006 Edward Bloor (P)2006 Random House Inc. Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group
Rise of the Machines
Summary
As lives offline and online merge, it's easy to forget how we got here. Rise of the Machines reclaims the story of cybernetics, a control theory of man and machine. Thomas Rid delivers a portrait of our technology-enraptured era. Springing from mathematician Norbert Wiener amid the devastation of World War II, the cybernetic vision underpinned a host of myths about the future of machines. This vision radically transformed the postwar world, ushering in sweeping cultural change. Cybernetics triggered cults, the Whole Earth Catalog, and feminist manifestos just as it fueled martial gizmos and the air force's foray into virtual space. As Rid shows, cybernetics proved a powerful tool for two competing factions - those who sought to make a better world and those who sought to control the one at hand. In the Bay Area, techno-libertarians embraced networked machines as the portal to a new electronic frontier. In Washington, DC, cyberspace provided the perfect theater for dominance and war. That "first cyberwar" went on for years - and indeed has never stopped. In our cybernetic future, the line between utopia and dystopia continues to be disturbingly thin.
©2016 Thomas Rid (P)2016 Highbridge, a division of Recorded Books
What the Qur'an Meant
Summary
America's leading religious scholar and public intellectual introduces lay listeners to the Qur'an with a measured, powerful reading of the ancient text Garry Wills has spent a lifetime thinking and writing about Christianity. In What the Qur'an Meant, Wills invites listeners to join him as he embarks on a timely and necessary reconsideration of the Qur'an, leading us through perplexing passages with insight and erudition. What does the Qur'an actually say about veiling women? Does it justify religious war? There was a time when ordinary Americans did not have to know much about Islam. That is no longer the case. We blundered into the longest war in our history without knowing basic facts about the Islamic civilization with which we were dealing. We are constantly fed false information about Islam - claims that it is essentially a religion of violence, that its sacred book is a handbook for terrorists. There is no way to assess these claims unless we have at least some knowledge of the Qur'an. In this book Wills, as a non-Muslim with an open mind, reads the Qur'an with sympathy but with rigor, trying to discover why other non-Muslims - such as Pope Francis - find it an inspiring book, worthy to guide people down through the centuries. There are many traditions that add to and distort and blunt the actual words of the text. What Wills does resembles the work of art restorers who clean away accumulated layers of dust to find the original meaning. He compares the Qur'an with other sacred books, the Old Testament and the New Testament, to show many parallels between them. There are also parallel difficulties of interpretation, which call for patient exploration - and which offer some thrills of discovery. What the Qur'an Meant is the opening of a conversation on one of the world's most practiced religions.
©2017 Garry Wills (P)2017 Penguin Audio
Gettysburg: The Last Invasion
Summary
From the acclaimed Civil War historian, a brilliant new history–the most intimate and richly readable account we have had–of the climactic three-day battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), which draws the reader into the heat, smoke, and grime of Gettysburg alongside the ordinary soldier, and depicts the combination of personalities and circumstances that produced the greatest battle of the Civil War, and one of the greatest in human history. Of the half-dozen full-length histories of the battle of Gettysburg written over the last century, none dives down so closely to the experience of the individual soldier, or looks so closely at the sway of politics over military decisions, or places the battle so firmly in the context of nineteenth-century military practice. Allen C. Guelzo shows us the face, the sights, and the sounds of nineteenth-century combat: the lay of the land, the fences and the stone walls, the gunpowder clouds that hampered movement and vision; the armies that caroused, foraged, kidnapped, sang, and were so filthy they could be smelled before they could be seen; the head-swimming difficulties of marshaling massive numbers of poorly trained soldiers, plus thousands of animals and wagons, with no better means of communication than those of Caesar and Alexander. What emerges is an untold story, from the trapped and terrified civilians in Gettysburg’s cellars to the insolent attitude of artillerymen, from the taste of gunpowder cartridges torn with the teeth to the sounds of marching columns, their tin cups clanking like an anvil chorus. Guelzo depicts the battle with unprecedented clarity, evoking a world where disoriented soldiers and officers wheel nearly blindly through woods and fields toward their clash, even as poetry and hymns spring to their minds with ease in the midst of carnage. Rebel soldiers look to march on Philadelphia and even New York, while the Union struggles to repel what will be the final invasion of the North. One hundred and fifty years later, the cornerstone battle of the Civil War comes vividly to life as a national epic, inspiring both horror and admiration.
©2013 Allen C. Guelzo (P)2013 Random House
Bran Mak Morn
Summary
From Robert E. Howard's fertile imagination sprang some of fiction's greatest heroes, including Conan the Cimmerian, King Kull, and Solomon Kane. But of all Howard's characters, none embodied his creator's brooding temperament more than Bran Mak Morn, the last king of a doomed race. In ages past, the Picts ruled all of Europe. But the descendants of those proud conquerors have sunk into barbarism...all save one: Bran Mak Morn, whose bloodline remains unbroken. Threatened by the Celts and the Romans, the Pictish tribes rally under his banner to fight for their very survival, while Bran fights to restore the glory of his race. This collection gathers together all of Howard's published stories featuring Bran Mak Morn: "Men of the Shadows", "Kings of the Night", "A Song of the Race", "Worms of the Earth", "The Dark Man", and "The Lost Race".
©2004 Wandering Star, Ltd. (P)2010 Tantor
Chasing Gold
Summary
In the highly anticipated new book from the best-selling author of Judgment of Paris,George M. Taber reveals the integral role gold played in World War II, from its influence on the Nazi war machine to the ultimate triumph by the Allies and the fall of Berlin. For the entire history of human civilization, gold has enraptured people around the globe. The Nazis were no less enthralled by it and felt gold was the solution to funding Hitler's war machine. Gold was also on the mind of FDR across the Atlantic, as he worked with Europe's other leaders to bring the United States and the rest of the world out of a severe depression. FDR was hardly the first head of state to turn to gold in difficult times. Throughout history, it has been the refuge of both nations and people in trouble, working at times when nothing else does. Desperate people can buy a loaf of bread or bribe a border guard. Gold can get desperate nations oil to keep tanks running or munitions to fight a war. If the price is right, there is always someone somewhere willing to buy or sell gold. And it was to become the Nazi's most important medium of exchange during the war. Chasing Gold is the story of how the Nazis attempted to grab Europe's gold to finance history's bloodiest war. It is filled with high drama and close escapes, laying bare the palate of human emotions. Walking through the tale are giants of world history, as well as ordinary people called upon to undertake heroic action in an extraordinary time.
©2014 George M. Taber (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Dead and the Gone
Summary
Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated listeners with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event - an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of 17-year-old Puerto Rican Alex Morales. When Alex's parents disappear in the aftermath of tidal waves, he must care for his two younger sisters, even as Manhattan becomes a deadly wasteland, and food and aid dwindle. With haunting themes of family, faith, personal change, and courage, this powerful new novel explores how a young man takes on unimaginable responsibilities.
©2008 Susan Beth Pfeffer (P)2008 Random House, Inc.
The Ultimate Battle
Summary
Respected historian Bill Sloan tells the full story of the Battle of Okinawa as it has never been told before, through the eyes of the men in battle. Using the same grunt's-eye-view narrative style of Sloan's acclaimed Brotherhood of Heroes, The Ultimate Battle is the full story of the largest land-sea-air battle ever waged by the United States, a battle whose staggering casualties and take-no-prisoners ferocity led Truman to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. From April through June 1945, more than 250,000 American and Japanese lives were lost, including those of nearly 150,000 civilians who either committed suicide or were caught in the crossfire. This book tells a gripping story of heroism, sacrifice, and death.
©2007 Bill Sloan (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.
Mark of the Christian
Summary
"It is possible to be a Christian without showing the mark, but if we expect non-Christians to know that we are Christians, we must show the mark." Christians have not always presented an inviting picture to the world. Too often we have failed to show the beauty of authentic Christian love. And the world has disregarded Christianity as a result. In our era of global violence and sectarian intolerance, the church needs to hear anew the challenge of this book. Decades ago Francis Schaeffer exhorted, "Love - and the unity it attests to - is the mark Christ gave Christians to wear before the world. Only with this mark may the world know that Christians are indeed Christians and that Jesus was sent by the Father." More than ever, the church needs to respond compassionately to a needy world. More than ever, we need to show the Mark.
©2007 Francis A. Schaeffer (P)2009 christianaudio.com
The Generals
Summary
Celebrated historian Winston Groom tells the intertwined and uniquely American tales of George Patton, Douglas MacArthur, and George Marshall - from the World War I battle that shaped them to their greatest achievement: leading the allies to victory in World War II. These three remarkable men-of-arms, who rose from the gruesome hell of the First World War to become the finest generals of their generation during World War II, redefined America's ideas of military leadership and brought forth a new generation of American soldier. Their efforts revealed to the world the grit and determination that would become synonymous with America in the postwar years. Virginian George Marshall led his class at the Virginia Military Institute to become the principal planner of the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne, the greatest American operation, which ended the conflict. Afterward, he rose to become the army's chief of staff, where he balanced the volatility of generals such as Patton and MacArthur for the good of the country. Like Marshall, George Patton, who is remembered as one of the most heroic and controversial generals in American history, overcame early academic difficulties to graduate at the top of his class at West Point. He would build and command the army's burgeoning tank division, lead the successful invasion of North Africa during World War II, and die under mysterious circumstances in 1945. Douglas MacArthur also graduated at the top of his West Point class and became known as the "bravest man in the US Army" during the First World War, where he was commissioned as the youngest general in the armed forces. He commanded in the Pacific in World War II, where his strategy famously defeated the Empire of Japan.
©2015 Winston Groom (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Age of Turbulence
Summary
"This book is in part a detective story. After 9/11 I knew, if I needed further reinforcement, that we are living in a new world - the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-correcting, and fast-changing than it was even a quarter century earlier. It's a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new challenges. The Age of Turbulence is my attempt to understand the nature of this new world: how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill. Where possible, I convey my understanding in the context of my own experiences. I do this out of a sense of responsibility to the historical record, and so that listeners will know where I'm coming from. "The book is therefore divided in halves: the first half is my effort to retrace the arc of my learning curve, and the second half is a more objective effort to use this as the foundation on which to erect a conceptual framework for understanding the new global economy. Along the way I explore critical elements of this emerging global environment: the principles governing it; the vast energy infrastructure that powers it; the global financial imbalances and dramatic shifts in world demographics that threaten it; and, despite its unquestioned success, the chronic concern over the justice of the distribution of its rewards. Finally, I bring together what we can reasonably conjecture about the makeup of the world economy in 2030. "I don't pretend to know all the answers. But from my vantage point at the Federal Reserve, I had privileged access to the best that had been thought and said on a wide range of subjects. I have not been inhibited in reaching for some fairly sweeping hypotheses." -Alan Greenspan
©2007 Alan Greenspan (P)2007 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
American Colossus
Summary
From best-selling historian H. W. Brands, a sweeping chronicle of how a few wealthy businessmen reshaped America from a land of small farmers and small businessmen into an industrial giant. The three decades after the Civil War saw a wholesale shift in American life, and the cause was capitalism. Driven by J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and others like them, armies of men and women were harnessed to a new vision of massive industry. A society rooted in the soil became one based in cities, and legions of immigrants were drawn to American shores. H. W. Brands’ American Colossus portrays the stunning transformation of the landscape and institutions of American life in these years. Brands charts the rise of Wall Street, the growth of a national economy, the building of the railroads, and the first sparks of union life. By 1900, America was wealthier than ever, yet prosperity was precarious, inequality rampant, and democracy stretched thin. A populist backlash stirred. American Colossus is an unforgettable portrait of the years when a recognizably modern America first took shape.
©2010 H.W. Brands (P)2010 Random House Audio
Ten Letters
Summary
Every day, President Obama reads ten representative letters among the thousands he receives from citizens across the land. The letters come from people of all ages, walks of life, and political points of view. Some are heartbreaking, some angry, some hopeful. Indeed, Obama reads as many letters addressed “Dear Jackass” as “Dear Mr. President.” Eli Saslow, a young and rising star at the Washington Post, became fascinated by the power of these letters and set out to find the stories behind them. Through the lens of ten letters to which Obama responded personally, this exceptionally relevant and poignant book explores those individual stories, taking an in-depth look at the misfortunes, needs, opinions, and, yes, anger over the current state of the country that inspired ten people to put pen to paper. Surprisingly, what also emerges from these affecting personal narratives is a story about the astounding endurance and optimism of the American people. Ten Letters is an inspiring and important book about ordinary people and the issues they face every day - the very issues that are shaping America’s future. This is not an insider Washington book by any means, but a book for the times that tells the real American stories of today. From the Hardcover edition.
©2011 Eli Saslow (P)2011 Random House Audio
Andorra
Summary
For mysterious reasons, a man forsakes his American life and arrives in a strange country called Andorra. He settles into the grand - and only - hotel in its seaside capital and gradually makes the acquaintance of this tiny city's most prominent residents: the ancient Mrs. Reinhardt, who has a lifetime lease on the penthouse in the hotel; Sophonsobia Quay, the kayaking matriarch of an Andorran dynasty; and the Ricky Dents, an Australian couple who share a first name, a gigantic dog, and a volatile secret. As the stranger reveals himself to his new friends and becomes entangled in their lives, the mystery of his own origin deepens. What is he hiding, and why? And when a mutilated dead body appears in the harbor, everyone is a suspect, including our narrator. Part thriller, part comedy of manners, part surrealistic dream, Andorra is "a work of remarkable and sustained invention and imagination...a nearly perfect book" (Robert Drake, The Philadelphia Inquirer).
©1997 Peter Cameron (P)2017 Random House Audio
Luke's Story
Summary
Millions of readers made the Left Behind series best-sellers. Now, the third in the authors' best-selling Jesus Chronicles is available in audiobook. This biblically inspired novel, third in the best-selling Jesus Chronicles, tells the story of Luke - the Gospel writer whose belief was built on the power of faith alone. Luke, who hadn't met Jesus, is skeptical of his miracles until events in his own life irreversibly change him. Pledging himself to Christ, he begins a Gospel based on the conversion stories of believers and interviews with those who knew him best - the disciples who spent three years with Jesus and, most important, his mother, Mary. The result would be a Scripture rich in the miraculous stories of the Lord's divinity, intended to appeal to women, nonbelievers, and the disenfranchised - and that would speak to the heart of Christians all over the world.
©2009 Jerry B. Jenkins (P)2009 Penguin
Inside Terrorism
Summary
Bruce Hoffman's Inside Terrorism has remained a seminal work for understanding the historical evolution of terrorism and the terrorist mindset. In this revised edition of the classic text, Hoffman analyzes the new adversaries, motivations, and tactics of global terrorism that have emerged in recent years, focusing specifically on how al Qaeda has changed since 9/11; the reasons behind its resiliency, resonance, and longevity; and its successful use of the internet and videotapes to build public support and gain new recruits. Hoffman broadens the discussion by evaluating the potential repercussions of the Iraqi insurgency, the use of suicide bombers, terrorist exploitation of new communications media, and the likelihood of a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear terrorist strike. Closer to home, Hoffman reconsiders the Timothy McVeigh case and the threats posed by American Christian white supremacists and abortion opponents, as well as those posed by militant environmentalists and animal rights activists. He argues that the attacks on the World Trade Center fundamentally transformed the West's view of the terrorist threat. More relevant and necessary than ever, Inside Terrorism continues to be the definitive work on the history and future of global terrorism.
©2017 Bruce Hoffman (P)2019 Tantor