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.
Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die
Summary
WHY? The most important questions anyone can ask are: Why was Jesus Christ crucified? Why did he suffer so much? What has this to do with me? Finally, who sent him to his death? The answer to the last question is that God did. Jesus was God's Son. The suffering was unsurpassed, but the whole message of the Bible leads to this answer. The central issue of Jesus' death is not the cause, but the meaning - God's meaning. That is what this book is about. John Piper has gathered from the New Testament 50 reasons. Not 50 causes, but 50 purposes - in answer to the most important question that each of us must face: What did God achieve for sinners like us in sending his Son to die?
©2004 John Piper (P)2008 christianaudio.com
For Crew and Country
Summary
John Wukovits tells of the most dramatic naval battle of the Pacific War and the incredible sacrifice of the USS Samuel B. Roberts. On October 25, 1944, the Samuel B. Roberts, along with the other 12 vessels comprising its unit, stood between Japan’s largest battleship force ever sent to sea and MacArthur’s transports inside Leyte Gulf. Faced with the surprise appearance of more than 20 Japanese battleships, cruisers, and destroyers - including the Yamato, at 70,000 tons the most potent battlewagon in the world - the 1,200-ton Samuel B. Roberts turned immediately to action with six other ships. Captain Copeland marked the occasion with one of the most poignant addresses ever given to men on the edge of battle: "Men," he said over the intercom, "we are about to go into a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected." The ship churned straight at the enemy in a near-suicidal attempt to deflect the more potent foe, allow the small aircraft carriers to escape, and buy time for MacArthur’s forces. Of 563 destroyers constructed during World War II, the Samuel B. Roberts was the only one sunk, going down with guns blazing in a duel reminiscent of the Spartans at Thermopylae or Davy Crockett’s Alamo defenders. The men who survived faced a horrifying three-day nightmare in the sea, where they battled a lack of food and water, scorching sun and numbing nighttime cold, and nature’s most feared adversary - sharks. The battle would go down as history’s greatest sea clash, the Battle of Samar - the dramatic climax of the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
©2013 John Wukovits (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Gettysburg Address
Summary
The Gettysburg Address, delivered by Lincoln on November 19, 1863, in the aftermath of a narrow, bloody Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, is considered one of the greatest speeches in American history.
Public Domain (P)2018 Dreamscape Media, LLC
The Death of Caesar
Summary
William Shakespeare's gripping play showed Caesar's assassination to be an amateur and idealistic affair. The real killing, however, was a carefully planned paramilitary operation, a generals' plot put together by Caesar's disaffected officers and designed with precision. Brutus and Cassius were indeed key players, but they had the help of a third man - Decimus. He was the mole in Caesar's entourage, one of Caesar's leading generals, and a lifelong friend. It was he, not Brutus, who truly betrayed Caesar. Caesar's assassins saw him as a military dictator who wanted to be king. He threatened a permanent change in the Roman way of life and in the power of senators. The assassins rallied support among the common people, but they underestimated Caesar's soldiers, who flooded Rome. The assassins were vanquished; their beloved Republic became the Roman Empire.
©2015 Barry Strauss (P)2015 Tantor
Hunting Che
Summary
By the mid-1960s, Che Guevera had become famous for his outspoken criticism of the United States and his support for armed Communist insurgencies. He had been one of the architects of the Cuban Revolution, and was attempting to repeat his success throughout Latin America. His guerilla tactics and talent for proselytizing made him a threat to American foreign policy - and when he turned his attention to Bolivia in 1967, the Pentagon made a decision: Che had to be eliminated. Major Ralph "Pappy" Shelton was called upon to lead the mission to train the Bolivians. With a hand-picked team of specialists, his first task was to transform a ragtag group of peasants into a trained fighting force who could also gather intelligence. Gary Prado, a Bolivian officer, volunteered to join the newly formed Bolivian Rangers. Joined by Felix Rodriguez, a Cuban exile working for the CIA, the Americans and Bolivians searched for Che. The size of Che's group and when they would strike were unknowns, and the stakes were high. If Bolivia fell, it would validate Che's theories and throw South America into turmoil. Hunting Che follows the exploits of Major Shelton, Felix Rodriguez, and Gary Prado - the Bolivian Ranger commander who ultimately captured him. The story begins with Che's arrival in Bolivia and follows the hunt to the dramatic confrontation and capture of the iconic leader in the southeastern village of La Higuera. With the White House and the Pentagon secretly monitoring every move, Shelton and his team changed history, and prevented a catastrophic threat from taking root in the West.
©2013 Mitch Weiss and Kevin Maurer (P)2013 Tantor
Discovering Great Plays
Summary
Based on a series of lectures by Leonard Peikoff and edited by Marlene Trollope, Discovering Great Plays provides the ability to understand, judge, and savor the values offered by great drama. Listeners will discover plot-theme as the key to a play; see Antigone as a great heroine and Iago as the darkest villain in literature; learn about the Cornelian hero; see how Schiller's "Grand Inquisitor" scene is the most dramatic and philosophic in all of theater; and discover Shaw's brilliance in presenting the genius against society. Plays discussed include: Antigone by Sophocles; Othello by Shakespeare; Le Cid by Corneille; Don Carlos by Schiller; An Enemy of the People by Ibsen; Saint Joan by Shaw; Monna Vanna by Maeterlinck; and Cyrano de Bergerac by Rostand.
©2017 Leonard Peikoff, Marlene Trollope (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Good Life
Summary
Hailed by Newsweek as “a superb and humane social critic” with, according to The Wall Street Journal, “all the true instincts of a major novelist,” Jay McInerney unveils a story of love, family, conflicting desires, and catastrophic loss in his most powerfully searing work thus far. Clinging to a semiprecarious existence in TriBeCa, Corrine and Russell Calloway have survived a separation and are thoroughly wonderstruck by young twins whose provenance is nothing less than miraculous, even as they contend with the faded promise of a marriage tinged with suspicion and deceit. Meanwhile, several miles uptown and perched near the top of the Upper East Side’s social register, Luke McGavock has postponed his accumulation of wealth in an attempt to recover the sense of purpose now lacking in a life that often gives him pause - especially with regard to his teenage daughter, whose wanton extravagance bears a horrifying resemblance to her mother’s. But on a September morning, brightness falls horribly from the sky, and people worlds apart suddenly find themselves working side by side at the devastated site, feeling lost anywhere else, yet battered still by memory and regret, by fresh disappointment and unimaginable shock. What happens, or should happen, when life stops us in our tracks, or our own choices do? What if both secrets and secret needs, long guarded steadfastly, are finally revealed? What is the good life? Posed with astonishing understanding and compassion, these questions power a novel rich with characters and events, both comic and harrowing, revelatory about not only New York after the attacks but also the toll taken on those lucky enough to have survived them. Wise, surprising, and, ultimately, heart-stoppingly redemptive, The Good Life captures lives that allow us to see - through personal, social, and moral complexity - more clearly into the heart of things.
©2006 Bright Lights, Big City, Inc. (P)2006 Books on Tape
Jury Master
Summary
David Sloane is the best wrongful death attorney in San Francisco. He's a lawyer who can make juries do anything. But despite his professional success, he's plagued by a nightmare of a childhood he cannot consciously remember. When he receives a package from a White House confidant who then turns up dead by apparent suicide, the contents reveal a history he never could have imagined. Now, in search of justice, Sloane must depend on two men he's never met: Charles Jenkins, a former CIA agent turned recluse who suffers the same nightmare; and Tom Molia, a police detective willing to take on just about anyone, including the U.S. Department of Justice. Together, these men must expose a 30-year conspiracy so insidious that it may reach as far as the Oval Office and topple a presidency, if they can stay alive.
©2006 Robert Dugoni (P)2006 Books on Tape
Mother Bruce
Summary
Bruce the bear likes to keep to himself. That, and eat eggs. But then his hard-boiled goose eggs turn out to be real, live goslings and they are convinced he's their mother. Bruce tries to get the geese to go south, but he can't seem to rid himself of his new companions. What's a bear to do?
©2015 Hyperion (P)2017 Weston Woods Studios Inc
Confront and Conceal
Summary
From inside Obama's situation room… …the critical moments in the covert war against Iran, the struggles to deal with a recalcitrant Pakistan and its fast-growing nuclear arsenal, the tensions with the American military over Afghanistan and with allies swept up in the chaos of the Arab Spring. Three and a half years ago, David Sanger's book The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power described how a new American president came to office with the world on fire. Now, just as the 2012 presidential election battle begins, Sanger follows up with an eye-opening, news-packed account of how Obama has dealt with those challenges, relying on innovative weapons and reconfigured tools of American power to try to manage a series of new threats. Sanger describes how Obama’s early idealism about fighting “a war of necessity” in Afghanistan quickly turned to fatigue and frustration, how the early hopes that the Arab Spring would bring about a democratic awakening slipped away, and how an effort to re-establish American power in the Pacific set the stage for a new era of tensions with the world’s great rising power, China. As the world seeks to understand the contours of the Obama Doctrine, Confront and Conceal is a fascinating, unflinching account of these complex years, in which the president and his administration have found themselves struggling to stay ahead in a world where power is diffuse and America's ability to exert control grows ever more elusive.
©2012 David E. Sanger (P)2012 Random House Audio
The Cubans
Summary
“[DePalma] renders a Cuba few tourists will ever see.... You won’t forget these people soon, and you are bound to emerge from DePalma’s bighearted account with a deeper understanding of a storied island.... A remarkably revealing glimpse into the world of a muzzled yet irrepressibly ebullient neighbor.” (The New York Times) Modern Cuba comes alive in a vibrant portrait of a group of families' varied journeys in one community over the last 20 years. Cubans today, most of whom have lived their entire lives under the Castro regime, are hesitantly embracing the future. In his new book, Anthony DePalma, a veteran reporter with years of experience in Cuba, focuses on a neighborhood across the harbor from Old Havana to dramatize the optimism as well as the enormous challenges that Cubans face: a moving snapshot of Cuba with all its contradictions as the new regime opens the gate to the capitalism that Fidel railed against for so long. In Guanabacoa, longtime residents prove enterprising in the extreme. Scrounging materials in the black market, Cary Luisa Limonta Ewen has started her own small manufacturing business, a surprising turn for a former ranking member of the Communist Party. Her good friend Lili, a loyal Communist, heads the neighborhood's watchdog revolutionary committee. Artist Arturo Montoto, who had long lived and worked in Mexico, moved back to Cuba when he saw improving conditions but complains like any artist about recognition. In stark contrast, Jorge García lives in Miami and continues to seek justice for the sinking of a tugboat full of refugees, a tragedy that claimed the lives of his son, grandson, and 12 other family members, a massacre for which the government denies any role. In The Cubans, many patriots face one new question: is their loyalty to the revolution, or to their country? As people try to navigate their new reality, Cuba has become an improvised country, an old machine kept running with equal measures of ingenuity and desperation. A new kind of revolutionary spirit thrives beneath the conformity of a half century of totalitarian rule. And over all of this looms the United States, with its unpredictable policies, which warmed towards its neighbor under one administration but whose policies have now taken on a chill reminiscent of the Cold War.
©2020 Anthony DePalma (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Free Play
Summary
Free Play is about the inner sources of spontaneous creation. It is about where art in the widest sense comes from. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms. Free Play is directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It integrates material from a wide variety of sources among the arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions of humanity. Filled with unusual quotes, amusing and illuminating anecdotes, and original metaphors, it reveals how inspiration arises within us; how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed, or obscured by certain unavoidable facts of life; and how it can finally be liberated - how we can be liberated - to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play, with our own authentic voice. The whole enterprise of improvisation in life and art, of recovering free play and awakening creativity, is about being true to ourselves and our visions. It brings us into direct, active contact with boundless creative energies that we may not even know we had.
©2019 Stephen Nachmanovitch (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Rachel Saint: A Star in the Jungle
Summary
Aboard the Aquitania, Rachel became aware of something strange happening to her. It was as if she were not on the deck of the ship anymore but was instead in a jungle clearing, looking at a group of brown-skinned, half-naked people. The people beckoned her to come. Suddenly the scene vanished, and Rachel fell to her knees and prayed. When young Rachel Saint surrendered her life to God, she began an unimaginable journey that would span decades and radically transform a dying culture steeped in revenge. Against all odds, God would lead her to Ecuador's Waorani Indians - known as Aucas, or savages, and infamous for murder. Despite the martyrdom of five missionaries by Waorani spears, Rachel boldly persisted in following God. In one of the greatest testimonies to God's grace and power in our time, this pioneering Bible translator would live for two decades with her own brother's killers, for the joy of seeing them become brothers and sisters in Christ. (1914-1994)
©2016 YWAM (P)2016 YWAM
Connect
Summary
“Read Connect by the absurdly brilliant Julian Gough - a mind-expanding techno-thriller with a hotly beating human heart.” (Emma Donoghue, New York Times best-selling author of Room) In the Nevada desert, in the near future, a family crisis sets off a chain reaction that threatens to bring the networked world to its knees. It starts in the home of Naomi Chiang, a biologist and single mother struggling to balance her research with looking after her painfully awkward, homeschooled, ever-growing teenage son, Colt. Naomi worries about him constantly - he's so socially inept that he struggles to order takeout pizza - but then she has a major breakthrough at the lab that could change their lives, and America's future. For his part, Colt seems focused on one thing only: a globe-spanning immersive gameworld in which his phenomenal coding skills set him apart. But after his first real-life romantic encounter goes awry, he realizes mastery of a virtual existence is not enough. When Colt secretly releases his mother's latest findings, Naomi's worst fears come true. Colt's estranged father crashes into their lives again, backed by the secretive security organization he heads. The US government wants Naomi's research... and Colt, who must leave the comfort of virtual reality to discover the pleasures, and pains, of a life fully lived. Meanwhile, Naomi has to decide how far she would go to protect her child. Would she kill a man? Would she destroy the world? Connect is a thrillingly smart novel of ideas that explores what connection - both human and otherwise - might be in a digital age. It is a story of mothers and sons; but it is also about you, your phone, and the future.
©2018 Julian Gough (P)2018 Random House Audio
Heart of the Machine
Summary
Imagine a robotic stuffed animal that can read and respond to a child's emotional state or a commercial that can change based on a customer's facial expression. Heart of the Machine explores the next giant step in the relationship between humans and technology: the ability of computers to recognize, respond to, and even replicate emotions. Computers have long been integral to our lives, and their advances continue at an exponential rate. Many believe that artificial intelligence equal or superior to human intelligence will happen in the not-too-distance future. Futurist Richard Yonck argues that emotion, the first, most basic, and most natural form of communication, is at the heart of how we will soon work with and use computers. Instilling emotions into computers is the next leap in our centuries-old obsession with creating machines that replicate humans. But for every benefit this progress may bring to our lives, there is a possible pitfall. Emotion recognition could lead to advanced surveillance, and the same technology that can manipulate our feelings could become a method of mass control. Heart of the Machine is an exploration of the new and inevitable ways in which mankind and technology will interact.
©2017 Richard Yonck (P)2017 Tantor
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.
Stonewall
Summary
The basis of the PBS American Experience documentary Stonewall Uprising In 1969, a series of riots over police action against The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, changed the longtime landscape of the homosexual in society literally overnight. Since then the event itself has become the stuff of legend, with relatively little hard information available on the riots themselves. Now, based on hundreds of interviews, an exhaustive search of public and previously sealed files, and over a decade of intensive research into the history and the topic, Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution brings one of history's most singular events to vivid life.
©2004 David Carter (P)2019 Tantor
The Art of Is
Summary
A critically acclaimed musician and teacher presents a guide to the dynamics of improvisation. It's easy to assume that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous and endlessly influential "I Have a Dream" speech was scripted beforehand, vetted by others, written, and rewritten. It was not. Instead, it was given on the fly, when from the audience, singer Mahalia Jackson urged King off his prepared text. The result has inspired millions. The Art of Is contains breath-of-fresh-air thinking about how to cultivate the kind of game-changing creativity everyone seeks. Stephen Nachmanovitch shows exactly how the passion and immediacy of improvisation can be cultivated and how, in fact, we all improvise all the time - whether we are driving or deep in conversation. He explores ideas about being in the moment and reacting to people as they are, finding gold in unexpected distractions and roadblocks, and not only accepting, but also celebrating imperfections in everyday practices. This creative mindfulness also makes innovation the province not of solitary geniuses, but the result of engagement and interaction - and makes clear that improvising, creating, and innovating are only of value when rooted in an ethical and social foundation. The results, Nachmanovitch shows, foster meaningful change and invention - and may just ignite a dream.
©2019 Stephen Nachmanovitch (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Being Sober
Summary
The disease of addiction affects 1 out of 10 people in the United States, and is a devastating - often, fatal - illness. Now, from the physician director of the renowned Betty Ford Center, comes a step-by-step plan with a realistic "one-day-at-a-time" approach to a disease that so often seems insurmountable. With a focus on reclaiming the power that comes from a life free of dependency, Being Sober walks listeners through the many phases of addiction and recovery without judgment or the overly "cultish" language of traditional 12-step plans. It also addresses the latest face of this disease: the "highly functioning" addict, or someone who is still able to achieve personal and professional success even as they battle a drug or alcohol problem. Dr. Haroutunian tackles this provocative issue head-on, offering new insight into why you don't have to "bottom out" to get help. Dr. Haroutunian is himself a recovering alcoholic and knows firsthand the challenges of sobriety. His background and expertise in the field of alcohol and drug treatment give him a powerful edge and perspective that is unparalleled in his field. Using clear, straightforward language, Being Sober offers a proven path toward an emotional sobriety and a rewarding new life based on gratitude, dignity, and self-respect. Including a Foreword written by Steven Tyler.
©2013 Harry L. Haroutunian, MD (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Keeping the Heart
Summary
Puritan John Flavel (1630-1691) in Keeping the Heart (originally titled: A Saint Indeed or The Great Work of a Christian Opened and Pressed) has proven to be a steady and timely friend to many over the years. Using Proverbs 4:23 ("Keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life."), Flavel creates a treatise designed for all professing Christians. The aim is that the contents of the heart be laid bare, so that sin which is present is seen as sin and dealt with as a believer should and that the heart be guided to be pure in its devotion and affection for God. He does this, not with law, but by constantly pointing the believer to God's grace as the grounds and means for his sanctification. Flavel is not content to merely convey information, rather, with each point he carefully takes aim at your very soul and deftly fires shot after gospel-saturated, God-glorifying shot. Make sure you read this book slowly and prayerfully, allowing each purifying blow to have its full affect on your heart.
©2010 John Flavel (P)2011 christianaudio.com