Rodney Gardiner has narrated 6 audiobooks on Listento.it by 7 authors. The most-rated is Come and Get These Memories.
The Souls of Black Folk
Summary
A cornerstone of African-American literary history, The Souls of Black Folk is a classic work by W. E. B. Du Bois. Originally published in 1903, it contains many essays on race and equality, but is also a piece of seminal history, laying the groundwork for the field of sociology. Some of the essays in the book were even previously published by the Atlantic Monthly magazine. When writing, Du Bois drew from his personal experiences as an African-American in America to highlight the issues of prejudice that were still going on into the 20th century.
Public Domain (P)2016 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Assault on Sunrise
Summary
A fast-paced, cinematically explosive dystopian thriller by the author of The Extra. Less than a hundred years in the future, pollution, economic disaster, and the rapacious greed of the corporate oligarchy have brought America to its knees and created dystopian urban nightmares, of which Los Angeles may be the worst. Curtis, Japh, and Jool are film extras, who - with the help of a couple of very gutsy women - survived being anonymous players in a "live-action" film in which death on-screen meant death in real life. Surviving the shoot made them rich enough to escape the post-apocalyptic hell that LA has become. But their survival was not what Panoply Studios CEO Val Margolian had in mind, especially since it cost his company millions. Now he's taking his revenge. After several plainclothes police are found dead in the former extras' new home of Sunrise, California, the entire town is subjected to Margolian's own invidious plan to punish them - and make a fortune doing it. Margolian has created toxic, murderous, mechanical, wasp-like creatures to set upon the people of Sunrise, while his film crew captures the carnage in what promises to be the bloodiest live-action film yet. With their haven besieged by the deadly assault, the exiles from LA are faced with a grim task: defeat the creatures and take back their town and their freedom. Their story is a saga of courage and sacrifice in a world gone mad.
©2013 Michael Shea (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Baseball's Great Experiment
Summary
In this gripping account of one of the most important steps in the history of American desegregation, Jules Tygiel tells the story of Jackie Robinson's crossing of baseball's color line. Examining the social and historical context of Robinson's introduction into white organized baseball, both on and off the field, Tygiel also tells the often neglected stories of other African-American players - such as Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron - who helped transform our national pastime into an integrated game. Drawing on dozens of interviews with players and front office executives, contemporary newspaper accounts, and personal papers, Tygiel provides the most telling and insightful account of Jackie Robinson's influence on American baseball and society. The anniversary issue features a new foreword by the author.
©1983, 1997, 2008 Jules Tygiel (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Finally Free
Summary
One of the most talented and polarizing athletes of our generation, Michael Vick’s stunning story has captured news headlines across the nation. From his poverty-stricken youth, to his success on the field in high school and college, to his rise to NFL stardom and his fall from grace, Finally Free shows how a gifted athlete’s life spiraled out of control under the glare of money and fame, aided by his own poor choices. In his own words, Vick details his regrets, his search for forgiveness, the moments of unlikely grace - and the brokenness that brought his redemption on the way to his celebrated return to the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.
©2012 Michael Vick (P)2012 Oasis Audio
Past Time
Summary
Few writers know more about baseball's role in American life than Jules Tygiel. In Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy, Tygiel penned a classic work, a landmark book that towers above most writing about the sport. Now he ranges across the last century and a half in an intriguing look at baseball as history, and history as reflected in baseball. In Past Time, Tygiel gives us a seat behind home plate, where we catch the ongoing interplay of baseball and American society. We begin in New York in the 1850s, where pre-Civil War nationalism shaped the emergence of a "national pastime." We witness the true birth of modern baseball with the development of its elaborate statistics - the brainchild of English-born reformer, Henry Chadwick. Chadwick, Tygiel writes, created the sport's "historical essence" and even imparted a moral dimension to the game with his concepts of "errors" and "unearned" runs. Tygiel offers equally insightful looks at the role of rags-to-riches player-owners in the formation of the upstart American League and he describes the complex struggle to establish African-American baseball in a segregated world. He also examines baseball during the Great Depression (when Branch Rickey and Larry MacPhail saved the game by perfecting the farm system, night baseball, and radio broadcasts), the ironies of Bobby Thomson's immortal "shot heard 'round the world," the rapid relocation of franchises in the 1950s and 1960s, and the emergence of rotisserie leagues and fantasy camps in the 1980s. In Past Time, Jules Tygiel provides baseball history with a difference. Instead of a pitch-by-pitch account of great games, in this groundbreaking audiobook, the field is American history and baseball itself is the star.
©2000 Jules Tygiel (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Come and Get These Memories
Summary
Brian Holland, Edward Holland, and Lamont Dozier, known as Holland-Dozier-Holland or H-D-H, were the greatest songwriting team in American pop music history. Seventy of the songs they wrote reached the Billboard Top 40, with 15 of these reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart. No other songwriting team or individual has come close to equaling - let alone surpassing - this record. They’ve been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. As tunesmiths for the legendary Motown Record Corporation, and for their own corporations, Invictus Records and Hot Wax Records, they wrote and produced hits for Diana Ross and the Supremes, including “Baby Love”, “Stop! In the Name of Love”, “Where Did Our Love Go”, “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”, “You Can’t Hurry Love”, “I Hear a Symphony”, “Come See About Me”, “Back in My Arms Again”, and “Reflections”. Now the legendary composers are ready to reveal the inspirations and stories behind their chart-topping hits, providing millions of fans with the first complete history of their songwriting process, and detail the real-life experiences that led them to write each of their most famous tunes. They will also reveal their creative and intimate relationships with Motown’s biggest stars.
©2019 Omnibus Press (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing