Stephen Briggs has narrated 28 audiobooks on Listento.it by 13 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 1,966 ratings. The most-rated is The Lost Hero.
Einstein's Unfinished Revolution
Summary
A daring new vision of quantum theory from one of the leading minds of contemporary physics. Quantum physics is the golden child of modern science. It is the basis of our understanding of atoms, radiation, and so much else, from elementary particles and basic forces to the behavior of materials. But for a century, it has also been the problem child of science: It has been plagued by intense disagreements between its inventors, strange paradoxes, and implications that seem like the stuff of fantasy. Whether it's Schrödinger's cat - a creature that is simultaneously dead and alive - or a belief that the world does not exist independently of our observations of it, quantum theory challenges our fundamental assumptions about reality. In Einstein's Unfinished Revolution, theoretical physicist Lee Smolin provocatively argues that the problems that have bedeviled quantum physics since its inception are unsolved and unsolvable, for the simple reason that the theory is incomplete. There is more to quantum physics, waiting to be discovered. Our task - if we are to have simple answers to our simple questions about the universe we live in - must be to go beyond quantum mechanics to a description of the world on an atomic scale that makes sense. In this vibrant and accessible audiobook, Smolin takes us on a journey through the basics of quantum physics, introducing the stories of the experiments and figures that have transformed our understanding of the universe, before wrestling with the puzzles and conundrums that the quantum world presents. Along the way, he illuminates the existing theories that might solve these problems, guiding us toward a vision of the quantum that embraces common-sense realism. If we are to have any hope of completing the revolution that Einstein began nearly a century ago, we must go beyond quantum mechanics to find a theory that will give us a complete description of nature. In Einstein's Unfinished Revolution, Lee Smolin brings us a step closer to resolving one of the greatest scientific controversies of our age.
©2019 Lee Smolin (P)2019 Penguin Audio
Nation
Summary
Finding himself alone on a desert island when everything and everyone he knows and loved has been washed away in a huge storm, Mau is the last surviving member of his nation. He's also completely alone - or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes, wears strange lacy trousers like the grandfather bird and gives him a stick that can make fire. Daphne, sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy, almost immediately regrets trying to shoot the native boy. Thank goodness the powder was wet and the gun only produced a spark. She's certain her father, distant cousin of the Royal family, will come and rescue her, but it seems, for now, all she has for company is the boy and the foul-mouthed ship's parrot. As it happens, they are not alone for long. Other survivors start to arrive to take refuge on the island they all call the Nation, and then raiders accompanied by murderous mutineers from the Sweet Judy. Together, Mau and Daphne discover some remarkable things - including how to milk a pig and why spitting in beer is a good thing - and start to forge a new Nation. As can be expected from Terry Pratchett, the master story-teller, this new children's novel is both witty and wise, encompassing themes of death and nationhood, while being extremely funny. Mau's ancestors have something to teach us all. Mau just wishes they would shut up about it and let him get on with saving everyone's lives!
©2008 Terry and Lyn Pratchett (P)2009 ISIS Publishing
Truckers
Summary
"Outside! What's it like?" Masklin looked blank. "Well," he said. "It's sort of big." To the thousands of tiny nomes who live under the floorboards of a large department store, there is no outside. Things like day and night, sun and rain are just daft old legends. Then a devastating piece of news shatters their existence: the Store, their whole world, is to be demolished. It's up to Masklin, one of the last nomes to come into the Store, to mastermind an unbelievable escape plan that will take all the nomes into the dangers of the great Outside. This is the first book in the Bromeliad Trilogy.
©1989 Terry and Lyn Pratchett (P)2004 Isis Publishing Ltd
2666
Summary
National Book Critics Circle, Fiction, 2009 Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolaño’s life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters includes academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student and her widowed, mentally unstable father. Their lives intersect in the urban sprawl of Santa Teresa—a fictional Juárez—on the U.S.-Mexico border, where hundreds of young factory workers, in the novel as in life, have disappeared.
©2004 the heirs of Roberto Bolaño (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Diggers
Summary
A bright new dawn is just around the corner for thousands of tiny nomes when they move into the ruined buildings of an abandoned quarry. Or is it? Soon strange things begin to happen. Like the tops of puddles growing hard and cold, and the water coming down from the sky in frozen bits. Then humans appear, and they really mess everything up. The quarry is to be re-opened, and the nomes must fight to defend their new home. But how long will they be able to keep the humans at bay, even with the help of the monster Jekub? This is the second book in the Bromeliad Trilogy.
©1990 Terry and Lyn Pratchett (P)2005 Isis Publishing Ltd
Wings
Summary
It wasn't a thing, it was a bit of shaped sky. Somewhere in a place so far up that there is no down, a ship is waiting to take the nomes home, back to wherever they came from. And one nome, Masklin, knows that they've got to try and contact the ship. It means going to Florida (wherever that is), then getting to the launch of a communications satellite (whatever that is). A ridiculous plan. Impossible. But Masklin doesn't know this, so he tries to do it anyway. And the first step is to try and hitch a ride on a new kind of truck, a truck with wings. This is the third book in the Bromeliad Trilogy. Please note: This is a vintage recording. The audio quality may not be up to modern day standards.
©1990 Terry and Lyn Pratchett (P)2005 Isis Publishing Ltd
A Blink of the Screen
Summary
A collection of shorter fiction from Terry Pratchett, spanning the whole of his writing career from schooldays to Discworld and the present day. In the four decades since his first book appeared in print, Terry Pratchett has become one of the world’s best-selling and best-loved authors. Here for the first time are his short stories and other short form fiction collected into one volume. A Blink of the Screen charts the course of Pratchett’s long writing career: from his schooldays through to his first writing job on the Bucks Free Press, and the origins of his debut novel, The Carpet People; and on again to the dizzy mastery of the phenomenally successful Discworld series. Here are characters both familiar and yet to be discovered; abandoned worlds and others still expanding; adventure, chickens, death, disco, and actually, some quite disturbing ideas about Christmas, all of it shot through with his inimitable brand of humour. With an introduction by Booker Prize-winning author A. S. Byatt
©2012 Terry and Lynn Pratchett (P)2012 Random House Audiobooks
Pouncing on Murder
Summary
Springtime in Chilson, Michigan, means it's librarian Minnie Hamilton's favorite time of year: maple syrup season! But her excitement fades when her favorite syrup provider, Henry Gill, dies in a sugaring accident. It's tough news to swallow...even if the old man wasn't as sweet as his product. On the bookmobile rounds with her trusty rescue cat Eddie, Minnie meets Adam, the old man's friend, who was with him when he died. Adam is convinced Henry's death wasn't an accident, and fears that his own life is in danger. With the police overworked, it's up to Minnie and Eddie to tap all their resources for clues - before Adam ends up in a sticky situation....
©2015 Janet Koch (P)2018 Tantor