Audiobook Best Sellers in Science



The Tipping Point (Unabridged)

 Featuring a new afterword.

Why did crime in New York drop in the mid-90s? Why is teenage smoking out of control? Why are television shows like Sesame Street good at teaching kids how to read?

In The Tipping Point, New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell looks at why major changes in society happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a few fare-beaters and graffiti artists fuel a subway crime wave, or a satisfied customer fill the empty tables of a new restaurant. These are social epidemics, and the moment when they take off, when they reach their critical mass, is the Tipping Point.

Gladwell uncovers the personality types who are natural pollinators of new ideas and trends. He analyzes fashion trends, smoking, children’s television, direct mail and the early days of the American Revolution for clues about making ideas infectious.

The Tipping Point is an intellectual adventure story with an infectious enthusiasm for the power and joy of new ideas. Most of all, it is a road map to change, with a profoundly hopeful message: that one imaginative person applying a well-placed lever can move the world.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Brain Rules (Unabridged)

 Most of us have no idea what’s really going on inside our heads. Yet brain scientists have uncovered details every business leader, parent, and teacher should know - such as the brain’s need for physical activity to work at its best. How do we learn? What exactly do sleep and stress do to our brains? Why is multi-tasking a myth? Why is it so easy to forget - and so important to repeat - new information? Is it true that men and women have different brains?

In Brain Rules, molecular biologist Dr. John Medina shares his lifelong interest in how the brain sciences might influence the way we teach our children and the way we work. In each chapter, he describes a brain rule - what scientists know for sure about how our brains work - and then offers transformative ideas for our daily lives.

Medina’s fascinating stories and sense of humor breathe life into brain science. You’ll learn why Michael Jordan was no good at baseball. You’ll peer over a surgeon’s shou
lder as he finds, to his surprise, that we have a “Jennifer Aniston neuron”. You’ll meet a boy who has an amazing memory for music but can’t tie his own shoes.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Guns, Germs, and Steel

 In this groundbreaking work, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for history’s broadest patterns. It is a story that spans 13,000 years of human history, beginning when Stone Age hunter-gatherers constituted the entire human population. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a world history that really is a history of all the world’s peoples, a unified narrative of human life.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Predictably Irrational (Unabridged)

 Why do our headaches persist after taking a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a 50-cent aspirin? Why does recalling the 10 Commandments reduce our tendency to lie, even when we couldn’t possibly be caught? Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save 25 cents on a can of soup? Why do we go back for second helpings at the unlimited buffet, even when our stomachs are already full? And how did we ever start spending $4.15 on a cup of coffee when, just a few years ago, we used to pay less than a dollar?

When it comes to making decisions in our lives, we think we’re in control. We think we’re making smart, rational choices. But are we? In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, see
mingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.

Not only do we make astonishingly simple mistakes every day, but we make the same types of mistakes, Ariely discovers. We consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. We fail to understand the profound effects of our emotions on what we want, and we overvalue what we already own. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They’re systematic and predictable - making us predictably irrational.

From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, Ariely explains how to break through these systematic patterns of thought to make better decisions. Predictably Irrational will change the way we interact with the world - one small decision at a time.

Download the accompanying reference guide.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Unabridged)

 Bill Bryson has been an enormously popular author both for his travel books and for his books on the English language. Now, this beloved comic genius turns his attention to science. Although he doesn’t know anything about the subject (at first), he is eager to learn, and takes information that he gets from the world’s leading experts and explains it to us in a way that makes it exciting and relevant. Even the most pointy-headed, obscure scientist succumbs to the affable Bryson’s good nature, and reveals how he or she figures things out. Showing us how scientists get from observations to ideas and theories is Bryson’s aim, and he succeeds brilliantly. It is an adventure of the mind, as exciting as any of Bryson’s terrestrial journeys.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Can’t Remember What I Forgot (Unabridged)

 Here’s an essential behind-the-scenes foray into the world of cutting-edge memory research that unveils findings only now available to the general public.

When Sue Halpern decided to emulate the first modern scientist of memory, Hermann Ebbinghaus, who experimented on himself, she had no idea that after a day of radioactive testing, her brain would become so “hot” that leaving through the front door of the lab would trigger the alarm.

This was not the first time that Halpern had her head examined while researching Can’t Remember What I Forgot, nor would it be the last. Halpern spent years in the company of the neuroscientists, pharmacologists, psychologists, nutritionists, and inventors who are hunting for the genes and molecules, the drugs and foods, the machines, the prosthetics, the behaviors, and the therapies that will stave off Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia and keep our minds - and memories - intact.

Like many of us who have had a rela
tive or friend succumb to memory loss, who are getting older, who are hearing statistics about our own chances of falling victim to dementia, or who worry that each lapse of memory portends disease, Halpern wanted to find out what the experts really knew; what the bench scientists were working on; how close science is to a cure, to treatment, and to accurate early diagnosis; and, of course, whether the crossword puzzles, sudokus, and ballroom dancing we’ve been told to take up can really keep us lucid or if they’re just something to do before the inevitable overtakes us.

Beautifully written, sharply observed, and deeply informed, Can’t Remember What I Forgot is a book full of vital information - and a solid dose of hope.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Wisdom of Your Cells

 In the tradition of Carl Sagan, Rachel Carson, and Stephen Hawking, a new voice has emerged with the unique gift of translating cutting-edge science into clear, accessible language: Dr. Bruce Lipton.

With The Wisdom of Your Cells, this internationally recognized authority on cellular biology takes listeners on an in-depth exploration into the microscopic world, where new discoveries and research are revolutionizing the way we understand life, evolution, and consciousness.

In this full-length audio course, Dr. Lipton shares his lucid and startling insights about the building blocks of life, and how each one of our cells has far greater innate intelligence than we once believed.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Bonk (Unabridged)

 The study of sexual physiology - what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better - has been a paying career or a
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Einstein (Unabridged)

 How did Einstein’s mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson’s biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the rebellious nature of his personality. His fascinating story is a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom.

Based on the newly released personal letters of Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk, a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn’t get a teaching job or a doctorate, became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe. His success came from questioning conventional wisdom and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane. This led him to embrace a morality and politics based on respect for free minds, free spirits, and free individuals.

These traits are just as vital for this new century of globalization, in which our success will depend on our creativity, as they were for the beginning of the last century, when Einstein helped usher in the modern age.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Super Crunchers (Unabridged)

 Why would a casino try and stop you from losing? How can a mathematical formula find your future spouse? Would you know if a statistical analysis blackballed you from a job you wanted?

Today, number crunching affects your life in ways you might never imagine. In this lively and groundbreaking new audiobook, economist Ian Ayres shows how today’s best and brightest organizations are analyzing massive databases at lightening speed to provide greater insights into human behavior. They are the Super Crunchers.

>From Internet sites like Google and Amazon that know your tastes better than you do, to a physician’s diagnosis and your child’s education, to boardrooms and government agencies, this new breed of decision-maker is calling the shots. And they are delivering staggeringly accurate results. How can a football coach evaluate a player without ever seeing him play? Want to know whether the price of an airline ticket will go up or down before you buy? How can a formula out-predict wine experts in determining the best vintages? Super crunchers have the answers.

In this brave new world of equation versus expertise, Ayres shows us the benefits and risks, who loses and who wins, and how super crunching can be used to help, not manipulate, us. Gone are the days of solely relying on intuition to make decisions. No businessperson, consumer, or student who wants to stay ahead of the curve should make another keystroke without listening to Super Crunchers.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

A Brief History of Time (Unabridged)

 This landmark book is for those of us who prefer words to equations; this is the story of the ultimate quest for knowledge, the ongoing search for the secrets at the heart of time and space. Its author, Stephen W. Hawking, is arguably the greatest mind since Einstein. From the vantage point of the wheelchair, where he has spent the last 20 years trapped by Lou Gehrig’s disease, Professor Hawking has transformed our view of the universe. A Brief History of Time is Hawking’s classic introduction to today’s most important scientific ideas about the cosmos. It is read here by the Emmy Award-winning host of The Michael Jackson Show on KABC-TV.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Audible Technology Review, 1-Month Subscription

 Technology Review, the award winning magazine from MIT, is the only publication you need to keep up with what’s happening in every area of emerging technology. Each issue concentrates on three major fields of innovation: biotechnology, information technology, and nanotechnology. Technology Review is published 10 times a year (double issues in December and July) and covers technological innovation where it is most rapid. Within its covers and on their Web site (www.technologyreviewcom), readers find sophisticated yet accessible articles and updates on research, advances in existing
technologies, and reports on the impact of technology on culture and society.

Audible Technology Review incorporates the key feature stories from the magazine plus special features, such as the TR100 listing of the Top 100 Innovators.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Science News, 1-Month Subscription

 Turn to Science News for the latest coverage of biology, astronomy, the physical sciences, behavioral sciences, math and computers, chemistry, and earth science. Since its debut in 1922, the publication has been known for its sharp writing and up-to-date coverage of the latest scientific research. Science News is committed to providing reports on scientific and technical developments that the layman will find interesting and easy to digest.

Science News is available in audio exclusively at Audible.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Lost Discoveries (Unabridged)

 In the tradition of Daniel Boorstin, the co-founder of Omni delivers an original work of history that demonstrates why modern science rests on a foundation built by ancient and medieval non-European societies.

Lost Discoveries explores the mostly unheralded scientific breakthroughs from the ancient world - Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, Africans, New World, and Oceanic tribes, among others, and from the non-European medieval world. By example, the Egyptians developed the concept of the lowest common denominator and the Indians developed the use of zero and negative numbers. The Chinese observed, reported, and dated eclipses between 1400 and 1200 B.C. The Chinese also set the stage for later Hindu scholars, who refined the concept of particles and the void. Five thousand years ago, Sumerians were able to assert that the earth was circular. Islamic scientists fixed problems in Ptolemy’s geocentric cosmology. The Quechuan Indians of Peru were the first to vulcanize rubber.

This first comprehensive, authoritative, popularly written, multicultural history of science fills in a crucial gap in the history of science.

Lost Discoveries is also available in print from Simon and Schuster.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Brain That Changes Itself (Unabridged)

 The discovery that our thoughts can change the structure and function of our brains - even into old age - is the most important breakthrough in neuroscience in four centuries. In this revolutionary look at the brain, best-selling author, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D., introduces both the brilliant scientists championing this new science of neuroplasticity and the astonishing progress of the people whose lives they’ve transformed.

Introducing principles we can all use, as well as a riveting collection of case histories - stroke patients cured, a woman with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, learning and emotional disorders overcome, IQs raised, and aging brains rejuvenated - The Brain That Changes Itself has “implications for all human beings, not to mention human culture, human learning and human history.” (The New York Times)
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Blink (Unabridged)

 In his landmark best seller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant, in the blink of an eye, that actually aren’t as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work, in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?

In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of “blink”: the election of Warren Harding; “New Coke”; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren’t those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of “thin-slicing”, filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology and displaying all of the brilliance that made The Tipping Point a classic, Blink changes the way you understand every decision you make. Never again will you think about thinking the same way.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Unabridged)

 The best-selling author of The Botany of Desire explores the ecology of eating to unveil why we consume what we consume in the 21st century.

“What should we have for dinner?” To one degree or another, this simple question assails any creature faced with a wide choice of things to eat. Anthropologists call it the omnivore’s dilemma. Choosing from among the countless potential foods nature offers, humans have had to learn what is safe, and what isn’t, which mushrooms should be avoided, for example, and which berries we can enjoy. Today, as America confronts what can only be described as a national eating disorder, the omnivore’s dilemma has returned with an atavistic vengeance.

The cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet has thrown us back on a bewildering landscape where we once again have to worry about which of those tasty-looking morsels might kill us. At the same time we’re realizing that our food choices also have profound implications for the health of our environment. The Omnivore’s Dilemma is best-selling author Michael Pollan’s brilliant and eye-opening exploration of these little-known but vitally important dimensions of eating in America.

We are indeed what we eat, and what we eat remakes the world. A society of voracious and increasingly confused omnivores, we are just beginning to recognize the profound consequences of the simplest everyday food choices, both for ourselves and for the natural world. The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a long-overdue book and one that will become known for bringing a completely fresh perspective to a question as ordinary and yet momentous as “What shall we have for dinner?”
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Woman Who Can’t Forget (Unabridged)

 What is it like to never forget - to be able to retrieve not only every positive moment of every day of your life, but also every painful episode as if it were happening again?

Imagine a permanent record of every event of your life constantly running through your brain, making you both master of your past and the prisoner of your relentless memory. Jill Price’s memory is so powerful and so detailed that she can remember what she had for breakfast on any given day, going back into the 1970s. She can recall every conversation she had, and the major news event of that day. Her recall is so accurate that she has repeatedly corrected encyclopedia entries - the printed record turned out to be wrong. Automatic and unstoppable, her memory has been the subject of exhaustive and ongoing scientific study and may well hold vital clues to the most mysterious questions about how memory works.

The Woman Who Can’t Forget is the beautifully written and moving story of
Jill’s quest to come to terms with her singular and astonishing abilities, from the very first glimmers that her mind worked differently from others’, to turbulent times coping with the flood of an ever-present past playing in her mind, to the breakthrough of finding the scientists who could diagnose her condition.

Offering fascinating insights into the many ways that both remembering and forgetting inform and shape our lives, this unique life story will forever change how readers consider their own recollections.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Earth: The Sequel (Unabridged)

 Here’s how to harness the great forces of capitalism to save the world from catastrophe.

The forecasts are grim and time is running out, but that’s not the end of the story. In this book, Fred Krupp, longtime president of the Environmental Defense Fund, brings a stirring and hopeful call to arms: We can solve global warming. And in doing so, we will build the new industries, jobs, and fortunes of the 21st century.

In Earth: The Sequel, listeners will encounter the bold innovators and investors who are reinventing energy and the ways we use it. Among them: a frontier impresario who keeps his ice hotel frozen all summer long with the energy of hot springs; a utility engineer who feeds smokestack gases from coal-fired plants to voracious algae, then turns them into fuel; and a tribe of Native Americans, fishermen in the roughest Pacific waters for 2,000 years, who are now harvesting the fierce power of the waves themselves.

These entrepreneurs are poised
to remake the world’s biggest business and save the planet - if America’s political leaders give them a fair chance to compete.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Botany of Desire (Unabridged)

 Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires, sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control, with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, the plants have also benefited at least as much from their association with us. So who is really domesticating whom?
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Scientific American, 1-Month Subscription

 Published since 1845, Scientific American is the most well-known and most highly-respected science and technology monthly in the world. From the inventions of Morse, Edison, and Bell to the accomplishments of Einstein, Salk, and Jarvik to the personal experiences of astronaut Shannon Lucid on Mir, Scientific American plays a vital role in bringing scientific and technological achievement to the attention of the general public. The magazine is known for the authority of its contributors, over 100 of whom are Nobel Laureates.

In addition to covering all disciplines related to science and technology, Scientific American offers features on policy and experiments for the amateur scientist, along with commentaries on the impact of science and technology on society. Its “Working Knowledge” column demystifies the science behind everything from spacesuits to domed stadiums.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Kluge (Unabridged)

 Are we “noble in reason”? Perfect, in God’s image? Far from it, says New York University psychologist Gary Marcus. In this lucid and revealing book, Marcus argues that the mind is not an elegantly designed organ but a “kluge”, a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption. He unveils a fundamentally new way of looking at the human mind - think duct tape, not supercomputer - that sheds light on some of the most mysterious aspects of human nature.

Taking us on a tour of the fundamental areas of human experience - memory, belief, decision making, language, and happiness - Marcus reveals the myriad ways our minds fall short. He examines why people often vote against their own interests, why money can’t buy happiness, why leaders often stick to bad decisions, and why a sentence like “people people left left” ties us into knots even though it’s only four words long.

He also offers surprisingly effective ways to outwit our inner kluge - for example, always consider alternat
ive explanations, make contingency plans, and beware the vivid, personal anecdote. Throughout, he shows how only evolution - haphazard and undirected - could have produced the minds we humans have, while making a brilliant case for the power and usefulness of imperfection.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Bestsellers, science

Audiobook Best Sellers in Mystery



Seven Up (Unabridged)

 All New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has to do is bring in semi-retired bail jumper Eddie DeChooch. For an old man he’s still got a knack for slipping out of sight…and raising hell. How else can Stephanie explain the bullet-riddled corpse in Eddie’s garden? Who else would have a clue as to why two of Stephanie’s friends suddenly vanished? For answers Stephanie has the devil to pay: her mentor, Ranger. The deal? He’ll give Stephanie all the help she needs…if she gives him everything he wants.

As if things weren’t complicated enough, Stephanie’s just discovered her Grandma Mazur’s own unmentionable alliance with Eddie. Add a series of unnerving break-ins, not to mention the bombshell revelation leveled by Stephanie’s estranged sister, and Stephanie’s ready for some good news. Unfortunately, a marriage proposal from Joe Morelli, the love of her life, isn’t quite cutting it. And now, murder, a randy paramour, a wily mobster, death threats, extortion, and a triple kidnapping aside, Stephanie’s really got the urge to run for her life.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Executive Privilege (Unabridged)

 New York Times best-selling author Phillip Margolin is back, this time with a powerful tale of murder that snakes its way through Washington, D.C.’s halls of power, leading straight to the White House and the most powerful office on earth.

When private detective Dana Cutler is hired by an attorney with powerful political connections, the assignment seems simple enough: follow a pretty college student named Charlotte Walsh and report on where she goes and whom she sees.

But then the unexpected happens. One night, Cutler follows Walsh to a secret meeting with Christopher Farrington, the president of the United States. The following morning, Walsh’s dead body shows up, and Cutler has to run for her life.

In Oregon, Brad Miller, a junior associate in a huge law firm, is working on the appeal of a convicted serial killer. Clarence Little, now on death row, claims he was framed for the murder of a teenager who, at the time of her death, worked for the the
n governor, Christopher Farrington. Suddenly, a small-time private eye and a fledgling lawyer find themselves in possession of evidence that suggests that someone in the White House is a murderer. Their only problem? Staying alive long enough to prove it.

Executive Privilege, with its nonstop action, unforgettable characters, and edge-of-your-seat suspense, proves once again that Phillip Margolin - whose work has been hailed as “frighteningly plausible” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) and “twisted and brilliant” (Chicago Tribune) - belongs in the top echelon of thriller writers.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Sail (Unabridged)

 The Dunnes have set off on a 10-day boat trip, a trip that hopefully will bring them closer together, despite the fact that the father, Stuart, is staying behind on land.

But only an hour into the trip, they’re already falling apart. The teenage daughter plans to drown herself, and the teenage boy is high on drugs. Ten-year-old Ernie is near catatonic. Still, their mother, Anne, with the help of her brother-in-law, Jeff, is insistent on pulling everyone together, once and for all.

Just when things start to take a turn for the better, disaster strikes. Stuart is left to pick up the pieces and find his family - but he is eager to start a brand new life.

Maybe he’s a little too eager.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Ten Big Ones (Unabridged)

 Take an exit off the Jersey Turnpike to the irresistible world of Stephanie Plum, America’s favorite bounty hunter, where she gets into more trouble than ever. This time, she faces a notorious gang in Trenton who wants her dead. Morelli warns that she’s in too deep, and Stephanie more than agrees. But the gang won’t let her bow out. With Ranger missing in action, Stephanie has to go into hiding, and stumbles on to the secret location of Ranger’s “bat cave”. Is it the perfect place to disappear? Or will she get into more trouble than she knows by delving into his private world? The tenth Stephanie Plum novel is filled with Evanovich’s trademark high stakes, high adventure, high wit, and sly comedy.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Child 44 (Unabridged)

 It is a society that is, officially, a paradise. Superior to the decadent West, Stalin’s Soviet Union is a haven for its citizens, providing for all of their needs: education, health care, security. In exchange, all that is required is their hard work, and their loyalty and faith to the Soviet State.

Leo Demidov knows this better than most. A rising, prominent officer in the State Security force, Leo is a former war hero whose only ambition is to serve his country. To defend this workers’ paradise - and to guarantee a secure life for his parents and for his wife, Raisa - Leo has spent his career guarding against threats to the State. Ideological crimes - crimes of thought, crimes of disloyalty, crimes against the revolution - are forcefully suppressed, without question.

And then the impossible happens. A different kind of criminal - a murderer - is on the loose, killing at will. At the same time, Leo finds himself demoted and denounced by his enemies, all
but sentenced to death. The only way to salvage what remains of his life is to uncover this criminal. But in a society that is officially paradise, it’s a crime against the state to suggest that a murderer - much less a serial killer - is in their midst.

To save his life and the lives of his family, Leo must confront the vast resources and reach of the security forces, with only Raisa remaining at his side, to find and stop a criminal that the State won’t even admit exists.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Odd Hours (Unabridged)

 Only a handful of fictional characters are recognized by first name alone. Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas is one such literary hero who has come alive in listeners’ imaginations as he explores the greatest mysteries of this world and the next with his inimitable wit, heart, and quiet gallantry. Now Koontz follows Odd as he is irresistibly drawn onward, to a destiny he cannot imagine.

The legend began in the obscure little town of Pico Mundo. A fry cook named Odd was rumored to have the extraordinary ability to communicate with the dead. Through tragedy and triumph, exhilaration and heartbreak, word of Odd Thomas’ gifts filtered far beyond Pico Mundo, attracting unforgettable new friends - and enemies of implacable evil. With great gifts comes the responsibility to meet great challenges. But no mere human being was ever meant to face the darkness that now stalks the world - not even one as oddly special as Odd Thomas.

After grappling with the very essence of reality
itself, after finding the veil separating him from his soul mate, Stormy Llewellyn, tantalizingly thin yet impenetrable, Odd longed only to return to a life of quiet anonymity with his two otherworldly sidekicks - his dog Boo and a new companion, one of the few who might rival his old pal Elvis. But a true hero, however humble, must persevere. Haunted by dreams of an all-encompassing red tide, Odd is pulled inexorably to the sea, to a small California coastal town where nothing is as it seems. Now the forces arrayed against him have both official sanction and an infinitely more sinister authority…and in this dark night of the soul, dawn will come only after the most shattering revelations of all.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Four to Score (Unabridged)

 Stephanie Plum, Trenton, New Jersey’s favorite pistol-packing, condom-carrying bounty hunter, is back and on the trail of a revenge-seeking waitress who’s skipped bail. With the help of 73-year-old Grandma Mazur, ex-hooker Lula, a transvestite musician named Sally Sweet, and the all-too-hospitable, all-too-sexy Joe Morelli, Stephanie might just catch her woman. Then again, with more mishaps than there are exits on the Jersey Turnpike, including murders, firebombs, and Stephanie’s arch-rival bounty hunter chasing after the same fugitive, Stephanie better watch her back big-time if she wants to live to crack this case.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Spies of Warsaw (Unabridged)

 Autumn 1937: War is coming to Europe, and French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy, the new military attach

Bestsellers, Mystery

Audiobook Best Sellers in Kids/Teens/Young Adults



Eragon (Unabridged)

 One boy. One dragon. A world of adventure.


When Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy; perhaps it will buy his family meat for the winter. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself.


Overnight his simple life is shattered, and he is thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, magic, and power. With only an ancient sword and the advice of an old storyteller for guidance, Eragon and the fledgling dragon must navigate the dangerous terrain and dark enemies of an Empire ruled by a king whose evil knows no bounds.


Can Eragon take up the mantle of the legendary Dragon Riders? The fate of the Empire may rest in his hands.

   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Unabridged)

 Narnia…the land beyond the wardrobe door, a secret place frozen in eternal winter, a magical country waiting to be set free.

Lucy is the first to find the secret of the wardrobe in the professor’s mysterious old house. At first her brothers and sister don’t believe her when she tells of her visit to the land of Narnia. But soon Edmund, then Peter and Susan step through the wardrobe themselves. In Narnia they find a country buried under the evil enchantment of the White Witch. When they meet the Lion Aslan, they realize they’ve been called to a great adventure and bravely join the battle to free Narnia from the Witch’s sinister spell.


This was the first book written in The Chronicles of Narnia. It now stands as the second book in the series, preceded by The Magician’s Nephew.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

New Moon (Unabridged)

 For Bella Swan, there is one thing more important than life itself: Edward Cullen. But being in love with a vampire is even more dangerous than Bella ever could have imagined. Edward has already rescued Bella from the clutches of one evil vampire, but now, as their daring relationship threatens all that is near and dear to them, they realize their troubles may be just beginning.

Legions of readers entranced by the New York Times best-seller Twilight are hungry for the continuing story of star-crossed lovers Bella and Edward. In New Moon, Stephenie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural spin. Passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Eclipse (Unabridged)

 As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob - knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which?
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials, Book 1 (Unabridged)

 When Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon decide to spy on a presentation her uncle, the commanding Lord Asriel, is making to the elders of Jordan College they have no idea that they will become witnesses to an attempted murder, and even less that they are taking the first steps in a journey that will lead them into danger and adventure unlike anything Lyra’s unfettered imagination has conjured up.


Though she has been raised at the college in an atmosphere of benign neglect that has allowed her to become a half-wild child of the streets, Lyra soon finds herself apprenticed to the elegant Mrs. Coulter, and in possession of a strange device called the alethiometer, a “golden compass” that reads not true worth, but truth itself.


But truth is a precious commodity, and before long Lyra and Pan are running for their lives, the object of an obsessive hunt by mysterious forces who have been stealing children for dark purposes that no one understands. Lyra will need all her street-learned wiles if she and Pan are to survive.


An international sensation from the moment it was published, The Golden Compass comes to spectacular new life in this unabridged recording, narrated by Philip Pullman himself, with the support of some of the finest actors of the London stage.

   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Final Warning

 Fourteen-year-old Maximum Ride and the other members of “Flock” - Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and Angel - are just like ordinary kids - only they have wings and can fly. It seems like a dream come true - except that they’re still being hunted by new threats at every turn.

This time, the U.S. government wants to keep the Flock under observation, offering a safe haven and schooling in return. But after their incredible adventures in books 1-3, Max and Flock have grown to love freedom - after all, haven’t grown-ups always found a way to ruin their lives?

After escaping the control of the feds, they are surprised to find themselves allied with a group of environmental scientists who just might be trustworthy. Besides, what enemy could find them in one of the remotest locations on earth - Antarctica - on an expedition studying the effects of global warming up close?

There is one, however: The Uber-Director - literally, brains on a stick - an evil being who has dev
eloped mechanical soldiers far more frightening than Erasers. Their quest? To retrieve the Flock and sell them in a global auction for billions of dollars. Will the Uber-Director nab them before Max, Fang and the flock succumb to the dangers of the harsh Antarctic wilderness?

Kids, parents, and educators tuned into the issue of global warming will find this latest episode of the blockbuster Maximum Ride series not only a particularly riveting adventure, but also a motivating, cautionary tale about a real-life peril that may affect their own future.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Prince Caspian (Unabridged)

 Narnia…the land between the lamp-post and the Castle of Cair Paravel, where animals talk, where magical things happen, and where the adventure begins.

Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are returning to boarding school when they are summoned from the dreary train station (by Susan’s own magic horn) to return to the land of Narnia, the land where they had ruled as kings and queens and where their help is desperately needed.


This was the second book written in The Chronicles of Narnia. It now stands as the fourth book in the series.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Amber Spyglass: His Dark Materials, Book 3 (Unabridged)

 Lyra and Will, the two ordinary children whose extraordinary adventures begin in The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife, are in unspeakable danger. With help from Iorek Byrnison the armored bear and two tiny Gallivespian spies, they must journey to a dank and gray-lit world where no living soul has ever gone.


All the while, Dr. Mary Malone builds a magnificent amber spyglass. An assassin hunts her down. And Lord Asriel, with troops of shining angels, fights his mighty rebellion, a battle of strange allies and shocking sacrifice.


As war rages and dust drains from the sky, the fate of the living, and the dead, finally comes to depend on two children and the simple truth of one simple story. The Amber Spyglass reveals that story, bringing Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials to an astonishing conclusion.

   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Roald Dahl Audio Collection

 Roald Dahl’s hilarious and outrageous novels have made him one of the most popular children’s authors of all time. Here, the author himself brings five of his wickedly funny stories to life:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:
Willy Wonka’s famous chocolate factory is opening at last!

James and the Giant Peach:
A little magic can take you a long way.

Fantastic Mr. Fox:
Nobody outfoxes Fantastic Mr. Fox!

The Enormous Crocodile:
Watch out, kids!

The Magic Finger:
What happens when the hunter becomes the hunted?
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Subtle Knife: His Dark Materials, Book 2 (Unabridged)

 In this stunning sequel to The Golden Compass, the intrepid Lyra finds herself in a shimmering, haunted otherworld, Cittagazze, where soul-eating Specters stalk the streets and wingbeats of distant angels sound against the sky. But she is not without allies: twelve-year-old Will Parry, fleeing for his life after taking another’s, has also stumbled into this strange new realm.


On a perilous journey from world to world, Lyra and Will uncover a deadly secret: an object of extraordinary and devastating power. And with every step, they move closer to an even greater threat, and the shattering truth of their own destiny.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Unabridged)

 One of the greatest treats in all world literature, this masterpiece from Mark Twain inspired a literary revolution. The novel offers both brilliant humor and tragedy as Huck and Jim explore the moral dilemmas of slavery and freedom. Huck, the narrator, is shrewd, ingenious, and literal; he reports on everything he sees, which allows the listener to experience the hypocrisy of “sivilization”.

This superb reading by voice actor Patrick Fraley is rich in the color and adventurous frontier spirit of the Mississippi River, capturing the world and people that Mark Twain knew and loved. Author and reader together provide genius-level storytelling that combines youthful escapades with an important social message.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Twilight (Unabridged)

 About three things I was certain.

First, Edward was a vampire.

Second, there was a part of him, and I didn’t know how dominant that part might be, that thirsted for my blood.

And Third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Isabella Swan’s move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabella’s life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Isabella, the person Edward holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knife, between desire and danger.

Deeply sensuous and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Queste (Unabridged)

 There’s trouble at the Castle, and it’s all because Merrin Meredith has returned with Darke plans for Septimus. More trouble awaits Septimus and Jenna in the form of Tertius Fume, the ghost of the very first Chief Hermetic Scribe, who is determined to send Septimus on a deadly Queste.

Septimus and Jenna have other plans, however. They are headed for the mysterious House of Foryx, a place where all Time meets and the place where they fervently hope they will be able to find Nicko and Snorri, who were trapped back in time in physik. But how will Septimus escape the Queste?

Queste, like all the books in the Septimus Heap series, is filled with nonstop action, humor, and fantastical adventure, as Septimus continues his journey of Magykal self-discovery.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Hobbit (Dramatized)

 Here is the original American full dramatization of The Hobbit, as broadcast on National Public Radio.

Bilbo Baggins, a gentle hobbit who loves the comforts of home, reluctantly joins a company of dwarves on a journey to recover plundered gold from a fierce dragon. It’s a tale of high adventure and astonishing courage, and a magical prelude to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Bestsellers, Teen and Young Adult

Audiobook Best Sellers in History



A Short History of Nearly Everything (Unabridged)

 Bill Bryson has been an enormously popular author both for his travel books and for his books on the English language. Now, this beloved comic genius turns his attention to science. Although he doesn’t know anything about the subject (at first), he is eager to learn, and takes information that he gets from the world’s leading experts and explains it to us in a way that makes it exciting and relevant. Even the most pointy-headed, obscure scientist succumbs to the affable Bryson’s good nature, and reveals how he or she figures things out. Showing us how scientists get from observations to ideas and theories is Bryson’s aim, and he succeeds brilliantly. It is an adventure of the mind, as exciting as any of Bryson’s terrestrial journeys.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume II (Unabridged)

 This volume is dominated by the almost continual confrontation of great armies. For the fourth time, the Army of the Potomac (now under the control of Burnside) attempts to take Richmond, resulting in the bloodbath at Fredericksburg. Then Joe Hooker tries again, only to be repulsed at Chancellorsville as Stonewall Jackson turns his flank, a bitter victory for the South, paid for by the death of Lee’s foremost lieutenant.

In the West, during the six-month standoff that followed the shock of Murfreesboro in the central theater, one of the most complex and determined sieges of the war has begun. Here, Grant’s seven relentless efforts against Vicksburg show Lincoln that he has at last found his killer-general, the man who can “face the arithmetic”.

With Vicksburg finally under siege, Lee again invades the North. The three-day conflict at Gettysburg receives book-length attention in a masterly treatment of a key great battle, not as legend has it but as it really was, before it became distorted by controversy and overblown by remembered glory.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Trigger Men (Unabridged)

 Combat veteran and author Hans Halberstadt takes listeners deeper inside the elusive world of snipers than ever before, from recruitment and training to the brutality of the killing fields.

Shadow Team is probably the most productive sniper team in American military history, accounting for 276 confirmed kills in a six-month span with no casualties of its own. The team’s leader made what was - and may still be - the longest range kill with a 7.62mm rifle. For the first time ever, team members explain what it’s like to kill a man and what it takes to become one of the elite.

The tragic tale of Headhunter Two is altogether different. This four-man sniper team from a regiment known within the Corps as the Magnificent Bastards was killed in 2004 in Ramadi, Iraq. Their deaths not only caused a reevaluation of sniper tactics and techniques but also created a desire for vengeance that was exacted nearly two years later in dramatic fashion.

Based on hundreds of hours
of exclusive interviews, Halberstadt gets inside the sniper mind and shows how snipers think and interact with each other, how missions are planned and executed, how the weapons work, and even what happens when a bullet finally strikes its target.

There are only a few hundred snipers from all the services put together in combat at any one time, making this true inside story a rare and important event.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Zookeeper’s Wife (Unabridged)

 When Germany invaded Poland, bombers devastated Warsaw - and the city’s zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into the empty cages. Another dozen “guests” hid inside the Zabinskis’ villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts.

Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital.

Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants and refusing to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, even as Europe crumbled around her.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Glory and the Dream (Unabridged)

 This great time capsule of a book captures the abundant popular history of the United States from 1932 to 1972. It encompasses politics, military history, economics, the lively arts, science, fashion, fads, social change, sexual mores, communications, graffiti…everything and anything indigenous that can be captured in print.

The Glory and the Dream chronicles the progress of life in the United States, from the time William Manchester and his generation reached the beginning of awareness in the desperate summer of ‘32 to President Nixon’s Second Inaugural Address and the opening scenes of Watergate. Masterfully compressing four crowded decades of our history, Manchester relives the epic, significant, or just memorable events that befell the generation of Americans whose lives pivoted between the America before and the America after the Second World War.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Man Who Loved China (Unabridged)

 Here is the fantastic story of the eccentric scientist who unlocked the mysteries of the Middle Kingdom.

In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester chronicles the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who turned his eccentric genius on the study of China.

In 1937 Joseph Needham fell in love with a visiting Chinese student. He soon became fascinated by China, and his mistress persuaded him to travel to her home country. Thus began his undying passion for the world’s most populous nation.

Needham tackled one of the great, unanswered historical questions: Why did a nation that had invented so much and had enjoyed 5,000 years of flourishing civilization fail to undergo an industrial revolution, and instead spend so many modern years mired in poverty and racked by instability and revolution?

By the time he died, Needham had produced 17 immense volumes on China, marking him as the greatest one-man encyclopaedist e
ver.

Both epic and intimate, The Man Who Loved China tells the sweeping history of China through Needham’s remarkable life. Here is an unforgettable tale by one of the world’s inimitable storytellers.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Adventure of English (Unabridged)

 This is the remarkable story of the English language; from its beginnings as a minor guttural Germanic dialect to its position today as a truly established global language. The Adventure of English is not only an enthralling story of power, religion, and trade, but also the story of people, and how their lives continue to change the extraordinary language that is English.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Guns of August (Unabridged)

 In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed…and how horrible it became.

Tuchman masterfully portrays this transition from 19th to 20th Century, focusing on the turning point in the year 1914: the month leading up to the war and the first month of the war. With fine attention to detail, she reveals how and why the war started, and why it could have been stopped but wasn’t, managing to make the story utterly suspenseful even when we already know the outcome.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Coldest Winter

 David Halberstam’s magisterial and thrilling The Best and the Brightest was the defining book for the Vietnam War. More than three decades later, Halberstam used his unrivalled research and formidable journalistic skills to shed light on another dark corner in our history: the Korean War. The Coldest Winter is a successor to The Best and the Brightest, even though, in historical terms, it precedes it. Halberstam considered The Coldest Winter the best book he ever wrote, the culmination of 45 years of writing about America’s postwar foreign policy.

Up until now, the Korean War has been the black hole of modern American history. The Coldest Winter changes that. Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu, and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures: Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. At the same time, Halberstam provides us with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order.

At the heart of this audiobook are the individual stories of the soldiers on the front lines who were left to deal with the consequences of the dangerous misjudgments and competing agendas of powerful men. We meet them, follow them, and see some of the most dreadful battles in history through their eyes. As ever, Halberstam was concerned with the extraordinary courage and resolve of people asked to bear an extraordinary burden.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

America’s Great Depression (Unabridged)

 Applied Austrian economics doesn’t get better than this. Murray N. Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression is a staple of modern economic literature and crucial for understanding a pivotal event in American and world history.

The Great Depression was not a crisis for capitalism but merely an example of the downturn part of the business cycle, which was generated by government intervention in the economy. Had this book appeared in the 1940s, it might have spared the world much grief. Even so, its appearance in 1963 meant that free-market advocates had their first full-scale treatment of this crucial subject. The damage to the intellectual world inflicted by Keynesian- and socialist-style treatments would be limited from that day forward.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Charlie Wilson’s War (Unabridged)

 Charlie Wilson’s War is the untold story behind the last battle of the Cold War and how it fueled the rise of militant Islam. George Crile tells how Charlie Wilson, a maverick congressman from east Texas, conspired with a rogue CIA operative to launch the biggest, meanest, and most successful covert operation in the agency’s history.

In the early 1980s, after a Houston socialite turned Wilson’s attention to the ragged Afghan freedom fighters who continued to fight the Soviet invaders despite overwhelming odds, the congressman became passionate about their cause and procured hundreds of millions of dollars to support the mujahideen.

Moving from the back rooms of the Capitol, to secret chambers at Langley, to arms-dealers conventions, to the Khyber Pass, this book is a detailed and brilliantly reported account of the inside workings of the CIA.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Looming Tower (Unabridged)

 This is a sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans, and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright’s remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States.

The Looming Tower achieves an unprecedented level of intimacy and insight by telling the story through the interweaving lives of four men: the two leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri; the FBI’s counterterrorism chief, John O’Neill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal.

As these lives unfold, we see revealed the crosscurrents of modern Islam that helped to radicalize Zawahiri and bin Laden; the birth of al-Qaeda and its unsteady development into an organization capable of the American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the attack on the USS Cole; O’Neill’s heroic efforts to track al-Qaeda before 9/11, and his tragic death in the World Trade towers; Prince Turki’s transformation from bin Laden’s ally to his enemy; and the failures of the FBI, CIA, and NSA to share intelligence that might have prevented the 9/11 attacks.

The Looming Tower broadens and deepens our knowledge of these signal events by taking us behind the scenes. Here is Sayyid Qutb, founder of the modern Islamist movement, lonely and despairing as he meets Western culture up close in 1940s America; the privileged childhoods of bin Laden and Zawahiri; family life in the al-Qaeda compounds of Sudan and Afghanistan; O’Neill’s high-wire act in balancing his all-consuming career with his equally entangling personal life (he was living with three women, each of them unaware of the others’ existence); and the nitty-gritty of turf battles among U.S. intelligence agencies.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Legacy of Ashes (Unabridged)

 This is the book the CIA does not want you to read. For the last 60 years, the CIA has maintained a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, never disclosing its blunders to the American public. It spun its own truth to the nation while reality lay buried in classified archives. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Tim Weiner offers a stunning indictment of the CIA, a deeply flawed organization that has never deserved America’s confidence.

Legacy of Ashes is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA. Everything is on the record. There are no anonymous sources, no blind quotations. With shocking revelations that will make headlines, Tim Weiner gets at the truth and tells us how the CIA’s failures have profoundly jeopardized our national security.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Patriot Pirates (Unabridged)

 They were legalized pirates empowered by the Continental Congress to raid and plunder, at their own considerable risk, as much enemy trade as they could successfully haul back to America’s shores. They played a decisive role in America’s struggle for independence and later turned their seafaring talents to the slave trade, revealing the conflict between enterprise and morality central to American history.

In Patriot Pirates, Robert H. Patton, the grandson of the battlefield genius of World War II, explains how privatizing engaged all levels of Revolutionary life, from the dockyards to the assembly halls; how it gave rise to wild speculation in purchased shares in privateer ventures, enabling sailors to make more money in a month than they might earn in a year; and how privatizing created fortunes that survive to this day.

As one naval historian wrote, “The great battles of the American Revolution were fought on land, but independence was won at sea.”

Patton tells how, in addition to its strategic and economic importance, privatizing played a large political role in the Revolution. For example, Benjamin Franklin, from his diplomatic post in Paris, secretly encouraged skippers to sell their captured goods in French ports - a calculated effort on Franklin’s part to break the neutrality agreements between France and Britain, bring the two countries to blows, and take the pressure off American fighters.

This is a sweeping tale of maritime rebel-entrepreneurs bent on personal profit and national freedom.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

A Splendid Exchange (Unabridged)

 Adam Smith wrote that man has an intrinsic “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another”. But how did trade evolve to the point where we don’t think twice about biting into an apple from the other side of the world?

In A Splendid Exchange, William J. Bernstein tells the extraordinary story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. He transports listeners from ancient sailing ships that brought the silk trade from China to Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the 16th; from the rush for sugar that brought the British to Jamaica in 1655 to the American trade battles of the early 20th century; from key innovations such as steam, steel, and refrigeration to the modern era of televisions from Taiwan, lettuce from Mexico, and T-shirts from China.

Along the way, Bernstein examines how our age-old dependency on trade has contributed to
our planet’s agricultural bounty, stimulated intellectual progress, and made us both prosperous and vulnerable. Although the impulse to trade often takes a backseat to xenophobia and war, Bernstein concludes that trade is ultimately a force for good among nations, and he argues that societies are far more successful and stable when they are involved in vigorous trade with their neighbors.

Lively, authoritative, and astonishing in scope, A Splendid Exchange is a riveting narrative that views trade and globalization not in political terms, but rather as an evolutionary process as old as war and religion - a historical constant - that will continue to foster the growth of intellectual capital, shrink the world, and propel the trajectory of the human species.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

1776 (Unabridged)

 In this stirring audiobook, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence, when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.

Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats, who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known. But it is the American commander-in-chief who stands foremost: Washington, who had never before led an army in battle.

The darkest hours of that tumultuous year were as dark as any Americans have known. Especially in our own tumultuous time, 1776 is powerful testimony to how much is owed to a rare few in that brave founding epoch, and what a miracle it was that things turned out as they did.

Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough’s 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume I (Unabridged)

 Here begins one of the most remarkable works of history ever fashioned. All the great battles are here, of course, from Bull Run through Shiloh, the Seven Days, Second Manassas to Antietam, and Perryville in the fall of 1862, but so are the smaller and often equally important engagements on both land and sea: Ball’s Bluff, Fort Donelson, Pea Ridge, Island Ten, New Orleans, Monitor versus Merimac, and Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, to mention only a few.

And perhaps never before have these conflicts been so clearly, so dramatically, and so excitingly presented. The word “narrative” is the key, not only to this extraordinary book’s incandescence, but also to its truth. The story is told entirely from the point of view of the people involved in it. The listener not only learns what was happening in the North and South, on the political, military, diplomatic, and home fronts, he lives through the events as if he were there. This is the way it was, in its entirety, as far as Shelby Foote could discover it during years of exhaustive research.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

Team of Rivals

 Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln’s political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president.

On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry.

Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was the result of a character that had been forged by experiences that raised him above his more privileged and accomplished rivals. He won because he possessed an extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires.

It was this capacity that enabled Lincoln as president to bring his disgruntled opponents together, create the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshal their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war.

We view the long, horrifying struggle from the vantage of the White House as Lincoln copes with incompetent generals, hostile congressmen, and his raucous cabinet. He overcomes these obstacles by winning the respect of his former competitors, and in the case of Seward, finds a loyal and crucial friend to see him through.

This brilliant multiple biography is centered on Lincoln’s mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation’s history.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

John Adams (Unabridged)

 In this powerful, epic biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution. Adams thought, wrote, and spoke out for the “Great Cause” come what might; he traveled far and wide in all seasons and often at extreme risk; he rose to become the second president of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; he was rightly celebrated for his integrity, and regarded by some as “out of his senses”; and his marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the most moving love stories in American history.

Much about Adams’ life will come as a surprise to many. His rocky relationship with friend and eventual archrival Thomas Jefferson, his courageous voyage on the frigate Boston in the winter of 1778, and his later trek over the Pyrenees are exploits few would have dared and that few listeners will ever forget.

McCullough’s John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. This is history on a grand scale, an audiobook about politics, war, and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, it is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

The Last Campaign (Unabridged)

 With new research and previously unavailable interviews, The Last Campaign provides an intimate and absorbing historical narrative that goes right to the heart of America’s deepest despairs - and most fiercely held dreams - and tells us more than we had understood before about this complicated man and the heightened dramas of his times.

After John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Robert Kennedy - formerly Jack’s no-holds-barred political warrior - almost lost hope. He was haunted by his brother’s murder, and by the nation’s seeming inabilities to solve its problems of race, poverty, and the war in Vietnam. Bobby sensed the country’s pain, and when he announced that he was running for president, the country united behind his hopes. Over the action-packed 82 days of his campaign, Americans were inspired by Kennedy’s promise to lead them toward a better time. And after an assassin’s bullet stopped this last great stirring public figure of the 1960s, crowds lined
up along the country’s railroad tracks to say goodbye to Bobby.

Clarke’s The Last Campaign is the definitive account of Robert Kennedy’s exhilarating and tragic 1968 campaign for president - and a revelatory history that is especially resonant now.
   Available at Audible.com here or try Amazon.com here.

 
 

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