Audio in Advance offers previews of selected audiobooks two months ahead of publication, along with recommended picks and occasional interviews with notable authors and narrators.
Avadian, Brenda & Eric M. Riddle. Stuffology 101: Get Your Mind out of the Clutter. Blackstone. Reader to be announced.
“Stuffologists” Avadian and Riddle share four decades of experience dealing with stuff—or rather, clutter. Funny, serious, and humbling stories are woven in with tips to help you clear the toxic clutter out of your life.
Bailey, Catherine. Black Diamonds: The Downfall of an Aristocratic Dynasty and the Fifty Years That Changed England. Tantor. Read by Gareth Armstrong.
Bailey (The Secret Rooms) chronicles the Fitzwilliam coal-mining dynasty and their breathtaking Wentworth estate, the largest private home in England. When the sixth Earl Fitzwilliam died in 1902, he left behind the second largest estate in 20th-century England; tens of thousands of people worked either in the family’s coal mines or on their estate. As Bailey retraces the family history, she uncovers a legacy riddled with bitter feuds, scandals, and civil unrest as the conflict between the coal industry and its miners came to a head.
Beckert, Sven. Empire of Cotton: A Global History. Recorded Bks. Read by Jim Frangione.
The epic story of the rise and fall of the empire of cotton, the material’s centrality in the world economy, and how it came to be the fabric of our lives.
Davis, Joshua. Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream. Macmillan Audio. Read by Will Damron. digital exclusive.
In 2004, four impoverished, undocumented Latino teenagers, Oscar, Cristian, Luis, and Lorenzo, won the Marine Advanced Technology Education Robotics Competition at UC Santa Barbara. Their stories went on to include first-generation college graduations, deportation, bean-picking in Mexico, and service in Afghanistan.
Gibbon, Edward. Memoirs of My Life. Naxos. Read by David Timson.
Gibbon (1737-1794) was an English historian and member of Parliament known for his monumental The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire. His memoirs are a portrait of a rich and productive life and offers a compelling insight into a towering literary figure.
Johnson, Paul. Eisenhower: A Life. Recorded Bks. Read by Jonathan Davis.
Johnson’s (Churchill) lively, succinct biography of Dwight Eisenhower focuses particularly on his years as a five-star general and his two terms as president of the United States.
Kundtz, David. Quiet Mind: One-Minute Retreats from a Busy World. Brilliance. Read by Fred Stella.
Kundtz’s (Moments in Between) meditation guide offers listeners advice on using the moments between activities as opportunities to focus on resting, finding peace, awakening, and remembering.
Lipp, Doug Disney U: How Disney University Develops the World’s Most Engaged, Loyal, and Customer-Centric Employees. Brilliance. Read by Tim Lundeen.
For the first time, the secrets of the legendary Disney University are revealed. The book contains never-before-told stories from numerous Disney legends, reveals the heart of the Disney culture, and describes the company’s values and operational philosophies that support its iconic brand. Lipp (The Changing Face of Today’s Customer) lays out 13 timeless lessons Disney has used to drive profits and growth worldwide for more than half a century.
Martin, Chris. Modern American Snipers: From The Legend to The Reaper—on the Battlefield with Special Operations Snipers. Macmillan Audio. Read by Peter Larkin.
The inside story of some of the best snipers in recent American history, including Chris Kyle, SEAL Team 3 Chief and the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history, and Nick Irving, the first African American to serve as a sniper in the 3rd Ranger Battalion, and its deadliest, with 33 confirmed kills.
Morris, Charles R. The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J.P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy. Blackstone. Read by William Hughes.
The modern American economy, says Morris, was the creation of four men: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan. They were the giants of the Gilded Age, a moment of riotous growth that established America as the richest, most inventive, and most productive country on the planet. Morris (The Dawn of Innovation) vividly brings these men and their times to life.
Navarro, Joe with Toni Sciarra Poynter. Dangerous Personalities: An FBI Profiler Shows How To Identify and Protect Yourself from Harmful People. Brilliance. Read by Stephen Hoye.
Former FBI profiler Navarro shows listeners how to identify the four most common dangerous personalities—the Narcissist, the Predator, the Paranoid, and the Unstable Personality—and analyze how much of a threat each one can be. Listeners learn how to protect themselves both immediately and long-term—as well as how to recover from the trauma of being close to such a destructive force.
Payne, Mark. How To Kill a Unicorn: How the World’s Hottest Innovation Factory Builds Bold Ideas that Make It to Market. Recorded Bks. Read by David Chandler.
The success of innovation consulting firm Fahrenheit 212 is driven by its unique methodology; combining what it calls Magic—the creative side of innovation—with Money, the business side. Payne, cofounder, president, and head of idea development, offers inside accounts of how the company solved their biggest challenges. Embedded in their approach to new ideas are hard-earned lessons about what separates innovations that work from those that don’t.
Pepys, Samuel. Diary of Samuel Pepys. Blackstone. Read by Kris Marshall, Katherine Jakeways, and a full cast
Pepys was 26 when he decided to start keeping a diary in January 1660. For the next ten years he faithfully recorded the day’s events and confessed his innermost thoughts. That diary has since become one of our most important, and fascinating, historical documents. Pepys provides an eyewitness account of the 17th century, describing what people ate and wore, what they did for fun, the tricks they played on each other, what they expected of marriage, and even how they conducted love affairs. This collection comprises all ten BBC Radio 4 series plus a special Saturday Drama centering on the Great Fire of London.
Preisler, Jerome. First to Jump: How the Band of Brothers Was Aided by the Brave Paratroopers of Pathfinders Company. Tantor. Read by Tom Perkins.
Preisler (Code Name Caesar) here looks at World War II’s special operations commandos, men who relied on their stealth, expert prowess, and matchless courage and audacity to set the stage for airborne drops and glider landings throughout Europe. Narrator Perkins was an audio engineer for more than 40 years.
Shenk, Joshua Wolf. Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs. Recorded Bks. Read by Andrew Garman.
Shenk (In Lincoln’s Hand) examines scores of creative duos from John Lennon and Paul McCartney to Marie and Pierre Curie to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and reveals the six essential stages through which creative intimacy unfolds. Shenk draws on new scientific research and builds an argument for the social foundations of creativity and the pair as its primary embodiment.
Sundquist, Josh. We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly, a True Story. Hachette Audio. Read by the author.
A bright, poignant, and deeply funny autobiographical account of coming of age as an amputee cancer survivor who set out to learn why he was still single. To find out, he tracked down the girls he had tried to date and asked them what went wrong? From a disastrous mini-golf date involving a backward prosthetic foot, to his introduction to CFD (Close Fast Dancing), to a misguided “grand gesture” at a Miss America pageant, this story is about looking for love—or at least a girlfriend—in all the wrong places.
Thompson, Leigh. Creative Conspiracy: The New Rules of Breakthrough Collaboration. Recorded Bks. Read by Karen Saltus.
Management expert Thompson guides listeners to develop collaborations that are conscious, planned, and focused on generating new ideas. The author combines broad-ranging research with real-life examples to offer strategies and practices designed to help teams and their leaders capitalize on what actually works when it comes to creative collaboration.