Andraka, Jack. Breakthrough: How One Teen Innovator Is Changing the World. Blackstone. ISBN 9781483079462. Reader TBA.
When Andraka was 15, he created a means for early cancer detection: a four-cent strip of paper capable of detecting pancreatic, ovarian, and lung cancers 400 times more effectively than the previous standard. He discusses this breakthrough, but also talks about overcoming bullying and depression and finding the resilience to persevere. His account will interest and inspire both adults and teens. Do-it-yourself science experiments are included in each chapter.
Bellow, Saul. There Is Simply Too Much to Think About: Collected Nonfiction. Blackstone. ISBN 9781481517409. Reader TBA.
The year 2015 is the centennial of Saul Bellow’s birth and the tenth anniversary of his death. Bellow—a Nobel laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner, and the only novelist to receive three National Book Awards—is one of America’s most cherished authors. Here, Benjamin Taylor, editor of Saul Bellow: Letters, presents lesser-known aspects of the iconic writer. Arranged chronologically, this collection of six classic pieces and an abundance of previously uncollected material includes criticism, interviews, speeches, and other reflections.
Bruni, Frank. Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania. Blackstone Audio. ISBN 9781478959205. Reader TBA.
Expanding on an April 2014 column, “Our Crazy College Crossroads,” Bruni’s manifesto puts the college admissions process into desperately needed perspective. It not only dissects the limited meaning of a rigged and sometimes random admissions process, it also discusses many of the hugely successful Americans who didn’t go to Ivy League schools, makes the case that the attitude with which a student approaches college matters more than the college itself, and presents data and expert opinions that question the advantages of diplomas from Ivy League schools (and their ilk). All the while, Bruni weaves in larger life lessons—that setbacks can be springboards, that the wisest course isn’t always the most obvious one—that make this book a corrective tool and a balm not just for high school graduates eyeing the horizon.
Gura, Philip F. The Life of William Apess, Pequot. Blackstone. ISBN 9781481511971. Read by Traber Burns.
The Pequot Indian intellectual, author, and itinerant preacher William Apess was one of the most important voices of the 19th century, and his 1829 autobiography, A Son of the Forest, was the first published by a Native American writer. Here Gura offers the first book-length chronicle of Apess’s life. After an impoverished childhood marked by abuse, Apess soldiered with American troops during the War of 1812, converted to Methodism, and rose to fame as a lecturer who lifted a powerful voice of protest against the plight of Native Americans in New England and beyond.
Henion, Leigh Ann. Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer’s Search for Wonder in the Natural World. Books on Tape. ISBN 9781101887783. Read by Nicol Zanzarella.
A journalist and young mother, Henion combines her own conflicted but joyful experiences as a parent with a panoramic tour of the world’s most extraordinary natural wonders. Convinced that the greatest key to happiness—both her own and that of her family—lies in periodically allowing herself to venture into the wider world beyond home, Henion sets out on a global trek to rekindle her sense of wonder. The author’s spiritual wanderlust takes her around the world and puts her in the path of modern-day shamans, reindeer herders, and astrophysicists.
Hsu, Huan. The Porcelain Thief: Searching the Middle Kingdom for Buried China. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780804192200. Read by the author.
In 1938, when the Japanese arrived in Hsu’s great-great-grandfather Liu’s Yangtze River hometown of Xingang, Liu was forced to bury his valuables, including a collection of antique porcelain. Many years and upheavals later, Hsu, raised in Salt Lake City, moves to China to work in his uncle’s semiconductor chip business. Once there, a conversation with his grandmother, his last living link to dynastic China, ignites a desire to learn more about not only his lost ancestral heirlooms but also porcelain itself. Mastering the language enough to venture into the countryside, Hsu sets out to separate the layers of fact and fiction that have obscured both China and his heritage and finally complete his family’s long march back home.
Keillor, Garrison. A Prairie Home Companion 40th Anniversary Celebration. HighBridge. ISBN 9781622315574.
Since A Prairie Home Companion first went on air, July 6, 1974, a steady stream of great musicians has crossed its stage—The Steele Sisters, Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, Peter Ostroushko, The Wailin’ Jennys, Robin and Linda Williams, Iris DeMent, Howard Levy—plus the radio detective Guy Noir, the cowboys Dusty and Lefty, the librarian Ruth Harrison, Duane and his Mother, and the good people of Lake Wobegon, MN. An all-star roster of favorite performers joined to celebrate the anniversary on the lawn of Macalester College in St. Paul, a stone’s throw from the hall where the first broadcast was made. Some highlights from that show are presented here, interwoven with archival performances by Doc Watson, Odetta, Pete Seeger, Helen Schneyer, Chet Atkins, Bill Hinkley & Judy Larson, Soupy Schindler, and Tom Keith.
Larson, Erik. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780553551648. Read by Scott Brick.
On May 1, 1915, a luxury ocean liner sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone, and for months, its U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania‘s captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. He knew, moreover, that his ship—the fastest then in service—could outrun any threat. Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.
Leeds, Regina. Rightsize…Right Now!: The 8-Week Plan to Organize, Declutter, and Make Any Move Stress-Free. Tantor Audio. ISBN 9781494556716. Read by the author.
Moving is rarely considered an enjoyable or relaxing experience. There’s the planning, the packing, the hauling, the unpacking, the misplaced or missing items, the chaotic clutter of boxes; the overall stress can overwhelm even the most easygoing person. But does it have to be that way? For almost 25 years, Leeds has helped her clients prepare for new spaces with practical support and a fresh perspective. Here she outlines her eight-week plan to clear clutter, organize, and relocate without stress. From making a plan and taking the first steps to addressing unmade decisions and final details, Leeds turns the stress of moving into the excitement of a life-changing opportunity.
Lyndsey, Anna. Girl in the Dark. Books on Tape. ISBN 9781101890028. Read by Hannah Curtis.
In this memoir, a young woman writes of the sensitivity to light that has forced her to live in darkness, and of the love that has saved her. Initially, Lyndsey’s face felt like it was burning whenever she was in front of the computer. Soon this progressed to an intolerance of fluorescent light, then of sunlight itself, and the reaction spread to her entire body. Now, when her symptoms are at their worst, she must spend months on end in a blacked-out room, listening to audiobooks and playing elaborate word games in an attempt to ward off despair. During periods of relative remission she can venture cautiously out at dawn and dusk, into a world that, from the perspective of her normally cloistered existence, is filled with remarkable beauty.
Macdonald, Helen. H Is for Hawk. Blackstone Audio. ISBN 9781481530941. Reader to be announced.
When Macdonald’s father died suddenly, she was devastated. An experienced falconer, she’d never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators: the goshawk. Resolving to purchase and raise the deadly creature as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, this book is an unflinching account of bereavement, a unique look at the magnetism of an extraordinary beast, and the story of an eccentric falconer and legendary writer. Weaving together obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history, this blend of nature writing and memoir won the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction.
Martin, Sasha. Life from Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness. Blackstone Audio. ISBN 9781483085371. Read by Andi Arndt.
Martin’s ambitious goal—to cook and eat her way around the world with 196 recipes from 196 countries in 196 weeks—led to the Global Table Adventure, a project that proves to be more than just a culinary challenge as she attempts to navigate the vicissitudes of marriage, motherhood, and life’s failures and successes, all inextricably linked to her troubled past. She and her brother lived with their mother in Boston before being placed in foster care with a family in Europe. Among the hard moments of her young life, the most difficult occurred when Sasha was just 12 years old—she witnessed her brother’s suicide. As she mines her past to make sense of her childhood, food allows Sasha to find her own place in the world—and create the home she has been craving her whole life.
Nordhaus, Hannah. American Ghost: A Family’s Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest. Tantor Audio. ISBN 9781494558161. Read by Xe Sands.
In one second-floor suite at Santa Fe’s La Posada hotel, guests reported alarming events: blankets ripped off while they slept, the room temperature plummeting, disembodied breathing, and dancing balls of light. When the hotel was still a private house, that second-floor room had belonged to Julia Schuster Staab, the wife of the home’s original owner. She died in 1896, nearly a century before the hauntings were first reported. In American Ghost, Nordhaus traces the life, death, and unsettled afterlife of her great-great-grandmother Julia, uncovering a larger tale of how a true-life story becomes a ghost story and how difficult it can sometimes be to separate history and myth.
Sampson, Scott. How To Raise a Wild Child. HighBridge. ISBN 9781622316106. Read by Sean Runnette.
American children today spend 90 percent less time playing outdoors than their parents did; instead, they spend an average of seven hours a day interacting with a screen. Sampson, a dinosaur paleontologist and VP of research and collections at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, asserts that not only does exposure to nature help relieve stress, depression, and attention deficits, but it provides long-term benefits linked to cognitive, emotional, and moral development. Distilling the latest research in disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, biology, and education, Sampson reveals how parents and educators can help kids fall in love with nature and instill a sense of place that will help keep the planet healthy.
Stern, Jessica & J.M. Berger. ISIS: The State of Terror. Blackstone. ISBN 9781481532723. Read by Ray Porter.
Stern and Berger analyze the tools ISIS uses both to frighten innocent citizens and lure new soldiers—including their pro-jihadi videos, the seductive appeal of “jihadic chic,” and its startlingly effective social media expertise. The authors offer practical ideas on potential government responses, emphasizing that we must alter our present conceptions of terrorism and terrorists and quickly react to the rapidly changing jihadi landscape, both online and off. As it lays out what our next move—as a country, as a government, as the world—should be, it offers a vital assessment of the future of counterterrorism and countering violent extremism.
Szwed, John. Billie Holiday: A Musical Biography. Recorded Bks. ISBN 9781490676364. Reader to be announced.
Most of the writing on Holiday has focused on the tragic details of her life—her prostitution at the age of 14, her heroin addiction and alcoholism, her series of abusive relationships—or tried to correct the many fabrications of her autobiography. Szwed stays close to the music, to Holiday’s performance style, and to the self she created and put into print, on record, and on stage. Drawing on a vast amount of new material that has surfaced in the last decade, the author considers how her life inflected her art, her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, a number of her signature songs, and her legacy.