Braestrup, Kate. Anchor and Flares: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hope, and Service. Blackstone. ISBN 9781478933953. Read by the author.
When her eldest son joins the Marines, Braestrap is at a crossroads: can she reconcile her desire to protect her children with her family’s legacy of service? Can parents balance the joy of a child’s independence with the fear of letting go? Here she examines the twinned emotions of faith and fear—inspired by the families she meets as a chaplain and by her son’s journey towards purpose and familyhood.
Bryant, Jonathan M. Dark Places of the Earth: The Voyage of the Slave Ship Antelope. HighBridge. ISBN 9781622318810. Read by Tom Zingarelli.
Here Bryant (How Curious a Land) examines a significant and long-forgotten Supreme Court case. In 1820, the slave ship Antelope was captured off the Florida coast. Though the slave trade was prohibited, slavery was still legal in half of the United States, and it was left to the Supreme Court to determine whether nearly 300 Africans on board were considered slaves and if so, to whom they belonged.
Chaney, Jen. As If!: The Oral History of Clueless As Told by Amy Heckerling and the Cast and Crew. Tantor. ISBN 9781494513726. Read by Jorjeana Marie.
On the 20th anniversary of the film’s release, Chaney’s oral history of the making of Amy Heckerling’s Clueless contains recollections and insights collected from key cast and crew members on such topics as how Emma influenced Heckerling to write the script and how the stars were cast into each of their roles.
Cope, Tim. On the Trail of Genghis Khan: An Epic Journey Through the Land of the Nomads. Brilliance. ISBN 9781491599105. Read by Philip Rose.
Cope (coauthor, Off the Rails) traveled by horseback across the entire length of the Eurasian steppe, from Mongolia to the Danube River in Hungary, a 6,000-mile, three-year-long trip. Alone except for a trusty dog (and a succession of 13 horses, many stolen from him along the way), Cope treks through wolf-infested plateaus, over glaciers and the subzero “starving steppe,” the scorching Kazakh desert, and the deep forests and treacherous mountains of the Carpathians.
DeStefano, Anthony M. Gangland New York: Faces and Places of Mob Lore. Tantor. ISBN 978-1494556556. Read by Fary Galone.
From the Bowery Boys and the Five Points Gang through the rise of the Jewish “Kosher Nostra” and the ascendance of the Italian Mafia, mobsters have played a major role in the city’s history. As families and factions fought for control, the city became a backdrop for crime scenes, the rackets spreading after World War II to docks, airports, food markets, and garment districts. Divided into five sections—one for each borough— DeStefano’s (Vinny Gorgeous) latest traces criminal activities and area exploits from the 19th century to now.
Dickey, Christopher. Our Man in Charleston: Britain’s Secret Agent in the Civil War South. HighBridge. ISBN 9781622317691. Read by Anthony Ferguson.
Robert Bunch, an American-born Englishman, maneuvered his way to the position of British consul in Charleston, SC, and grew to loathe slavery and the righteousness of its practitioners, eventually becoming the Crown’s best secret source on the Confederacy. But doing so required living a double life. To his Charleston neighbors, Bunch was increasingly a pillar of Southern society. But to the British government, he was a student abolitionist, eviscerating Southern dissembling on plans regarding the slave trade.
DuVal, Kathleen. Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution. Tantor. ISBN 9781494563288. Read by Susan Boyce.
DuVal (The Native Ground) recounts the history of the Revolutionary Era as experienced by slaves, American Indians, women, and British loyalists living on Florida’s Gulf Coast, introducing listeners to Mobile slave Petit Jean, who organized militias to fight the British at sea; Chickasaw diplomat Payamataha, who worked to keep his people out of war; New Orleans merchant Oliver Pollock and his wife, Margaret O’Brien Pollock, who worked to garner Spanish support for the American Revolution; and Scottish loyalists James and Isabella Bruce, whose work on behalf of the British Empire placed them in grave danger.
Faruqi, Sonia. Project Animal Farm: An Accidental Journey into the Secret World of Farming and the Truth about Our Food. Blackstone. ISBN 9781504609364. Reader TBA.
After witnessing animal cruelty, Faruqi, a 25-year-old investment banker, made a commitment to change the current system of food production. Here Faruqi takes listeners on a tour of egg warehouses in Canada, dairy feedlots in the United States, farm offices in Mexico, lush Mennonite pastures in Belize, flocks of chickens in Indonesia, and factory farms in Malaysia.
Feiling, Tom. The Candy Machine: How Cocaine Took Over the World. Brilliance. ISBN 9781486297375. Read by Adrian Mulraney.
Feiling (Short Walks from Bogota) travels the trade routes from Colombia via Miami, Kingston, and Tijuana to London and New York, along the way meeting Medellín hitmen, U.S. kingpins, Brazilian traffickers and soldiers and narcotics officers who fight the gangs and cartels. He traces cocaine’s progress from legal ‘pick-me-up’ to luxury product to global commodity, looks at legalization programs in countries like Switzerland, and shows how America’s anti-drugs crusade is actually increasing demand.
Hiltzik, Mitchell. Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention the Launched the Military-Industrial Complex. HighBridge. ISBN 9781622318872. Read by Bob Souer.
From a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist comes the untold story of how science went big, built the bombs that helped World War II, and became dependent on government and industry and the forgotten genius who started it all. The birth of Big Science can be traced to Berkeley, CA, nearly nine decades ago, when Ernest Orlando Lawrence invented the cyclotron. It would change our understanding of the basic building blocks of nature, help win World War II, and make its influence felt in academia and international politics.
Holmes, Hannah. The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself. Brilliance. ISBN 9781501272035. Read by Joyce Bean.
Science journalist Holmes casts the inquisitive eye of a trained researcher and reporter on…herself. And not just on herself, but on our whole species, exploring how the human animal fits into the natural world, even as we humans change that world in both constructive and destructive ways. And not only are we animals, we are, in some important ways (such as our senses of smell and of vision), pitiably inferior ones. At the same time, Holmes reveals the ways in which Homo sapiens stands apart from other animals. Deftly mixing personal stories and observations with the latest scientific theories and research results, Holmes fashions an engaging and informative field guide to that oddest and yet most fascinating of primates: ourselves.
Jackson, Shirley. Life Among the Savages. Dreamscape. ISBN 9781681411125. Reader TBA.
In her celebrated fiction, Jackson (We Have Always Lived in the Castle) explored the darkness lurking beneath the surface of small-town America. But here she takes on the lighter side of small-town life. In this witty and warm memoir of her family’s life in rural Vermont, she delightfully exposes a domestic side in cheerful contrast to her quietly terrifying fiction.
Klein, Christopher. Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, America’s First Sports Hero. Blackstone. ISBN 9781504615709. Read by Joe Barrett.
John L. Sullivan, the first modern heavyweight boxing champion of the world, was the gold standard of American sports for more than a decade and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and chronic police-blotter presence were godsends to a burgeoning newspaper industry.As he rose from Boston’s Irish working class to become the most recognizable man in the nation, the “Boston Strong Boy” transformed boxing from outlawed bare-knuckle fighting into the gloved spectacle we know today.
Levoy, Gregg. Vital Signs: The Nature and Nurture of Passion. Blackstone. ISBN 9781469061276. Read by the author.
What inspires passion in your life and what defeats it? How do you lose it and how do you get it back? Levoy (Callings) explores how you can cultivate not just a specific passion, but passion as a mindset that helps bring vitality to all your engagements, from work and relationships to creativity and spiritual life. He examines the endless tug of war between passion and security and shows us how to stay engaged with the world and resist the downward-pulling forces that can drain our vitality.
Markoff, John. Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground between Humans and Robots. Blackstone. ISBN 9781504614269. Reader TBA.
As robots are increasingly integrated into modern society—on the battlefield and the road, in business, education, and health—Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times science writer John Markoff searches for an answer to one of the most important questions of our age: Will these robots help us … or will they replace us? Markoff travels across the country, from the brain trusts in Palo Alto and Silicon Valley to the expanding tech corridor between Boston and New York. He goes deep inside the sf worlds of Battlestar Galactica, Terminator, and the Jetsons, which are fast becoming a reality; and talks to the insiders—scientists, entrepreneurs, ethicists, hackers, and others—who are shaping the future.
Mazor, Barry. Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music. Blackstone. ISBN 9781504623926. Read by Dom Flemons, Ketch Secor, & the author.
This is the first biography of Ralph Peer, the adventurous—even revolutionary—A&R man and music publisher who brought regional roots music to the world. The book tracks Peer’s role in such breakthrough events as the recording of Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” (the record that sparked the blues craze), the first country recording sessions with Fiddlin’ John Carson, his discovery of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family at the famed Bristol sessions, the popularizing of Latin American music during World War II, and the postwar transformation of music on the airwaves that set the stage for the dominance of R&B, country, and rock ’n’ roll.
McFadden, Johnjoe & Jim Al-Khalili. Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology. Dreamscape. ISBN 9781681413181. Reader TBA.
Life is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the known universe; but how did it come to be? Even in an age of cloning and artificial biology, the remarkable truth remains: nobody has ever made anything living entirely out of dead material. Life remains the only way to make life. Are we still missing a vital ingredient in its creation? Al-Khalili and Macfadden reveal the hitherto missing ingredient to be quantum mechanics and the strange phenomena that lie at the heart of this most mysterious of sciences.
Ohmart, Ben. Welcome, Foolish Mortals: The Life and Voices of Paul Frees. Blackstone. ISBN 9781504631655. Read by Fred Frees.
Paul Frees was Disney’s Haunted Mansion Ghost Host, Boris Badenov, Professor Ludwig von Drake, Pillsbury Dougboy, Toucan Sam, the Green Lama, and thousands of other voices on records, radio, television, and in films. He was voice acting genius Paul Frees. Paul’s son Fred Free, a successful voice actor in his own right who has been called upon to recreate his dad’s characters and create new ones, reads.
Parker, Elizabeth & Mark Ebner. Poison Candy: The Murderous Madam; Inside Dalia Dippolito’s Plot To Kill. Blackstone. ISBN 9781504638043. Reader TBA.
Tipped off by one of former madam Dalia Dippolito’s lovers, an undercover detective posing as a hit man met with Dalia to plot her husband’s murder while his team planned, then staged, the murder scenario—brazenly inviting the reality TV show Cops along for the ride. The Cops video went viral, sparking tales of illicit drugs, secret boyfriends, sex for hire, a cuckolded former con man, and the defense’s ludicrous claim that the entire hit had been staged by the intended victim for reality TV fame.
Petranek, Stephen. How We’ll Live on Mars. S. & S. Audio. ISBN 9781442375864. Reader TBA.
Petranek says humans will live on Mars by 2027 and makes the case that living on Mars is not just plausible, but inevitable, explaining in detail how he believes it will happen. Petranek introduces the lively characters engaged in a dramatic effort to be the first to settle the Red Planet. Private companies driven by iconoclastic entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen, and Sir Richard Branson; Dutch reality show and space mission Mars One; NASA; and the Chinese government are among the many groups competing to plant the first stake on Mars and open the door for human habitation.
Safina, Carl. Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. Tantor. ISBN 9781494512545. Read by the author.
Weaving decades of field observations with exciting new discoveries about the brain, Safina offers an intimate view of animal behavior to challenge the fixed boundary between humans and nonhuman animals. In these extraordinary stories of animal joy, grief, jealousy, anger, and love, listeners travel to Amboseli National Park in of Kenya and witness struggling elephant families work out how to survive poaching and drought, then to Yellowstone National Park to observe wolves sort out the aftermath of one pack’s personal tragedy, and finally plunge into the astonishingly peaceful society of killer whales living in the crystalline waters of the Pacific Northwest.
Saviano, Roberto & Virginia Jewiss. ZeroZeroZero. Books on Tape. ISBN 9781101914816. Read by Paul Michael.
Saviano (Gomorrah) explores the inner workings of the global cocaine trade and the true depth of its reach into the world economy. Saviano tracks the shift in the cocaine trade’s axis of power from Colombia to Mexico, and relates how the Latin American cartels and gangs have forged alliances, first with the Italian crime syndicates, then with the Russians, Africans, and others. He charts a remarkable increase in sophistication as these criminal entities diversify into many other products and markets and reveals the astonishing increase in the severity of violence as they have fought to protect and extend their power.
Scottoline, Lisa & Francesca Serritella. Does This Beach make Me Look Fat?: True Stories and Confessions. Macmillan Audio. ISBN 9781427261083. Read by the authors.
Lisa and Francesca are back with another collection of warm and witty stories. This fifth volume will not disappoint as it hits the humorous and poignant note that fans have come to expect from the beloved mother-daughter duo.
Shostak, Seth. Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Brilliance. ISBN 9781501270826. Read by Patrick Lawlor.
This engaging memoir reveals the true story of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). SETI senior astronomer Shostak answers a host of questions about SETI, including where its antennas are aimed, how they know which frequency to monitor, and what their response might be. Methodically busting urban legends about alien crash landings, crop circles, and the like, Shostak pits scientific truth against speculation.
Southard, Susan. Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War. Recorded Books. ISBN 9781490676326. Reader TBA.
On August 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, a small port city on Japan’s southernmost island. An estimated 74,000 people died within the first five months, and another 75,000 were injured. Published on the 70th anniversary of the bombing, this work takes readers from the morning of the bombing to the city today, telling the first-hand experiences of five survivors, all of whom were teenagers at the time of the devastation. Southard weaves together dramatic eyewitness accounts with searing analysis of the policies of censorship and denial that colored much of what was reported about the bombing both in the United States and Japan.
Sturges, Tom. Every Idea Is a Good Idea: Be Creative Anytime, Anywhere. Blackstone. ISBN 9781469061306. Read by the author.
Sturges, former head of creative at Universal Music Publishing Group, here shares techniques for accessing creativity that he learned in his 25-plus years in the music industry. Everyone is innately creative. But many of us wish we knew how to better tap into our creative potential. Is there a way to more easily connect with the part of our minds that knows how to complete a song, finish a poem, or solve a problem? Sturges argues that there is.