Audiobooks by Ben Hubbard

What Do We Know About Crop Circles? Audiobook

The What Do We Know About? series explores the mysterious, the unknown, and the unexplained. Are the geometric field patterns fact, myth, or legend? Presenting What Do We Know About: an exciting new addition to the #1 New York Times Best-Selling Who Was? series! What Do We Know About Crop Circles? lets curious young readers learn about the phenomenon of crop circles and how they came to be one of the most studied mysteries of the natural world. Read about all of the rational and fanciful explanations for these flattened patterns in crops all over the world, from the United Kingdom to Australia. Artists and hoaxers alike have claimed credit for these massive projects, but some people think that the source could be paranormal. Are these circles an elaborate prank, or could they be something more?

Ben Hubbard (Author), René Ruiz (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Plantagenets: Digitally narrated using a synthesized voice

This recording has been digitally produced by DeepZen Limited, using a synthesised version of an audiobook narrator’s voice under license. DeepZen uses Emotive Speech Technology to create digital narrations that offer a similar listening experience to human narration. For almost 350 years the Plantagenet family held the English throne – longer than any dynasty in English history – and yet its origins were in Anjou in France, French remained the mother tongue of England’s monarchs for 300 years, and only in its family’s final decades did English rather than French become the language the king used in official correspondence. Furthermore, although the family managed to remain in power for so long, this was not without kings being deposed, ransomed and imprisoned, or without sons plotting against their fathers for the throne and wives turning against their husbands. The Plantagenets is an accessible book that tells the whole narrative of the dynasty, from the coronation of Henry, Count of Anjou, in 1145 to the fall of Yorkist Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. But in charting the fortunes of the family, the book explores not only military victories and defeats across Europe, on crusade and in the British Isles, but how England and its neighbours changed during that time – how the authority of Parliament increased, how laws were reformed, how royal authority could struggle with that of the Roman Catholic Church, how the Black Death affected England, and how universities were founded and cathedrals built. The Plantagenets is an expertly written account of a people who have long captured the popular imagination.

Ben Hubbard (Author), William Birch (synthesised Voice) (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Viking Warrior: Digitally narrated using a synthesized voice

This recording has been digitally produced, by DeepZenLimited, using a synthesized version of an audiobook narrator’s voice under license. DeepZen uses Emotive Speech Technology to create digital narrations that offer a similar listening experience to human narration. '…and they laid all waste with dreadful havoc, trod with unhallowed feet the holy places, dug up the altars, and carried off all the treasures of the holy church. Some of the brethren they killed; some they carried off in chains; many they cast out, naked and loaded with insults; some they drowned in the sea.' —Simeon of Durham, A History of the Community of Durham Beginning in 789 CE, the Vikings raided monasteries, sacked settlements and invaded the Atlantic coast of Europe and the British Isles. They looted and enslaved their enemies, terrorizing all whom they encountered. But that is only part of their story. Sailing their famous longboats, they discovered Iceland and North America, colonised Greenland, founded Dublin, and also sailed up the River Seine and besieged Paris. They settled from Newfoundland to Russia, conquered eastern England, and fought battles from Ireland to the Caspian Sea. They traded walruses with Inuits, brought Russian furs to Western Europe and took European slaves to Constantinople. Their graves contain Arab silver, Byzantine silks and Frankish weapons and artefacts. The Viking Warrior examines these fearsome warriors through their origins, social structure, raiding culture, weapons, trading networks and settlements.

Ben Hubbard (Author), Edward Herrmann (male Synthesized Voice) (Narrator)

Audiobook

MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed Bin Salman

The gripping, untold story of how Saudi Arabia's secretive and mercurial new ruler rose to power. Even in his youth as a prince among thousands of princes, Mohammed bin Salman nurtured sweeping ambitions. He wanted power – enough of it to reshape his hyper-conservative, insular Islamic kingdom. When his elderly father took the throne in 2015, MBS got his chance. As the hands-on-ruler, he made seismic changes, working doggedly to overhaul the kingdom's economy, loosen its strict Islamic social codes and confront nearby enemies, especially Iran. His vision initially won fans at home and abroad as he convinced other nations that the moment had come to bet big on Saudi Arabia. Over time, however, the sheen of the visionary young reformer has tarnished, leaving many wondering whether MBS is actually an aspiring dictator whose lack of experience and rash decisions are destabilizing the world's most volatile region. Based on years of reporting and hundreds of covert interviews, MBS provides new insights into Saudi Arabia’s catastrophic military intervention in Yemen, the bizarre detention of the Lebanese prime minister, the surprise arrest of hundreds of princes and businessmen, and the greatest scandal of the young prince's rise: the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi state officials with links to MBS – a crime that shocked the world. A riveting portrait of a determined autocrat on the rise, MBS asks how one man’s actions and obsessions are shaking the Middle East.

Ben Hubbard (Author), Robert Petkoff (Narrator)

Audiobook