Audiobooks by Nathaniel Philbrick

An Audio Bundle: Storm & Deep Blue Audiobook

Most people associate storms and other big weather with death-with the kind of force that makes each of us wonder about life, and time and the nature of our surroundings. Some people go out looking for bad weather or go to places where they're likely to encounter it. Others have the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, the stories in Storm have more to say than that. They tell us about what happens when people find that treacherous weather-or when it finds them-and we are reminded of the fragility of life, the capriciousness of Nature's will, and how little we can do when both cross paths. In Deep Blue, for those who dare, things often go wrong under the sea. Such tragedies, spurred by the booming interest in the Titanic and the Andrea Doria, have been the focus of tremendous literature form the world's finest authors. Deep Blue offers compelling tales of shipwrecks and salvage, submarine adventure and free diving, nautical survival and cannibalism.

Farley Mowat, Gordon Chaplin, Herman Melville, Jack Lemoyne, Jack London, John Muir, John Vaillant, Michael Groom, Nathaniel Philbrick, Patrick O'brian, Philip Ashton, Richard Byrd, Rick Bass, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rockwell Kent, Sebastian Junger, Stephen Crane, Whitney Balliett (Author), Barrett Whitener, Gary Telles, Nick Sampson, Richard Rohan, Rick Foucheux, Terence Aselford (Narrator)

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In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown

The thrilling story of the year that won the Revolutionary War from the New York Times bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea and Valiant Ambition In the fall of 1780, after five frustrating years of war, George Washington had come to realize that the only way to defeat the British Empire was with the help of the French navy. But as he had learned after two years of trying, coordinating his army's movements with those of a fleet of warships based thousands of miles away was next to impossible. And then, on September 5, 1781, the impossible happened. Recognized today as one of the most important naval engagements in the history of the world, the Battle of the Chesapeake--fought without a single American ship--made the subsequent victory of the Americans at Yorktown a virtual inevitability. In a narrative that moves from Washington's headquarters on the Hudson River, to the wooded hillside in North Carolina where Nathanael Greene fought Lord Cornwallis to a vicious draw, to Lafayette's brilliant series of maneuvers across Tidewater Virginia, Philbrick details the epic and suspenseful year through to its triumphant conclusion. A riveting and wide-ranging story, full of dramatic, unexpected turns, In the Hurricane's Eye reveals that the fate of the American Revolution depended, in the end, on Washington and the sea.

Nathaniel Philbrick (Author), Scott Brick (Narrator)

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Second Wind: A Sunfish Sailor, an Island, and the Voyage That Brought a Family Together

A charming early memoir of midlife by the bestselling author of Mayflower and In the Heart of the Sea, recounting his attempt to recapture a national sailing championship he'd won at twenty-two. "There had been something elemental and all consuming about a Sunfish. Nothing could compare to the exhilaration of a close race in a real blow--the wind howling and spray flying as my Sunfish and I punched through the waves to the finish." In the spring of 1992 (eight years before the publication of In the Heart of the Sea), Nat Philbrick was in his late thirties, living with his family on Nantucket, feeling stranded and longing for the thrill of victory of a national sailing championship he had won fifteen years earlier. Was it a midlife crisis? It was certainly a watershed for the journalist-turned-stay-at-home dad, who impulsively decided to throw his hat into the ring, or water, again. With the bemused approval of his wife and children, Philbrick used the off-season on the island as his solitary training ground, sailing his tiny Sunfish to its remotest corners, experiencing the haunting beauty of its tidal creeks, inlets, and wave battered sand bars. On ponds, bays, rivers, and finally at the championship on a lake in the heartland of America, he sailed through storms and memories, racing for the prize, but finding something unexpected about himself instead. A warm, funny, and modest book about the journey home for one sailor and his family.

Nathaniel Philbrick (Author), Nathaniel Philbrick (Narrator)

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Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602-1890

A book about a tiny island with a huge history, from a New York Times bestselling author of the book, Valiant Ambition (May 2016) “For everyone who loves Nantucket Island this is the indispensable book.” —Russell Baker In his first book of history, Away Off Shore, New York Times-bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick reveals the people and the stories behind what was once the whaling capital of the world. Beyond its charm, quaint local traditions, and whaling yarns, Philbrick explores the origins of Nantucket in this comprehensive history. From the English settlers who thought they were purchasing a “Native American ghost town” but actually found a fully realized society, through the rise and fall of the then thriving whaling industry, the story of Nantucket is a truly unique chapter of American history. With a Preface read by the Author

Nathaniel Philbrick (Author), Scott Brick (Narrator)

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Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution

May be one of the greatest what-if books of the agea volume that turns one of America's best-known narratives on its head. Boston Globe'Clear and insightful, it consolidates his reputation as one of America's foremost practitioners of narrative nonfiction. 'Wall Street JournalFrom the New York Times bestselling author of In The Heart of the Sea and Mayflower comes a surprising account of the middle years of the American Revolution, and the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold. In September 1776, the vulnerable Continental Army under an unsure George Washington (who had never commanded a large force in battle) evacuates New York after a devastating defeat by the British Army. Three weeks later, near the Canadian border, one of his favorite generals, Benedict Arnold, miraculously succeeds in postponing the British naval advance down Lake Champlain that might have ended the war. Four years later, as the book ends, Washington has vanquished his demons and Arnold has fled to the enemy after a foiled attempt to surrender the American fortress at West Point to the British. After four years of war, America is forced to realize that the real threat to its liberties might not come from without but from within. Valiant Ambition is a complex, controversial, and dramatic portrait of a people in crisis and the war that gave birth to a nation. The focus is on loyalty and personal integrity, evoking a Shakespearean tragedy that unfolds in the key relationship of Washington and Arnold, who is an impulsive but sympathetic hero whose misfortunes at the hands of self-serving politicians fatally destroy his faith in the legitimacy of the rebellion. As a country wary of tyrants suddenly must figure out how it should be led, Washington's unmatched ability to rise above the petty politics of his time enables him to win the war that really matters. From the Hardcover edition.

Nathaniel Philbrick (Author), Scott Brick (Narrator)

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Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution

What lights the spark that ignites a revolution? What was it that, in 1775, provoked a group of merchants, farmers, artisans and mariners in the American colonies to unite and take up arms against the British government in pursuit of liberty? Nathaniel Philbrick, the acclaimed historian and bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea and The Last Stand, shines new and brilliant light on the momentous beginnings of the American Revolution, and those individuals - familiar and unknown, and from both sides - who played such a vital part in the early days of the conflict that would culminate in the defining Battle of Bunker Hill. Written with passion and insight, even-handedness and the eloquence of a born storyteller, Bunker Hill brings to life the robust, chaotic and blisteringly real origins of America.

Nathaniel Philbrick (Author), Chris Sorensen (Narrator)

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In the Heart of the Sea: Young Reader’s Edition: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

In the Heart of the Sea brings to new life the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex—the inspiration for the climax of Moby-Dick. In a harrowing page-turner, Nathaniel Philbrick restores this epic story to its rightful place in American history. In 1819 the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an eighty-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear. In the Heart of the Sea tells perhaps the greatest sea story ever. Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of whale lore and with a brilliantly detailed portrait of the lost, unique community of Nantucket whalers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, the book delivers the ultimate portrait of man against nature. At once a literary companion and a page-turner that speaks to the same issues of class, race, and man’s relationship to nature that permeate the works of Melville, In the Heart of the Sea will endure as a vital work of American history. “A book that gets in your bones…Philbrick has created an eerie thriller from a centuries old tale…Scrupulously researched and eloquently written…It would have earned Melville’s admiration.”—New York Times Book Review

Nathaniel Philbrick (Author), Taylor Mali (Narrator)

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Deep Blue: Stories of Shipwreck, Sunken Treasure and Survival

For those who dare, things often go wrong under the sea. Such tragedies, spurred by the booming interest in the Titanic and the Andrea Doria, have been the focus of tremendous literature form the world's finest authors. Deep Blue offers compelling tales of shipwrecks and salvage, submarine adventure and free diving, nautical survival and cannibalism.

Farley Mowat, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Philbrick, Patrick O'brian, Philip Ashton, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rockwell Kent, Stephen Crane (Author), Barrett Whitener, Nick Sampson, Richard Rohan, Terence Aselford (Narrator)

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Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution

Nathaniel Philbrick, the bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea and Mayflower, brings his prodigious talents to the story of the Boston battle that ignited the American Revolution. Boston in 1775 is an island city occupied by British troops after a series of incendiary incidents by patriots who range from sober citizens to thuggish vigilantes. After the Boston Tea Party, British and American soldiers and Massachusetts residents have warily maneuvered around each other until April 19, when violence finally erupts at Lexington and Concord. In June, however, with the city cut off from supplies by a British blockade and Patriot militia poised in siege, skirmishes give way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It would be the bloodiest battle of the Revolution to come, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists. Philbrick brings a fresh perspective to every aspect of the story. He finds new characters, and new facets to familiar ones. The real work of choreographing rebellion falls to a thirty-three year old physician named Joseph Warren who emerges as the on-the-ground leader of the Patriot cause and is fated to die at Bunker Hill. Others in the cast include Paul Revere, Warren's fiance the poet Mercy Scollay, a newly recruited George Washington, the reluctant British combatant General Thomas Gage and his more bellicose successor William Howe, who leads the three charges at Bunker Hill and presides over the claustrophobic cauldron of a city under siege as both sides play a nervy game of brinkmanship for control. With passion and insight, Philbrick reconstructs the revolutionary landscape-geographic and ideological-in a mesmerizing narrative of the robust, messy, blisteringly real origins of America.

Nathaniel Philbrick (Author), Chris Sorensen (Narrator)

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Revenge of the Whale: The True Story of the Whale Ship Essex

Never in the history of whale hunting had a ship been attacked by a whale. But then the unthinkable happened. On November 20, 1820, the whaleship Essex was rammed and sunk by an angry whale. Within minutes, the twenty-one-man crew, including the fourteen-year-old cabin boy Thomas Nickerson, found themselves stranded in three leaky boats in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with barely any supplies and little hope. Three months later, two of the boats were rescued 4,500 miles away, off the coast of South America. Of the twenty-one castaways, only eight survived, including young Thomas. Based on his award-winning bestseller In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick recreates the amazing events of the ill-fated Essex, and tells the tale of one of the great true-life adventures. Recommended for Grades 6 and up.

Nathaniel Philbrick (Author), Taylor Mali (Narrator)

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Why Read Moby-Dick?

The New York Times bestselling author of seagoing epics now celebrates an American classic. Moby-Dick is perhaps the greatest of the Great American Novels, yet its length and esoteric subject matter create an aura of difficulty that too often keeps readers at bay. Fortunately, one unabashed fan wants passionately to give Melville's masterpiece the broad contemporary audience it deserves. In his National Book Award- winning bestseller, In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick captivatingly unpacked the story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex, the real-life incident that inspired Melville to write Moby- Dick. Now, he sets his sights on the fiction itself, offering a cabin master's tour of a spellbinding novel rich with adventure and history. Philbrick skillfully navigates Melville's world and illuminates the book's humor and unforgettable characters-finding the thread that binds Ishmael and Ahab to our own time and, indeed, to all times. A perfect match between author and subject, Why Read Moby-Dick? gives us a renewed appreciation of both Melville and the proud seaman's town of Nantucket that Philbrick himself calls home. Like Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life, this remarkable little book will start conversations, inspire arguments, and, best of all, bring a new wave of readers to a classic tale waiting to be discovered anew.

Nathaniel Philbrick (Author), Nathaniel Philbrick (Narrator)

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The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn

The bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea (Winner of the National Book Award) the forthcoming Valiant Ambition (May 2016), sheds new light on one of the iconic stories of the American West Little Bighorn and Custer are names synonymous in the American imagination with unmatched bravery and spectacular defeat. Mythologized as Custer's Last Stand, the June 1876 battle has been equated with other famous last stands, from the Spartans' defeat at Thermopylae to Davy Crockett at the Alamo.In his tightly structured narrative, Nathaniel Philbrick brilliantly sketches the two larger-than-life antagonists: Sitting Bull, whose charisma and political savvy earned him the position of leader of the Plains Indians, and George Armstrong Custer, one of the Union's greatest cavalry officers and a man with a reputation for fearless and often reckless courage. Philbrick reminds readers that the Battle of the Little Bighorn was also, even in victory, the last stand for the Sioux and Cheyenne Indian nations. Increasingly outraged by the government's Indian policies, the Plains tribes allied themselves and held their ground in southern Montana. Within a few years of Little Bighorn, however, all the major tribal leaders would be confined to Indian reservations.Throughout, Philbrick beautifully evokes the history and geography of the Great Plains with his characteristic grace and sense of drama. The Last Stand is a mesmerizing account of the archetypal story of the American West, one that continues to haunt our collective imagination. From the Hardcover edition.

Nathaniel Philbrick (Author), George Guidall (Narrator)

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