Audiobooks by Robert Olen Butler

The Best Peace Fiction: A Social Justice Anthology

"In the first anthology of its kind, Robert Olen Butler and Phong Nguyen assemble an astounding collection of stories that cause listeners to contemplate war, peace, and social justice in a new light. The fourteen stories featured in this volume explore the varied and often unexpected outcomes of violence. The authors explore the tragedies that occur closer to home—not on military battlefields but rather in places that are never meant to be battlefields, like schools and churches. The fiction reveals the violence that renders our most sacred and seemingly safest of places vulnerable. Not a utopian project, this book asks whether literature has a role in furthering the ongoing pursuit of peace and justice for all. While exploring tragedy, these stories also offer hope for healing, illuminating how people can move forward from the moments when their lives change and how they can regain and reshape safe spaces to find solace."

Phong Nguyen, Robert Olen Butler (Author), Siiri Scott, Tim Lounibos (Narrator)

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From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction

"The Pulitzer Prize-winning author 'shares his insights into—and passion for—the creation and experience of fiction with total openness' (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Robert Olen Butler, author of Perfume River, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, and A Small Hotel, teaches graduate fiction at Florida State University—his version of literary boot camp. In From Where You Dream, Butler reimagines the process of writing as emotional rather than intellectual and tells writers how to achieve the dream space necessary for composing honest, inspired fiction. Proposing that fiction is the exploration of the human condition with yearning as its compass, Butler reinterprets the traditional tools of the craft using the dynamics of desire. Offering a direct view into the mind and craft of a literary master, From Where You Dream is an invaluable tool for the novice and experienced writer alike. 'Incisive and provocative, Butler's tutorials are a must for anyone even thinking about writing fiction, and readers, too, will benefit from his passionate exhortations.' —Booklist"

Robert Olen Butler (Author), Robert Olen Butler (Narrator)

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Bibliomysteries Volume 3

"A must-listen collection of four bibliomysteries by bestselling and award-winning authors Bibliomysteries Volume 3 includes: ● 'The Hemingway Valise' by Robert Olen Butler ● 'Dead Dames Don't Sing' by John Harvey ● 'The Dark Door' by Lisa Unger ● 'Bibliotheca Classica' by Simon Brett"

John Harvey, Lisa Unger, Robert Olen Butler, Simon Brett (Author), Carrie Coello, Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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Late City

"A visionary and poignant audiobook centred around former newspaperman Sam Cunningham as he prepares to die, Late City covers much of the early twentieth century, unfurling as a conversation between the dying man and a surprising God. As the two review Sam's life, from his childhood in the American South and his time in the French trenches during World War I to his fledgling newspaper career in Chicago in the Roaring Twenties and the decades that follow, snippets of history are brought sharply into focus. Sam grows up in Louisiana, with a harsh father, who he comes to resent both for his physical abuse and for what Sam eventually perceives as his flawed morality. Eager to escape and prove himself, Sam enlists in the army as a sniper while still underage. The hardness his father instilled in him helps him make it out of World War I alive, but, as he recounts these tales on his deathbed, we come to realise that it also prevents him from contending with the emotional wounds of war. Back in the US, Sam moves to Chicago to begin a career as a newspaperman that will bring him close to all the major historical turns of the twentieth century. There he meets his wife and has a son, whose fate counters Sam's at almost every turn. As he contemplates his relationships - with his parents, his brothers in arms, his wife, his editor, and most importantly, his son - Sam is amazed at what he still has left to learn about himself after all these years in this heart-rending audiobook from the Pulitzer Prize winner. “Late City is an honest, poignant reckoning of what it means to gaze unblinkingly at our own failings and to find transcendence.' HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY 'With two dozen remarkably imaginative and empathic fiction titles to his credit, Butler brings preternatural attunement to the spiraling of the mind and ardently honed artistry to this exceptionally nuanced, tender, funny, tragic, and utterly transfixing portrait of a man reflecting on more than a century's worth of horror and wonder.'--Booklist, starred review 'A moving tale of love and misunderstanding.'--Publishers Weekly"

Robert Olen Butler (Author), Danny Campbell (Narrator)

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The Empire of Night

"It is 1917, and the United States is still wavering on the brink of war. At an elite intelligence meeting at a Hyde Park mansion, Kit's handlers pair him up with someone he would never have expected—his mother. There's a German mole somewhere in the British government, and the most likely suspect happens to be a diehard fan of the famous American theater actress Isabel Cobb. Disguised as a German-American reporter named Joseph William Hunter, Kit follows his mother and her escort Sir Albert Stockman from the relative safety of London into the lion's den of Berlin. This third installment in Butler's critically-acclaimed series features the swash-buckling action, charismatic leading man, and artful prose that have won the hearts of historical crime fiction fans everywhere."

Robert Olen Butler (Author), Ray Chase (Narrator)

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The Star of Istanbul: A Christopher Marlowe Cobb Thriller

"The first World War is underway; Germany has allied with the Ottoman Empire, and the Turkish caliphs have declared jihad on the British Empire. Meanwhile, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson hesitates to enter the fray. Aboard the passenger liner Lusitania, war correspondent and American spy Kit Cobb has been assigned to shadow a German intellectual and possible covert agent who is believed to have information vital to the war effort. During the voyage Cobb is smitten with famed actress Selene Bourgani, who inexplicably seems to be working for the Germans. Cobb soon realizes this simple actress is anything but, as she harbors secrets that could pour gasoline on a world already in flames. From the doomed voyage of the Lusitania to the darkest corners of London to the powder keg that is Istanbul, Cobb must venture deep behind enemy lines and use all the cunning in his possession to uncover Bourgani’s true motives."

Robert Olen Butler (Author), Ray Chase (Narrator)

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The Hot Country: A Christopher Marlowe Cobb Thriller

"Christopher Marlowe Cobb (“Kit”), the swashbuckling early 20th-century American newspaper war correspondent, travels to Mexico in April and May of 1914, during that country’s civil war and the American invasion of Vera Cruz. But covering the war in enemy territory and in sweltering heat isn’t enough of a challenge for Cobb. Soon, he’s falling in love with a young Mexican laundress, Luisa, who may not be as innocent as she seems, and he’s witnessing the inexplicable attempted sniper assassination of a priest (miraculously, the bullet rebounds off the cross around his neck, leaving him unharmed). Now Cobb is also trying to track down a sniper—and figure out why important German officials are coming into the city in the middle of the night from ammunition ships docked in the port. An exciting tale of intrigue and espionage, Butler’s powerful crime-fiction debut is a thriller not to be missed."

Robert Olen Butler (Author), Ray Chase (Narrator)

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A Small Hotel

"Set in contemporary New Orleans but working its way back in time, A Small Hotel chronicles the relationship between Michael and Kelly Hays, who have decided to separate after twenty years of marriage. The book begins on the day that the Hays are to finalize their divorce. Kelly is due to be in court, but instead she drives to New Orleans and checks into the hotel where she and Michael fell in love some twenty years earlier and where she must now make a decision that will forever affect her, Michael, and their nineteen-year-old daughter. Butler masterfully weaves scenes of the present with memories from both Michael and Kelly, showing two people deeply in love but struggling with their own inabilities to express this love."

Robert Olen Butler (Author), Robert Olen Butler (Narrator)

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Wartime Lives

"What happens to people's lives during times of battle and strife? From the American Revolution to the ongoing war in Iraq, the subject of this collection is how people cope with the dramatic shifts that come with war. Before Independence, a slave fights for freedom by taking up arms for the British; in WWI, a mother goes to the front lines to see her son; and in our time, a teenager in Oregon waits for e-mail from his father in the Middle East."

Benjamin Percy, Charles Johnson, Maile Meloy, Robert Olen Butler, Tim O'Brien, Tom Bissell (Author), Dylan Baker, Kathleen Chalfant, Keith Szarabajka, Oskar Eustis, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Ted Marcoux (Narrator)

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Audiobooks by Robert Olen Butler

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