Audiobooks by Tom Johnson

Driven: A Life in Public Service and Journalism from LBJ to CNN

"Driven brings a seasoned perspective to today's conversations about government, media, and the future of truth in the form of a deeply personal and long-awaited autobiography by Tom Johnson, an award-winning journalist who helped shape the twenty-four-hour news media as we know it. Johnson's storied career in public service and journalism that began as a reporter at the Macon Telegraph in Georgia spans the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, where he was an eyewitness to painful negotiations on Vietnam and notified the president that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated, through the executive leadership of the LA Times and, finally, Ted Turner's upstart CNN in Atlanta. From his perspective 'inside the room,' Johnson provides eyewitness accounts of LBJ’s triumphs and failings as well as an on-the-ground view of the magnificent achievements and significant shortfalls of late twentieth-century American journalism. Johnson is also candid about his lifelong struggle with depression and has actively worked in retirement as a leader in mental health, cancer research, Alzheimer's, and addiction treatment and recovery. With more than eight decades behind him, Driven is not just Johnson's look at the past but a chance for his story to offer guidance about finding balance in an uncertain future."

Tom Johnson (Author), Malcolm Hillgartner (Narrator)

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C'mon, Get Happy: The Making of Summer Stock

"In their third and final screen teaming, Judy Garland and Gene Kelly starred together in the MGM musical Summer Stock. In C'mon, Get Happy, authors David Fantle and Tom Johnson present a comprehensive study of this 1950 motion picture. The production coincided at a critical point in the careers of Kelly and an emotionally spent Garland. Kelly, who starred in An American in Paris just one year later, was at the peak of his abilities. On the other hand, Summer Stock was Garland's final film at MGM, and she gamely completed it despite her own personal struggles. Summer Stock includes Kelly's favorite solo dance routine and Garland's signature number 'Get Happy.' The authors discuss in rich detail the contributions of the cast, the director, the producer, the script writers, the songwriters, and top MGM executives. The volume features extensive interviews, conducted by the authors, with Gene Kelly, Charles Walters, Harry Warren, and others, who shared their recollections of making the movie. Deeply researched, C'mon, Get Happy reveals the studio system at work during Hollywood's Golden Era. Additionally, the authors have written a special section that buttonholes numerous contemporary dancers, singers, choreographers, musicians, and even Garland impersonators for their take on Summer Stock, its stars, and any enduring legacy they think the film might have."

David Fantle, Tom Johnson (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

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Silver Planet

"Death is no longer a mystery. The magic of eternity has been found. I often hear people wondering if life carries on after death. It always makes me smile. That's exactly what happens. And I used to think no one would discover the truth while they were alive. I was wrong. A sixteen-year-old boy just did. His name is Jonathan Powers and this is his story. Jonathan's from a planet called Centurian, but that's not where his story begins. It begins on Earth with the tragic death of a boy from London whose soul travelled from Earth to Centurian and became part of Jonathan. That much is as it should be. Humans join the consciousness of other humans on a distant planet when they die. It's what happened next that I don't understand. Jonathan entered the world of the dead, alive. I'm still searching for answers to how he did it and I'm supposed to know about these things. My name is Rose. I'm a little robin. You might have met me outside your house or in a local park. Don't worry if you haven't, you'll meet me inside this book. I'm helping Jonathan find a way home. It's one thing to go where only the dead have been, quite another to find a way back."

Tom Johnson (Author), Tom Johnson (Narrator)

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