History Audiobooks

Close to Shore: The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916

"Combining rich historical detail and a harrowing, pulse-pounding narrative, Close to Shore brilliantly re-creates the summer of 1916, when a rogue Great White shark attacked swimmers along the New Jersey shore, triggering mass hysteria and launching the most extensive shark hunt in history. In July 1916 a lone Great White left its usual deep-ocean habitat and headed in the direction of the New Jersey shoreline. There, near the towns of Beach Haven and Spring Lake--and, incredibly, a farming community eleven miles inland--the most ferocious and unpredictable of predators began a deadly rampage: the first shark attacks on swimmers in U.S. history. Capuzzo interweaves a vivid portrait of the era and meticulously drawn characters with chilling accounts of the shark's five attacks and the frenzied hunt that ensued. From the unnerving inevitability of the first attack on the esteemed son of a prosperous Philadelphia physician to the spine-tingling moment when a farm boy swimming in Matawan Creek feels the sandpaper-like skin of the passing shark, Close to Shore is an undeniably gripping saga. Heightening the drama are stories of the resulting panic in the citizenry, press and politicians, and of colorful personalities such as Herman Oelrichs, a flamboyant millionaire who made a bet that a shark was no match for a man (and set out to prove it); Museum of Natural History ichthyologist John Treadwell Nichols, faced with the challenge of stopping a mythic sea creature about which little was known; and, most memorable, the rogue Great White itself moving through a world that couldn't conceive of either its destructive power or its moral right to destroy. Scrupulously researched and superbly written, Close to Shore brings to life a breathtaking, pivotal moment in American history. Masterfully written and suffused with fascinating period detail and insights into the science and behavior of sharks, Close to Shore recounts a breathtaking, pivotal moment in American history with startling immediacy."

Michael Capuzzo (Author), Len Cariou (Narrator)

Audiobook

Diary of an Airborne Ranger: A LRRP's Year in the Combat Zone

"Perhaps the most accurate story of LRRPs at war ever to appear in print! When Frank Johnson arrived in Vietnam in 1969, he was nineteen, a young soldier untested in combat like thousands of others--but with two important differences: Johnson volunteered for the elite L Company Rangers of the 101st Airborne Division, a long range reconnaissance patrol (LRRP) unit, and he kept a secret diary, a practice forbidden by the military to protect the security of LRRP operations. Now, more than three decades later, those hastily written pages offer a rare look at the daily operations of one of the most courageous units that waged war in Vietnam. Johnson served in I Corps, in northern Vietnam, where combat was furious and the events he recounts emerge, stark and compelling: walking point in the A Shau Valley, braving enemy fire to rescue a downed comrade, surviving days and nights of relentless tension that suddenly exploded in the blinding fury of an NVA attack. Undimmed and unmuddied by the passing of years, Johnson's account is unique in the annals of Vietnam literature. Moreover, it is a timeless testimony to the sacrifice and heroism of the LRRPs who dared to risk it all."

Frank Johnson (Author), Don Leslie (Narrator)

Audiobook

LRRP Company Command: The Cav's LRP / Rangers in Vietnam, 1968 - 1969

"A gripping account of ordinary men with extraordinary courage and heroism who had one last chance to make good-and one helluva war zone to do it in. The new commander of the Company E, 52d Infantry LRRPs, Capt. George Paccerelli, was tough, but the men's new AO was brutal. It was bad enough that the provinces of Binh Long, Phuoc Long, and Tay Ninh bordered enemy-friendly Cambodia, but their vast stretches of double- and triple-canopy jungle were also home to four crack enemy divisions, including the Viet Cong's notorious 95C Regiment. Only the long-range patrols could deliver the critical strategic intelligence that the 1st Cav so desperately needed. Outmanned, outgunned, far from safety, these LRRPs stalked the enemy to his lair, staging bold prisoner snatches and tracking down hidden jungle bases. Hiding in ambush, surrounded by NVA, these teams either pulled off spectacular escape-and-evasion maneuvers in running firefights-or died trying."

Kregg P. Jorgenson (Author), Don Leslie (Narrator)

Audiobook

Death in the Jungle: Diary of a Navy Seal

"Read by Eric Conger 2 Cassettes/ 2 hrs. With 257 combat missions in Vietnam under his belt, Gary Smith is a living witness to the realities of Naval Special Warfare. He worked with some of the toughest and most highly motivated men in the world, executing missions in the murderous terrain of the Rung Sat Special Zone and Dung Island. The key to their success: go where no ordinary soldier would go and no VC would expect them. Through death reigned as king in the jungles as king in the jungles of Vietnam, Gary Smith considered it a privelege and an honor to serve under the officers and with the men of Underwater Demolition Team 12 and SEAL Team 1. Because he and his teammates, trained to the max, gave each other the courage at attain the unattainable..."

Alan Maki, Gary R. Smith (Author), Eric Conger (Narrator)

Audiobook

The History of Theatre

"This bold undertaking covers Western theatre from ancient Greece to the present day. It traces the development of dramatic art through the miracle plays, the great Shakespearean period, MoliÃ¨re and Racine in France, Goethe in Germany, through the nineteenth century and the main movements in the twentieth century. It is illustrated by numerous examples of differing styles, with some historical recordings as well and excerpts from nearly fifty plays - a fascinating journey. It is written by David Timson, the British actor and director who features extensively on Naxos AudioBooks in both roles."

David Timson (Author), Derek Jacobi, Various (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Pearl Harbor Collection: At Dawn We Slept; Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History; Dec. 7, 1941

Gordon W. Prange (Author), Tony Roberts (Narrator)

Audiobook

Prince of Tennesee: Rise of Al Gore

"In The Prince of Tennessee, David Maraniss and Ellen Nakashima explore in rich detail the forces that have shaped Al Gore's life, and the ways that his past offers clues to what kind of president he might have been. The Gore who comes to life in this audiobook is an intelligent and competent man, struggling with self-doubt and insecurity that explain his bureaucratic obsession with fact and his tendency to exaggerate his accomplishments. Gore's path to power, at first glance, seems straight and narrow. While Bill Clinton's rise is a story of obstacles overcome, Gore's ascendance seems the opposite: the son of political aristocracy reared by loving and demanding parents who groomed him as a princeling to reach the top. But his life was shaped by as much duality as Clinton's. As a child Gore was shuffled back and forth from political Washington to rural Tennessee, his ancestral homeland. The contrast reflects a larger tension between what others expected of Gore and what he wanted to do. Here was the quintessential good son whom his classmates teased as the wooden Apollo. He would occasionally try to rebel but inevitably be yanked back by the burden of expectations and his own insecurity. His first ambition was to be a novelist, but his friends at Harvard saw him as a royal figure for whom a political career was unavoidable. He opposed the war in Vietnam, yet enlisted in the army anyway, out of an obligation to shield his father, the antiwar senator. When he eventually turned to politics Gore brought with him competing impulses: the cautious political moderate with an occasional tendency toward uncommon boldness, the awkward public figure who in private can be a raucous storyteller, the loyal son and vice president who wants to be considered on his own terms, the reluctant politician who burns with a desire to fulfill his parents' dream and become president."

David Maraniss (Author), David Maraniss (Narrator)

Audiobook

An Album of Memories: Personal Histories From the Greatest Generation

"“I cannot go anywhere in America without people wanting to share their wartime experiences....The stories and the lessons have emerged from long-forgotten letters home, from reunions of old buddies and outfits, from unpublished diaries and home-published memoirs....As the stories in this album of memories remind us, it truly was an American experience, from the centers of power to the most humble corners of the land.” —Tom Brokaw In this beautiful American family album of stories from the Greatest Generation, the history of life as it was lived during the Depression and World War II comes alive and is preserved in people’s own words. Photographs and time lines also commemorate important dates and events. An Army Air Corps veteran who enlisted in 1941 at age seventeen writes to describe the Bataan Death March. A black nurse tells of her encounter with wartime segregation. Other members of the Greatest Generation describe their war—in such historic episodes as Guadalcanal, the D-Day invasion, the Battle of the Bulge, and Midway—as well as their lives on the home front. Starting with the Depression and Pearl Harbor, moving on through the war years in Europe, in the Pacific, and at home, this unique book preserves a people’s rich historical heritage and the legacy of a nation’s heroism in war and its courage in peace—in the shaping of their lives and of the world we have today."

Tom Brokaw (Author), Tom Brokaw (Narrator)

Audiobook

[French] - Les plus belles Histoires de Haim - Vol 2: Comme si vous y étiez

Haim Nisenbaum, Yossef Brami (Author), Yossef Brami (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Second Coming of Steve Jobs

"From the acclaimed Vanity Fair and GQ journalist–an unprecedented, in-depth portrait of the man whose return to Apple precipitated one of the biggest turnarounds in business history. With a new epilogue on Apple’s future survival in today’s roller-coaster economy, here is the revealing biography that blew away the critics and stirred controversy within industry and media circles around the country."

Alan Deutschman (Author), Charles Stransky (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession

"Over the centuries, gold had stirred the passions for power and glory, for beauty and security, and even for immortality. No other object has commanded so much veneration over such a long period of time. The most striking feature of this long history is that gold led most of the protagonists in the drama into the ditch. Gold had them, rather than the other way around. Power and passion begin with the magical, religious, and artistic qualities of gold. As the story progresses from primitive uses to the invention of coinage and the transformation of gold into money and the gold standard, gold speaks more loudly of power as it acquires increasing importance as money. Ultimately, the book confronts the future of gold, in a world where gold has been relegated to the periphery of global finance. Along the way, we meet Moses and Midas, Croesus and Crassus, Byzantine emperors and humble miners, unscrupulous moneyers and ransomed kings, Francisco Pizzaro and Benvenuto Cellini, Charlemange and Charles de Gaulle, Richard I and Richard Nixon, Asian monarchs and Arab potentates, Isaac Newton and Winston Churchill, David Ricardo and John Maynard Keynes, and the Forty-Niners and the speculators who pushed gold to $850 an ounce in 1980. It has been an icon for greed and an emblem of rectitude, as well as a vehicle for vanity and a badge of power that has shaped the destiny of humanity through the ages. In the end, this story is a morality tale. The pursuit of eternity will not be satisfied by gold, or by anything else we choose to rpelace gold. Gold as an end in itself is meaningless. Hoarding does not create wealth. Gold makes sense only as a means to an end; to beautify, to adorn, to exchange for what we want and need."

Peter L. Bernstein (Author), Eric Conger (Narrator)

Audiobook

Lost and Found Sound

"On January 1, 1999, All Things Considered aired the first in a series of richly layered stories that trace the soundtrack of the 20th century. Broadcast weekly through 1999, continuing monthly through 2000, Lost & Found Sound chronicles, reflects, and celebrates the human experience in rare recordings and "sonic snapshots" submitted by listeners. Blending the historic with the everyday, the monumental with the personal, this is evocative, haunting, eclectic listening—endangered sounds, shifting accents, vanishing voices, home recordings, and audio artifacts that reveal a sense of place and mark the passage of time. Contents: • Tony Schwartz: 30,000 Recordings Later • Quest for Sound: Gettysburg Eyewitness • Fishman, Fishman Cigar Stories, narrated by Andy Garcia • Carnival Talkers • LBJ and the Helium-Filled Astronauts • Listening to the Northern Lights • West Virginia Steam Trains • Tennessee Williams: The Pennyland Recordings • Sound Restoration • The Partridge Family Grand Tour"

Jay Allison, The Kitchen Sisters (Author), Noah Adams (Narrator)

Audiobook

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