Audiobooks narrated by David De Vries

Purified: How Recycled Sewage Is Transforming Our Water

In Purified, veteran journalist Peter Annin shows that wastewater has become a surprising weapon in America's war against water scarcity. Annin probes deep into the water reuse movement in five water-strapped states-California, Texas, Virginia, Nevada, and Florida. He drinks beer made from purified sewage, visits communities where purified sewage came to the rescue, and examines how one of the nation's largest wastewater plants hopes to recycle one hundred percent of its wastewater by 2035. At each stop, listeners come face to face with the people who are struggling for, and against, recycled water. While the current filtration technology transforms sewage into something akin to distilled water-free of chemicals and safe to drink-water recycling's challenge isn't technology. It's terminology. Concerns about communities being used as 'guinea pigs,' sensationalist media coverage, and taglines like 'toilet to tap' have repeatedly crippled water recycling efforts. Potable water recycling has become the hottest frontier in the race for expanded water supply options. But can public opinion turn in time to avoid the worst consequences? Purified's fast-paced narrative cuts through the fearmongering and misinformation to make the case that recycled water is direly needed in the climate-change era. Water cannot be taken for granted anymore-and that includes sewage.

Peter Annin (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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OPLAN Fulda: World War III

May, 1989. The two nuclear superpowers are finally talking peace, but not everyone in the Soviet Union seeks such resolution. Senior Soviet ministers and generals conduct a coup to seize power and prevent the dissolution of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. To cover up their plot and capitalize on the resulting chaos, they invade West Germany, setting off a chain of events and the Third World War. Across Europe, soldiers and spies are drawn into the conflict. From NATO headquarters to the front lines, the information is there to prevent nuclear annihilation if only they can find it in time. Based on the declassified Operations Order 33001, Leo Barron's decades of military intelligence experience allow this military thriller to dive deep into tactics and realistically explore how everything could have changed in 1989.

Leo Barron (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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To the One I Love the Best

A witty and charming account of the wildly entertaining Elsie de Wolfe in 1950s Hollywood, recounted by her dear friend, the beloved creator of Madeline. Ludwig Bemelmans's charming intergenerational friendship with the late-in-life 'First Lady of Interior Decoration' provides an enormously enjoyable nostalgia trip to the sun-soaked glamour of Los Angeles, where de Wolfe surrounded herself with classic movie stars and a luminous parade of life's oddities. With hilarity and mischief that de Wolfe would no doubt approve, To the One I Love the Best lifts the curtain on 1950s Hollywood-a bygone world of extravagance and eccentricity, where the parties are held in circus tents and populated by movie stars. Bemelmans, who was working at MGM, had originally come to the California home of de Wolfe just for cocktails, but by the end of the night, he was firmly established as a member of the family: given a bedroom in their sumptuous house, invitations to the most outrageous parties in Hollywood, and the friendship of the larger-than-life woman known to her closest friends simply as 'Mother.' To the One I Love the Best is a touching tribute to a fabulously funny woman and an American icon.

Ludwig Bemelmans (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Bomb Group: The Eighth Air Force's 381st and The Allied Air Offensive Over Europe

In February 1942, a reconnaissance party of US Army Air Force officers arrived in England. Firmly wedded to the doctrine of daylight precision bombing, they believed they could help turn the tide of the war in Europe. In the months that followed, they formed the Eighth Air Force-an organization that grew at an astonishing rate. To accommodate it, almost seventy airfields were hastily built across the eastern counties of England. At the heart of the Eighth Air Force was its bombardment groups, each equipped with scores of heavily armed, four-engine bombers. These Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and Consolidated B-24 Liberators were soon punching through the enemy's defenses to bomb targets vital to its war effort. They were crewed by thousands of young American airmen, most of whom were volunteers. This is the story of just one 'Bomb Group'-the 381st, which crossed the Atlantic in May 1943. Arriving at RAF Ridgewell on the Essex-Suffolk border, its airmen quickly found themselves thrown into the hazardous and attritional air battle raging in the skies over Europe. The 381st's path led from its formation in the Texan desert, to its 297th and final bombing mission deep into the heart of Hitler's Third Reich. This is the remarkable story of one group and the part it played in the strategic bombing campaign of 'The Mighty Eighth.'

Mike Peters, Paul Bingley (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Instruments of Darkness: The History of Electronic Warfare, 1939-1945

The rapid evolution of radio and radar systems for military use during WWII, and devices to counter them, led to a technological battle that neither the Axis nor the Allied powers could afford to lose. The result was a continual series of thrusts, parries, and counter-thrusts, as first one side then the other sought to wrest the initiative in the struggle to control the ether. This was a battle fought with strange-sounding weapons: 'Freya', 'Mandrel', 'Boozer', and 'Window'; and was characterized by the bravery, self-sacrifice, and skill of those who took part in it. However, for many years the use of electronic-warfare systems during the conflict remained a closely guarded military secret. When that veil of secrecy was finally lifted, the technicalities of the subject meant that it remained beyond the reach of lay researchers. Alfred Price, an aircrew officer with the RAF where he flew with V-Force and specialized in electronic warfare and air fighting tactics, was in the unique position to lift the lid on this largely unexplored aspect of the Second World War. When it was first published in 1967, Instruments of Darkness came to be regarded as a standard reference work on this intriguing subject. This completely revised edition concludes with the Japanese surrender in August 1945 and brings the analysis fully up to date in the light of what we now know.

Alfred Price (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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The Dissident: Alexey Navalny: Profile of a Political Prisoner

A news-driven biography of Vladimir Putin's nemesis Alexey Navalny- lawyer, blogger, anti-corruption crusader, protest organizer, political opposition leader, mayoral and presidential candidate, campaign strategist, provocateur, poisoning victim, dissident, and now, prisoner of conscience and anti-war crusader. THE DISSIDENT is the story of how one fearless man, offended by the dishonesty and criminality of the Russian political system, mounted a relentless opposition movement and became President Vladimir Putin's most formidable rival-so despised that the Russian leader makes a point of never uttering Navalny's name. There's an old saying that Russia without corruption isn't Russia. Alexey Navalny refuses to accept this proposition. His stubborn insistence that Russians can defy the stereotype and create an entirely different country made him such a threat to Putin that the Kremlin wanted him exiled-or dead-and now seems intent on keeping him locked in a prison colony for decades. International correspondent David M. Herszenhorn, weaves together the threads of Navalny's remarkable life and work: - The assassination attempt with a military- grade nerve agent by an FSB hit squad in Siberia, his recovery, and the vigilante-style investigation with news outlet Bellingcat to identify and confront his own would-be killers; - Navalny's personal biography as part of the generation that straddled the end of the Soviet Union and birth of the Russian Federation, including childhood summers with his Ukrainian grandparents near Chernobyl, and his fellowship at Yale University, which spurred conspiracy theories about his ties to the U.S.; - His anti-corruption investigations that exposed billions in graft at Russia's biggest state-owned companies and vast bribe-taking by top Russian officials, including his blockbuster revelations about Putin's Black Sea Palace; - His political activism, including huge street protests, his bid for Moscow mayor in 2013, renegade run for president in 2017, his controversial views on nationalism, gun rights and Crimea, his transformation into a prisoner of conscience bravely denouncing Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine, and more. Riveting and complex, THE DISSIDENT introduces readers to modern Russia's greatest agitator, a man willing to sacrifice his freedom-and even his own life-to build the decent, democratic country he wants to live in and hopes to pass on to his children.

David Herszenhorn (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Hotel Splendide

Acerbic, colorful, and spirited stories from a bygone era: behind the scenes in a grand New York hotel, from the author of the Madeline books Picture David Sedaris writing Kitchen Confidential about the Ritz in New York in the 1920s, which had the style and charm of The Grand Budapest Hotel . . . In this charming and uproariously funny hotel memoir, Ludwig Bemelmans uncovers the fabulous world of the Hotel Splendide-the thinly disguised stand-in for the Ritz-a luxury New York hotel where he worked as a waiter in the 1920s. With equal parts affection and barbed wit, he uncovers the everyday chaos that reigns behind the smooth facades of the gilded dining room and banquet halls. In hilarious detail, Bemelmans sketches the hierarchy of hotel life and its strange and fascinating inhabitants: from the ruthlessly authoritarian maître d'hôtel Monsieur Victor to the kindly waiter Mespoulets to Frizl the homesick busboy. Bemelmans' tales of a bygone era of extravagance are as charming as they are riotously entertaining.

Ludwig Bemelmans (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Mary: The Mary Tyler Moore Story

Mary: The Mary Tyler Moore Story is the first, full-length, objective biography of Moore's entire life and career, from her birth in 1936 until the day she left this world on January 25, 2017. No previously published biography or book about Moore dares to discuss as honestly and as thoroughly her personal and professional life, exploring her triumphs as well as her struggles before, during, and after the countless TV productions, feature films, stage plays, and personal appearances that spanned her career. In covering the gamut of Moore's personal and professional life, this book features all-new commentary culled from exclusive interviews with many of her costars over the years, including Ed Asner, Gavin MacLeod, and Joyce Bulifant (from the Mary Tyler Moore Show); Larry Matthews (little Ritchie Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show); Carol Channing (Moore's costar from the 1967 feature film, Thoroughly Modern Millie), and many others. Mary delivers pertinent insights and unique behind-the-scenes perspectives and recollections of the multi-talented performer/humanitarian that Mary Tyler Moore was and will always remain in the eyes of millions of her fans the world over.

Herbie J Pilato (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Running from the Mirror: A Memoir

As quickly as his face disappeared, so did his mother and father. Just three days after he was born, Howard Shulman contracted an infection that attacked his face, devouring his nose, lips, lower right eyelid, tear ducts, and palate. Abandoned at the hospital by his parents, he became a ward of New Jersey under the care of a state-employed surgeon who experimentally rebuilt his face. Running from the Mirror is a poignant story of one man's struggle to survive against staggering odds and create a meaningful life for himself. With unapologetic candor, Howard gives an unflinching account of growing up a bullied outcast, with no family to officially call his own. Relying on little more than street smarts and grit, he rises from dishwasher to successful entrepreneur. Along the way, a European actress, a schoolteacher, and a fiery Latina help transform his life. Filled with heart-wrenching suffering as well as soul-lifting joy, Running from the Mirror is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

Howard Shulman (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Defectors: How the Illicit Flight of Soviet Citizens Built the Borders of the Cold War World

Defectors fleeing the Soviet Union seized the world's attention during the Cold War. Their stories were given sensational news coverage and dramatized in spy novels and films. Upon reaching the West, they were entitled to special benefits, including financial assistance and permanent residency. In contrast to other migrants, defectors were pursued by the states they left even as they were eagerly sought by the United States and its allies. Taking part in a risky game that played out across the globe, defectors sought to transcend the limitations of the Cold War world. Defectors follows their treacherous journeys and looks at how their unauthorized flight via land, sea, and air gave shape to a globalized world. It charts a global struggle over defectors that unfolded among rival intelligence agencies operating in the shadows of an occupied Europe, in the forbidden border zones of the USSR, in the disputed straits of the South China Sea, on a hijacked plane 10,000 feet in the air, and around the walls of Soviet embassies. Although defection all but disappeared after the Cold War, this innovative work shows how it shaped the governance of global borders and helped forge an international refugee system whose legacy and limitations remain with us to this day.

Erik R. Scott (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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HBR's 10 Must Reads for Mid-Level Managers

The pandemic, and the resultant ever-evolving landscape of hybrid work, highlighted that we're asking more of our mid-level managers than ever. You balance leading your team with maintaining your high-level individual performance. You provide feedback and coaching, support your people through tough times, field requests large and small, and communicate in every direction. Mid-level managers are the key to managing a hybrid workforce, leading innovation, managing talent, and helping your organization-and its people-adapt to our changing world. If you read (or listen to) nothing else on being an effective mid-level manager, listen to these ten articles by experts in the field. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the best ones to help you manage up and down, interpret and distill important messages, lobby for time and resources for key projects and players, and lead change-all while getting things done. This book will inspire you to: build teams and develop talent; transform your role from intermediary to innovator; encourage critical thinking; foster a culture of psychological safety; lead change by leveraging internal networks; understand the cognitive and emotional drain of having both high and low power; and form partnerships at every level of the organization.

Harvard Business Review (Author), David De Vries, Sofia Willingham (Narrator)

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Will and the Clan of Shadows: A Ninja Squirrel Adventure

Beware the Clan of Shadows. An ancient amulet. A family of warrior rats. And a looming attack from the feared Clan of Shadows. Heathermoor Valley is a peaceful place until the sinister fox Ghost Eye attacks the ancient fortress of Thornkeep with the savage Clan of Shadows army. The only hope for the rats of Thornkeep is to get word to their allies, the ferocious Bear Clan in far away Honey Cliff. The fate of Heathermoor Valley falls into the small paws of a young rat named Will. Can he get to Honey Cliff without being caught by lurking monsters in the night?

Marisa Fife (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by David De Vries