Audiobooks narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

"The island of St. Martin is the glittering jewel of the French Caribbean. When fire threatens its narrow streets and skyscraper-studded waterfronts, the daring airborne firemen of Marin-Pyronef answer the call. Their remotely piloted drones can suffocate flames before conventional fire engines could even roll out of the station, while their jumpcraft can drop rescuers onto the roofs of buildings that no ladder could reach. This is the vision that the company's founder, veteran smoke jumper Florian Archambeault, has spent the last 20 years building into a model of firefighting excellence. Now, in a single afternoon, 70 years of domination by St. Martin's corrupt Colonial Administration comes crashing down. In haste to evacuate after a stunning military defeat, four people are trapped atop the administration headquarters by a raging fire. Locked in a safe room with their air supply running low, only one fire company has a chance to save them. This is the rescue that would make Marin-Pyronef's reputation on the world stage, and finally vindicate what Florian has spent a lifetime trying to prove. But there's a problem. Among those trapped is despised colonial commissioner Pascal Beaulieu, the man who ruined and exiled Florian two decades ago. Will Florian's sense of duty trump his thirst for revenge? Can he afford to save the most hated man on the island?"

Michael DiBaggio (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock

"The story of the man who changed people’s relationships with their showers forever, thanks to Psycho, this is the classic, Edgar Award–winning biography of the enigmatic and intensely private Alfred Hitchcock. One of America’s greatest film directors, his suspenseful subject matter ranged from the dark drama of a man possibly trying to kill his wife, to the humorous problem of disposing of a body, to the ecological underpinnings of an attack by fowl fiends in a sleepy harbor town. Acclaimed biographer Donald Spoto explores the roots of Hitchcock’s obsessions—with food, murder, and idealized love, among others—and traces the origins of his incomparable, bizarre genius, from his childhood and education to the golden years of his career. Based on interviews with his writers, actors, and longtime associates, and on exhaustive research, The Dark Side of Genius is the definitive biography of Alfred Hitchcock."

Donald Spoto (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

Life after Television: The Coming Transformation of Media and American Life

"In this remarkably prescient book, Gilder predicts how television will merge with other technologies and evolve into the telecomputer, a personal computer adapted for video processing and connected by fiberoptic threads to other personal computers around the world. This interactive system will change how we do business, educate our children, and spend our leisure time. It will imperil all large, centralized organizations, including broadcasting and cable networks, phone companies, government bureaucracies, and multinational corporations. But the United States has only to unleash its industrial resources to command the "telefuture," in which new technology will overthrow the stultifying influence of mass media, renew the power of individuals, and promote democracy throughout the world."

George Gilder (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

Milton Friedman: A Guide to His Economic Thought

"One of the great economists of the twentieth century, Milton Friedman has always challenged the prevailing economic orthodoxy. At the same time, his work has become popular because it is engagingly written and because it helps in practical prediction. Thanks to Friedman, money is now regarded as a far more powerful factor than it had been before. It offers the prospect of permanently controlling the inflation that has become the most important economic problem of our age. Eamonn Butler's clear, systematic, perceptive study deftly describes Friedman's ideas and explains their significance. Starting with a short survey of Friedman's career, Dr. Butler goes on to analyze the main elements in his thought, including the importance of monetary policy, the supply of money, the factors that influence demand, the causes and nature of inflation, and much more."

Eamonn Butler (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

"In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, Postman chronicles our transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it. According to Postman, technology is rapidly gaining sovereignty over social institutions and national life to become self-justifying, self-perpetuating, and omnipresent. He warns that this will have radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, religion, family, education, privacy, intelligence, and truth, as they are redefined to fit the requirements of the technological thought-world."

Neil Postman (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom

"For over two millennia in the West, familiarity with the literature, philosophy, and values of the Classical World has been synonymous with education itself. The traditions of the Greeks explain why Western Culture's unique tenets of democracy, capitalism, civil liberty, and constitutional government are now sweeping the globe. Yet the general public in America knows less about its cultural origins than ever before, as Classical education rapidly disappears from our high school and university curricula. Acclaimed classicists Hanson and Heath raise an impassioned call to arms: if we lose our knowledge of the Greeks, we lose our understanding of who we are. With straightforward advice and informative reading lists, the authors present a highly useful primer for anyone who wants more knowledge of Classics, and thus of the beauty and perils of our own culture."

John Heath, Victor Davis Hanson (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Here in one volume are both the Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series from one of the most influential philosophers in American history. Although Ralph Waldo Emerson, perhaps America's most famous philosopher, did not wish to be referred to as a transcendentalist, he is nevertheless considered the founder of this major movement of nineteenth-century American thought. Emerson was influenced by a liberal religious training; theological study; personal contact with the Romanticists Coleridge, Carlyle, and Wordsworth; and a strong indigenous sense of individualism and self-reliance. Emerson's best work was done between 1836 and 1860, a period which includes his famous Essays. These essays contain his most important writing and radiate with sensitivity and wonder. Here Emerson's prose shows him to be both a vigorous thinker and a profound mystic, a man of exquisite feeling combined with stern moral fiber. His strong love of retirement from life, contemplation of the sublime and the mystic, his self-reliance, and his strong character left their stamp not only on such writers as Thoreau, Whitman, and Emily Dickinson but also on the American character at large. This collection includes the following: First Series: History Self-Reliance Compensation Spiritual Laws Love Friendship Prudence Heroism The Over-Soul Circles Intellect Art Second Series: The Poet Experience Character Manners Gifts Nature Politics Nominalist and Realist"

Ralph Waldo Emerson (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

Trashing the Planet: How Science Can Help Us Deal with Acid Rain, Depletion of the Ozone, and Nuclea

"Trashing the Planet is the one book you need to get a commonsense grasp on the contentious issues of environmentalism, where science and politics overlap and well-meaning idealism turns to counterproductive ecoterrorism. Dixy Lee Ray, a marine biologist and former chair of the Atomic Energy Commission, calls for environmentalists to regain a sense of perspective and not let their ardor carry them into the realm of “noble lies.” Dr. Ray exposes how little the public knows about the environment, how piddling are man’s influences upon it—volcanoes shoot more pollutants into the atmosphere than do all of man’s industrial activities—and how complex are the interactions of natural phenomena. Reminding us that “a well-tended garden is better than a neglected woodlot,” Trashing the Planet is a breath of fresh air in the current debate dominated by rhetorical extremism."

Dixy Lee Ray (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

Recalled to Health: Free Yourself from a Self-Imposed Prison of Bad Habits

"Dr. Tim Hennessy has skillfully drawn on his life experiences to put together Recalled to Health. This book functions as both a personal memoir of his path to becoming a doctor and a useful medical guide to achieving and keeping good health. Written over a five-year period in between his work as a doctor and his other professional and personal pursuits, Dr. Hennessy says the initial impetus for the book came from his bimonthly e-mail health newsletter, H-mail: Medical Education Made Easy. Self-described as conservative with medicine, Hennessy's focus for this book is to promote freedom by inspiring people to live healthier lives, in the process becoming less dependent on medications and the flawed healthcare system, and more emboldened to live life to its fullest, unimpeded by the physical constraints of poor health. By providing a medical foundation that will lead to a better understanding of medical topics, the doctor believes that Recalled to Health can empower listeners to take charge of their own health. Cholesterol, blood pressure, diet and weight management, exercise, sleeping habits, and the role of nature in health are some of the topics discussed in full here, along with suggestions for optimum actions, behaviors, and treatments. Each chapter ends with a helpful summary of tips. You can use this first-rate book to help maintain your present good health, or you can use it to help reclaim your former good health. Either way, it will help you strengthen your mind so you can strengthen your body. What more can anyone ask of a book on health?"

Tim Hennessy (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

Hoover’s FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieutenant

"Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the upcoming film J. Edgar, directed by Clint Eastwood. As director of the FBI for over five decades, J. Edgar Hoover left a profound and lasting legacy on this most celebrated institution. Only the few who were part of Hoover's inner circle know the truth about his controversial years of authoritarian rule and the organization's inmost secrets. One of Hoover's trusted deputies, DeLoach gives us the most authentic account ever written of the FBI, setting the record straight about questions that have plagued modern history. From the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., to the FBI crusades against organized crime and the Communist Party, to Hoover's disputed sexual orientation and the secret files he allegedly kept to blackmail hostile members of Congress, here is the gripping narrative of a government agency caught on a tightrope between presidential administrations and the limits of the law."

Cartha “deke” Deloach (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

Vietnam: Why We Should Have Won

"Dan Lyons resigned as dean of Gonzaga University in Spokane to become the free world's leading advocate of winning the war in Vietnam, visiting seventeen times between 1963 and 1975. His five hundred daily radio and television broadcasts, plus his nationwide weekly columns and debates on college campuses, reached millions every week for twelve years. In this book, he presents a brilliant exposé of why we lost the war-and why and how we should have won. No one is more adept at putting Vietnam in perspective. This is America's Malcolm Muggeridge at his best."

Dan Lyons (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

Compassionate Conservatism: What It Is, What It Does, and How It Can Transform America

"Compassionate conservatism is a new political force in the land, sweeping the grassroots of people of all faiths, races, and ethnicities. In its parts it offers solutions to many of our most intractable problems; in its whole it is nothing less than an innovative philosophy of government. No author is more qualified to explain its power and promise than Marvin Olasky, described by the New York Times as "the godfather of compassionate conservatism." Compassionate conservatism offers a new paradigm for how the government can and should intervene in the economy. It begins with a long-lost premise about human behavior: economics, by itself, is not what changes lives. Only faith, and deeply held beliefs, can do that. For decades government has focused only on material well-being, ignoring the passions and convictions that make life worth living. What is conservative about the new movement is that its leaders also know that government cannot instill these beliefs. What it can do is help them flourish. It can give aid, inspiration, and direction to America's natural "armies of compassion" that have been a hallmark of our history since the founding. Compassionate conservatism offers a way to transcend the root problems that currently oppress too many deserving Americans. It offers a unique vision of the triangular relationship between the state, our many churches, and our tens of thousands of charities. It is a true reinvention of welfare, a wholesale revolution in the welfare state, and a redefinition of the social safety net. In Compassionate Conservatism, Marvin Olasky takes us on a road trip with his son, Daniel, across the country, showing exactly how the new movement is unfolding. Along the way, he offers a set of principles, and a brief tour through history to show that these are not so much radically new ideas as rediscoveries of long-lost wisdom. Read this book for a blueprint of the future of politics and welfare in America."

Marvin Olasky (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach