Audiobooks narrated by Jim Meskimen

Calendar Mysteries #12: December Dog Audiobook

It’s a mystery every month from A to Z Mysteries author Ron Roy! In the twelfth book of the Calendar Mysteries, an early chapter-book mystery series featuring the younger siblings of the A to Z Mysteries detectives, Bradley, Brian, Nate, and Lucy find a lost puppy on Christmas Eve. The poor dog was meant to be a present for someone. It has a ribbon with a tag around its neck, but the tag is ripped. Can the kids find out who bought the puppy or who was supposed to receive it?

Ron Roy, Ronald Roy (Author), Jim Meskimen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Billion Dollar Painter: The Triumph and Tragedy of Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light

The unbelievable true story of artist Thomas Kinkade, self-described “Painter of Light,” and the dramatic rise—and fall—of his billion-dollar gallery and licensing business He was just one man, but Thomas Kinkade ultimately made more money from his art than every other artist in the history of the world combined. His sentimental paintings of babbling brooks, rural churches surrounded by brilliant fall foliage, and idyllic countryside cottages were so popular in the 1990s that it is estimated that one out of every twenty homes in America owned one of his prints. With the help of two partners—a former vacuum-cleaner salesman and an ambitious junior accountant who fancied himself a businessman—Kinkade turned his art into a billion-dollar gallery and licensing business that traded on the New York Stock Exchange before it collapsed in 2006 amid fraud accusations. One part fascinating business story about the rise and demise of a financial empire born out of divine inspiration, one part dramatic biography, Billion Dollar Painter is the account of three nobodies who made it big. One was a man who, despite being a devout Christian who believed his artwork was a spiritual force that could cure the sick and comfort the poor in spirit, could not save his art empire—or himself. G. Eric Kuskey, former colleague of Thomas Kinkade and close friend until the artist’s death in 2012, tells Kinkade’s story for the first time, from his art’s humble beginnings on a sidewalk in Carmel, California, to his five-house compound in Monte Sereno. It’s a tale of addiction and grief, of losing control, and ultimately, of the price of our dreams.

G. Eric Kuskey (Author), Jim Meskimen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Calendar Mysteries #11: November Night

It’s a mystery every month from A to Z Mysteries author Ron Roy! It's November, and the younger siblings of the A to Z Mysteries detectives have a new mystery to solve. ’’The twins' new neighbors are up to something! It's Thanksgiving, and a mysterious couple has moved in next door. Bradley, Brian, Nate, and Lucy must work out the clues: The neighbors have built a tall wooden fence. They've bought some strange parts for making . . . something. They've even put up a suspicious tent in their backyard, with a big, scary dog to guard it. What could they possibly be hiding?

Ron Roy, Ronald Roy (Author), Jim Meskimen (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Confederate General from Big Sur

California, 1957. Lee Mellon believes he is the descendant of the only Confederate general to have come from Big Sur and is himself a seeker of truth in his own modern-day war against the status quo. For the first time in audio, A Confederate General from Big Sur was the late Richard Brautigan's first published novel, written when he was twenty-eight.

Richard Brautigan (Author), Jim Meskimen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Calendar Mysteries #13: New Year's Eve Thieves

It’s a mystery every month from A to Z Mysteries author Ron Roy! Who knew there were thirteen months in a year? It’s an extra thirteenth book of the Calendar Mysteries! Bradley, Brian, Nate, and Lucy are looking forward to a New Year’s Eve party. But someone is leaving clues that there might be more to this celebration than confetti and noisemakers. The year ends with a surprise in this exciting conclusion to the Calendar Mysteries series.

Ron Roy, Ronald Roy (Author), Jim Meskimen (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Harrows of Spring

From the renowned social critic, energy expert, and bestselling author James Howard Kunstler, The Harrows of Spring concludes the quartet of his extraordinary World Made by Hand novels, set in an American future of economic and political collapse, where electricity, automobiles, and the familiar social structures of the “old times” are a misty memory. In the little upstate New York town of Union Grove, springtime is a most difficult season, known as “the six weeks want,” when fresh food is scarce and winter stores have dwindled. Young Daniel Earle returns from his haunting travels around what is left of the United States intent on resurrecting the town newspaper. He is also recruited by the town trustees to help revive the Hudson River trade route shut down peevishly by the local grandee, planter Stephen Bullock. Meanwhile, a menacing gang of Social Justice Warriors styling themselves as agents of the Berkshire People’s Republic appear one evening to camp on the outskirts of town. Their leaders are the imposing Amazonian beauty Flame Aurora Greengrass and the charismatic grifter Sylvester “Buddy” Goodfriend, progressive to a fault in their politics and intent on extracting whatever tribute they can from people of Union Grove. Romance, politics, bunko, violence, and family tragedy swirl through the thrilling finale to Kunstler’s bestselling series. The Harrows of Spring is a powerful, heart-wrenching, and satisfying conclusion to this poignant history of the future.

James Howard Kunstler (Author), Jim Meskimen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Give-a-Damn Jones

Not all the folks who roamed the Old West were cowhands, rustlers, or cardsharps. And they certainly weren't all heroes.Give-a-Damn Jones, a free-spirited itinerant typographer, hates his nickname almost as much as the rumors spread about him. He's a kind soul who keeps finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.That's what happened in Box Elder, a small Montana town. Tensions are running high, and anything-or anyone-could be the fuse to ignite them: a recently released convict trying to prove his innocence, a prominent cattleman who craves respect at any cost, a wily traveling dentist at odds with a violent local blacksmith, or a firebrand of an editor who is determined to unlock the town's secrets.Jones walks into the middle of it all, and this time, he may be the hero that this town needs.

Bill Pronzini (Author), Armando Duran, Armando Durán, Chris Abell, Donald Corren, Eddie Lopez, Grover Gardner, Jim Meskimen, John Lescault, Johnny Heller, Michael Kramer, Nick Sullivan, Patrick Lawlor, R. C. Bray, Sam Osheroff, Traber Burns, Various, Various Narrators, William Hughes (Narrator)

Audiobook

Calendar Mysteries #10: October Ogre

In the tenth book of the Calendar Mysteries, an early chapter-book mystery series featuring the younger siblings of the A to Z Mysteries detectives, there's a haunted house in Green Lawn! It's Halloween, and the Shangri-la Hotel has been transformed into a haunted house, complete with an ogre out front. Bradley, Brian, Nate, and Lucy are ready for some scary fun, but then they notice that none of the kids who have gone in the hotel have come back out. What's happening to them? Ghosts and witches and ogres aren't real . . . right?

Ron Roy (Author), Jim Meskimen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Goon Squad, Vol. 3: Old Enemies

An ongoing, episodic "prose comic" from which the pictures are summoned by the magic of words, Goon Squad is set in a version of modern-day Manchester. Its biggest divergence from the real city is that it-along with most other large urban centers-has a team of superheroes to protect it against unusual threats with which the conventional forces of law and order would have problems. Goon Squad, Volume 3: Old Enemies is composed of: "Life during Wartime," "Red Wolf, Red Wolf, Does Whatever a Red Wolf Can," "Shadow of the Vivisector," "The Man from Switzerland," "The End of the Year Show," as well as an introduction read by the author.

Jonathan L. Howard (Author), Gabrielle De Cuir, Jim Meskimen, Jonathan L. Howard, Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait

The renowned biographer’s unforgettable portrait of a family in ruins—his own Meet the Baileys: Burck, a prosperous lawyer once voted the American Legion’s “Citizen of the Year” in his tiny hometown of Vinita, Oklahoma; his wife Marlies, who longs to recapture her festive life in Greenwich Village as a pretty young German immigrant, fresh off the boat; their addled son Scott, who repeatedly crashes the family Porsche; and Blake, the younger son, trying to find a way through the storm. “You’re gonna be just like me,” a drunken Scott taunts him. “You’re gonna be worse.” Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Blake Bailey has been hailed as “addictively readable” (New York Times) and praised for his ability to capture lives “compellingly and in harrowing detail” (Time). The Splendid Things We Planned is his darkly funny account of growing up in the shadow of an erratic and increasingly dangerous brother, an exhilarating and sometimes harrowing story that culminates in one unforgettable Christmas. “This fine and haunting memoir touches the spot where family, responsibility, and helplessness converge. It’s not a pretty place, but boy has Blake Bailey made it memorable. The Splendid Things We Planned is as forceful and revealing as any of the author’s excellent biographies, and that’s really saying something.”—David Sedaris

Blake Bailey (Author), Jim Meskimen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Jonathan Weiner comes a fast-paced and astonishing scientific adventure story: has the long-sought secret of eternal youth at last been found? In recent years, the dream of eternal youth has started to look like more than just a dream. In the twentieth century alone, life expectancy increased by more than thirty years-almost as much time as humans have gained in the whole span of human existence. Today a motley array of scientists, researchers, and entrepreneurs believe that another, bigger leap is at hand-that human immortality is not only possible, but attainable in our own time. Is there genius or folly in the dreams of these charismatic but eccentric thinkers? In Long for This World, Jonathan Weiner, a natural storyteller and an intrepid reporter with a gift for making cutting-edge science understandable, takes the reader on a whirlwind intellectual quest to find out. From Berkeley to the Bronx, from Cambridge University to Dante's tomb in Ravenna, Weiner meets the leading intellectuals in the field and delves into the mind-blowing science behind the latest research. He traces the centuries-old, fascinating history of the quest for longevity in art, science, and literature, from Gilgamesh to Shakespeare, Doctor Faustus to "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." And he tells the dramatic story of how aging could be conquered once and for all, focusing on the ideas of those who believe aging is a curable disease. Chief among them is the extraordinary Aubrey de Grey, a garrulous Englishman who bears more than a passing resemblance to Methuselah (at 969 years, the oldest man in the Bible) and who is perhaps immortality's most radical and engaging true believer. A rollicking scientific adventure story in the grand manner of Oliver Sacks, Long for This World is science writing of the highest order and with the highest stakes. Could we live forever? And if we could...would we want to?

Jonathan Weiner (Author), Jim Meskimen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Einstein, Michael Jackson & Me: A Search for Soul in the Power Pits of Rock and Roll

Howard Bloom-called "the greatest press agent that rock and roll has ever known" by Derek Sutton, the former manager of Styx, Ten Years After, and Jethro Tull-is a science nerd who knew nothing about popular music. But he founded the biggest PR firm in the music industry and helped build or sustain the careers of our biggest rock legends, including Michael Jackson, Prince, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Billy Idol, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Queen, Kiss, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Run DMC, ZZ Top, Joan Jett, Chaka Khan, and one hundred more. What was he after? He was on a hunt for the gods inside of you and me. Einstein, Michael Jackson & Me is Bloom's story-the strange tale of a scientific expedition into the dark underbelly of science and fame where new myths and movements are made.

Howard Bloom (Author), Jim Meskimen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Jim Meskimen