Audiobooks narrated by John Lescault

11 Days in December: Christmas at the Bulge, 1944

11 Days in December tells the dramatic story of one of the grimmest points of World War II and its Christmas Eve turn toward victory. In December 1944, the Allied forces thought their campaign for securing Europe was in its final stages. But Germany had one last great surprise attack still planned, leading to some of the most intense fighting in World War II: the Battle of the Bulge. After ten days of horrific weather conditions and warfare, General Patton famously asked God, 'Sir, whose side are you on?' For the next four days, as the skies cleared, the Allies could fly again, the Nazis were contained, and the outcome of the war was ensured. Renowned historian and author Stanley Weintraub tells the remarkable story of the Battle of the Bulge as it has never been told before, from frozen foxholes to barn shelters to boxcars packed with wretched prisoners of war. Heweaves together the stories of ordinary soldiers and their generals to recreate this dramatic, crucial narrative of a miraculous shift of luck in the midst of the most significant war of the modern era.

Stanley Weintraub (Author), John Lescault (Narrator)

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A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age

The story of one of the most important-and incendiary-books in Western history When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published-"godless," "full of abominations," "a book forged in hell ... by the devil himself." Religious and secular authorities saw it as a threat to faith, social and political harmony, and everyday morality, and its author was almost universally regarded as a religious subversive and political radical who sought to spread atheism throughout Europe. Yet Spinoza's book has contributed as much as the Declaration of Independence or Thomas Paine's Common Sense to modern liberal, secular, and democratic thinking. In A Book Forged in Hell, Steven Nadler tells the fascinating story of this extraordinary book: its radical claims and their background in the philosophical, religious, and political tensions of the Dutch Golden Age, as well as the vitriolic reaction these ideas inspired. It is not hard to see why Spinoza's Treatise was so important or so controversial or why the uproar it caused is one of the most significant events in European intellectual history. In the book, Spinoza became the first to argue that the Bible is not literally the word of God but rather a work of human literature; that true religion has nothing to do with theology, liturgical ceremonies, or sectarian dogma; and that religious authorities should have no role in governing a modern state. He also denied the reality of miracles and divine providence, reinterpreted the nature of prophecy, and made an eloquent plea for toleration and democracy. A vivid story of incendiary ideas and vicious backlash, A Book Forged in Hell will interest anyone who is curious about the origin of some of our most cherished modern beliefs.

Steven Nadler (Author), John Lescault (Narrator)

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A Butterfly in Flame

Stillton Academy, a small art college on the New England coast north of Boston, is in financial trouble, and its days are numbered unless someone provides extraordinary help. The final straw may be the sudden disappearance of an instructor with a female student—the daughter of the Academy's only significant donor. Art critic Fred Taylor, called in to troubleshoot, goes undercover as a member of the faculty and shortly finds himself enmeshed in the conflicting motives and designs of faculty and students, as well as those of a board of trustees whose interest in the long‑term survival of the operation seems lazy, misguided, or—perhaps—a good deal more sinister. Meanwhile, as the town of Stillton, Massachusetts, is visited by murder, the motives of Fred's employer, the collector Clayton Reed, remain obscure. What is there in the town, or at the college, that whets his acute acquisitive instincts? He will not say, beyond his hermetic instructions, "Trust no one. Look at everything." And everyone. Fred's assignment takes him to the Life Room, where his students sometimes moonlight as life models. Are his temporary colleagues eccentrics or just artists? Clayton Reed collects art. That's what he lives for. In sleepy Stillton—a town ripe for development, though suspiciously backward and unexploited—what hidden treasure is Clayton hoping for? And can Fred find it before the college goes up in flames? A Poisoned Pen Press Mystery "A witty, acerbic tale of art, the academe, and adverse possession that is part social commentary and part bloody murder."—Dana Stabenow, New York Times bestselling author

Nicholas Kilmer (Author), John Lescault (Narrator)

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A Paradise for Fools

A young woman in the hair salon raises her a in a furtive gesture, frank and tantalizingly brief, to show a friend the work in progress: a riot of stunning tattoos. From his accidental vantage point in the barber's chair, Fred Taylor knows that those images—weird insects, beasts, and naked human figures—could only come from something nice, a painting that, if he could only see the original in person, might prove to be rare and of significant value. And the girls don't have a clue. Such a painting needs to be understood and identified, but before that can happen it must be found. Fred's inquiries lead from the hairdresser to the illegal tattoo parlor of an unlicensed genius, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, into a dilapidated urban wilderness in neighboring New Hampshire. Fred is met everywhere by ignorance or denial. Anyone who must have seen the painting denies that it exists, despite the vivid proof increasingly laid bare on the hairdresser's skin. Fred's employer, the collector Clayton Reed, is out of the country. So Fred, left to his own devices, is free to follow the trail, despite the distraction of the intriguing librarian Molly Riley. Not wanting to spook his unwilling witnesses, Fred must proceed with caution even after he encounters the first serious bump in the road, a suspiciously convenient hit-and-run accident that turns one potential informant into an abrupt dead end. Can a painting that supposedly does not exist be worth a murder? Praise for Nicholas Kilmer's A Butterfly in Flame: "[A] well-crafted whodunit."—Publishers Weekly

Nicholas Kilmer (Author), John Lescault (Narrator)

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A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

In 1839, two years after graduating from Harvard, Henry David Thoreau and his older brother, John, took a boat-and-hiking trip from Concord, Massachusetts, to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. After John's sudden death in 1842, Thoreau began to prepare a memorial account of their excursion during his stay at Walden Pond. Modern readers have come to see Thoreau's story of the river journey as an appropriate predecessor to Walden, depicting the early years of his spiritual and artistic growth."Just as the current of the stream bears along the boat with Thoreau and his brother, so the current of ideas in his mind bears along the reader by evoking the joy and nostalgia that Thoreau feels for those lost, golden days. As Thoreau says, human life is very much like a river running always downward to the sea, and in this book we enter for a moment the flow of Thoreau's unique existence."-Masterplots

Henry David Thoreau (Author), John Lescault, Patrick Cullen (Narrator)

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A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and Its Legacies

Continuously in demand since its first, prize-winning edition was published in 1975, this is the classic history of Hiroshima and the origins of the arms race, from the development of the American atomic bomb to the decision to use it against Japan and the beginnings of U.S. atomic diplomacy toward the Soviet Union. In the preface to this edition, the author describes and evaluates the lengthening trail of new evidence that has come to light concerning these often emotionally debated subjects. He also invokes his experience as a historical advisor to the controversial, aborted 1995 Enola Gay exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, which leads him to analyze the impact on American democracy of one of the most insidious legacies of Hiroshima: the political control of historical interpretation. "A dispassionate, richly detailed account that promises to be the definitive book on the formation of atomic-energy policy during World War II."'Time

Martin J. Sherwin (Author), John Lescault, Patrick Cullen (Narrator)

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An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government

In February 1865, the end was clearly in sight for the Confederate government. Lee's defeat at Gettysburg had dashed the hopes of the Confederate army, and Grant's victory at Vicksburg had cut the South in two. An Honorable Defeat is the story of the four months that saw the surrender of the South and the assassination of Lincoln by Southern partisans. It is also the story of two men, antagonists yet political partners, who struggled during this time to achieve their own differing visions for the South: Jefferson Davis, the autocratic president of the Confederate States, who vowed never to surrender whatever the cost; and the practical and warm General John C. Breckinridge, Secretary of War, who hoped pragmatism would save the shattered remnants of the land he loved so dearly. Pulitzer Prize nominee William C. Davis traces the astounding flight of these men, and the entire Confederate cabinet, as they flee south from Richmond by train, then by mule, then on foot. Using original research, he narrates, with dramatic style and clear historical accuracy, the futile quarrels of Davis and Breckinridge as they try to evade bands of Northern pursuers and describes their eventual-and separate-captures. The result is a rich canvas of a time of despair and defeat, a charged tale full of physical adventure and political battle that sweeps from the marble halls of Richmond to a dingy room in a Havana hotel.

William C. Davis (Author), John Lescault (Narrator)

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Ancient Greece, Second Edition: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times

In this compact yet comprehensive history of ancient Greece, Thomas R. Martin brings alive Greek civilization from its Stone Age roots to the fourth century BC. Focusing on the development of the Greek city-state and the society, culture, and architecture of Athens in its Golden Age, Martin integrates political, military, social, and cultural history in a book that will appeal to students and general readers alike.Now in its second edition, this classic work now features a new introduction and updates throughout.

Thomas R. Martin, Thomas R. Martin (Author), John Lescault (Narrator)

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Ancient Rome: From Romulus to Justinian

With commanding skill, Thomas R. Martin tells the remarkable and dramatic story of how a tiny, poor, and threatened settlement grew to become, during its height, the dominant power in the Mediterranean world for five hundred years. Encompassing the period from Rome's founding in the eighth century BC through Justinian's rule in the sixth century AD, he offers a distinctive perspective on the Romans and their civilization by employing fundamental Roman values as a lens through which to view both their rise and spectacular fall.Interweaving social, political, religious, and cultural history, Martin interprets the successes and failures of the Romans in war, political organization, quest for personal status, and in the integration of religious beliefs and practices with government. He focuses on the central role of social and moral values in determining individual conduct as well as decisions of state, from monarchy to republic to empire. Striving to reconstruct ancient history from the ground up, he includes frequent references to ancient texts and authors, encouraging readers to return to the primary sources.Comprehensive, concise, and accessible, this masterful account provides a unique window into Rome and its changing fortune.

Thomas R. Martin (Author), John Lescault (Narrator)

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Atomic Bomb Island: Tinian, the Last Stage of the Manhattan Project, and the Dropping of the Atomic

Atomic Bomb Island tells the story of an elite, top-secret team of sailors, airmen, scientists, technicians, and engineers who came to Tinian in the Marianas in the middle of 1945 to prepare the island for delivery of the atomic bombs then being developed in New Mexico, to finalize the designs of the bombs themselves, and to launch the missions that would unleash hell on Japan. Almost exactly a year before the atomic bombs were dropped, strategically important Tinian was captured by Marines-because it was only 1,500 miles from Japan and its terrain afforded ideal runways from which the new B-29 bombers could pound Japan. In the months that followed, the US turned virtually all of Tinian into a giant airbase, with streets named after those of Manhattan Island-a Marianas city where the bombs could be assembled, the heavily laden B-29s could be launched, and the Manhattan Project scientists could do their last work. Mariana Islands historian Don Farrell has done this story incredible justice for the seventy-fifth anniversary. The book is a thoroughly researched mosaic of the final phase of the Manhattan Project, from the Battle of Tinian and the USS Indianapolis to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Don A. Farrell (Author), John Lescault (Narrator)

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Beautiful Losers

One of the best-known experimental novels of the 1960s, Beautiful Losers is Cohen's most defiant and uninhibited work.As imagined by Cohen, hell is an apartment in Montreal, where a bereaved and lust-tormented narrator reconstructs his relations with the dead. In that hell, two men and a woman twine impossibly and betray one another again and again. Memory blurs into blasphemous sexual fantasy-and redemption takes the form of an Iroquois saint and virgin who has been dead for three hundred years but still has the power to save even the most degraded of her suitors.By turns vulgar, rhapsodic, and viciously witty, Beautiful Losers explores each character's attainment of a state of self-abandonment, in which the sensualist cannot be distinguished from the saint.

Leonard Cohen (Author), Bronson Pinchot, John Lescault, Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator)

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Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books

From Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic Michael Dirda comes a collection of his most personal and engaging essays on the literary life—the perfect companion for any lover of books. Michael Dirda has been hailed as “the best-read person in America” by the Paris Review and “the best book critic in America” by the New York Observer. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, he was awarded for his reviews in the Washington Post, and he picked up an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his book On Conan Doyle. Dirda’s latest volume collects fifty of his witty and wide-ranging reflections on literary journalism, book collecting, and the writers he loves. Reaching from the classics to the postmoderns, his allusions dance from Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and M. F. K. Fisher to Marilynne Robinson, Hunter S. Thompson, and David Foster Wallace. Dirda’s topics are equally diverse: literary pets, the lost art of cursive writing, book inscriptions, the pleasures of science fiction conventions, author photographs, novelists in old age, Oberlin College, a year in Marseille, writer’s block, and much more, not to overlook a few rants about Washington life and American culture. As admirers of his earlier books will expect, there are annotated lists galore—of perfect book titles, great adventure novels, favorite words, essential books about books, and beloved children’s classics, as well as a revealing peek at the titles Michael keeps on his own nightstand. Funny and erudite, occasionally poignant or angry, Browsings is a celebration of the reading life, a fan’s notes, and the perfect gift for any book lover. “For so many years Dirda has been such an insightful guide to literatures past and present.”—Los Angeles Times, praise for the author

Michael Dirda (Author), John Lescault (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by John Lescault