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Audiobooks Narrated by Jonathan Reese
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"For the fifty years that followed its original publication in 1901, Up From Slavery was the most widely known book written by an African American. The life of Booker T. Washington was the embodiment of the American self-made man, and his autobiography gave voice for the first time to a vast group that had to pull itself up from nothing. The well-documented ordeals and observations of this humble and plainspoken schoolmaster reveal traces of Washington's other nature: the ambitious and tough-minded analyst. Here was a man who had to balance the demands of his fellow blacks with the constraints imposed on him by whites.
Historically acknowledged as one of America's most powerful and persuasive orators, Booker T. Washington consistently challenged the forces of racial prejudice at a time when such behavior from a black man was unheard of. While he mollified white leaders by publicly agreeing with their racist views of social parity, he also worked tirelessly to convince blacks to work together as one people in order to improve their lives and the future of their race.
This story of Booker T. Washington's rise to distinction emphasizes that a strong work ethic and excellence in whatever one is doing will be rewarded no matter what race or what position a person holds in life. As far as Washington was concerned, slavery only made the black person stronger. He also argued that both blacks and whites would benefit more from giving blacks vocational training than from encouraging the 'craze for Greek and Latin learning.' While this set him at odds with other black leaders of his time, it also set the groundwork for Washington's Tuskegee Institute to be the best-funded black educational institution of its era."
"Born into a life of bondage, Frederick Douglass secretly taught himself to read and write. For a slave, it was a crime punishable by death, but it resulted in one of the most eloquent indictments of slavery ever recorded. Douglass's autobiography traces his birth into slavery, his escape to the North, and the beginnings of the career that was to make him the preeminent spokesman for his people. His gripping narrative takes us into the fields, cabins, and manors of pre—Civil War plantations in the South and reveals the daily terrors he suffered as a slave.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is one of the most influential autobiographies ever written. This classic text did as much as or more than any other book to motivate the abolitionists to continue to fight for freedom in America. Written more than a century and a half ago, this timeless classic still speaks directly to our age. It is a record of savagery and inhumanity that goes far to explain why America still suffers from the great injustices of the past."
"Between 1915 and 1917, Sigmund Freud delivered a series of well-received lectures at the University of Vienna on his theories of psychoanalysis. Nine of them focused on Freud's theories about dreams—what they are and what they mean. The content of these lectures are presented in Dreams.
Freud covered a lot of ground in his lectures, focusing first on the general difficulties involved in studying dreams, then on the many aspects of dream interpretation, specific symbols and examples of dreams, and the dream as a wish-fulfillment. Finally, he addresses the doubts and criticisms commonly expressed about his theories."
"Captain William Bligh recorded the most famous mutiny in sea history when a group of his men, led by Fletcher Christian, forced him from his ship onto a small launch and cast him adrift into the sea. Was Bligh a harsh sea captain whose vicious cruelty forced his men to mutiny? Or was Fletcher Christian greedy for power and unjustified in taking command? Was Bligh the tyrant of legend? Or was he one of the most lenient commanders of a Pacific exploration ship of that period?
Sail with Captain Bligh on the H.M.S. Bounty, and then follow his incredible quest for survival during his 3,600-mile trip to Timor in an open boat. It's a timeless tale of man's heroic struggle to survive against all odds!"
"In the early seventeenth century, Captain John Smith led a company of English settlers to found the colony of Jamestown in Virginia. Here is Smith's own account of his adventures there and his relationship with the beautiful Indian princess, Pocahontas.
Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, the powerful chief of about thirty tribes of Indians living in Virginia. When Captain John Smith was captured by these Indians in 1607, he was brought before Powhatan, who sentenced him to death. Sixteen-year-old Pocahontas convinced her father to spare Captain Smith's life, thus becoming a friend of the settlers and eventually influencing her father to be friendly, too. Years later, she saved the lives of the entire colony by secretly warning Captain Smith of another intended attack."
"Annie Oakley was without a doubt the greatest markswoman who ever lived. Born in 1860 in Darke County, Ohio, she built herself from obscure and impoverished beginnings into the best known woman of her time.
Courtney Ryley Cooper's classic biography traces Oakley's extraordinary journey and separates the facts from the many legends that have sprung up in its wake. We learn of her enduring marriage to Frank Butler and their first meeting, a shooting match in which the seemingly delicate young girl defeated the professional marksman; her association with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show and its triumphal tour through Europe and America; the train crash that nearly took her life; and her years as an actress and teacher. Her story remains to this day one of the grandest to have come out of the Old West."
"In September 1909—after nearly two decades of determined effort and numerous attempts, during which he lost eight toes to frostbite—American polar explorer Robert E. Peary emerged from the Arctic's frozen wasteland and declared that his final expedition had been victorious: on April 6, 1909, Peary had attained the North Pole, a long-sought prize that had thwarted and even killed his predecessors.
Peary's news stunned the international community because a few days earlier his rival, American explorer Frederick A. Cook, had announced a similar victory. Cook's claim—allegedly occurring April 1908—had priority over Peary's. The vehement, often vicious campaign mounted by Peary and his wealthy, powerful backers (including President Theodore Roosevelt) soon discredited Cook but also caused his own claim to be scrutinized and doubted. The conflict ignited the greatest geographical dispute in the history of exploration, a controversy that continues to spark passionate debate.
Was Peary the first explorer to conquer the North Pole? The North Pole, originally published in 1910, makes available Peary's own account of his expedition in the Arctic. It provides hotly contested evidence that remains an indispensable key in deciding who deserved the coveted title 'Discoverer of the North Pole.' It is also a gripping adventure story that is impossible to put down."
"Even as a child, Davy Crockett 'always delighted to be in the very thickest of danger.' Better known to us as 'King of the Wild Frontier,' Davy Crockett was not only a frontiersman but also a politician who became a celebrity and a folk hero during his lifetime. Here, in his own inimitable style, he describes his earliest days in Tennessee, his two marriages, his career as an Indian fighter, his bear hunts, and his electioneering. His reputation as a 'b'ar' hunter sent him to Congress with an eye on the White House; but at the Alamo, he would cap off a legend that still holds Americans in its spell."
"Kahlil Gibran—poet, philosopher, and artist—was born in Lebanon in 1883 but spent his final twenty years of life living in the United States. The three books that compose this audiobook are collections of Gibran's aphorisms, parables, and poetic essays.
The first book, The Prophet, was originally published in 1923 and is considered Gibran's masterpiece. It is written in prose poetry in twenty-eight parts, and deals with such topics as love, freedom, good and evil, religion, and death. It is a mystical and intensely subjective work, presenting the human soul as essentially noble and good.
In The Forerunner, originally published in 1920, Gibran asserts that 'nobody is to be blamed for our 'being' and 'having' but ourselves.' Gibran makes it clear that we are our own destiny and not the toy of a blind fate.
Finally, the titular entity of The Madman, originally published in 1918, is not literally mentally unbalanced; on the contrary, he is perfectly healthy. His madness is only in the eyes of others. Gibran asserts that we tend to be what society expects from us, even though these expectations could be detrimental for the development of our self-identity. Oftentimes, we veil our true selves with masks out of fear of being ridiculed by others."
"Like all great religions, Buddhism teaches the importance of spiritual, or holy, values. This religion teaches that if a person has a pure mind, everything he does will be pure and decent, and that if he has a pure heart, all happiness will come to him.
First published in 1925, Buddha's Teachings was originally edited by Japanese scholars of Buddhism before WWII and distributed widely throughout Japan. The first English edition was published in 1934. The Reverend Dr. Yehan Numata brought out another English edition in 1962, and in 1966, after the establishment of the Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai (Society for the Promotion of Buddhism), Dr. Numata assembled a committee of Buddhist scholars to substantially revise and edit a new English-Japanese edition. Buddha's Teachings has undergone minor revisions and numerous reprintings since. It is now available in forty-one languages, and over 7 million copies have been distributed and placed in hotel rooms in over fifty countries throughout the world."
"In this classic collection of stories drawn from his own experiences, author Jack London looks back on his days as a teenager aboard the fishing boats of San Francisco Bay. In the early 1900s, men of all stripes descended on these waters to plunder its rich oyster beds. To stop the run on the waters, a patrol was established. London began his youthful adventures on the wrong side of the law, as an oyster pirate. But conscience and common sense got the better of him, and he became a member of the Fish Patrol. The decision satisfied even his legendary appetite for excitement. Placing us smack in the middle of San Francisco at the height of its most reckless days, Tales of the Fish Patrol is vintage Jack London, tales of adventure from a world-class raconteur."
"Before he trailed off into the wilds of Mexico, never to be heard from again, Ambrose Bierce achieved a public persona as 'bitter Bierce' and 'the devil's lexicographer.' He left behind a nasty reputation and more than ninety short stories that are perfect expressions of his sardonic genius. This volume of selected stories represent an unprecedented accomplishment in American literature. In their iconoclasm and needle-sharp irony, their formal and thematic ingenuity and element of surprise, they differ markedly from the fiction admired in Bierce's time.
''An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,'' the premier title in this collection, is one of the most widely anthologized American short stories and is considered Bierce's best work. First published in 1891 in Bierce's short story collection Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, the story centers on Peyton Farquhar, a southern planter who is about to be hanged by the Union Army for attempting to destroy the railroad bridge at Owl Creek. As Farquhar stands on the bridge with a noose around his neck, Bierce leads the reader to believe that the rope breaks and that Farquhar falls into the water below, only to escape to his farm, where he is reunited with his wife. ''An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' has been lauded as an example of technical brilliance and innovative narration as well as for its examination of such themes as the nature of time and the complexities of human cognition."
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