Audiobooks narrated by Paul Bellantoni

Hell Tanner isn't the sort of guy you'd mistake for a hero: he's a fast-driving car thief, a smuggler, and a stone-cold killer. Facing life in prison for his various crimes, he's given a choice: Rot away his remaining years in a tiny jail cell or drive cross-country and deliver a case of antiserum to the plague-ridden people of Boston, Massachusetts. The chance of a full pardon does wonders for getting his attention. And don't mistake this mission of mercy for any kind of normal road trip-not when there are radioactive storms, hordes of carnivorous beasts, and giant, mutated scorpions to be found along every deadly mile between Los Angeles and the East Coast. But then, this is no normal part of America, you see. This is Damnation Alley . . .

Roger Zelazny (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Throne of Serpents

Wren’s world shattered the day Arrik became king and broke every promise he’d made to her. Fueled by rage and betrayal, she must double-cross her husband to save the realm from war. But with every passing day, as her devilish king tries to entice Wren to stand by his side, she finds herself struggling not to fall for his charms and seduction. After years of scheming, Arrik finally held the world in his hands. But it wasn’t enough. Secretly, he’d always wanted someone to share it with, but his queen was hiding something from him. On the brink of civil unrest, he must secure his power at all costs. Even if it means losing the woman he loves. Passionate and heart pounding, Throne of Serpents is the epic conclusion of the Dragon Isle Wars. This romantic villain fantasy is inspired by tales of Beauty and the Beast, Vikings, and Reylo. It's perfect for listeners who love Glint, A Deal with the Elf King, The Bridge Kingdom, and The Serpent & the Wings of Night.

Frost Kay (Author), Katherine Littrell, Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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No One to Meet: Imitation and Originality in the Songs of Bob Dylan

The literary establishment tends to regard Bob Dylan as an intriguing, if baffling, outsider. That changed overnight when Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, challenging us to think of him as an integral part of our national and international literary heritage. No One to Meet places Dylan the artist within a long tradition of literary production and offers an innovative way of understanding his unique, and often controversial, methods of composition. In lucid prose, Raphael Falco demonstrates the similarity between what Renaissance writers called imitatio and the way Dylan borrows, digests, and transforms traditional songs. Although Dylan's lyrical postures might suggest a post-Romantic, 'avant-garde' consciousness, No One to Meet shows that Dylan's creative process borrows from and expands the methods used by classical and Renaissance authors. Drawing on numerous examples, including Dylan's previously unseen manuscript excerpts and archival materials, Falco illuminates how the ancient process of poetic imitation, handed down from Greco-Roman antiquity, allows us to make sense of Dylan's musical and lyrical technique. By placing Dylan firmly in the context of an age-old poetic practice, No One to Meet deepens our appreciation of Dylan's songs and allows us to celebrate him as what he truly is: a great writer.

Raphael Falco (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Bob Dylan in the Attic: The Artist as Historian

Bob Dylan is an iconic American artist, whose music and performances have long reflected different musical genres and time periods. His songs tell tales of the Civil War, harken back to 1930s labor struggles, and address racial violence at the height of the civil rights movement, helping listeners to think about history, and history making, in new ways. While Dylan was warned by his early mentor, Dave Van Ronk, that, 'You're just going to be a history book writer if you do those things. An anachronism,' the musician has continued to traffic in history and engage with a range of source material-ancient and modern-over the course of his career. In this beautifully crafted book, Freddy Cristobal Dominguez makes a provocative case for Dylan as a historian, offering a deep consideration of the musician's historical influences and practices. Utilizing interviews, speeches, and the close analysis of lyrics and live performances, Bob Dylan in the Attic is the first book to consider Dylan's work from the point of view of historiography.

Freddy Cristóbal Domínguez (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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On Being A Therapist, 6th Edition

For more than thirty years, On Being a Therapist has inspired generations of mental health professionals (and their clients) to explore the most private, confusing, and sacred aspects of helping others. In this thoroughly revised and updated sixth edition, Jeffrey Kottler explores many of the challenges that therapists face in their practices today, including pressures from increased technology, economic realities, and advances in theory and technique. He also examines the stress factors that are brought on from managed care bureaucracy, conflicts at work, and clients' own anxiety and depression. This new edition includes updated sources, new material on technology, new challenges that therapists face as a result of the global pandemic, and an emphasis on teletherapy and navigating ethics and practice logistics remotely. Generations of students and practitioners in counseling, psychology, social work, psychotherapy, marriage and family therapy, and human services have found comfort, support, and renewed confidence in On Being a Therapist, and this sixth edition builds upon this solid foundation as it continues to educate, inform, and inspire helping professionals everywhere.

Jeffrey A. Kottler (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Bing and Billie and Frank and Ella and Judy and Barbra

Crosby, Holiday, Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Garland, and Streisand were the major interpreters of the American songbook, and this is the interlocking story of their lives and careers. Here is the epic tale of how these artists dominated American popular music over a fifty-year period, a roller coaster ride that gains momentum through the 1930s and '40s, reaches a crest of magical creativity in the 1950s and early '60s, and then crashes down by the early 1970s, a half century when the great American songbook dominated the airwaves and the fight for racial equality came to the forefront. Ella was beloved in her time, and she is still beloved. Frank is still the king of the songbook, but Bing's legacy is just as vital once you start listening to his unprecedented 1930s output. The best songs from Judy's greatest triumph, her 1963-64 TV series, are shared endlessly online. The legend of Billie grows by the year, and the basis of this should be appreciation and wonder for her own great artistry in the 1930s. Barbra is a living legend and still a commercial force to be reckoned with, the last exemplar of the songbook and its glories. All six of these singers reach out to us and show us new ways of expression and new ways to dream. Their song is largely ended but the melody lingers on.

Dan Callahan (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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In Defense of Love: An Argument

From the acclaimed author of The Shakespeare Wars and Explaining Hitler comes a stirring manifesto on love in the modern age. Who wrote the book of love? In an impassioned polemic, Ron Rosenbaum-who has written books on the mysteries of Hitler's evil, the magic of Shakespeare's words, and the terrifying power of thermonuclear explosions-takes on perhaps his greatest challenge: the nature of love. Rosenbaum argues that what we know as love is imperiled now by the quantifiers, the digitizers, and their algorithms, who all seek to reduce love to electrical, chemical, and mathematical formulas. Rosenbaum brings excitement to his thinking as he interrogates the neuroscience of love, with its "trait constellations," and the efforts of others to turn all human lovers into numerical configurations. He asks us why our culture has become so obsessed with codifying and quantifying love through algorithms. The very capacity that makes us human, Rosenbaum argues, is being taken over by numerical methods of explanation. In Defense of Love is more than an examination of the intersection of love with literature and science. It is a celebration of the persistence of a mysterious and uncanny phenomenon: the inexorable power of love. Cover image: The Embrace, 1970 by George Segal © 2023 The George and Helen Segal Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Ron Rosenbaum (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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When Rock Met Disco: The Story of How The Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, KISS, Queen, Blondie and More

Disco began as a gay, black, and brown underground New York City party music scene, which alone was enough to ward off most rockers. The difference between rock and disco was as sociological as it was aesthetic. At its best, disco was galvanizing and affirmative. Its hypnotic power to uplift a broad spectrum of the populace made it the ubiquitous music of the late '70s. Disco was a primal and gaudy fanfare for the apocalypse, a rage for exhibitionism, free of moralizing. 1978 was the apex of the record industry. Rock music, commercially and artistically, had never been more successful. At the same time, disco was responsible for roughly 40% of the records on Billboard's Hot 100, thanks to the largest-selling soundtrack of all time in Saturday Night Fever. For all its apparent excesses and ritual zealotry, disco was a conservative realm, with obsolete rules like formal dress code and dance floor etiquette. Rock stars who 'went disco' crossed a musical rubicon and forever smashed cultural conformity. The ongoing dance-rock phenomenon demonstrates the impact of this unique place and time. The disco crossover forever changed rock.

Steven Blush (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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How to Build Impossible Things: A Carpenter's Notes on Life & the Art of Good Work

Brought to you by Penguin. Wildly irreverent and beautifully warm, this is a story about practice, competence and failure, told through tales in a world most of us never see. 'Life is worth regular examination. I have found a great deal of meaning in learning to make things. Each of us has tidbits of understanding that others might appreciate were we to share them. As a carpenter building high-end homes for New York City's richest, I work on multi-million dollar projects every day. People come to me when they want the impossible. Most are ill conceived; many are inadvisable, some are downright dangerous. But when I'm able to craft something glorious, it's magic. Yet in every project, without fail, things go wrong. Glamour, luxury and refinement are products of a flawed, human process, of missed deadlines, overrun budgets, heated tantrums and scrapped blueprints. Throughout my career I have observed, erred, learned, finessed, apologised, and resisted the urge to say I told you so. I offer these tales from the trade in the hope that others might find them amusing, instructive and inspirational. There are many good reasons to work. Here are a few of them.' ©2023 Mark Ellison (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Mark Ellison (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Queen of Legends

With nowhere to go and price on her head, Wren goes into hiding and joins forces with the Kingdom of Myths to destroy the corrupt elf king and reclaim her kingdom, but it comes with a price: killing her husband. Prince Arrik swore to never fall in love, let alone with a human with vengeance in her eyes and fire in her soul. Yet, despite all his well made plans, he can't seem to let her go—even if it means revealing his secrets to secure his queen and crush his father. As a twist of fate throws Wren back into the clutches of her devilish husband, she much forge a path forward that could lead to heartbreak, blood, or redemption. Passionate and heart pounding, Queen of Legends is an enemies-to-lovers arranged-marriage romantic fantasy with dual point-of-view (his and hers). The Dragon Isle Wars trilogy is inspired by tales of Beauty and the Beast, Vikings, and Reylo. It's perfect for readers who love Glint, A Deal with the Elf King, and The Bridge Kingdom.

Frost Kay (Author), Katherine Littrell, Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America

In two previous highly regarded books on the US Senate, Ira Shapiro chronicled the institution from its apogee in the 1970s through its decline in the decades since. Now, Shapiro turns his gaze to how the Senate responded to the challenges posed by the Trump administration and its prospects under President Biden. The Founding Fathers gave the US Senate many functions, but it had one fundamental responsibility-its raison d'etre: to provide the check against a dangerous president who threatened our democracy. Two hundred and thirty years later, when Donald Trump, a potential authoritarian, finally reached the White House, the Senate should have served as both America's first and last lines of defense. Instead, we had the nightmare scenario: today's Senate, reduced through a long period of decline to a hyper-partisan, gridlocked shadow of its former self, was unable to meet its fundamental responsibility. Shapiro documents the pivotal challenges facing the Senate during the Trump administration, arguing that the body's failure to provide leadership represents the most catastrophic failure of government in American history. The last section covers the Senate's performance during President Biden's first year in office and looks forward to the 2022 Senate elections and beyond.

Ira Shapiro (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

Audiobook

Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American

In Red Sauce, Ian MacAllen traces the evolution of traditional Italian-American cuisine, often referred to as 'red sauce Italian,' from its origins in Italy to its transformation in America into a new, distinct cuisine. It is a fascinating social and culinary history exploring the integration of red sauce food into mainstream America alongside the blending of Italian immigrant otherness into a national American identity. The story follows the small parlor restaurants immigrants launched from their homes to large, popular destinations, and eventually to commodified fast food and casual dining restaurants. Drawing on inspiration from Southern Italian cuisine, early Italian immigrants to America developed new recipes and modified old ones. Ethnic Italians invented dishes like lobster fra Diavolo, spaghetti and meatballs, and veal parmigiana, and popularized foods like pizza and baked lasagna that had once been seen as foreign. Eventually, the classic red-checkered-table-cloth Italian restaurant would be replaced by a new idea of what it means for food to be Italian, even as 'red sauce' became entrenched in American culture. This book looks at how and why these foods became part of the national American diet, and focuses on the stories, myths, and facts behind classic (and some not so classic) dishes within Italian-American cuisine.

Ian Macallen (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Paul Bellantoni