Audiobooks narrated by Paul Woodson

When grave misfortune leaves thirteen-year-old Terry Sayre without relatives to care for him in the summer of 1939, his only option to elude foster care is to accept asylum abroad with his mother's Danish kin, people he met only briefly as a child. Terry begins life anew in his grandparents' home, but within months of his arrival, the Second World War breaks out. Terry's older self recounts his precarious coming of age as an alien marooned in a disconcerting new land throughout its long national nightmare. Spared the savage treatment Nazi Germany dealt other countries it conquered, Denmark was allowed to remain nominally self-governing. Good fortune, though, did not allow the proud, peaceloving little kingdom to escape the toll the war took on its people's collective soul. Hamlet's Children by Richard Kluger is the story of a young American's wrenching assimilation with his Danish relatives and of how he is pinioned in the same cruel vise with his adopted countrymen as they cunningly attempt to subvert the Germans' iron grip on their kingdom. Paramount on this agenda of defiance is the Danes' persistent effort to keep their Jewish neighbors out of the Nazis' murderous hands. Vibrant with memorable characters and fraught with tension, this artfully crafted narrative, both heartbreaking and uplifting, is a testament to the human spirit in its bleakest hours.

Richard Kluger (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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Some Unfinished Chaos: The Lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Surely enough has been written about F. Scott Fitzgerald, the man who coined 'the Jazz Age' and symbolized the Roaring Twenties, whose very name conjures up a meteoric rise and an equally spectacular fall? But the better question might be, why has so much ink been spent on a writer who completed only four novels, who fell from grace in the 1930s only to be resurrected twenty years later? The answer, according to the cultural critic Arthur Krystal, 'is the problem that is Fitzgerald.' Drawn to the glitter of fame but aspiring to the empyrean heights of Joseph Conrad and James Joyce, Fitzgerald careened from the perfection of The Great Gatsby to the hack world of Hollywood screenwriting, penning stories that were either brilliant distillations of the age or superficial works of fiction. Like America itself, Fitzgerald was a work in progress, a self-created and conflicted human being striving for ideals that neither he nor the nation could ever live up to. In this unusual biography Krystal gives us not only the peripatetic and turbulent life of a cultural icon but also the intellectual sweep of a period in history that created our modern America. Some Unfinished Chaos delivers a nuanced portrait of a man whose various sides embodied the trends, passions, and pursuits of the imperfect society that both glorified and dismissed him.

Arthur Krystal (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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The Last of Its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction

The great auk is one of the most tragic and documented examples of extinction. A flightless bird that bred primarily on the remote islands of the North Atlantic, the last of its kind were killed in Iceland in 1844. Gisli Pálsson draws on firsthand accounts from the Icelanders who hunted the last great auks to bring to life a bygone age of Victorian scientific exploration while offering vital insights into the extinction of species. Pálsson vividly recounts how British ornithologists John Wolley and Alfred Newton set out for Iceland to collect specimens only to discover that the great auks were already gone. At the time, the Victorian world viewed extinction as an impossibility or trivialized it as a natural phenomenon. Pálsson chronicles how Wolley and Newton documented the fate of the last birds through interviews with the men who killed them, and how the naturalists' Icelandic journey opened their eyes to the disappearance of species as a subject of scientific concern-and as something that could be caused by humans. Blending a richly evocative narrative with rare, unpublished material as well as insights from ornithology, anthropology, and Pálsson's own North Atlantic travels, The Last of Its Kind reveals how the saga of the great auk opens a window onto the human causes of mass extinction.

Gisli Palsson (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World

Honeybees deliberate democratically. Rats reflect on the past. Snakes have friends. In recent decades, our understanding of animal cognition has exploded, making it indisputably clear that the cities and landscapes around us are filled with thinking, feeling individuals besides ourselves. But the way we relate to wild animals has yet to catch up. In Meet the Neighbors, science journalist Brandon Keim asks: what would it mean to take the minds of other animals seriously? In this wide-ranging exploration of animals' inner lives, Keim takes us into courtrooms and wildlife hospitals, under backyard decks and into deserts, to meet anew the wild creatures who populate our communities and the philosophers, rogue pest controllers, ecologists, wildlife doctors, and others who are reimagining our relationships to them. When we come to understand the depths of their pleasures and pains, the richness of their family lives and their histories, what do we owe so-called pests and predators, or animals who are sick or injured? Can thinking of nonhumans as our neighbors help chart a course to a kinder, gentler planet? As Keim suggests, the answers to these questions are central to how we understand not only the rest of the living world, but ourselves. Meet the Neighbors opens our eyes to the world of vibrant intelligence just outside our doors.

Brandon Keim (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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One Last Lunch: A Final Meal with Those Who Meant So Much to Us

In this heartwarming essay collection, dozens of authors, actors, artists, and others imagine one last lunch with someone they cherished. A few years ago, Erica Heller realized how universal the longing is for one more moment with a lost loved one. It could be a parent, a sibling, a mentor, or a friend, but who wouldn't love the opportunity to sit down, break bread, and just talk? Who wouldn't jump at the chance to ask those unasked questions, or share those unvoiced feelings? In One Last Lunch, Heller has asked friends and family of authors, artists, musicians, comedians, actors, and others, to recount one such fantastic repast. Muffie Meyer and her documentary subject Little Edie Beale go to a deli in Montreal. Kirk Douglas asks his father what he thought of him becoming an actor. Sara Moulton dines with her friend Julia Child. The Anglican priest George Pitcher has lunch with Jesus. And Heller herself connects with her father, the renowned author Joseph Heller. These richly imagined stories are endlessly revealing, about the subject, the writer, the passage of time, regret, gratitude, and the power of enduring love.

Erica Heller (Author), Kim Niemi, Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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How the New Deal Built Florida Tourism: The Civilian Conservation Corps and State Parks

Countering the conventional narrative that Florida's tourism industry suffered during the Great Depression, this book shows that the 1930s were the starting point for much that characterizes modern Florida's tourism. David Nelson argues that state and federal government programs designed to reboot the economy during this decade are crucial to understanding the state today. Nelson examines the impact of three connected initiatives-the federal New Deal, its Civilian Conservation Corps program (CCC), and the CCC's creation of the Florida Park Service. He reveals that the CCC designed state parks to reinforce the popular image of Florida as a tropical, exotic, and safe paradise. The CCC often removed native flora and fauna, introduced exotic species, and created artificial landscapes that were then presented as natural. Nelson discusses how Florida business leaders benefitted from federally funded development and the ways residents and business owners rejected or supported the commercialization and shifting cultural identity of their state. A detailed look at a unique era in which the state government sponsored the tourism industry, helped commodify natural resources, and boosted mythical ideas of the 'Real Florida' that endure today, this book makes the case that the creation of the Florida Park Service is the story of modern Florida.

David J. Nelson (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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Ghostdrift

The fourth and final installment of the Finder Chronicles, a hopepunk sci-fi caper described as Macgyver meets Firefly, by Hugo Award–winner Suzanne Palmer Fergus Ferguson, professional finder, always knew his semi-voluntary exile wouldn’t last, but he isn’t expecting a friend to betray him. One of the galaxy’s most dangerous space pirates, Bas Belos, wants him, and what Belos wants, he gets. Belos needs help finding out what happened to his twin sister, who mysteriously disappeared at the edges of space years ago, and he makes Fergus an offer he can’t refuse. Mysterious disappearances and impossible answers are Fergus’s specialties. After he reluctantly joins Belos and his crew aboard the pirate ship Sidewider, he discovers that Belos is being tracked by the Alliance. Seeking to stay one step ahead of the Alliance, Fergus and Belos find themselves marooned in the middle of the Gap between spiral arms of our galaxy, dangerously near hostile alien territory, and with an Alliance ship in hot pursuit. That’s just the beginning of the complications for Fergus’ newest—and possibly last—job. The puzzle is much bigger than just Belos’s lost sister, and the question of his future, retirement or not, depends on his ability to negotiate a path between aliens, criminals, and the most powerful military force he’s ever encountered. The future of entire planets hangs in the balance, and it remains to be seen if it’s too big for one determined man and his cranky cat.

Suzanne Palmer (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability

In Collisions, Michael Kimmage, a historian and former State Department official who focused on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, offers a wide-angle, historically informed account of the origins of the current Russia-Ukraine war. From the halls of power in Washington, Kyiv, and Moscow to the battlefields of Ukraine, Kimmage chronicles Putin's ascendancy to the Russian presidency, delves into multiple American presidencies and their dealings with Russia and Europe, and recounts Europe's efforts to bring Ukraine closer to the European Union. He tells the story of how Ukraine went from an embattled country on the edge of Europe to a formidable military power capable of pushing back the Russian military. Just as importantly, Kimmage captures how the current war has transformed multiple centers of power-from China to the United States-and dramatically altered the path of globalization itself. He makes the case that the war in Ukraine has shifted the direction of major macro-trends in world politics, contributing to the fragmentation of international politics, higher inflation, greater food insecurity, and the general collapse of arms control. These intersecting dangers amount to a new age of global instability, born in war and in the collision between Russia and the United States that has brought the world to the brink of a new Cold War.

Michael Kimmage (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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Valdemar

The long-awaited story of the founding of Valdemar comes to life in this third book of a trilogy from a New York Times bestselling author and beloved fantasist. The refugees from the Empire have established a thriving city called Haven with the help of the Tayledras and their allies. But the Tayledras have begun a slow withdrawal to the dangerous lands known as the Pelagirs, leaving the humans of Haven to find their own way. But even with Haven settled, the lands around Haven are not without danger. Most of the danger comes in the form of magicians: magicians taking advantage of the abundant magical energy in the lands the Tayledras have cleansed; magicians who have no compunction about allying themselves with dark powers and enslaving magical beasts and the Elementals themselves. Kordas, his family, and his people will need all the help they can get. But when a prayer to every god he has ever heard of brings Kordas a very specific and unexpected form of help, the new kingdom of Valdemar is set on a path like nothing else the world has ever seen.

Mercedes Lackey (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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The Notorious Edward Low: Pursuing the Last Great Villain of Piracy's Golden Age

Following the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713) a decade-long wave of sea-robbery plagued the Atlantic rim-often glamorized as the 'Golden Age of Piracy'. Boston-based laborer, Edward Low, left his mark on pirate history as the most vicious and sadistic raider of them all. Low's reputation, and those of other pirates, was crafted through newspapers and literature. Romanticized as anti-heroes and egalitarians in a monarchical world who had liberated themselves from the constraints of law and society ashore, these marauders came to enjoy an immortality bestowed upon them by generations of historians, novelists, and movie makers. That persistent gloss masks a more sordid reality. Travers demonstrates that, feared as they certainly were, pirates were largely ordinary seamen trapped in desperate circumstances who, in the end, had little to show for their efforts. Contrary to popular portrayals, for pirates it was a time of radically diminishing returns, scant treasure, and increasingly successful suppression by state authorities. The Notorious Edward Low puts individual actors, from colonial governors to captains to common seamen, at center stage, and reveals how British authorities used new anti-piracy laws to reclaim authority over their fractious North American colonies-a compelling story with its own brand of true-life swashbuckling on the high seas.

Len Travers (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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The Allure of the Multiverse: Extra Dimensions, Other Worlds, and Parallel Universes

The long history of one of physics' most enticing ideas: that the universe we know isn't the only one Our books, our movies-our imaginations-are obsessed with extra dimensions, alternate timelines, and the sense that all we see might not be all there is. In short, we can't stop thinking about the multiverse. As it turns out, physicists are similarly captivated. In The Allure of the Multiverse, physicist Paul Halpern tells the epic story of how science became besotted with the multiverse, and the controversies that ensued. The questions that brought scientists to this point are big and deep: Is reality such that anything can happen, must happen? How does quantum mechanics 'choose' the outcomes of its apparently random processes? And why is the universe habitable? Each question quickly leads to the multiverse. Drawing on centuries of disputation and deep vision, from luminaries like Nietzsche, Einstein, and the creators of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Halpern reveals the multiplicity of multiverses that scientists have imagined to make sense of our reality. Whether we live in one of many different possible universes, or simply the only one there is, might never be certain. But Halpern shows one thing for sure: how stimulating it can be to try to find out.

Paul Halpern (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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Gryphon in Light

Set in the beloved and New York Times bestselling world of Valdemar, this first book in a new trilogy returns to the tales of the majestic gryphons. On the border between Valdemar and the deadly Pelagirs Forest, the gryphon hero Kelvren returns from a near-fatal self-sacrifice that won him the approval of Valdemar's ground troops, but caused a diplomatic crisis. Frustrated by his lack of a hero's welcome, Kelvren is talked into helping with an expedition by his old friend, Firesong. Firesong struggles with his own age and mortality, and he intends to solve a vast mystery at the center of legendary Lake Evendim as his crowning achievement. Just getting the multicultural fleet underway is a challenge, but what awaits them is a situation none of them could expect.

Larry Dixon, Mercedes Lackey (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Paul Woodson