Audiobooks narrated by Scott Sowers

Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, A Bright Soothing Noise by Peter Brown is a captivating collection of short stories with the "scenic intensity and quality of Tennessee Williams' oneact plays" (Josip Novakovich, bestselling author). Always on the verge of something better, Brown's characters are often hard drinking and fast drivingtending to be both violent and religious. And as they grasp for hope, they sometimes make a leap into a new life.

Peter Brown (Author), George Guidall, Jefferson Mays, Robin Miles, Scott Sowers, Suzanne Toren (Narrator)

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A Good Month for Murder: The Inside Story of a Homicide Squad

"Bestselling author Del Quentin Wilber tells the inside story of how a homicide squad---a dedicated, colorful team of detectives-does its almost impossible job Twelve homicides, three police-involved shootings and the furious hunt for an especially brutal killer--February 2013 was a good month for murder in suburban Washington, D.C. After gaining unparalleled access to the homicide unit in Prince George's County, which borders the nation's capital, Del Quentin Wilber begins shadowing the talented, often quirky detectives who get the call when a body falls. After a quiet couple of months, all hell breaks loose: suddenly every detective in the squad is scrambling to solve one shooting and stabbing after another. Meanwhile, the entire unit is obsessed with a stone-cold ""red ball,"" a high-profile case involving a seventeen-year-old honor student attacked by a gunman who kicked down the door to her house and shot her in her bed. Murder is the police investigator's ultimate crucible: to solve a killing, a detective must speak for the dead. More than any recent book, A Good Month for Murder shows what it takes to succeed when the stakes couldn't possibly be higher."

Del Quentin Wilber (Author), Johnny Heller, Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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A Whisper of Southern Lights

Death and destruction follow the demon wherever he treads, and Gabriel is rarely far behind, waiting for his chance to extinguish the creature known as Temple once and for all. But in Singapore during the Second World War, a lone soldier in possession of a shattering secret gets caught up in their battle. The knowledge he holds could change the course of their ancient conflict… and the fate of the world. A Whisper of Southern Lights is a standalone tale in the Assassins series by Tim Lebbon. PRAISE FOR A WHISPER OF SOUTHERN LIGHTS "A Whisper of Southern Lights is full of a beautiful melancholy that nobody does better than Lebbon. A tale of immortals engaged in a blood-spattered, centuries-old cat-and-mouse game... Read it!" —Christopher Golden, New York Times #1 bestselling author of Dead Ringers and Snowblind

Tim Lebbon (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Against the Country: A Novel

For fans of Southern Gothic, Ben Metcalf's AGAINST THE COUNTRY is an intense, sly and deceptively humorous debut novel about growing up in the wilds of Goochland County, Virginia, from former literary editor of Harper's Magazine. Beginning with his parents' decision to move away from the corrupting influences of town, and to settle instead in rural Virginia, Metcalf's narrator leads the reader through a gallery of scabrous youths and callous adults driven mad by the stubborn soil of the New World. Eloquently misanthropic, the narrator of AGAINST THE COUNTRY fully inhabits the style of the old timer's winding yarn even as he sabotages all that the forces of provincialism stand for from within. For it is through this deft and self-destructive tone that it becomes clear that the land itself, from dirtyards to farms and forests, is not mere backdrop but the living, breathing, menacing influence behind each and every inhabitant's hardscrabble existence. Ben Metcalf was born in Illinois and raised in that state and later in rural Virginia. His writing has appeared in The Baffler, Harper's, and elsewhere and has twice been included in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS.

Ben Metcalf (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World

The remarkable life and times of the man who popularized American folk music and created the science of song Folklorist, archivist, anthropologist, singer, political activist, talent scout, ethnomusicologist, filmmaker, concert and record producer, Alan Lomax is best remembered as the man who introduced folk music to the masses. Lomax began his career making field recordings of rural music for the Library of Congress and by the late 1930s brought his discoveries to radio, including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Burl Ives. By the 1940s he was producing concerts that brought white and black performers together, and in the 1950s he set out to record the whole world. Lomax was also a controversial figure. When he worked for the U. S. government he was tracked by the FBI, and when he worked in Britain, MI5 continued the surveillance. In his last years he turned to digital media and developed technology that anticipated today's breakthroughs. Featuring a cast of characters including Eleanor Roosevelt, Leadbelly, Carl Sandburg, Carl Sagan, Jelly Roll Morton, Muddy Waters, and Bob Dylan, Szwed's fascinating biography memorably captures Lomax and provides a definitive account of an era as seen through the life of one extraordinary man.

John F. Szwed, John Szwed (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Amnesia Moon

Often favorably compared to contemporaries Michael Chabon and Lev Grossman, New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Lethem won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In his post-apocalyptic novel Amnesia Moon, he introduces a young man named Chaos who can seemingly remake reality in his dreams. Setting off on a grand adventure, Chaos attempts to learn the secrets behind the world's destruction. "Lethem tempers a liberal dose of quirky surrealism with interesting, believable characterizations and a compelling, imaginative story line."-Booklist

Jonathan Lethem (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Better Than Sex

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Blasphemy

In Douglas Preston's Blasphemy, the world's biggest supercollider, locked in an Arizona mountain, was built to unlock the secrets of the very moment of creation: the Big Bang itself. The Torus is the most expensive machine ever created by humankind, run by the world's most powerful supercomputer. It is the brainchild of Nobel Laureate William North Hazelius. Will the Torus divulge the mysteries of the creation of the universe? Or will it, as some predict, suck the earth into a mini black hole? Or is the Torus a Satanic attempt, as a powerful televangelist decries, to challenge God Almighty on the very throne of heaven? Twelve scientists under the leadership of a famed Nobel Laureate are sent to the remote mountain to turn it on...And what they discover must be hidden from the world at all costs. Wyman Ford, ex-monk and CIA operative, is tapped to wrest from the team their secret, a secret that will either destroy the world-or save it. The countdown begins...

Douglas Preston (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Blood on the Risers: An Airborne Soldier's Thirty-five Months in Vietnam

From Dak To to the Tet Offensive, John Leppelman saw it all. In three tours of duty, he made combat jumps, spent months of fruitless effort looking for the enemy, watched as his budies died because of lousy leadership and lousy weapons. He saw the war as few others did, and lives to tell about the valor and sacrifice that outlived the dead.

John Leppelman (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc.-How the Working Poor Became Big Business

For most people, the Great Crash of 2008 has meant troubling times. Not so for those in the flourishing poverty industry, for whom the economic woes spell an opportunity to expand and grow. These mercenary entrepreneurs have taken advantage of an era of deregulation to devise high-priced products to sell to the credit-hungry working poor, including the instant tax refund and the payday loan. In the process they've created an industry larger than the casino business and have proved that pawnbrokers and check cashers, if they dream big enough, can grow very rich off those with thin wallets. Broke, USA is Gary Rivlin's riveting report from the economic fringes. From the annual meeting of the national check cashers association in Las Vegas to a tour of the foreclosure-riddled neighborhoods of Dayton, Ohio, here is a subprime Fast Food Nation featuring an unforgettable cast of characters and memorable scenes. Rivlin profiles players like a former small-town Tennessee debt collector whose business offering cash advances to the working poor has earned him a net worth in the hundreds of millions, and legendary Wall Street dealmaker Sandy Weill, who rode a subprime loan business into control of the nation's largest bank. Rivlin parallels their stories with the tale of those committed souls fighting back against the major corporations, chain franchises, and newly hatched enterprises that fleece the country's hardworking waitresses, warehouse workers, and mall clerks. Timely, shocking, and powerful, Broke, USA offers a much-needed look at why our country is in a financial mess and gives a voice to the millions of ordinary Americans left devastated in the wake of the economic collapse.

Gary Rivlin (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Cataloochee

Debut novelist Wayne Caldwell's Cataloochee'a rich, vivid, arresting work beginning at the dawn of Reconstruction'sprawls across the succeeding generations like the vast green mountains of its rural North Carolina setting. Best-selling author Charles Frazier calls it 'a brilliant portrait of a community and a way of life long gone, a lost America.' This enthralling saga evokes the full color spectrum of mountain life, from lights to darks and every shade in between.

Wayne Caldwell (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Crapalachia

When Scott McClanahan was fourteen he went to live with his Grandma Ruby and his Uncle Nathan, who suffered from cerebral palsy. Crapalachia is a portrait of these formative years, coming-of-age in rural West Virginia. Peopled by colorful characters and their quirky stories, Crapalachia interweaves oral folklore and area history, providing an ambitious and powerful snapshot of overlooked Americana. Scott McClanahan is the author of Stories II and Stories V! His fiction has appeared in BOMB, Vice, and New York Tyrant . His novel Hill William is forthcoming from Tyrant Books. "McClanahan's prose is miasmic, dizzying, repetitive. A rushing river of words that reflects the chaos and humanity of the place from which he hails. [McClanahan] aims to lasso the moon... He is not a writer of half-measures. The man has purpose. This is his symphony, every note designed to resonate, to linger." -- New York Times Book Review "Crapalachia is the genuine article: intelligent, atmospheric, raucously funny and utterly wrenching. McClanahan joins Daniel Woodrell and Tom Franklin as a master chronicler of backwoods rural America." -- The Washington Post "The book that took Scott McClanahan from indie cult writer to critical darling is a series of tales that read like an Appalachian Proust all doped up on sugary soft drinks, and has made a fan of everybody who has opened it up." -- Flavorwire "McClanahan' s deep loyalty to his place and his people gives his story wings: 'So now I put the dirt from my home in my pockets and I travel. I am making the world my mountain.' And so he is." -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution "[Crapalachia is] a wild and inventive book, unquestionably fresh of spirit, and totally unafraid to break formalisms to tell it like it was." -- Vice "Part memoir, part hillbilly history, part dream, McClanahan embraces humanity with all its grit, writing tenderly of criminals and outcasts, family and the blood ties that bind us." -- Interview Magazine "A brilliant, unnerving, beautiful curse of a book that will both haunt and charmingly engage readers for years and years and years." -- The Nervous Breakdown "McClanahan's style is as seductive as a circuit preacher's. Crapalachia is both an homage and a eulogy for a place where, through the sorcery of McClanahan's storytelling, we can all pull up a chair and find ourselves at home." -- San Diego City Beat "Epic. McClanahan' s prose is straightforward, casual, and enjoyable to read, reminiscent at times of Kurt Vonnegut. Crapalachia is one of the rare books that, after you reach the end, you don' t get up to check your e-mail or Facebook or watch TV. You just sit quietly and think about the people of the book and how they remind you of people you used to know. You feel lucky to have known them, and you feel grateful to McClanahan for the reminder." -- Rain Taxi Review of Books

Scott McClanahan (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Scott Sowers