Audiobooks Narrated by William Hughes

Ultimate Physics: From Quarks to the Cosmos

"The fundamental outlines of the physical world, from its tiniest particles to massive galaxy clusters, have been apparent for decades. Does this mean physicists are about to tie it all up into a neat package? Not at all. Just when you think you’re figuring it out, the universe begins to look its strangest, and this audiobook illustrates how answers often lead to more questions and open up new paths to insight."

Scientific American (Author), William Hughes (Narrator)

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Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles

"In Solid State, Kenneth Womack offers the most definitive account of the conception, recording, mixing, and reception of Abbey Road. In February 1969, the Beatles began working on what became their final album together. Abbey Road introduced a number of new techniques and technologies to the Beatles’ sound and included “Come Together,” “Something,” and “Here Comes the Sun,” which all emerged as classics. Womack’s colorful retelling of how this landmark album was written and recorded is a treat for fans of the Beatles. Solid State takes listeners back to 1969 and into EMI’s Abbey Road Studios, which boasted an advanced solid state transistor mixing desk. Womack focuses on the dynamics between John, Paul, George, and Ringo and producer George Martin and his team of engineers, who for the most part set aside the tensions and conflicts that had arisen on previous albums to create a work with an innovative—and among some fans and critics, controversial—studio-bound sound that prominently included the new Moog synthesizer, among other novelties. As Womack shows, Abbey Road was the culmination of the instrumental skills, recording equipment, and artistic vision that the band and George Martin had developed since their early days in the same studio seven years before. A testament to the group’s creativity and their producer’s ingenuity, Solid State is required reading for all fans of the Beatles and the rock ’n’ roll."

Kenneth Womack (Author), William Hughes (Narrator)

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A Better Planet: Forty Big Ideas for a Sustainable Future

"A practical, bipartisan call to action from the world’s leading thinkers on the environment and sustainability Sustainability has emerged as a global priority over the past several years. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and the adoption of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals through the United Nations have highlighted the need to address critical challenges, like the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, water shortages, and air pollution. But in the United States, partisan divides, regional disputes, and deep disagreements over core principles have made it nearly impossible to chart a course toward a sustainable future. This timely new book, edited by celebrated scholar Daniel C. Esty, offers fresh thinking and forward-looking solutions from environmental thought leaders across the political spectrum. The book’s forty essays cover such subjects as ecology, environmental justice, Big Data, public health, and climate change, all with an emphasis on sustainability. This book focuses on moving toward sustainability through actionable, bipartisan approaches based on rigorous analytical research."

Daniel C. Esty (Author), Alex Boyles, Caroline Shaffer, Erica Sullivan, Kate Mulligan, Kevin Kenerly, Traber Burns, William Hughes (Narrator)

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Going Broke, Updated Edition: Why Americans (Still) Can’t Hold On to Their Money

"Over the last four decades, debt, bankruptcy, and home foreclosures have risen to epidemic levels, and the personal savings rate has sunk dangerously low. Why, in the richest nation on Earth, can’t Americans hold on to their money? First published in 2008, Stuart Vyse’s Going Broke described the epidemic of personal debt that existed in the years leading up to the Great Recession, and anticipated the home mortgage crisis that started it. Ten years later, this fully updated new edition tackles the post-recession era of economic recovery. Today total household debt has actually surpassed pre-recession levels, and some of the same problems that preceded the crash are back again. But the shape of our troubles has changed: the new face of financial failure features auto repossession, bankruptcy, eviction, wage garnishment, and being sued for unpaid bills. Vyse offers a unique psychological perspective on the financial behavior of the many Americans today who find they cannot make ends meet, illuminating these and other causes of our wildly self-destructive spending habits. But he doesn’t entirely blame the victim, arguing instead that the mountain of debt burying so many of us is the inevitable byproduct of America’s turbo-charged economy together with social and technological trends that undermine our self-control. This new edition illuminates everything from the rise of the credit card and ballooning student loan debt, to the expansion of new shopping opportunities provided by social media, revealing how vast changes in American society over the last forty years have greatly complicated our relationship with money. Vyse concludes with both personal advice for the individual who wants to achieve greater financial stability and with pointed recommendations for economic and social change that will help promote the financial health of all Americans."

Stuart Vyse (Author), William Hughes (Narrator)

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Give-a-Damn Jones

"Not all the folks who roamed the Old West were cowhands, rustlers, or cardsharps. And they certainly weren’t all heroes. Give-a-Damn Jones, a free-spirited itinerant typographer, hates his nickname almost as much as the rumors spread about him. He’s a kind soul who keeps finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s what happened in Box Elder, a small Montana town. Tensions are running high, and anything—or anyone—could be the fuse to ignite them: a recently released convict trying to prove his innocence, a prominent cattleman who craves respect at any cost, a wily traveling dentist at odds with a violent local blacksmith, or a firebrand of an editor who is determined to unlock the town’s secrets. Jones walks into the middle of it all, and this time, he may be the hero that this town needs."

Bill Pronzini (Author), Armando Durán, Chris Abell, Donald Corren, Eddie Lopez, Grover Gardner, Jim Meskimen, John Lescault, Johnny Heller, Michael Kramer, Nick Sullivan, Patrick Lawlor, R. C. Bray, Sam Osheroff, Traber Burns, William Hughes (Narrator)

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Billionaire Democracy: The Hijacking of the American Political System

"This isn’t your America. No matter who the president is. We’re told that when we vote, when we elect representatives, we’re gaining a voice in government and the policies it implements. But if that’s true, why don’t American politics actually translate our preferences into higher living standards for the majority of us? The answer is that, in America, the wealthy few have built a system that works in their favor, while maintaining the illusion of democracy. The reality is that the quality of democracy in the United States is lower than in any other rich democracy, on a par with nations such as Brazil or Turkey. In the United States, voters have little influence on eventual policy outcomes engineered by lawmakers. Political scientists call it the “income bias” and attribute it to the power of wealthy donors who favor wage suppression and cuts to important government programs such as public education and consumer protection. It causes American lawmakers to compete to satisfy preferences of donors from the top 1 percent instead of the middle class. It’s also why our economy has been misfiring for most Americans for a generation, wages stagnating and opportunity dwindling. The election of Donald Trump shocked the world, but for many Americans, it came as a stark reflection of mounting frustrations with our current system and anger at the status quo. We need to find a way to fix the way our government serves us. The only realistic pathway to improve middle-class economics is for Congress and the Supreme Court to raise the quality of American democracy. In Billionaire Democracy: The Hijacking of the American Political System, economist George R. Tyler lays out the fundamental problems plaguing our democracy. He explains how the American democratic system is rigged and how it has eroded the middle class, providing an unflinching and honest comparison of the US government to peer democracies abroad. He also breaks down where we fall short and how other rich democracies avoid the income bias created by the overwhelming role of money in US politics. Finally, Tyler outlines practical campaign finance reforms we can adopt when we finally focus on improving the political responsiveness of our government. It’s time for the people of this nation to demand a government that properly serves us, the American people."

George R. Tyler (Author), William Hughes (Narrator)

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Unacknowledged: An Exposé of the World’s Greatest Secret

"The biggest lie in history is about to be shattered. UFOs are real. In late June of 1947, three extraterrestrial craft were downed outside Roswell Air Force Base. Many more followed, revealing dozens of ET species and a Rosetta Stone to a new physics, an energy generation and propulsion system responsible for interstellar space travel. This new system could have easily replaced oil, gas, coal, and nuclear plants—and with them, the entire geopolitical and economic order on our planet. But a cabal of bankers, the military-industrial complex, and Big Oil stopped it. We have been lied to. And now, seventy years after Roswell, the witnesses to that lie have come forward to testify in a must-read book that will shock the world."

Steven M. Greer (Author), William Hughes (Narrator)

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Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development

"During the nineteenth century, the United States entered the ranks of the world’s most advanced and dynamic economies. At the same time, the nation sustained an expansive and brutal system of human bondage. This was no mere coincidence. Slavery’s Capitalism argues for slavery’s centrality to the emergence of American capitalism in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. According to editors Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman, the issue is not whether slavery itself was or was not capitalist but, rather, the impossibility of understanding the nation’s spectacular pattern of economic development without situating slavery front and center. American capitalism—renowned for its celebration of market competition, private property, and the self-made man—has its origins in an American slavery predicated on the abhorrent notion that human beings could be legally owned and compelled to work under force of violence. Drawing on the expertise of sixteen scholars who are at the forefront of rewriting the history of American economic development, Slavery’s Capitalism identifies slavery as the primary force driving key innovations in entrepreneurship, finance, accounting, management, and political economy that are too often attributed to the so-called free market. Approaching the study of slavery as the originating catalyst for the Industrial Revolution and modern capitalism casts new light on American credit markets, practices of offshore investment, and understandings of human capital. Rather than seeing slavery as outside the institutional structures of capitalism, the essayists recover slavery’s importance to the American economic past and prompt enduring questions about the relationship of market freedom to human freedom. Contributors: Edward E. Baptist, Sven Beckert, Daina Ramey Berry, Kathryn Boodry, Alfred L. Brophy, Stephen Chambers, Eric Kimball, John Majewski, Bonnie Martin, Seth Rockman, Daniel B. Rood, Caitlin Rosenthal, Joshua D. Rothman, Calvin Schermerhorn, Andrew Shankman, Craig Steven Wilder."

Seth Rockman, Sven Beckert (Author), Bahni Turpin, Kevin Kenerly, Pam Ward, Ron Butler, William Hughes (Narrator)

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The Six-Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East

"One fateful week in June 1967 redrew the map of the Middle East. Many scholars have documented how the Six-Day War unfolded, but little has been done to explain why the conflict happened at all. As we approach its fiftieth anniversary, Guy Laron refutes the widely accepted belief that the war was merely the result of regional friction, revealing the crucial roles played by American and Soviet policies in the face of an encroaching global economic crisis, and restoring Syria’s often overlooked centrality to events leading up to the hostilities. The Six-Day War effectively sowed the seeds for the downfall of Arab nationalism, the growth of Islamic extremism, and the animosity between Jews and Palestinians. In this important new work, Laron’s fresh interdisciplinary perspective and extensive archival research offer a significant reassessment of a conflict—and the trigger-happy generals behind it—that continues to shape the modern world."

Guy Laron (Author), William Hughes (Narrator)

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A Prescription for Change: The Looming Crisis in Drug Development

"The introduction of new medicines has dramatically improved the quantity and quality of individual and public health while contributing trillions of dollars to the global economy. In spite of these past successes—and indeed because of them—our ability to deliver new medicines may be quickly coming to an end. Moving from the twentieth century to the present, A Prescription for Change reveals how changing business strategies combined with scientific hubris have altered the way new medicines are discovered, with dire implications for both health and the economy. To explain how we have arrived at this pivotal moment, Michael S. Kinch recounts the history of pharmaceutical and biotechnological advances in the twentieth century, relating stories of the individuals and organizations that ushered in the modern era of translational medicine. He shows that an accelerating cycle of acquisition and downsizing is cannibalizing the very infrastructure that had fostered the introduction of innovative new medicines. As Kinch demonstrates, the dismantling of the pharmaceutical and biotechnological research and development enterprises could also provide opportunities to innovate new models that sustain and expand the introduction of newer and better breakthrough medicines in the years to come."

Michael Kinch (Author), William Hughes (Narrator)

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Overclocked: More Stories of the Future Present

"Now available for the first time with two additional stories! Have you ever wondered what it's like to be bitten by a zombie or live through a bioweapon attack? In Cory Doctorow's collection of novellas, he wields his formidable experience in technology and computing to give us mind-bending sci-fi tales that explore the possibilities of information technology—and its various uses—run amok. 'Anda's Game' is a spin on the bizarre new phenomenon of 'cyber sweatshops,' in which people are paid very low wages to play online games all day in order to generate in-game wealth, which can be converted into actual money. Another tale tells of the heroic exploits of 'sysadmins'—systems administrators—as they defend the cyberworld, and hence the world at large, from worms and bioweapons. And yes, there is a story about zombies too. Plus, for the first time, this collection includes 'Petard' and 'The Man Who Sold the Moon.'"

Cory Doctorow (Author), Emily Woo Zeller, Fiona Hardingham, Jeffrey Kafer, Jim Meskimen, Lloyd James, Nicola Barber, R. C. Bray, Richard Powers, William Hughes (Narrator)

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The Carnival Campaign: How the Rollicking 1840 Campaign of “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” Changed Presid

"Americans have come to expect that the nation’s presidential campaigns will be characterized by a carnival atmosphere emphasizing style over substance. But this fascinating account of the pivotal 1840 election reveals how the now-unavoidable traditions of big money, big rallies, shameless self-promotion, and carefully manufactured candidate images first took root in presidential politics. Pulitzer Prize–nominated former Wall Street Journal reporter Ronald G. Shafer tells the colorful story of the election battle between sitting president Martin Van Buren, a professional Democratic politician from New York, and Whig Party upstart William Henry Harrison, a military hero who was nicknamed “Old Tippecanoe” after a battlefield where he fought and won in 1811. Shafer shows how the pivotal campaign of “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” marked a series of firsts that changed presidential politicking forever: the first presidential campaign as mass entertainment, directed at middle-income and lower-income voters; the first “image campaign,” in which strategists painted Harrison as an everyman living in a log cabin sipping hard cider (in fact, he was born into wealth, lived in a twenty-two-room mansion, and drank only sweet cider); the first campaign in which a candidate, Harrison, traveled and delivered speeches directly to voters; the first one influenced by major campaign donations; the first in which women openly participated; and the first involving massive grassroots rallies, attended by tens of thousands and marked by elaborate fanfare, including bands, floats, a log cabin on wheels, and the world’s tallest man. Some of history’s most fascinating figures—including Susan B. Anthony, Charles Dickens, Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allan Poe, Thaddeus Stevens, and Walt Whitman—pass through this colorful story, which is essential reading for anyone interested in learning when image first came to trump ideas in presidential politics."

Ronald G. Shafer (Author), William Hughes (Narrator)

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