Non-Fiction Audiobooks

Sister in Law: Fighting for Justice in a System Designed by Men

Brought to you by Penguin. Only 30 years ago, rape within marriage was not a crime, Judges saw rape victims as complicit for wearing short skirts; teenage runaways were groomed, pimped and then arrested as ‘common prostitutes’, and harassment, stalking, forced marriage and honour-based violence were not defined or recognised as separate offences in law. Since then there have been important legislative reforms but the law is only as good as those who enforce it. Telling the stories of a series of ground-breaking cases, Harriet Wistrich illustrates how far misogyny is baked into our justice system. Among the women she has represented are Emma Humphreys and Sally Challen, both of whose murder convictions were overturned in watershed moments, the victims of serial rapist, taxi-driver John Worboys, and the wives and girlfriends of undercover police who were fraudulently deceived into long-term relationships and illegally spied upon. Her work has involved direct challenges to government departments and cabinet ministers, the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the immigration service, and the Parole Board. It provides critical insight into the many ways issues relating to violence against women intersect with racism, state violence and lack of accountability. And it shows how bringing a feminist lens to legal issues has led to creative solutions and inspiring partnerships. This important work demands tenacity, compassion and collaboration, but Wistrich shows that it is imperative that we demand better justice and that it is possible to bring about important change. ©2024 Harriet Wistrich (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Harriet Wistrich (Author), Catherine Bailey, TBD (Narrator)

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First Love: Essays on Friendship

A bold, poignant essay collection that treats women's friendships as the love stories they truly are, from the critically acclaimed author of Negative Space Lilly Dancyger always thought of her closest friendships as great loves, complex and profound as any romance. When her beloved cousin was murdered just as both girls were entering adulthood, Dancyger felt a new urgency in her devotion to the women in her life-a desire to hold her friends close while she still could. In First Love, this urgency runs through a striking exploration of the bonds between women, from the intensity of adolescent best friendship and fluid sexuality to mothering and chosen family. Each essay in this incisive collection is grounded in a close female friendship in Dancyger's life, reaching outward to dissect cultural assumptions about identity and desire, and the many ways women create space for each other in a world that wants us small. Seamlessly weaving personal experience with literature and pop culture-ranging from fairytales to true crime, from Anaïs Nin and Sylvia Plath to Heavenly Creatures and the "sad girls" of Tumblr-Dancyger's essays form a kaleidoscopic story of a life told through friendships, and an expansive interrogation of what it means to love each other. Though friendship will never be enough to keep us safe from the dangers of the world, Dancyger reminds us that love is always worth the risk, and that when tragedy strikes, it's our friends who will help us survive. In First Love, these essential bonds get their due.

Lilly Dancyger (Author), Lilly Dancyger, TBD (Narrator)

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Literature for the People: How The Pioneering Macmillan Brothers Built a Publishing Powerhouse

From publishing Alice in Wonderland and Tom Brown's School Days to the hugely influential science magazine Nature, Daniel and Alexander Macmillan's achievements are revealed in this entertaining, superbly researched biography. Daniel and Alexander Macmillan arrived in London in the 1830s at a crucial moment of social change. These two idealistic brothers, working-class sons of a Scottish crofter, set up a publishing house that spread radical ideas on equality, science and education across the world. They also brought authors like Lewis Carroll, Thomas Hardy and Charles Kingsley, and poets like Matthew Arnold and Christina Rossetti, to a mass audience. No longer would books be just for the upper classes. In Literature for the People Sarah Harkness brings to life these two amusing, warm-hearted men. Daniel was driven by the knowledge that he was living on borrowed time as his body was ravaged by TB. Alexander took on responsibility for the company as well as Daniel's family and turned a small business into an empire. He cultivated the literary greats of the time, weathered controversy and tragedy, and fostered a dynasty that would include future prime minister Harold Macmillan. Including fascinating insights about the great, the good and the sometimes wayward writers of the Victorian era, with feuds, friendships and passionate debate, this vibrant book is bursting with all the energy of that exciting period in history.

Sarah Harkness (Author), Sarah Harkness, TBD (Narrator)

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Relentless: My Story of the Latino Spirit That Is Transforming America

Essential reading from an expert voice our country needs: Luis Miranda's personal and political memoir reveals a deep understanding of Latino culture and building community to change our world for the better. A veteran of New York and national politics, Luis Miranda embodies the relentless spirit of progress of American immigrants. There is nobody on the Latino, New York, and national political scene with the breadth of experience, passion, and storytelling charm of Luis Miranda. In Relentless, he shares the poignant narrative of his life and career-from his early days as a radically minded Puerto Rican activist to his decades of political advice and problem solving. We experience the thrill of the ascendency of Hamilton, created by his son Lin-Manuel. And we experience the suffering after the devastation of Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria. Amid the triumphs, challenges, and ongoing hard work, Miranda examines what his experience reveals about our ever-changing politics, demographics, and society.

Luis A. Miranda (Author), Luis A. Miranda, TBD (Narrator)

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Token Supremacy: The Art of Finance, the Finance of Art, and the Great Crypto Crash of 2022

A New York Times investigative reporter wades into the murky, pixelated waters of the multibillion-dollar NFT market-the virtual casino that sprang up overnight in 2020 and came crashing down, with all its celebrity hucksters, just two years later. A vibrant and witty exploration of the increasingly blurry line between art and money, artist and con artist, value and worthlessness. "A perfect book to understand and to laugh at the craziness of the art world today.' -Jerry Saltz, author of How to Be an Artist In 2021, when the gavel fell at Christie's on the sale of Mike Winkelmann's Everydays series-a compilation of five thousand digital artworks-it made a thunderous announcement: Non-fungible tokens had arrived. The ludicrous world of CryptoKitties and Bored Apes had just produced a piece of art worth $69.3 million (at least according to the highest bidder). On that day, the traditional art market-the largest unregulated market in the world-put its stamp of approval on a very new and carnivalesque digital reality. But what did it mean for these two worlds to collide? Was it all just a money laundering scheme? And come on, what was that piece of digital flotsam really worth anyway? In Token Supremacy, Zachary Small works through these and other fascinating questions, tracing the crypto economy back to its origins in the 2008 financial crisis and the lineage of NFTs back to the first photographic negatives. Small describes jaw-dropping tales of heists, publicity stunts, and rug pulls, before zeroing in on the role of 'security tokens' in the FTX scandal. Detours through art history provide insight into the mythmaking tactics that drive stratospheric auction sales and help the wealthy launder their finances (and reputations) through art. And we cast an eye toward a future where NFTs have paved the way for a dangerous, new shadow banking system. A wild and spellbinding tour through a world that strains belief.

Zachary Small (Author), Gabby Beans, Gabrielle Beans, TBD (Narrator)

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Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action (Manifesto)

Part treatise, part critique, part call to action, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice is a journey into the uncanny realities revealed to us in the great works of art of the past and present.Received opinion holds that art is culturally-determined and relative. We are told that whether a picture, a movement, a text, or sound qualifies as a "work of art" largely depends on social attitudes and convention. Drawing on examples ranging from Paleolithic cave paintings to modern pop music and building on the ideas of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Gilles Deleuze, Carl Jung, and others, J.F. Martel argues that art is an inborn human phenomenon that precedes the formation of culture and even society. Art is free of politics and ideology. Paradoxically, that is what makes it a force of liberation wherever it breaks through the trance of humdrum existence. Like the act of dreaming, artistic creation is fundamentally mysterious. It is a gift from beyond the field of the human, and it connects us with realities that, though normally unseen, are crucial components of a living world. While holding this to be true of authentic art, the author acknowledges the presence-overwhelming in our media-saturated age-of a false art that seeks not to liberate but to manipulate and control. Against this anti-artistic aesthetic force, which finds some of its most virulent manifestations in modern advertising, propaganda, and pornography, true art represents an effective line of defense. Martel argues that preserving artistic expression in the face of our contemporary hyper-aestheticism is essential to our own survival. Art is more than mere ornament or entertainment; it is a way, one leading to what is most profound in us. Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice places art alongside languages and the biosphere as a thing endangered by the onslaught of predatory capitalism, spectacle culture, and myopic technological progress. The book is essential reading for visual artists, musicians, writers, actors, dancers, filmmakers, and poets. It will also interest anyone who has ever been deeply moved by a work of art, and for all who seek a way out of the web of deception and vampiric diversion that the current world order has woven around us. Leaping gracefully from Coleridge to Kubrick, from the Bible to Baudrillard, J.F. Martel offers us a lovely and powerful reminder that the greatest art presents the world through mystery rather than manipulation. Arguing that art's prophetic promise comes from its capacity to rupture the workaday world of means and ends, Martel calls for a visionary return to the imaginal rifts of a novelty beyond artifice." -Erik Davis, author of TechGnosis "A key work for the soul of our time, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice is for the seasoned artist and the novice alike, for all those who dare to walk in, as J.F. Martel writes, an 'excess of meaning.' We need those today who would dare to live this way, and this book is a resounding call to return to the Imaginal life. 'Sing in me muse,' spoke Homer, and Martel has writ this large across the pages." -Jeremy D. Johnson, editor at Reality Sandwich "J.F. Martel is an incisive cultural critic with a penetrating vision of art. His book is a quiet manifesto for the creative act, reminding us of the numinous quality of the aesthetic object, as well as the intrinsic strangeness of our lives in the world." -Daniel Pinchbeck, author of Breaking Open the Head and 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

J.F. Martel (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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Is Your Work Worth It?: How to Think About Meaningful Work

A critical examination of the complex and revealing questions we must ask ourselves about our work and the value it brings to ourselves and others. According to recent studies, barely a third of American workers, and even fewer globally, feel "engaged" at work, and nearly half are "unhappy" doing what they do for a living. In the post-pandemic era with its turbulent job markets and spiraling economic landscape, many workers find themselves wondering: is my work worth it? In Is Your Work Worth It?, a prominent philosopher and an organizational psychologist investigate the purpose of work and its value in our lives. The book asks vital questions, such as: - When and how much should we work? - Should I work for love or money? - What would make life worth living in a world without work? - What kind of mark will my work leave on the world? This essential book combines scholarship, cultural artifacts like film and literature, and inspiring stories to help us clarify what worthy work looks like, what tradeoffs are acceptable to pursue it, and what our work can contribute to society.

Christopher Wong Michaelson, Jennifer Tosti-Kharas (Author), Andrew Sellen, Andrew Sellon, Christopher Wong Michaelson, Jennifer Tosti-Kharas, TBD (Narrator)

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A Leader's Destiny: Why Psychology, Personality, and Character Make All the Difference

A psychiatrist puts leadership "on the couch," with a provocative exploration of its crucial, often ignored, psychological and personal character foundations. Elias Aboujaoude's distinctive exploration of leadership provides unusual insight into understanding who should and should not be striving for leadership positions. Dr Aboujaoude takes on the culture at large, explaining how our cult-like obsession with leadership gives narcissists an edge and results in leadership failure everywhere we look-and how resisting the imperative to rise at all costs can leave many with an inferiority complex. His takedown of the "leadership industrial complex," an unholy alliance of gurus, coaches, business school professors, and TED-talkers, from Harvard on down, pokes a very sharp elbow into an industry seemingly united in a modern form of alchemy to create leadership gold-a waste of time, money, and effort, since leadership cannot be taught through books or coaching and cannot be bought. Rather, Dr Aboujaoude vividly illustrates, leaders emerge from a unique combination of personal, psychological, and situational factors that may not be easily controlled. To a large degree, great leaders are born, or happen, with the help of innate temperament, talent, opportunity, circumstances, and timing. Frank and unflinching, this refreshing take on a classic subject, with its focus on the art of knowing yourself, provides new insight into whether your psychology is aligned with the requirements of effective and happy leadership. The effect is to empower readers to understand themselves and step up if they have what it takes to lead-or find equally, often superior, ways to achieve fulfillment and leave their mark if they don't.

Elias Aboujaoude (Author), Pej Vahdat, TBD (Narrator)

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Cities in the Sky: The Quest to Build the World's Tallest Skyscrapers

From one of the world's top experts on the economics of skyscrapers—a fascinating account of the ever-growing quest for super tall buildings across the globe. The world's skyscrapers have brought us awe and wonder, and yet they remain controversial—for their high costs, shadows, and overt grandiosity. But, decade by decade, they keep getting higher and higher. What is driving this global building spree of epic proportions? In Cities in the Sky, author Jason Barr explains all: why they appeal to cities and nations, how they get financed, why they succeed economically, and how they change a city's skyline and enable the world's greatest metropolises to thrive in the 21st century. From the Empire State Building (1,250 feet) to the Shanghai Tower (2,073 feet) and everywhere in between, Barr explains the unique architectural and engineering efforts that led to the creation of each. Along the way, Barr visits and unpacks some surprising myths about the earliest skyscrapers and the growth of American skylines after World War II, which incorporated a new suite of technologies that spread to the rest of the world in the 1990s. Barr also explores why London banned skyscrapers at the end of the 19th century but then embraced them in the 21st and explains how Hong Kong created the densest cluster of skyscrapers on the planet. Also covered is the dramatic result of China's "skyscraper fever" and then on to the Arabian Peninsula to see what drove Dubai to build the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, which at 2,717 feet, is higher than the new One World Trade Center in New York by three football fields. Filled with fascinating details for urbanists, architecture buffs, and urban design enthusiasts alike, Cities in the Sky addresses the good, bad, and ugly for cities that have embraced vertical skylines and offers us a glimpse to the future to see whether cities around the world will continue their journey ever upwards.

Jason M. Barr (Author), Kirby Heyborne, TBD (Narrator)

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The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration

The collective voice of Japanese Americans defined by a specific moment in time: the four years of World War II during which the US government expelled resident aliens and its own citizens from their homes and imprisoned 125,000 of them in American concentration camps, based solely upon the race they shared with a wartime enemy. A Penguin Classic This anthology presents a new vision that recovers and reframes the literature produced by the people targeted by the actions of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress to deny Americans of Japanese ancestry any individual hearings or other due process after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. From nearly seventy selections of fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs, and letters emerges a shared story of the struggle to retain personal integrity in the face of increasing dehumanization - all anchored by the key government documents that incite the action. The selections favor the pointed over the poignant, and the unknown over the familiar, with several new translations among previously unseen works that have been long overlooked on the shelf, buried in the archives, or languished unread in the Japanese language. The writings are presented chronologically so that readers can trace the continuum of events as the incarcerees experienced it. The contributors span incarcerees, their children born in or soon after the camps, and their descendants who reflect on the long-term consequences of mass incarceration for themselves and the nation. Many of the voices are those of protest. Some are those of accommodation. All are authentic. Together they form an epic narrative with a singular vision of America's past, one with disturbing resonances with the American present.

Frank Abe, Tbd (Author), Frank Abe, Greg Watanabe, Keone Young, Ren Hanami, TBD, Traci Kato-Kiriyama (Narrator)

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Moneta: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome in Twelve Coins

Brought to you by Penguin. The extraordinary story of Rome, the ancient world's greatest superpower, as told through mankind's most ordinary object: the coin. When Gareth Harney was first handed a Roman coin by his father as a child, he became entranced: by its beauty, its hardiness and its power to tell stories and connect us with the ancient past. He realised that coins, more than being simply markers of exchange, are metal canvases upon which societies could immortalise their ideas, cultures, personalities, tragedies and triumphs. His small tarnished coin, then, actually told the epic story of Rome. From a few huts on an Italian hilltop to an all-conquering empire spanning three continents, Heads or Tails traces the dramatic rise and fall of the Romans through the fascinating lives of twelve remarkable coins. Through them we witness Caesar's assassination, experience everyday life in the heart of the city, journey into the Colosseum and meet the barbarians at the gate. This is the glory, and infamy, of ancient Rome in the palm of your hand. ©2024 Gareth Harney (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Gareth Harney (Author), Piers Hampton, TBD (Narrator)

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Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

'Urgent, extraordinary . . . a tribute to the astonishing indomitability of the human spirit.' - Patrick Radden Keefe, New York Times bestelling author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain New Yorker journalist Jonathan Blitzer has been covering the immigration crisis at America's southern border for nearly a decade, but the current emergency is the end of a much larger story. In this, his first book, Blitzer goes back to the beginning: to the shadowy civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s; to the American prison system in the 1990s and the policies of mass deportation that transformed local street criminals into international crime syndicates; to Honduras's brutal crackdown on crime in the 2000s and the emergence of gangs across Central America and the United States. And then the Trump era, in which immigration became a vector of resurgent populism, with mass internments the order of the day. Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is a fresh and full account of America's immigration problems, but it is much more than that. It is an odyssey of struggle and resilience, telling the epic story of people whose lives ebb and flow across the border and those who help and hinder them. It is a gripping and persuasive attempt to answer not only the question of how America got there, but the vital question of who we are and who we want to be in our liberal Western democracies, whether we are incarcerating children on our southern borders or watching them drown on the shores of the Mediterranean. 'A searing, gut-wrenching, and masterfully reportedaccount of one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the twenty-first century.' - Jill Lepore, New York Times bestselling author of These Truths: A History of the United States

Jonathan Blitzer (Author), André Santana, Jonathan Blitzer (Narrator)

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