General Audiobooks | Science & Technology

Saving Sam: The True Story of an American's Disappearance in Syria and His Family's Extraordinary Fi

A gripping testament of resilience, family, and faith, this is the incredible and true story of an American traveler who was captured and wrongfully imprisoned in Syria while on a journey to experience every country in the world. What would you do if your son suddenly disappeared in Syria, and you had no idea what had happened to him? Would you contact the FBI? The State Department? Pray? Would you Google "What to do if your son disappears in Syria"? When the unthinkable happened, the answer, in the case of Ann Goodwin and her husband Tag, was: all of the above. Their 30-year-old son Sam, who was attempting to become one of the few people in history to travel to every single country on the planet, vanished in a supposed safe-zone run by the Kurds on the Turkish border. At first, they didn't even realize he had been abducted: maybe the phone reception had gone down, they told themselves, as had happened plenty of times before when Sam was in an off-the-beaten-path place. Just wait, he'll call back soon. But Sam never did call back, and over the coming days, the horror of their situation quickly bore down on the Goodwins, a devout Catholic family of seven living a middle-class suburban lifestyle in St. Louis, Missouri. Frustrated and increasingly terrified, the Goodwin's came to realize that they couldn't rely on their government to save Sam. They were going to have to do it themselves. This is the extraordinary story of Sam's abduction by the Syrian regime, who threatened to hand him over to ISIS for beheading if he did not confess to being a CIA spy. It's also the story of a Midwestern American family who transformed themselves into their own detective agency, building up a network of journalists, hostage negotiators, Middle East experts, Russian diplomats, Vatican envoys, and shady mercenaries, until eventually - by nothing short of a miracle - they found a secret backdoor into the heart of the Syrian intelligence service itself. Through multiple first-person narrators, Saving Sam recounts an inspiring and unforgettable saga that includes a travel journey to every country in the world, famous celebrities, heads of state, high-stakes diplomacy and critical life lessons around curiosity, uncertainty, prayer and what it ultimately means to be free. In a genuine, straightforward and sometimes humorous style, Sam draws on his experience as a hostage to demonstrate how we can all turn our own adversities into assets, whether it be in our personal, professional or spiritual lives.

Sam Goodwin (Author), Tbd (Narrator)

Audiobook

Grant Me Vision

Foreword by DeAndre Hopkins In this extraordinary memoir—a story of hardship, loss, redemption, faith, and ultimately reclaiming your power—Sabrina Greenlee, the mother of NFL star DeAndre Hopkins, shares her experience growing up Black and poor in South Carolina, how she survived domestic violence and coped with the loss of her sight, and how she continued to remain strong even in the face of despair. Sabrina Greenlee has known darkness. Born in South Carolina to Black teenaged parents, Sabrina grew up in a family that lacked the means—financial and emotional—to offer her and her two brothers the safety, comfort, and love every child deserves. Growing up Black and poor in the South, she endured years of sexual and domestic violence and suffered tragedy after tragedy, including the death of her younger brother during a drunk driving accident, and surviving another car accident that claimed the life of her one true love. Coupled with the pain of her childhood, she faced crushing heartbreak, including an abusive relationship that endured for years and later, the loss of her sight in a brutal public attack. But the trauma that Sabrina experienced and eventually overcame is what makes her life truly remarkable. After years of tremendous setbacks, Sabrina was able to built herself back up again and achieved the kind of life she always dreamed. She became the loving and dependable mother she wished she’d had, raising four children—including star athletes—who attended college and are successful in their chosen fields. She also found the courage to break the silence that enshrouded her life, ending the generational trauma that had damaged her family for generations. Grant Me Vision is her riveting story—a memoir of faith and resilience in the face of life’s most difficult challenges. At its heart, it is a story of claiming your power by making peace with your past and finding the faith to have strength even when the future seems hopeless.

Sabrina Greenlee (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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Love Out Loud: Building a Relationship and Family from Scratch

Terrell and Jarius' are a beautiful couple you see online every day. They met during their freshman year of college at a haunted house, and soon realized they could not live without each other. Soon, the couple became famous for sharing their love story via social media and now, they live and work together as content creators, activists, and social media stars. Before these gorgeous people became highly sought-after brand ambassadors, they kept their whole relationship a secret. Now as major Influencers in the LGBTQ+ space, they are writing a book to show all the major obstacles that have allowed them to achieve their dream life today. Through prejudice, marriage, disappointments, loss, secrecy, parenthood, and adversity, the couple shows that despite what you think, love is what makes all their dreams come true. Love Out Loud shares the couple's love through their private moments of embracing who they are as individuals, as a couple, and as a family unit, and truly how beautiful those moments can be. Love Out Loud is about love, relationships, and surviving through storms together no matter what is thrown at you. The two men share the life they have dreamed about and how they achieved it despite societal pressures around them. Through personal anecdotes, the two offer the powerful lessons that they only could have learned on their distinct as gay, black men, they have tremendous empathy that comes across on screen that translates to nuclear and alternative families alike.

Jarius Joseph, Terrell Joseph (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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Modern Slave

Gaia was groomed, abused and enslaved – but then she fought back Aged just 14 years old, Gaia Cooper was groomed, raped and held captive by a group of paedophiles. Before long, she was exploited and forced to take part in organised credit card fraud. Once she was in their grasp, Gaia found it impossible to escape this new adult world – a carousel of abuse, crime and drugs. For more than four years, Gaia endured the horrific abuse before she was finally able to fight back, not only against the men who had stolen her childhood, but the authorities that had fed her directly into their hands.

Gaia Cooper (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Dear Cisgender People: A Guide to Allyship and Empathy

Behind the shock headlines and the distressing statistics, what does it really mean to be trans? The trans experience is all-too-often the subject of fierce debate in the media and online. Whilst we're having more and more conversations about the trans experience, the stark reality is that hate crimes against the trans community have quadrupled over the past five years, and two in five trans young people have attempted suicide. In this powerful, extensively researched and deeply personal audiobook, Kenny Ethan Jones, trans activist and writer, offers an authentic and in-depth insight into the trans experience. From gender dysphoria to surgery, from being outed to finding love and considering parenthood, Kenny Ethan Jones draws on his own life and the stories of others from the trans and non-binary communities to create discussion around the complexities and reality of the trans experiences in today's society. Dear Cis(gender) People is a powerful call-to-arms, equipping people of every gender with the tools to step forward as allies in order to bring about meaningful change. Kenny is a writer, advocate and consultant. His activism is focused on menstruation, body politics, mental health and intimacy. His lead role in Pink Parcel's 'I'm On' campaign, saw him make history as the first trans man to front a period campaign. © 2024 Kenny Ethan Jones © 2024 DK Audio

Kenny Ethan Jones (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

I Fight, You Fight: The noble way to growth and happiness

The inspiring story of a young man whose wisdom and strength can teach us that life isn't about the hand you're dealt, but how you choose to play it. Sixteen-year-old Alex Noble was a high school rugby star with a promising sporting career ahead of him when an on-field injury left him fighting for his life in the ICU. Following a four-day coma and a diagnosis of C4 quadriplegia, Alex's first words to his brother Zac were, 'If I fight, you fight.' These words became a war cry as Alex's friends, family and community rallied around him, watching in awe as he fought to regain control over his body and defy his diagnosis. From learning to breathe and move again to travelling the world, starting his own business, and even going skydiving, Alex's story is about the power of mastering your own mind, finding happiness and taking risks to achieve your goals - no matter how out of reach they may seem. Full of warmth, humour and insight, this is a book that will teach you principles to live your life by, written by a young man who has put them into practice. I Fight, You Fight is so much more than an inspiring memoir - it's a philosophy for living life to the fullest.

Alex Noble (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Kissing Girls on Shabbat: A Memoir

A moving coming-of-age memoir in the vein of Unorthodox and Educated, about one young woman's desperate attempt to protect her children and family while also embracing her queer identity in a controlling Hasidic community. Growing up in the Hasidic community of Brooklyn's Borough Park, Sara Glass knew one painful truth: what was expected of her and what she desperately wanted were impossibly opposed. Tormented by her attraction to women and trapped in a loveless arranged marriage, she found herself unable to conform to her religious upbringing and soon, she made the difficult decision to walk away from the world she knew. Sara's journey to self-acceptance began with the challenging battle for a divorce and custody of her children, an act that left her on the verge of estrangement from her family and community. Controlled by the fear of losing custody of her two children, she forced herself to remain loyal to the compulsory heteronormativity baked into Hasidic Judaism and married again. But after suffering profound loss and a shocking sexual assault, Sara decided to finally be completely true to herself. Kissing Girls on Shabbat is not only a love letter to Glass's children, herself, and her family—it is an unflinching window into the world of ultra-conservative Orthodox Jewish communities and an inspiring celebration of learning to love yourself.

Sara Glass (Author), Sara Glass, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Math in Drag

Join sensational drag queen Kyne Santos on an extraordinary journey through the glamorous world of … math? This sassy book is your VIP pass, taking you behind the scenes with a TikTok superstar who shatters stereotypes and proves that math can be fascinating and fun, even for people who think they aren’t good at it. With her irreverent style and unique perspective, Kyne investigates mathematical mysteries while educating us about the art of drag. She explores surprising connections, such as the elegance of ballroom culture and the nature of infinity, the rebellious joys of Pride and dividing by zero, and the role of statistics in her own experience on Drag Race. Kyne gets personal while sharing her experiences as a queer person forging a path in STEM, overcoming obstacles to stay fierce, stay real, and thrive! She empowers readers of all skill levels to break school rules, question everything, and embrace math’s beauty. In Math in Drag, numbers glitter, equations sashay through history, and inclusivity is a celebration. Read it to fire your excitement and unleash your inner math diva! “This is a dazzling, joyful, and hard-hitting account of how math—and humans—cannot be confined to rigid boxes no matter how much some people try to box them in. Kyne’s irrepressible spirit shines through bravely and fabulously.”—Eugenia Cheng, author of Is Math Real? and How to Bake Pi

Kyne Santos (Author), Kyne Santos (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Walk in the Park

From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the epic adventure tale The Emerald Mile comes the most dramatic and deeply moving account ever of walking the Grand Canyon, a highly dangerous, life-changing 750-mile trek. The Grand Canyon is an American treasure, visited by more than 6 million people a year, many of whom are rendered speechless by its vast beauty, mystery, and complexity. Now, in A Walk in the Park, author Kevin Fedarko chronicles his year-long effort to find a 750-mile path along the length of the Grand Canyon, through a vertical wilderness suspended between the caprock along the rims of the abyss and the Colorado River, which flows along its bottom. Consisting of countless cliffs and steep drops, plus immense stretches with almost no access to water, and the fact that not a single trail links its eastern doorway to its western terminus, this jewel of national parks is so challenging that when Fedarko departed fewer people had completed the journey in one single hike than had walked on the moon. The intensity of the effort required him to break his trip into several legs, each of which held staggering dangers and unexpected discoveries. Accompanying Fedarko through this sublime yet perilous terrain is the award-winning photographer Peter McBride, who captures the stunning landscape in breathtaking photos. Together, they encounter long-lost Native American ruins, the remains of Old West prospectors' camps, present day tribal activists, and signs that commercial tourism is impinging on the park's remote wildness. An epic adventure, action-packed survival tale, and a deep spiritual journey, A Walk in the Park gives us an unprecedented glimpse of the crown jewel of America's National Parks: an iconic landscape framed by ancient rock whose contours are recognized by all, but whose secrets and treasures are known to almost no one, and whose topography encompasses some of the harshest, least explored, most awe-inspiring terrain in the world.

Kevin Fedarko (Author), Kevin Fedarko, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Dead Don't Need Reminding: In Search of Fugitives, Mississippi, and Black TV Nerd Shit

This brilliant, adult nonfiction debut from the acclaimed MG author and poet weaves two personal narratives of recovery and reclamation, spliced with a dazzle of pop-culture The Dead Don't Need Reminding is a braided story of Julian Randall's return from the cliff edge of a harrowing depression and his determination to retrace the hustle of a white-passing grandfather to the Mississippi town from which he was driven amid threats of tar and feather. Alternatively wry, lyrical, and heartfelt, Randall transforms pop culture moments into deeply personal explorations of grief, family, and the American way. He envisions his fight to stay alive through a striking medley of media ranging from Into the Spiderverse and Jordan Peele movies to BoJack Horseman and the music of Odd Future. Pulsing with life, sharp, and wickedly funny, The Dead Don't Need Reminding is Randall's journey to get his ghost story back.

Julian Randall (Author), Julian Randall, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

My Sins Go With Me: A Story of Resistance

Why did acts of sabotage by the Dutch Resistance during World War Two, that saved countless Jews from the camps, remain largely hidden to the present day? This is the story of the remarkable bravery and heroism, and also of terrible betrayal. Anna-Maria van der Vaart is 104, remarkably independent despite her failing eyesight, living on the south coast of England. During the darkest days of the war, in her home country of Holland, she sheltered Allied pilots, gave refuge to persecuted Jews and stood up to the Nazis by participating in audacious acts of resistance. The Dutch turned more Jews over to the Nazis than any other nation. There were traitors in every Resistance cell, the juxtaposition of valour and treachery poignant and tragic. A chance meeting with Anna-Maria led to her telling him her story, together with those of the Resistance members with whom she had contact or whose deeds she recollected, the people she helped and others who were determined to destroy them. In interviews with those who survived, in Dutch and German archives, personal diaries, photo libraries and occasionally contentious memoirs by those with plenty to hide, Martin Sixsmith came across a drama on a scale he could never have imagined. In My Sins Go With Me, he gives as wide as possible a picture of those who resisted and those who threw in their lot with their fellow Aryans from Hitler's Germany, endeavouring to understand the decisions taken by both sides and learning that it was not a simple choice, not merely a question of courage and honour versus cowardice and greed.

Martin Sixsmith (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Ayesha's Gift: A daughter's search for the truth about her father

**FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING PHILOMENA, MADE INTO THE AWARD-WINNING FILM STARRING STEVEN COOGAN AND JUDI DENCH** Ayesha's Gift is the true story of a young woman, born in Pakistan, living in Britain, whose life is thrown into desperate turmoil by the violent death of her father. The Pakistani authorities talk of suicide, but why would Ayesha's happy, gentle father kill himself? Ayesha's quest to find the truth takes her away from her safe English existence and into Pakistan, where she is met with threats, violence and smiling perjurers. She is warned that her life is in danger; powerful, ruthless men have reasons to want her silenced. But there are things she needs to know, that compel her to press on with her search for the truth. Was her father an innocent victim? Can she continue to revere the image of him she grew up with, that of a good, loving parent? Or will she be forced to accept that her father was not the person she thought he was? As the two countries she had considered home reveal themselves as foreign and inimical, Ayesha is forced to confront the tormented issues of identity and belonging. When she travels to Pakistan, Martin Sixsmith goes with her. A shared tragedy and an unlikely friendship lead them both to question the things that give meaning to their lives, and ultimately to find solace in the common human values of kindess and respect. 'Written at thriller pace' Telegraph 'Wonderful . . . What I find so striking about Ayesha's Gift is that it's a book in which the writer is changed by the writing of the book' Andrew Marr

Martin Sixsmith (Author), Nina Wadia, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

General Audiobooks in Science & Technology