Essays audiobooks

The Physics of Christmas

By: Roger Highfield

Narrated by: Gerard Doyle

Length: 8 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Can reindeer fly? Why is Santa Claus fat? Could scientists clone the perfect Christmas tree? Was the Star of Bethlehem really a comet? Why is Rudolph’s nose red? How does Santa manage to deliver presents to an estimated 842 million households in a single night? What could we do to guarantee a white Christmas every year?

These are among the... Read more

Lost Discoveries

By: Dick Teresi

Narrated by: Peter Johnson

Length: 14 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Lost Discoveries, Dick Teresi's innovative history of science, explores the unheralded scientific breakthroughs from peoples of the ancient world -- Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, Africans, New World and Oceanic tribes, among others -- and the non-European medieval world. They left an enormous heritage in the fields of mathematics, astronomy,... Read more

American Studies - Abridged

By: Louis Menand

Narrated by: Ron McLarty

Length: 6 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Brilliant, surprising insights into America yesterday and today from the New York Times bestselling author of The Metaphysical Club. Read more

God Save the Sweet Potato Queens

By: Jill Conner Browne

Narrated by: Jill Conner Browne

Length: 6 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Hallelujah! The Sweet Potato Queens are back!

In 1999, Jill Conner Browne, royal boss of Jackson, Mississippi's own glorious Sweet Potato Queens, introduced them to the world in the hilarious bestseller The Sweet Potato Queen's Book of Love (which contained everything you ever need to know about Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and the importance of... Read more

Crepúsculo de la cultura americana

By: Morris Berman

Narrated by: Jerónimo Hernández

Length: 7 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

Desde las entrañas mismas del imperio yanqui surge una voz que arremete sin piedad contra la autocomplacencia y la estupidez que, día a día, se apoderan inexorablemente de los ciudadanos estadounidenses. Morris Berman es quien profiere esta devastadora crítica. Sin embargo, El crepúsculo de la cultura americana representa también un lamento por... Read more

The Men's Health Playbook - Abridged

By: Men's Health Magazine

Narrated by: Hank Jacobs & Nicole Fonarow

Length: 2 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Witty and insightful, Men's Health writers Joe Kita, Lisa Jones, Hugh O'Neill, Ron Geraci and others share their personal and often comical experiences as they tackle the universal topics of love, life, and exactly how to find and keep that special someone. The Men's Health Playbook features selected articles from Men's Health including:

• 50... Read more

The Future of Spacetime - Abridged

By: Richard H. Price

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Length: 3 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Where the science of black holes, gravitational waves, and time travel will likely lead us, as reported by spacetime's most important theoreticians and observers.

Our minds tell us that some things in the universe must be true. The New Physics tells us that they are not, and in the process, blurs the line between science and science fiction. Here... Read more

The Next Fifty Years - Abridged

By: John Brockman

Narrated by: Henry Leyva, Jennifer Wiltsie, Oliver Wyman & S...

Length: 8 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: Yes

A brilliant ensemble of the world’s most visionary scientists provides twenty-five original never-before-published essays about the advances in science and technology that we may see within our lifetimes.

Theoretical physicist and bestselling author Paul Davies examines the likelihood that by the year 2050 we will be able to establish a... Read more

The Best Business Stories of the Year: 2002 Edition - Abridged

By: Andrew Leckey & Ken Auletta

Narrated by: Eliza Foss, Jeff Woodman & Oliver Wyman

Length: 17 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: Yes

A Vintage Original

The first installment of an exciting new annual anthology–a year's worth of the most interesting, noteworthy, and best-written articles on all aspects of the business world.

Series editor Andrew Leckey and guest editor Marshall Loeb have scoured the print media, consulted with the editors of major business and general interest... Read more

Roughing It

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 15 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Two American originals, Mark Twain and the West, come together in this documentary of the author's seven-year "pleasure trip" to the silver mines of Nevada. Twain had originally planned the trip to be a three-month "vacation;" not surprisingly for someone of Twain's temperament, the trip lasted seven years. His journey, like his book, has a way... Read more

Oh, the Things I Know!

By: Al Franken

Narrated by: Al Franken

Length: 2 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

A Grammy® nominee.

The bestselling author and Emmy®-winning television star guides graduates across the uncertain seas of post-academic life. Inspired, inspiring, and laugh-out-loud funny. Read more

Shadow Warriors

By: Tom Clancy & General Carl Stiner

Narrated by: Jonathan Marosz

Length: 21 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

Teams of dedicated, highly specialized soldiers trained to a higher standard than regular forces; an armamentarium of advanced weapons and tactics; a variety of exotic, critical assignments for the good of the nation; in short, the U.S. Special Forces seem tailor-made for Tom Clancy, progenitor of the techno-thriller. In this factual account... Read more

Fierce Pajamas - Abridged

By: David Remnick & Henry Finder

Narrated by: Patrick Frederic & Chris Gannon

Length: 6 hours 1 minute

Abridged: Yes

When Harold Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925, he described it as a “comic weekly.” And although it has become much more than that, it has remained true in its irreverent heart to the founder’s description, publishing the most illustrious literary humorists of the modern era—among them Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, Groucho Marx, George S.... Read more

Shiksa Goddess - Abridged

By: Wendy Wasserstein

Narrated by: Wendy Wasserstein

Length: 4 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Though celebrated playwright Wendy Wasserstein was firmly rooted in New York's cultural life, her appeal is universal. Shiksa Goddess collects her urbane, inspiring, and deeply empathetic essays, all written when she was in her forties, and all infused with her trademark irreverent humor. The full range of Wasserstein' s mid-life... Read more

French Lessons

By: Peter Mayle

Narrated by: Simon Jones

Length: 5 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

A delightful, delicious, and best-selling account of the gustatory pleasures to be found throughout France, from the beloved author of A Year in Provence.

The French celebrate food and drink more than any other people, and Peter Mayle shows us just how contagious their enthusiasm can be. We visit the Foire aux Escargots. We attend a truly French... Read more

Last Trout in Venice

By: Doug Lansky

Narrated by: Paul Mercer

Length: 6 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

With a bottomless taste for the absurd, nothing is too outrageous for Doug Lansky. In the plucky, hilarious, and irreverent spirit of Lansky's popular syndicated travel column, “Vagabond,” comes Last Trout in Venice, a book of adventurous and wacky travel essays that will have you laughing out loud. In Naples, Italy, Lansky rents a car precisely... Read more

The Best Business Stories of the Year 2001 - Abridged

By: Andrew Leckey

Narrated by: James Lurie & Eliza Floss

Length: 11 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: Yes

“[The editors] cast their net wide, picking up some excellent stories from nontraditional sources that even avid readers of the business press may have missed.”–USA Today, on the 2001 edition

Series editor Andrew Leckey and guest editor Ken Auletta have scoured the print media, consulted with the editors of major business and general interest... Read more

Napalm and Silly Putty - Abridged

By: George Carlin

Length: 2 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: Yes

He's the inventor of Past-Tense TV (featuring "Got Smart," "Father Knew Best," and "It Was Left to Beaver"); the tireless crusader for such charities as the Center for Research into the Heebie Jeebies, Children of Parents with Bad Teeth, and the State Hospital for Those Who Felt All Right About a Year Ago; founder of the George Carlin Book Club... Read more

Roads - Abridged

By: Larry McMurtry

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 6 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: Yes

As he crisscrosses America -- driving in search of the present, the past, and himself -- Larry McMurtry shares his fascination with this nation's great trails and the culture that has developed around them. 

Ever since he was a boy growing up in Texas only a mile from Highway 281, Larry McMurtry has felt the pull of the road. His town was... Read more

Best Friends

By: Samantha Glen

Narrated by: Juliette Parker

Length: 9 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Discover a place where every animal is safe, loved, and allowed to live out its natural life. Here is the inspiring true story of Best Friends, an animal sanctuary a few dedicated people made happen, and thousands of furry and feathered friends have called home. Meet the residents, including Sinjin, the badly burned black cat, and Sparkles, the... Read more

In Tuscany

By: Frances Mayes & Edward Mayes

Narrated by: Frances Mayes & Edward Mayes

Length: 3 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

A lavishly illustrated ode to the joys of Tuscany’s people, food, landscapes, and art, from the bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun and See You in the Piazza
 
“A love letter to Italy written in precise and passionate language of near-poetic density.”—Newsday
 
In Tuscany celebrates the abundant pleasures of life in Italy as it is lived at... Read more

Natural Blonde - Abridged

By: Liz Smith

Narrated by: Liz Smith

Length: 6 hours 1 minute

Abridged: Yes

From Tallulah Bankhead to Joan Crawford to the Kennedys and Madonna, the ultimate insider, Liz Smith has hobnobbed, air-kissed, and lunched with just about everybody who's been anybody over the last half-century--and then rushed to tell the world all about it. Now, in this candid, down-to-earth autobiography, she tells all about herself, and... Read more

The O'Reilly Factor - Abridged

By: Bill O'Reilly

Narrated by: Bill O'Reilly

Length: 5 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The million-copy New York Times bestseller from the Fox News anchor who’s brought new excitement–and massive amounts of populist common sense and rock-solid honesty–to television news.

Now four seasons strong, Bill O’Reilly’s nightly cable news program, “The O’Reilly Factor,” is one of the hottest shows on the air. In book form, The O’Reilly... Read more

The Last River - Abridged

By: Todd Balf

Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris

Length: 5 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The Last River: The Tragic Race for Shangri-la is a breathtaking account of the ill-fated October 1998 expedition of an American whitewater kayaking team who traveled deep into the Tsangpo Gorge in Tibet to run the Yarlung Tsangpo, known in paddling circles as the "Everest of rivers." For Wick Walker and Tom McEwan, extreme whitewater pioneers,... Read more