Nonfiction audiobooks

The Sage of Monticello

By: Dumas Malone
Narrated by: Anna Fields
Length: 18 hours 26 minutes
Abridged: No

The Sage of Monticello is the sixth and final volume of Dumas Malone's epic masterwork, Jefferson and His Time, a biography begun in 1943 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history in 1975. More wide ranging than the preceding volumes, The Sage of Monticello brilliantly recounts the accomplishments, friendships, and family difficulties of... Read more »

A Basic History of the United States, Vol. 6

By: Clarence B. Carson
Narrated by: Mary Woods
Length: 9 hours 9 minutes
Abridged: No

Carson’s full-scale treatment of American history combines scholarly exactness with evocative passages that lead the listener to a clearer understanding of the people and events, the triumphs and the shortcomings, which have shaped this nation. “For Carson, history is the product of the actions of countless individuals, each under the influence... Read more »

The Chain Gang

By: Richard McCord
Narrated by: Richard McCord
Length: 11 hours 41 minutes
Abridged: No

One of the biggest under-told stories of the past twenty years is the swallowing up of small independent newspapers by large corporations. This is the dramatic account of two battles waged by Richard McCord with his independent newspapers against the Gannett Company, one of the country’s largest newspaper chains.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, McCord... Read more »

Living Biographies of Famous Women

By: Henry Thomas & Dana Lee Thomas
Narrated by: S. Patricia Bailey
Length: 9 hours 54 minutes
Abridged: No

Each of the individuals featured in this book played an important role in history. Their accomplishments span a wide range of fields, from the literary and the political to the medical. They include Cleopatra; Theodora; Joan of Arc; Mary, Queen of Scots; Queen Christina; Madame de Maintenon; Charlotte Bronte; George Eliot; Elizabeth Barrett... Read more »

Embracing Defeat

By: John W. Dower
Narrated by: Edward Lewis
Length: 21 hours 39 minutes
Abridged: No

In this illuminating study, Dower explores the ways in which the shattering defeat of the Japanese in World War II, followed by over six years of American military occupation, affected every level of Japanese society. He describes the countless ways in which the Japanese met the challenge of “starting over”—from top-level manipulations... Read more »

Five Days in London

By: John Lukacs
Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
Length: 6 hours 24 minutes
Abridged: No

In the days between May 24 and 28, 1940, the British War Cabinet held a historic debate over whether to negotiate with Hitler or to continue the war. In this magisterial book, John Lukacs demonstrates the decisive importance of these five days.

Lukacs takes us hour by hour into the critical unfolding of events at 10 Downing Street, where... Read more »

Bonnie-Sue

By: Marion F. Sturkey
Narrated by: Dennis McKee
Length: 19 hours 57 minutes
Abridged: No

Marine Corps helicopter crews and infantrymen found little glory waiting for them in faraway Vietnam. Instead, they found themselves battling tenacious Sino-Soviet pawns in a savage daily struggle for survival.

Former Marine HMM-265 helicopter pilot Marion Sturkey combines fascinating detail with grim realism in this eloquent saga of Marines at... Read more »

The Sword and the Shield

By: Christopher Andrew & Vasili Mitrokhin
Narrated by: Simon Vance
Length: 31 hours 49 minutes
Abridged: No

Based on unprecedented access to a secret archive of intelligence, The Sword and the Shield presents by far the most complete picture we have ever had of the KGB and its operations in the United States and Europe, revealing for the first time the full extent of its worldwide network.

Vasili Mitrokhin worked for almost thirty years in the foreign... Read more »

Mere Christianity

By: C. S. Lewis
Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
Length: 5 hours 54 minutes
Abridged: No

Mere Christianity is C. S. Lewis’ forceful and accessible doctrine on Christian belief. First heard as informal radio broadcasts and then published as three separate books—The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality—Mere Christianity brings together what Lewis sees as the fundamental truths of his religion.

Rejecting the... Read more »

Rose Cottage Chronicles

By: Arch Frederick Blakely, Ann Smith Lainhart & Winston Bryant Stephens
Narrated by: Christopher Walker
Length: 18 hours 8 minutes
Abridged: No

As fresh and poignant today as when they were written, these touching letters capture the heart of everyday life during the Civil War. Set both at home in Florida and on the front, the letters were written by two generations of families whose members included radical secessionists, moderates, and even a few unionists.

The domestic letters,... Read more »

Edison

By: Paul Israel
Narrated by: Raymond Todd
Length: 22 hours 41 minutes
Abridged: No

The definitive biography of the century’s godfather of invention—from the preeminent Edison scholar

The conventional story of Thomas Edison reads more like myth than history: with only three months of formal education, a hardworking young man overcomes the odds to become one of the greatest inventors in history. But the portrait that emerges from... Read more »

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

By: Susan Hertog
Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
Length: 17 hours 19 minutes
Abridged: No

In this first full-length study of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Susan Hertog pierces the public image of Anne and Charles to reveal their story from inside the marriage and gives us a true understanding of the author of the bestselling classic The Gift from the Sea.

Susan Hertog plumbs the depths of Anne Lindbergh’s search for her own identity and... Read more »

John Neff on Investing

By: John Neff & Steven L. Mintz
Narrated by: Edward Lewis
Length: 9 hours 22 minutes
Abridged: No

John Neff has proven time and again over the past three decades that bucking the system can pay off big. During his illustrious career as a money manager, Neff flew in the face of conventional wisdom by consistently passing over the big growth stocks of the moment in favor of inexpensive, underperforming ones—and he usually won! During his... Read more »

To Hell and Back

By: Audie Murphy
Narrated by: Grover Gardner
Length: 8 hours 9 minutes
Abridged: No

The time is 1943, the place is Sicily, and the event is the start of the most remarkable career of any American infantryman in the war. Audie Murphy was a desperately poor eighteen-year-old orphan when he joined the Army, nineteen when he first saw a buddy die from an enemy bullet and an enemy die from one of his own. By V-E day, he had killed... Read more »

Unfinished People

By: Ruth Gay
Narrated by: Anna Fields
Length: 10 hours 22 minutes
Abridged: No

Nearly three million Jews came to America from Eastern Europe between 1880 and the outbreak of World War I, filled with the hope of life in a new land. Most were young, single, uneducated, and unskilled; many were children or teens. They were, in a sense, unfinished citizens of either the old or the new world.

Within two generations, these... Read more »

An Affair with Africa

By: Alzada Carlisle Kistner
Narrated by: C. M. Hébert
Length: 8 hours 53 minutes
Abridged: No

In June 1960, a young faculty wife named Alzada Kistner and her husband David, a promising entomologist, left their eighteen-month-old daughter in the care of relatives and began what was to be a four-month scientific expedition in the Belgian Congo. Three weeks after their arrival, the country was gripped by a violent revolution, trapping the... Read more »

The Last Marlin

By: Fred Waitzkin
Narrated by: Lloyd James
Length: 9 hours 53 minutes
Abridged: No

The Last Marlin is an unforgettable memoir of growing up in the fifties. Young Fred is a Jewish boy who is stretched between the divergent values of parents who cannot tolerate one another. Fred’s father, Abe, is a brilliantly talented salesman whose relentless will drives him to succeed, at any cost. He marries Stella, an abstract artist, the... Read more »

How to Grow a Backbone

By: Susan Marshall
Narrated by: Anna Fields
Length: 7 hours 24 minutes
Abridged: No

To succeed in business today, you must be strong, smart, competitive, resilient, tenacious, and fearless. If you want to be heard at work, you must speak up. If you want to drive change, you need an action plan. If you want to keep your job in an increasingly competitive world, you must show on a daily basis how you add value to your company. In... Read more »

The Moral Sense

By: James Q. Wilson
Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
Length: 11 hours 12 minutes
Abridged: No

Virtue has acquired a bad name, says Wilson, but it is nevertheless what we are referring to when we discuss a person’s character, such as whether someone is kind, friendly, or loyal. Although we may disguise the language of morality as a language of personality, it is still, in Wilson’s words, “the language of virtue and vice.”

Says the... Read more »

Magnolia Grove

By: Harvey Rosenfeld
Narrated by: John Lescault
Length: 8 hours 39 minutes
Abridged: No

Rear Admiral Richmond Pearson Hobson was a charismatic American hero whose colorful life at the beginning of the twentieth century reflected the rapidly changing politics of his day. Highly honored in his lifetime, he is largely unknown today.

During the Spanish-American War, Hobson survived a “suicide mission,” sinking the Merrimac in an... Read more »

California Characters

By: Charles Hillinger
Narrated by: Dennis McKee
Length: 10 hours 40 minutes
Abridged: No

For forty-six years, Charles Hillinger journeyed around the world writing human-interest stories for the Los Angeles Times. He also helped to create and produce special features for the popular NBC television show Real People.

From this work comes California Characters, a collection of stories of intriguing, eccentric, or simply amazing... Read more »

Living Biographies of Great Philosophers

By: Henry Thomas & Dana Lee Thomas
Narrated by: Edward Lewis
Length: 9 hours 42 minutes
Abridged: No

Every biography is a story of adventure. The energetic personalities of the world represent an adventure in living. The philosophical personalities, on the other hand, represent an adventure in thinking. And when we examine the lives of the philosophers, we find that the procession of a man’s thoughts can be as exciting a spectacle as the... Read more »

The Fighting Pattons

By: Brian M. Sobel
Narrated by: Adams Morgan
Length: 14 hours 5 minutes
Abridged: No

This book gives readers a unique look at a bold and legendary general, and the compelling story of his only son, who followed in his father’s footsteps.

In America’s triumph over Nazi Germany, no name was more legendary than Patton, the general feared and admired even by his enemies. While Patton cut a path of victory in Europe, his son was... Read more »

Bing Crosby

By: Gary Giddins
Narrated by: Edward Lewis
Length: 22 hours 16 minutes
Abridged: No

From 1934 to 1954, Bing Crosby utterly dominated American entertainment. The number one movie star for five years in a row, he had more hit records than anyone in history. The rise of Bing Crosby was the rise of the American popular culture itself.

In this commanding biography, eminent cultural critic Gary Giddins takes us on the remarkable... Read more »