The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Volume 2: The Ring Goes Forth
UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 33 mins)
By J.R.R. Tolkien
Narrated By Rob Inglis
Overall
(100)
Performance
(30)
Story
(29)
In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.
Catherine says:
"Part 2 of Inglis' measured reading"
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Volume 1: The Treason of Isengard
UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 33 mins)
By J.R.R. Tolkien
Narrated By Rob Inglis
Overall
(77)
Performance
(21)
Story
(21)
Frodo and the Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. Now they continue their journey alone down the great River Anduin, alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.
By William Shakespeare, Jonathan Lomas, Phil Viner
Narrated By Joan Walker, Jude Akuwudike, Nick Murchie
Overall
(28)
Performance
(5)
Story
(5)
Experience Othello as a powerful full-cast drama with entertaining and enlightening commentary that explains what's what and who's who as the plot unfolds. To help you get the most out of Shakespeare, the narrator offers historical insights and background information, so you can enjoy the jokes, appreciate the references, and get a real sense of Shakespeare's world.
In this personal memoir, Bristol Palin opens up for the first time ever. She takes listeners behind the scenes, from growing up in Alaska to coming of age amid the media and political frenzy surrounding her mother's political rise; from becoming a single mother while still a teenager to coping as her relationship with the baby's father crumbled publicly. Through all of these ups and downs, Bristol learned how to face her challenges head-on, with courage and grace.
Somewhere in Heaven: The Remarkable Love Story of Dana and Christopher Reeve
UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 56 mins)
By Christopher Anderson
Narrated By Edward Hermann
Overall
(10)
Performance
(3)
Story
(3)
Christopher Andersen, senior editor for People and acclaimed author of numerous books, spotlights Dana and Christopher Reeve - examining their unique partnership and the romance, faith, and fortitude that defined it. This bittersweet saga shows the couple bearing the painful hand of providence with unbelievable grace, courage, and humor.
S says:
"Excellent Audio Book-Somewhere In Heaven"
A teen idol at 15, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at 20, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences. Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last 25 years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable.
Lisbeth Salander is a wanted woman. Two Millennium journalists are murdered and Salander's fingerprints are on the weapon. Her history of unpredictable behaviour makes her the official suspect, but no-one can find her. Salander may be an expert at staying out of sight, but she also has ways of tracking down her most elusive enemies.
From Andre Agassi, one of the most beloved athletes in history and one of the most gifted men ever to step onto a tennis court, a beautiful, haunting autobiography. Agassi brings a near-photographic memory to every pivotal match and every relationship. Never before has the inner game of tennis and the outer game of fame been so precisely limned.
Carol Burnett is one of the most beloved and revered actresses and performers in America. The Carol Burnett Show was seen each week by millions of adoring fans and won 25 Emmys in its remarkable 11-year run. Now, in This Time Together, Carol really lets her hair down and tells one funny or touching or memorable story after another.
Stein on Writing: A Master Editor Shares His Craft, Techniques, and Strategies
UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 16 mins)
By Sol Stein
Narrated By Christopher Lane
Overall
(411)
Performance
(101)
Story
(96)
Stein on Writing provides immediately useful advice for writers of fiction and nonfiction, whether newcomers or accomplished professionals. As Sol Stein, renowned editor, author, and instructor, explains, "This is not a book of theory. It is a book of usable solutions, how to fix writing that is flawed, how to improve writing that is good, how to create interesting writing in the first place."
Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting
ABRIDGED (6 hrs and 12 mins)
By Robert McKee
Narrated By Robert McKee
Overall
(374)
Performance
(40)
Story
(43)
Robert McKee's screenwriting workshops have earned him an international reputation for inspiring novices, refining works in progress, and putting major screenwriting careers back on track. Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese, and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives, and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience.
Narrated By Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and others
Overall
(349)
Performance
(197)
Story
(197)
Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Aibileen is a black maid raising her 17th white child. Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is the sassiest woman in Mississippi: a wonderful cook with a gossip's tongue. Graduate Skeeter returns from college with ambitions, but her mother will not be happy until she's married. Although world's apart, Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny's lives converge over a clandestine project that will change the town of Jackson forever.
paul says:
"Skeptical at 1st, Enjoyed every moment"
Thalia Book Club: Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Celebration
ORIGINAL (1 hr and 39 mins)
By Harper Lee
Narrated By Stephen Colbert, Isaiah Sheffer, Jayne Anne Phillips, and others
Overall
(101)
Performance
(52)
Story
(57)
Authors and actors including Stephen Colbert, Libba Bray (award winning young-adult novelist Going Bovine, winner of 2010 Printz Award), Oskar Eustis (Artistic Director at The Public Theater), Kurt Andersen (novelist and Studio 360 Host), Jayne Anne Phillips (novelist and National Book Award finalist Lark & Termite), filmmaker Mary McDonagh Murphy (author of the upcoming book Scout, Atticus, and Boo), and others pay tribute to the Pulitzer prize-winning classic novel about racial injustice and loss of innocence in a small Southern town.
Now at last Keith Richards pauses to tell his story in the most anticipated autobiography in decades. And what a story! Listening obsessively to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records in a coldwater flat with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones, building a sound and a band out of music they loved. Finding fame and success as a bad-boy band, only to find themselves challenged by authorities everywhere....
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 37 mins)
By Mindy Kaling
Narrated By Mindy Kaling, Michael Schur
Overall
(295)
Performance
(273)
Story
(272)
Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck–impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence “Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I’ll shut up about it?”
A teen idol at 15, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at 20, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences. Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last 25 years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable.
"I've experienced a whole lot the last few years and I have a lot to share. So I hope that you'll take a moment to sit back, relax and enjoy the words I've put together for you in this book. I think you'll find I've left no stone unturned, no door unopened, no window unbroken, no rug unvacuumed, no ivories untickled. What I'm saying is, let us begin, shall we?" (Ellen DeGeneres)
Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder - and that the killer is a member of his own family. He employs journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, truculent computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history.
The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss
UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 42 mins)
By Edmund de Waal
Narrated By Michael Maloney
Overall
(56)
Performance
(44)
Story
(42)
The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who “burned like a comet” in 19th-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining of their vast empire was a collection of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox. The renowned ceramicist Edmund de Waal became the fifth generation to inherit this small and exquisite collection of netsuke. Entranced by their beauty and mystery, he determined to trace the story of his family through the story of the collection.
Susan says:
"A vagabond through history, clutching a tiny carvi"
Narrated By Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and others
Overall
(349)
Performance
(197)
Story
(197)
Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Aibileen is a black maid raising her 17th white child. Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is the sassiest woman in Mississippi: a wonderful cook with a gossip's tongue. Graduate Skeeter returns from college with ambitions, but her mother will not be happy until she's married. Although world's apart, Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny's lives converge over a clandestine project that will change the town of Jackson forever.
paul says:
"Skeptical at 1st, Enjoyed every moment"
Lisbeth Salander is a wanted woman. Two Millennium journalists are murdered and Salander's fingerprints are on the weapon. Her history of unpredictable behaviour makes her the official suspect, but no-one can find her. Salander may be an expert at staying out of sight, but she also has ways of tracking down her most elusive enemies.
Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning
UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 33 mins)
By Gary Marcus
Narrated By Gary Marcus
Overall
(4)
Performance
(4)
Story
(4)
Just about every human being knows how to listen to music, but what does it take to make music? Is musicality something we are born with? Or a skill that anyone can develop at any time? If you don't start piano at the age of six, is there any hope? Is skill learning best left to children or can anyone reinvent him-or herself at any time?
Andrew Zimmern Visits Huatulco: Chapter 6 from 'The Bizarre Truth'
UNABRIDGED (21 mins)
By Andrew Zimmern
Narrated By Andrew Zimmern
Overall
(0)
Performance
(0)
Story
(0)
Andrew Zimmern, the host of the Travel Channel’s hit series "Bizarre Foods", has an extraordinarily well-earned reputation for traveling far and wide to seek out and sample anything and everything that’s consumed as food globally. For Zimmern, local cuisine is not simply what’s served at mealtime. It is a primary avenue to discovering what is most authentic - the bizarre truth - about cultures everywhere. In this section, Zimmern catches and cooks Huatulco’s native octopuses.
Luigi Francis "Shorty" Rossi, the tough-talking, fedora-wearing star of Animal Planet's hit show Pit Boss, may stand only four feet tall, but that hasn't stopped him from living large, becoming a successful businessman and an outspoken advocate for pit bulls, the most misunderstood dog breed in the world.
Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation
UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 13 mins)
By Marc Fisher
Narrated By Bill Andrew Quinn
Overall
(0)
Performance
(0)
Story
(0)
Something in the Air offers a sweeping, anecdotal account of the great sounds and voices of radio - and how it became a bonding agent for a generation of American youth. When television became the next big thing in broadcast entertainment, everyone figured video would kill radio, period. But radio came roaring back with a whole new concept. Add transistors, 45 rpm records, and a young man named Elvis to the mix and the result was the perfect storm that rocked, rolled, and reinvented radio.
Narrated By Barbara Caruso, Richard Ferrone, Jeff Woodman
Overall
(1)
Performance
(1)
Story
(1)
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, great explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and collector of butterflies, Beatles memorabilia, miniature cacti and coral. When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks, his inward journey towards some kind of peace takes him on an odyssey through the five boroughs of New York, as he attempts to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet....
Elisabeth says:
"Amazing narration and story but massive techerror"
Downton Abbey portrays a world of elegance and decadence, a world of duty and obedience, and a world of romance and rivalry. This companion book, full of rich historical detail, takes fans deeper into that period than ever before. Experience the inner workings of the downstairs life and be dazzled by the glamour of upstairs life with profiles of all the major characters, interviews with the actors, and behind the scenes insights.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments
UNABRIDGED (17 hrs and 46 mins)
By David Foster Wallace
Narrated By Paul Garcia
Overall
(0)
Performance
(0)
Story
(0)
In this exuberantly praised book - a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner - David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction.
Wishing on the Moon: The Life and Times of Billie Holiday
UNABRIDGED (17 hrs and 44 mins)
By Donald Clarke
Narrated By Anna Fields
Overall
(0)
Performance
(0)
Story
(0)
No singer has been more mythologized and more misunderstood than jazz legend Billie Holiday, who helped to create much of the mystique herself with her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. This authentic biography sets the record straight.
Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever
UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 57 mins)
By Will Hermes
Narrated By Adam Verner
Overall
(0)
Performance
(0)
Story
(0)
Punk rock and hip-hop, disco and salsa, the loft jazz scene and the downtown composers known as Minimalists—in the mid-1970s, New York City was a laboratory where all the major styles of modern music were reinvented, all at once, from one block to the next, by musicians who knew, admired, and borrowed from one another.
Enoch Arden first came to international attention with a recording by Claude Raines and Glenn Gould, but it has since drifted back to obscurity. This is a work that both Luxon and Moyer have loved for many years. The poem is immediately accessible to any audience and tells a heart-wrenching story of friendship, love, separation, and sacrifice. The masterful score creates a powerful soundtrack to the saga.
528hz Solfeggio Meditation: Transform Your Life, Repair DNA and Create Miracles
ORIGINAL (42 mins)
By Harrold Glenn, Ali Calderwood (music)
Overall
(3)
Performance
(3)
Story
(3)
This is one of a series of six meditation recordings by Glenn Harrold and Ali Calderwood, which are based upon the ancient Solfeggio musical scale. Each note in this scale has specific healing properties, and this recording uses the third note, which resonates to a frequency of 528hz. This frequency works to heal broken DNA, healing on all levels - emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical - bringing relief from anxiety, fatigue, and control issues. It helps to release negative thinking.
Chris says:
"I bought this for the music, not the narritive."
