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Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet
- The Favorite Founder's Divisive Death, Enduring Afterlife, and Blueprint for American Prosperity
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
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Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet
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Publisher's summary
The incredible story of Benjamin Franklin’s parting gift to the working-class people of Boston and Philadelphia—a deathbed wager that captures the Founder’s American Dream and his lessons for our current, conflicted age.
Benjamin Franklin was not a gambling man. But at the end of his illustrious life, the Founder allowed himself a final wager on the survival of the United States: a gift of two thousand pounds to Boston and Philadelphia, to be lent out to tradesmen over the next two centuries to jump-start their careers. Each loan would be repaid with interest over ten years. If all went according to Franklin’s inventive scheme, the accrued final payout in 1991 would be a windfall.
In Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet, Michael Meyer traces the evolution of these twin funds as they age alongside America itself, bankrolling woodworkers and silversmiths, trade schools and space races. Over time, Franklin’s wager was misused, neglected, and contested—but never wholly extinguished. With charm and inquisitive flair, Meyer shows how Franklin’s stake in the “leather-apron” class remains in play to this day, and offers an inspiring blueprint for prosperity in our modern era of growing wealth disparity and social divisions.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7,733
Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller’s exceptionally rich trove of papers. A landmark publication full of startling revelations, the book indelibly alters our image of this most enigmatic capitalist. Born the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world’s richest man by creating America’s most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil. Branded "the Octopus" by legions of muckrakers, the trust refined and marketed nearly 90 percent of the oil produced in America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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He makes Bill Gates look like a Pauper!
- By Rick on 11-04-13
By: Ron Chernow
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Taking on the Trust
- The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller
- By: Steve Weinberg
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 69
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Long before the rise of mega-corporations like Wal-Mart and Microsoft, Standard Oil controlled the oil industry with a monopolistic force unprecedented in American business history. Undaunted by the ruthless power of its owner, John D. Rockefeller, a fearless and ambitious reporter named Ida Minerva Tarbell confronted the company known simply as "The Trust".
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4 out of 5 stars
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Annoying Narrator
- By Nate on 04-03-15
By: Steve Weinberg
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Coolidge
- By: Amity Shlaes
- Narrated by: Terence Aselford
- Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 912
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 804
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 796
Calvin Coolidge, president from 1923 to 1929, never rated highly in polls, and history has remembered the decade in which he served as an extravagant period predating the Great Depression. Now Amity Shlaes provides a fresh look at the 1920s and its elusive president, showing that the mid-1920s was in fact a triumphant period that established our modern way of life: The nation electrified, Americans drove their first cars, and the federal deficit was replaced with a surplus.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Silent Cal
- By Jean on 02-19-13
By: Amity Shlaes
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Ida M. Tarbell
- The Woman Who Challenged Big Business - and Won!
- By: Emily Arnold McCully
- Narrated by: Emily Arnold McCully
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 41
Born in 1857 and raised in oil country, Ida M. Tarbell was one of the first investigative journalists and probably the most influential in her time. Her series of articles on the Standard Oil Trust, a complicated business empire run by John D. Rockefeller, revealed to readers the underhanded, even illegal practices that had led to Rockefeller's success.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent!
- By AKA1 on 03-16-19
-
Young Benjamin Franklin
- The Birth of Ingenuity
- By: Nick Bunker
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 17 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
From his early career as a printer and journalist to his scientific work and his role as a founder of a new republic, Benjamin Franklin has always seemed the inevitable embodiment of American ingenuity. But in his youth, he had to make his way through a harsh colonial world, where he fought many battles with his rivals, but also with his wayward emotions. Taking Franklin to the age of 41, when he made his first electrical discoveries, Bunker goes behind the legend to reveal the sources of his passion for knowledge.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good Book but LOTS of Names
- By Tim on 10-31-19
By: Nick Bunker
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The Forgotten Man
- By: Amity Shlaes
- Narrated by: Terence Aselford
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 704
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 706
It's difficult today to imagine how America survived the Great Depression. Only through the stories of the common people who struggled during that era can we really understand how the nation endured. In The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression. Rejecting the old emphasis on the New Deal, she turns to the neglected and moving stories of individual Americans, and shows how they helped establish the steadfast character we developed as a nation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a story of forgotten times
- By Debb Robinson on 10-11-07
By: Amity Shlaes
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Signing Their Lives Away
- The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence
- By: Denise Kiernan, Joseph D'Agnese
- Narrated by: Susan Larkin
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 49
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 49
In the summer of 1776, fifty-six men risked their lives and livelihood to defy King George III and sign the Declaration of Independence - yet how many of them do we actually remember? Signing Their Lives Away introduces listeners to the eclectic group of statesmen, soldiers, slaveholders, and scoundrels who signed this historic document - and the many strange fates that awaited them. Some prospered and rose to the highest levels of United States government, while others had their homes and farms seized by British soldiers.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Mediocre and a bit snarky.
- By Marte Risher on 07-23-15
By: Denise Kiernan, and others
-
The Story of America
- Essays on Origins
- By: Jill Lepore
- Narrated by: Colleen Devine
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
In The Story of America, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore investigates American origin stories - from John Smith's account of the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural address - to show how American democracy is bound up with the history of print. Over the centuries, Americans have read and written their way into a political culture of ink and type. Part civics primer, part cultural history, The Story of America excavates the origins of everything from the paper ballot and the Constitution to the I.O.U. and the dictionary.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Fun Read on Historical Subjects
- By Jim on 08-31-13
By: Jill Lepore
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The Rockefellers
- By: Peter Collier, David Horowitz
- Narrated by: Michael Anthony
- Length: 30 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 108
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 55
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 56
Against a richly detailed backdrop of history, the story of this unique American family unfolds. It begins with John D. Rockefeller Sr., who amassed a fortune amid the muck and disorder of the Pennsylvania oil fields and left his son to deal with the public outcry.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Too Long
- By Rohit on 05-25-07
By: Peter Collier, and others
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Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 24 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8,650
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,583
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7,549
Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us - an ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings. In best-selling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin turns to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. In Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson shows how Franklin defines both his own time and ours. The most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good book, not crazy about the narrator
- By Cathi on 07-20-13
By: Walter Isaacson
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Captive of the Labyrinth
- Sarah L. Winchester, Heiress to the Rifle Fortune
- By: Mary Jo Ignoffo
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
The first full-length biography of Sarah Winchester, the subject of the movie Winchester starring Helen Mirren, now available for the first time in audio. Since her death in 1922, Sarah Winchester has been perceived as a mysterious, haunted figure. After inheriting a vast fortune upon the death of her husband in 1881, Sarah purchased a simple farmhouse in San José, California. She began building additions to the house and continued construction on it for the next twenty years. A hostile press cast Sarah as the conscience of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company—a widow shouldering responsibility for the many deaths caused by the rifle that brought her riches. She was accused of being a ghost-obsessed spiritualist, and to this day it is largely believed that the extensive construction she executed on her San José house was done to appease the ghouls around her. But was she really as guilt-ridden and superstitious as history remembers her? When Winchester’s home was purchased after her death, it was transformed into a tourist attraction. The bizarre, sprawling mansion and the enigmatic nature of Winchester’s life were exaggerated by the new owners to generate publicity for their business. But as the mansion has become more widely known, the person of Winchester has receded from reality, and she is only remembered for squandering her riches to ward off disturbed spirits.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Facts to Silence the Myths
- By Carmen Gibson on 03-07-24
By: Mary Jo Ignoffo
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Benjamin Franklin: A Captivating Guide to an American Polymath and a Founding Father of the United States of America
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Desmond Manny
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 32
Benjamin Franklin was a Founding Father of America and had an enormous impact on America as it is today. In addition to that, there are many little-known facts about the man who is Benjamin Franklin. Unlike many of the other Founding Fathers, he started out in humble circumstances. From a young age, Benjamin Franklin fought for the rights of America at home and abroad. Yet, he bore the burdens of leadership and never shirked nor faltered in his mission. His greatest asset was his charm and friendliness, but he had his detractors as well and felt the emotional impact of that.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Audiobook
- By Jaxon Jordon on 02-10-19
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Black Titan
- A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire
- By: Carol Jenkins
- Narrated by: Susan Spain
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 456
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 391
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 391
A.G. Gaston, the poor grandson of slaves, was born in the Deep South in 1892. Over the course of his extraordinary life, he amassed a fortune of over $130 million and a vast business empire. The story of his remarkable life is written with eloquence and grace by his niece, an Emmy¿ Award-winning journalist and her daughter, who holds degrees from Yale and Harvard.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Black Gold = Standing Ovation
- By 2Fresh on 01-20-16
By: Carol Jenkins
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Twilight at Monticello
- The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson
- By: Alan Pell Crawford
- Narrated by: James Boles
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 99
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
Much has been written about Thomas Jefferson, with good reason: His life was a great American drama, one of the greatest, played out in compelling acts. He was the architect of our democracy, a visionary chief executive who expanded this nation's physical boundaries to unimagined lengths.
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4 out of 5 stars
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After Leaving Office
- By Roy on 09-23-10
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Neither Snow nor Rain
- A History of the United States Postal Service
- By: Devin Leonard
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
Few institutions are as loved, as loathed, and as historically important as the United States Postal Service, the subject of this landmark century-spanning social, political, and economic history. The United States Postal Service is a wondrous American creation. Seven days a week, its army of 300,000 letter carriers delivers 513 million pieces of mail, 40 percent of the world's volume. It is far more efficient than any other mail service - more than twice as efficient as the Japanese and easily outpacing the Germans and British. And the USPS has a storied history.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Woa!, the post office's history is America
- By anon on 12-06-16
By: Devin Leonard
-
Lincoln's Boys
- John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln's Image
- By: Joshua Zeitz
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
Lincoln's official secretaries, John Hay and John Nicolay, enjoyed more access, witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of the president's immediate family. Hay and Nicolay were the gatekeepers of the Lincoln legacy. They read poetry and attendeded the theater with the president, commiserated with him over Union army setbacks, and plotted electoral strategy.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Best Publicists since Mathew, Mark, Luke, & John
- By James on 04-06-15
By: Joshua Zeitz
-
John Quincy Adams
- Militant Spirit
- By: James Traub
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 25 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 718
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 635
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 629
John Quincy Adams was the last of his kind - a Puritan from the age of the Founders who despised party and compromise yet dedicated himself to politics and government. The son of John Adams, he was a brilliant ambassador and secretary of state, a frustrated president at a historic turning point in American politics, and a dedicated congressman who literally died in office - at the age of 80, in the House of Representatives, in the midst of an impassioned political debate.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Best narrator of all the audio books I've listened
- By grimm79 on 12-12-17
By: James Traub
-
New World Coming
- The 1920s and the Making of Modern America
- By: Nathan Miller
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 18 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 123
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 84
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
Jazz. Bootleggers. Flappers. Talkies. Model T Fords. Lindbergh's history-making flight over the Atlantic. The 1920s was also the decade of the hard-won vote for women, racial injustice, censorship, social conflict, and the birth of organized crime.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
My High School History Class Never Told
- By Charles Stembridge on 06-29-04
By: Nathan Miller
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- How the Truman Committee Battled Corruption and Helped Win World War Two
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 32
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Months before Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that the United States was on the verge of entering another world war for which it was dangerously ill prepared. The urgent times demanded a transformation of the economy, with the government bankrolling the unfathomably expensive task of enlisting millions of citizens while also producing the equipment necessary to successfully fight—all of which opened up opportunities for graft, fraud and corruption.
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On December 24, 1992, six-year-old Lauren Rudolph was hospitalized with excruciating stomach pain. Less than a week later she was dead. Doctors were baffled: How could a healthy child become so sick so quickly? After a frenzied investigation, public-health officials announced that the cause was E. coli O157:H7, and the source was hamburger meat served at a Jack in the Box restaurant. During this unprecedented crisis, four children died and over seven hundred others became gravely ill.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I really enjoyed how well the story is told
- By pet person on 11-23-23
By: Jeff Benedict
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Lincoln and the Fight for Peace
- By: John Avlon
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 95
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As the tide of the Civil War turned in the spring of 1865, Abraham Lincoln took a dangerous two-week trip to visit the troops on the front lines accompanied by his young son, seeing combat up close, meeting liberated slaves in the ruins of Richmond, and comforting wounded Union and Confederate soldiers.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Gets a little repetitive.
- By John on 03-06-22
By: John Avlon
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Lethal Tides
- Mary Sears and the Marine Scientists Who Helped Win World War II
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 21
In Lethal Tides, Catherine Musemeche weaves together science, biography, and military history in the compelling story of an unsung woman who had a dramatic effect on the U.S. Navy’s success against Japan in WWII, creating an intelligence-gathering juggernaut based on the new science of oceanography. When World War II began, the U.S. Navy was unprepared to enact its island-hopping strategy to reach Japan. Anticipating tides, planning for coral reefs, and preparing for enemy fire was new ground for them, and with lives at stake it was ground that had to be covered quickly.
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4 out of 5 stars
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fantastic story about an unsung hero
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Reach
- Hard Lessons and Learned Truths from a Lifetime in Television
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3
Arthur Smith is famous for his innovation and audacity, and as the man behind some of the longest-running unscripted series in television history. His groundbreaking hit Hell’s Kitchen forged the modern food competition reality genre, while his Emmy-nominated American Ninja Warrior has spawned a cultural movement, with Ninja-inspired gyms in every major American city. In Reach, Smith shares adventures, triumphs, and hard-won lessons from his astonishing career, beginning with his unprecedented ascension from the ranks of sports production to become the youngest-ever head of CBC Sports.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Inspirational
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On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation's founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders' thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works—among them the Iliad, Plutarch's Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book, opinionated epilogue.
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By: Thomas E. Ricks
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The Watchdog
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Months before Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that the United States was on the verge of entering another world war for which it was dangerously ill prepared. The urgent times demanded a transformation of the economy, with the government bankrolling the unfathomably expensive task of enlisting millions of citizens while also producing the equipment necessary to successfully fight—all of which opened up opportunities for graft, fraud and corruption.
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On December 24, 1992, six-year-old Lauren Rudolph was hospitalized with excruciating stomach pain. Less than a week later she was dead. Doctors were baffled: How could a healthy child become so sick so quickly? After a frenzied investigation, public-health officials announced that the cause was E. coli O157:H7, and the source was hamburger meat served at a Jack in the Box restaurant. During this unprecedented crisis, four children died and over seven hundred others became gravely ill.
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As the tide of the Civil War turned in the spring of 1865, Abraham Lincoln took a dangerous two-week trip to visit the troops on the front lines accompanied by his young son, seeing combat up close, meeting liberated slaves in the ruins of Richmond, and comforting wounded Union and Confederate soldiers.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Gets a little repetitive.
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Lethal Tides
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In Lethal Tides, Catherine Musemeche weaves together science, biography, and military history in the compelling story of an unsung woman who had a dramatic effect on the U.S. Navy’s success against Japan in WWII, creating an intelligence-gathering juggernaut based on the new science of oceanography. When World War II began, the U.S. Navy was unprepared to enact its island-hopping strategy to reach Japan. Anticipating tides, planning for coral reefs, and preparing for enemy fire was new ground for them, and with lives at stake it was ground that had to be covered quickly.
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Arthur Smith is famous for his innovation and audacity, and as the man behind some of the longest-running unscripted series in television history. His groundbreaking hit Hell’s Kitchen forged the modern food competition reality genre, while his Emmy-nominated American Ninja Warrior has spawned a cultural movement, with Ninja-inspired gyms in every major American city. In Reach, Smith shares adventures, triumphs, and hard-won lessons from his astonishing career, beginning with his unprecedented ascension from the ranks of sports production to become the youngest-ever head of CBC Sports.
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On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation's founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders' thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works—among them the Iliad, Plutarch's Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book, opinionated epilogue.
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Charlie's Good Tonight
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Charlie Watts was one of the most decorated musicians in the world, having joined the Rolling Stones, a few months after their formation, early in 1963. A student of jazz drumming, he was headhunted by the band after bumping into them regularly in London’s rhythm and blues clubs. Once installed at the drum seat, he didn’t miss a gig, album or tour in his 60 years in the band.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Authorized Snoozefest
- By G. Lindsay on 10-31-22
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Pharma
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- By: Gerald Posner
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 177
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 150
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 148
Pharmaceutical breakthroughs such as antibiotics and vaccines rank among some of the greatest advancements in human history. Yet, exorbitant prices for life-saving drugs, safety recalls affecting tens of millions of Americans, and soaring rates of addiction and overdose on prescription opioids have caused many to lose faith in drug companies. Now, Americans are demanding a national reckoning with a monolithic industry.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book, but with some issues
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The Hollywood Con Queen
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 9
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9
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Blending years of deep reporting with distinctive, powerful prose, Scott C. Johnson’s unique true crime narrative recounts the tale of the brilliantly cunning imposter who carved a path of financial and emotional destruction across the world. Gifted with a diabolical flair for impersonation, manipulation, and deception, the Con Queen used his skill with accents and deft psychological insight to sweep through the entertainment industry. Johnson traces the origins of this gender-bending criminal mastermind.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazingly intriguing
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Betrayal in Berlin
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- By: Steve Vogel
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 269
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 224
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 226
Its code name was “Operation Gold”, a wildly audacious CIA plan to construct a clandestine tunnel into East Berlin to tap into critical KGB and Soviet military telecommunication lines. The tunnel, crossing the border between the American and Soviet sectors, would have to be 1,500 feet (the length of the Empire State Building) with state-of-the-art equipment, built and operated literally under the feet of their Cold War adversaries.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating Book
- By Toni Bowes on 01-11-20
By: Steve Vogel
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The Spider Network
- The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History
- By: David Enrich
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,079
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 945
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 944
In 2006, an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the world's largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor - the London interbank offered rate, which determines the interest rates on trillions in loans worldwide - was set daily by a small group of easily manipulated functionaries, and that they could reap huge profits by nudging it to suit their trading portfolios.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Does anyone "proofread" the audio book?
- By Gracie on 07-04-18
By: David Enrich
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The Diary Keepers
- World War II in the Netherlands, as Written by the People Who Lived Through It
- By: Nina Siegal
- Narrated by: Nina Siegal, Maggi-Meg Reed, Nan McNamara, and others
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8
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Story5 out of 5 stars 8
Based on select writings from a collection of more than two thousand Dutch diaries written during World War II in order to record this unparalleled time, and maintained by devoted archivists, The Diary Keepers illuminates a part of history we haven’t seen in quite this way before, from the stories of a Nazi sympathizing police officer to a Jewish journalist who documented daily activities at a transport camp.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Superior work!
- By Anonymous User on 02-24-23
By: Nina Siegal
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The Pledge to America
- One Man's Journey from Political Prisoner to U.S. Navy SEAL
- By: Drago Dzieran
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story5 out of 5 stars 55
Retired Navy SEAL Drago Dzieran takes listeners behind the scenes of his incredible life, from an impoverished childhood in Communist-controlled Poland to his time as a political prisoner, to his twenty years as a member of the United States military's most elite fighting force.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An American Patriot
- By Harry C. on 02-14-24
By: Drago Dzieran
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The Theory of Everything Else
- A Voyage into the World of the Weird
- By: Dan Schreiber
- Narrated by: Dan Schreiber, Jamie Morton, Ella Al-Shamahi, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
From the Silicon Valley tech billionaires currently trying to work out whether or not the universe is one giant video game simulation to the self-proclaimed community of Italian time-travelers who are trying to save the world from destruction; The Theory of Everything Else will act as a handbook for those who want to think differently.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Yawn
- By Tony Love on 08-18-23
By: Dan Schreiber
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Overtime
- Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College Football
- By: John U. Bacon
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 114
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
For the past year, John U. Bacon has received unprecedented access to Jim Harbaugh’s University of Michigan football team: coaches, players, and staffers, in closed-door meetings, locker rooms, meals, and classes. Overtime captures this storied program at the crossroads, as the sport’s winningest team battles to reclaim its former glory. But what if the price of success today comes at the cost of your soul? Do you pay it, or compete without compromising?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good story.... but
- By Amazon Customer on 10-07-19
By: John U. Bacon
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Welcome to Your World
- How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives
- By: Sarah Williams Goldhagen
- Narrated by: Andrea Gallo
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4 out of 5 stars 29
Taking us on a fascinating journey through some of the world's best and worst landscapes, buildings, and cityscapes, Sarah Williams Goldhagen draws from recent research in cognitive neuroscience and psychology to demonstrate how people's experiences of the places they build are central to their well-being, their physical health, their communal and social lives, and even their very sense of themselves. From this foundation, Goldhagen presents a powerful case that societies must use this knowledge to rethink what and how they build.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Only for Architecture Professors & Critics
- By Richard P. Dudley on 03-07-19
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Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat
- Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals
- By: Hal Herzog
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 18
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat is a highly entertaining and illuminating journey through the full spectrum of human-animal relations. Drawing on his groundbreaking research in the field of anthrozoology, Dr. Hal Herzog tries to make sense of our complex relationships with animals and the challenging moral conundrums we face regarding these creatures who share our world - and some, our homes. .
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic Read!
- By Kelly on 09-03-22
By: Hal Herzog
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My Hijacking
- A Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering
- By: Martha Hodes
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7
On September 6, 1970, twelve-year-old Martha Hodes and her thirteen-year-old sister were flying unaccompanied back to New York City from Israel when their plane was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and forced to land in the Jordan desert. Too young to understand the sheer gravity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Martha coped by suppressing her fear and anxiety. Nearly a half-century later, her memories of those six days and nights as a hostage are hazy and scattered.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Childhood memories…a puzzle to solve.
- By Debra L. Paradis on 07-22-23
By: Martha Hodes
What listeners say about Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Peter W. Kalnin
- 04-27-24
Franklin at His Best
This is largely a recap of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin with a few stories thrown in for color. Not bad, but not the best book I have read this year.
Donald Corren does a good job narrating.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Thomas L. Wentling, Jr.
- 10-09-22
Marvelous!
Franklinophiles will delight in this very well told reprise of the man, about whom much has been written and said. The author then picks up the thread of his “afterlife” which will astound all, no matter your level of Franklin scholarship. He makes connections that have been hiding in plain site, but took the pursuit of a relentless detective to discover and organization for us in a most enjoyable fashion.
Very well done. Tom W
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Charles
- 10-19-22
Many things I did not know
Benjamin Franklin’s wife operated his business for the 10 years he was out of the country. One out of five businesses were owner operated by women. TIAA college retirement was started by Carnegie. A great school in Boston remains as the unique tribute to Ben Franklin. This book weaves back-and-forth about his life. President Adams was not a fan. What a great life. Ben Franklin was the first person to run a franchise.
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