-
Thunderstruck
- Narrated by: Bob Balaban
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Thunderstruck
Buy for $22.28
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Isaac's Storm
- A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,072
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 918
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 911
At the dawn of the 20th century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." It was 1900, a year when America felt bigger and stronger than ever before. Nothing in nature could hobble the gleaming city of Galveston, then a magical place that seemed destined to become the New York of the Gulf.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Two versions on Audible
- By stephiemav42 on 03-10-21
By: Erik Larson
-
In the Garden of Beasts
- Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8,887
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,502
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 7,489
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I loved it ... and hated it ... simultaneously
- By History on 11-21-11
By: Erik Larson
-
Dead Wake
- The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13,863
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 12,316
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12,292
On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Naivety VS Barbarians Of War
- By Sara on 03-05-16
By: Erik Larson
-
My Name Is Lucy Barton (Dramatic Production)
- By: Elizabeth Strout, Rona Munro
- Narrated by: Laura Linney
- Length: 1 hr and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 105
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 97
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
Praised as "deeply affecting" and "heartbreaking" by The Guardian (UK), this is a faithful adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout's best-selling novel of the same name. Unsteady after an operation, Lucy Barton wakes to find her mother sitting at the foot of her bed. She hasn't seen her in years, and her visit brings back to Lucy her desperate rural childhood, and her escape to New York. As she begins to find herself as a writer, she is still gripped by the urgent complexities of family life.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Great actress- No story
- By Richard M. on 04-02-21
By: Elizabeth Strout, and others
-
The Splendid and the Vile
- A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: John Lee, Erik Larson
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 11,599
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 9,916
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 9,837
On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next 12 months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally - and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless."
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
John Lee’s narration is a struggle
- By Leslie Rathjens on 03-05-20
By: Erik Larson
-
The Devil in the White City
- Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30,132
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24,874
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24,864
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Rich Read!
- By D on 09-18-03
By: Erik Larson
-
Isaac's Storm
- A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,072
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 918
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 911
At the dawn of the 20th century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." It was 1900, a year when America felt bigger and stronger than ever before. Nothing in nature could hobble the gleaming city of Galveston, then a magical place that seemed destined to become the New York of the Gulf.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Two versions on Audible
- By stephiemav42 on 03-10-21
By: Erik Larson
-
In the Garden of Beasts
- Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8,887
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,502
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 7,489
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I loved it ... and hated it ... simultaneously
- By History on 11-21-11
By: Erik Larson
-
Dead Wake
- The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13,863
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 12,316
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12,292
On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Naivety VS Barbarians Of War
- By Sara on 03-05-16
By: Erik Larson
-
My Name Is Lucy Barton (Dramatic Production)
- By: Elizabeth Strout, Rona Munro
- Narrated by: Laura Linney
- Length: 1 hr and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 105
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 97
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
Praised as "deeply affecting" and "heartbreaking" by The Guardian (UK), this is a faithful adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout's best-selling novel of the same name. Unsteady after an operation, Lucy Barton wakes to find her mother sitting at the foot of her bed. She hasn't seen her in years, and her visit brings back to Lucy her desperate rural childhood, and her escape to New York. As she begins to find herself as a writer, she is still gripped by the urgent complexities of family life.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Great actress- No story
- By Richard M. on 04-02-21
By: Elizabeth Strout, and others
-
The Splendid and the Vile
- A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: John Lee, Erik Larson
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 11,599
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 9,916
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 9,837
On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next 12 months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally - and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless."
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
John Lee’s narration is a struggle
- By Leslie Rathjens on 03-05-20
By: Erik Larson
-
The Devil in the White City
- Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30,132
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24,874
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24,864
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Rich Read!
- By D on 09-18-03
By: Erik Larson
-
Killers of the Flower Moon
- The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, Danny Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 21,849
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 19,214
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19,169
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An outstanding story, highly recommended
- By S. Blakely on 06-22-17
By: David Grann
-
The Last Days of Night
- A Novel
- By: Graham Moore
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,856
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,282
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,253
New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history - and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul's client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the lightbulb and holds the right to power the country?
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Favorite book of 2016
- By Taryn on 12-19-16
By: Graham Moore
-
River of the Gods
- Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile
- By: Candice Millard
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,466
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,285
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,280
For millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe—and extend their colonial empires.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Good book by Millard, narrator ruined it
- By Tally D Lykins on 05-25-22
By: Candice Millard
-
The Wager
- A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Dion Graham, David Grann
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,897
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,444
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,442
On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Gasping for Air
- By Jean Engle on 04-19-23
By: David Grann
-
American Prometheus
- The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
- By: Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 26 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,348
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,477
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,489
J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of the iconic figures of the 20th century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb but later confronted the moral consequences of scientific progress. When he proposed international controls over atomic materials, opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, and criticized plans for a nuclear war, his ideas were anathema to powerful advocates of a massive nuclear buildup during the anti-Communist hysteria of the early 1950s.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An American Tragedy
- By Edith on 12-13-07
By: Kai Bird, and others
-
The Lost City of Z
- A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,152
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,249
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 3,261
A sensational disappearance that made headlines around the world. A quest for truth that leads to death, madness or disappearance for those who seek to solve it. The Lost City of Z is a blockbuster adventure narrative about what lies beneath the impenetrable jungle canopy of the Amazon. After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, acclaimed New Yorker writer David Grann set out to find out what happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
A Worthy Read for Armchair Explorers
- By Jennifer Seattle, WA on 03-01-09
By: David Grann
-
The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel
- Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I
- By: Douglas Brunt
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,053
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 978
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 978
September 29, 1913: the steamship Dresden is halfway between Belgium and England. On board is one of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, whose new internal combustion engine is on the verge of revolutionizing global industry forever. But Diesel never arrives at his destination. He vanishes during the night and headlines around the world wonder if it was an accident, suicide, or murder.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great book!
- By Scott F on 09-24-23
By: Douglas Brunt
-
All the Light We Cannot See
- A Novel
- By: Anthony Doerr
- Narrated by: Zach Appelman
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 64,058
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56,987
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56,943
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is 12, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Afraid to Write a "Less-Than-Positive" Review
- By Elizabeth on 08-06-14
By: Anthony Doerr
-
Destiny of the Republic
- A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
- By: Candice Millard
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7,440
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 6,564
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 6,539
James A. Garfield may have been the most extraordinary man ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back. But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what happened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in turmoil.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Marvelous, Magnificent, Millard
- By Mel on 02-08-12
By: Candice Millard
-
The Path Between the Seas
- The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,416
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,123
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,124
The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
-
Angels and Demons
- By: Dan Brown
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 18 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 16,222
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 10,866
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 10,879
World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization, the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A must for fans of The Da Vinci Code
- By Geoffrey on 04-14-04
By: Dan Brown
-
Hyperion
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Allyson Johnson, Kevin Pariseau, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24,102
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 20,497
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 20,537
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
The Shrike Awaits. Enter The Time Tombs...
- By Michael on 10-13-12
By: Dan Simmons
Publisher's summary
Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners; scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed; and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, "the kindest of men", nearly commits the perfect crime.
With his superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate.
Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the 20th century.
Gripping from the start, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form.
Critic reviews
"Larson has a knack for creating genuine suspense in his writing, and his latest is thoroughly enthralling." (Booklist)
"Splendid, beautifully written.... Thunderstruck triumphantly resurrects the spirit of another age." (Publishers Weekly)
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
The Devil in the White City
- Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30,132
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24,874
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24,864
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Rich Read!
- By D on 09-18-03
By: Erik Larson
-
How to Survive the Titanic
- The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay
- By: Frances Wilson
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
On the terrifying, chaotic night of April 14, 1912, while the Titanic was sinking, Bruce J. Ismay, the ship's owner, made a decision that would save his life - and end it. Ismay boarded a lifeboat meant for women and children, and within days became The Most Talked-of Man in the World. Branded a coward, he became a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Joseph Conrad's legendary eponymous character, Lord Jim.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Not especially uplifting, but quite good
- By Anonymous User on 04-18-12
By: Frances Wilson
-
Eighty Days
- Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World
- By: Matthew Goodman
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 152
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 128
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 129
On November 14, 1889, Nellie Bly, the crusading young female reporter for Joseph Pulitzer’s World newspaper, left New York City by steamship on a quest to break the record for the fastest trip around the world. Also departing from New York that day—and heading in the opposite direction by train—was a young journalist from The Cosmopolitan magazine, Elizabeth Bisland.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Who knew?
- By Susan Gardner Bowers on 03-18-13
By: Matthew Goodman
-
Mark Twain: Man in White
- The Grand Adventure of His Final Years
- By: Michael Shelden
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 90
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden illuminates Mark Twain’s twilight years in this brilliant account of the legendary author’s life. Drawing heavily on Twain’s own letters and journals, Mark Twain: Man in White recounts both Twain’s private family experiences and his larger-than-life public image.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fantastic book
- By Tad Davis on 08-23-10
By: Michael Shelden
-
In the Garden of Beasts
- Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8,887
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,502
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 7,489
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I loved it ... and hated it ... simultaneously
- By History on 11-21-11
By: Erik Larson
-
The Path Between the Seas
- The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,416
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,123
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,124
The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
-
The Devil in the White City
- Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30,132
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24,874
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24,864
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Rich Read!
- By D on 09-18-03
By: Erik Larson
-
How to Survive the Titanic
- The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay
- By: Frances Wilson
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
On the terrifying, chaotic night of April 14, 1912, while the Titanic was sinking, Bruce J. Ismay, the ship's owner, made a decision that would save his life - and end it. Ismay boarded a lifeboat meant for women and children, and within days became The Most Talked-of Man in the World. Branded a coward, he became a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Joseph Conrad's legendary eponymous character, Lord Jim.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Not especially uplifting, but quite good
- By Anonymous User on 04-18-12
By: Frances Wilson
-
Eighty Days
- Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World
- By: Matthew Goodman
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 152
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 128
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 129
On November 14, 1889, Nellie Bly, the crusading young female reporter for Joseph Pulitzer’s World newspaper, left New York City by steamship on a quest to break the record for the fastest trip around the world. Also departing from New York that day—and heading in the opposite direction by train—was a young journalist from The Cosmopolitan magazine, Elizabeth Bisland.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Who knew?
- By Susan Gardner Bowers on 03-18-13
By: Matthew Goodman
-
Mark Twain: Man in White
- The Grand Adventure of His Final Years
- By: Michael Shelden
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 90
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden illuminates Mark Twain’s twilight years in this brilliant account of the legendary author’s life. Drawing heavily on Twain’s own letters and journals, Mark Twain: Man in White recounts both Twain’s private family experiences and his larger-than-life public image.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fantastic book
- By Tad Davis on 08-23-10
By: Michael Shelden
-
In the Garden of Beasts
- Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8,887
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,502
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 7,489
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I loved it ... and hated it ... simultaneously
- By History on 11-21-11
By: Erik Larson
-
The Path Between the Seas
- The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,416
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,123
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,124
The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
-
Jack London
- An American Life
- By: Earle Labor
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast - an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed best-selling books The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Glad I chose this
- By SherryH on 04-14-19
By: Earle Labor
-
Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage
- The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World
- By: Hugh Brewster
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 72
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
The Titanic has often been called "An exquisite microcosm of the Edwardian era", but until now, her story has not been presented as such. In Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, historian Hugh Brewster seamlessly interweaves personal narratives of the lost liner's most fascinating people with a haunting account of the fateful maiden crossing. Employing scrupulous research, he accurately depicts the ship's brief life and tragic denouement and presents compelling, memorable portraits of her most notable passengers.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Lots of interesting details
- By Rachel on 10-16-18
By: Hugh Brewster
-
Chief Engineer
- Washington Roebling, the Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge
- By: Erica Wagner
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 37
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
His father conceived of the Brooklyn Bridge, but after John Roebling's sudden death, Washington Roebling built what has become one of American's most iconic structures - as much a part of New York as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. Yet, as recognizable as the bridge is, its builder is too often forgotten - and his life is of interest far beyond his chosen field. It is the story of immigrants, of the frontier, of the greatest crisis in American history, and of the making of the modern world.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Monumental
- By charles mueller on 07-09-19
By: Erica Wagner
-
The Italian Secretary
- By: Caleb Carr
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 578
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 305
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 303
The best-selling author of the Alienist series returns with a chilling elaboration on the Sherlock Holmes canon, as the famed detective investigates a pair of gruesome murders, which cast an otherworldly shadow as far as Queen Victoria herself.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A True Delight for the Holmes Enthusiast
- By Sagar on 06-03-05
By: Caleb Carr
-
The Wright Brothers
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: David McCullough
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13,881
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 12,388
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12,350
Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story behind the story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.
On December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Wilbur and Orville Wright's Wright Flyer became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. The Age of Flight had begun. How did they do it? And why?
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Disappointing
- By Sara on 07-10-16
By: David McCullough
-
The Colony
- The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles on Molokai
- By: John Tayman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 265
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 113
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 112
In 1866, 12 men and women and one small child were forced aboard a leaky schooner and cast away to a natural prison on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Two weeks later, a dozen others were exiled, and then 40 more, and then 100 more. Tracked by bounty hunters and torn screaming from their families, the luckless were loaded into shipboard cattle stalls and abandoned in a lawless place where brutality held sway. Many did not have leprosy, and most of those who did were not contagious.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting
- By Matt on 10-31-06
By: John Tayman
-
Voyage of the Damned
- A Shocking True Story of Hope, Betrayal, and Nazi Terror
- By: Max Morgan Witts, Gordon Thomas
- Narrated by: Chris Kayser
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 186
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 157
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 157
This book is a meticulous reconstruction of a tragic episode in the history of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. The SS. St. Louis left Hamburg in May of 1939 with 937 Jewish refugees on board who thought they had bought visas to enter Cuba. Refused entry in Cuba and the United States the ship eventually had to turn around and return to Europe. The voyage to freedom was in the end nothing more than a roundabout journey to the concentration camps.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
No propaganda more damning than the truth
- By Buretto on 10-29-20
By: Max Morgan Witts, and others
-
The Witch of Lime Street
- Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World
- By: David Jaher
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 169
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 147
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 148
The 1920s are famous as the golden age of jazz and glamour, but it was also an era of fevered yearning for communion with the spirit world, after the loss of tens of millions in the First World War and the Spanish-flu epidemic. A desperate search for reunion with dead loved ones precipitated a tidal wave of self-proclaimed psychics - and, as reputable media sought stories on occult phenomena, mediums became celebrities.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Houdini, Conan Doyle and Marjorie
- By Blue Dragonfly on 10-11-15
By: David Jaher
-
Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
-
The Woman Who Smashed Codes
- A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies
- By: Jason Fagone
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,465
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,892
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,880
In 1912, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the US government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the Adam and Eve of the NSA, Elizebeth's story, incredibly, has never been told.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Captivating Biography
- By Jean on 11-20-17
By: Jason Fagone
-
50 Children
- One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany
- By: Steven Pressman
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
In early 1939, few Americans were thinking about the darkening storm clouds over Europe. Nor did they have much sympathy for the growing number of Jewish families that were increasingly threatened and brutalized by Adolf Hitler's policies in Germany and Austria. But one ordinary American couple decided that something had to be done. Despite overwhelming obstacles - both in Europe and in the United States - Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus made a bold and unprecedented decision to travel into Nazi Germany in an effort to save a group of Jewish children.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I didn't want it to end
- By David Shear on 05-07-14
By: Steven Pressman
-
Labyrinths
- Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis
- By: Catrine Clay
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 31
Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the 20th century dictated that a woman of Emma's stature - one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland - travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man. Engaged to the son of one of her father's wealthy business colleagues, Emma's conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Carl plays center stage
- By Sparrowhawk on 12-23-16
By: Catrine Clay
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Isaac's Storm
- A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,072
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 918
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 911
At the dawn of the 20th century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." It was 1900, a year when America felt bigger and stronger than ever before. Nothing in nature could hobble the gleaming city of Galveston, then a magical place that seemed destined to become the New York of the Gulf.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Two versions on Audible
- By stephiemav42 on 03-10-21
By: Erik Larson
-
Dead Wake
- The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13,863
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 12,316
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12,292
On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Naivety VS Barbarians Of War
- By Sara on 03-05-16
By: Erik Larson
-
In the Garden of Beasts
- Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8,887
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,502
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 7,489
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I loved it ... and hated it ... simultaneously
- By History on 11-21-11
By: Erik Larson
-
The Demon of Unrest
- A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Will Patton, Erik Larson
- Length: 17 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 89
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 84
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Most Appropriate Narrator
- By D.P. on 05-01-24
By: Erik Larson
-
My Name Is Lucy Barton (Dramatic Production)
- By: Elizabeth Strout, Rona Munro
- Narrated by: Laura Linney
- Length: 1 hr and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 105
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 97
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
Praised as "deeply affecting" and "heartbreaking" by The Guardian (UK), this is a faithful adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout's best-selling novel of the same name. Unsteady after an operation, Lucy Barton wakes to find her mother sitting at the foot of her bed. She hasn't seen her in years, and her visit brings back to Lucy her desperate rural childhood, and her escape to New York. As she begins to find herself as a writer, she is still gripped by the urgent complexities of family life.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Great actress- No story
- By Richard M. on 04-02-21
By: Elizabeth Strout, and others
-
Lethal Passage
- The Story of a Gun
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 112
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 86
This devastating book illuminates America's gun culture - its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists - but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. It begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day's end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
great reasoned book
- By Claire on 04-26-20
By: Erik Larson
-
Isaac's Storm
- A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,072
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 918
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 911
At the dawn of the 20th century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." It was 1900, a year when America felt bigger and stronger than ever before. Nothing in nature could hobble the gleaming city of Galveston, then a magical place that seemed destined to become the New York of the Gulf.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Two versions on Audible
- By stephiemav42 on 03-10-21
By: Erik Larson
-
Dead Wake
- The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13,863
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 12,316
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12,292
On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Naivety VS Barbarians Of War
- By Sara on 03-05-16
By: Erik Larson
-
In the Garden of Beasts
- Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8,887
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,502
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 7,489
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I loved it ... and hated it ... simultaneously
- By History on 11-21-11
By: Erik Larson
-
The Demon of Unrest
- A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Will Patton, Erik Larson
- Length: 17 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 89
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 84
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Most Appropriate Narrator
- By D.P. on 05-01-24
By: Erik Larson
-
My Name Is Lucy Barton (Dramatic Production)
- By: Elizabeth Strout, Rona Munro
- Narrated by: Laura Linney
- Length: 1 hr and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 105
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 97
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
Praised as "deeply affecting" and "heartbreaking" by The Guardian (UK), this is a faithful adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout's best-selling novel of the same name. Unsteady after an operation, Lucy Barton wakes to find her mother sitting at the foot of her bed. She hasn't seen her in years, and her visit brings back to Lucy her desperate rural childhood, and her escape to New York. As she begins to find herself as a writer, she is still gripped by the urgent complexities of family life.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Great actress- No story
- By Richard M. on 04-02-21
By: Elizabeth Strout, and others
-
Lethal Passage
- The Story of a Gun
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 112
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 86
This devastating book illuminates America's gun culture - its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists - but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. It begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day's end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
great reasoned book
- By Claire on 04-26-20
By: Erik Larson
-
The Splendid and the Vile
- A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: John Lee, Erik Larson
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 11,599
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 9,916
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 9,837
On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next 12 months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally - and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless."
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
John Lee’s narration is a struggle
- By Leslie Rathjens on 03-05-20
By: Erik Larson
-
The Devil in the White City
- Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30,132
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24,874
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24,864
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Rich Read!
- By D on 09-18-03
By: Erik Larson
-
Hotel Angeline
- A Novel in 36 Voices
- By: Erik Larson, Jamie Ford, Deb Caletti, and others
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 86
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 72
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 71
Thirty-six of the most interesting writers in the Pacific Northwest came together for a week-long marathon of writing live on stage. The result? Hotel Angeline, a truly inventive novel that surprises at every turn of the page. Something is amiss at the Hotel Angeline, a rickety former mortuary perched atop Capitol Hill in rain-soaked Seattle. Fourteen-year-old Alexis Austin is fixing the plumbing, the tea, and all the problems of the world, it seems, in her landlady mother’s absence.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Too Many Writers!
- By Lisa on 08-25-13
By: Erik Larson, and others
-
Empire of Deception
- The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation
- By: Dean Jobb
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 86
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 79
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 82
It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. Speakeasies thrived, gang war shootings announced Al Capone's rise to underworld domination, Chicago's corrupt political leaders fraternized with gangsters, and the frenzy of stock market gambling was rampant. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people (who should have known better) to invest as much as $30 million.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Incredible Tale!
- By electricblue201 on 10-11-15
By: Dean Jobb
-
The Last Days of Night
- A Novel
- By: Graham Moore
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,856
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,282
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,253
New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history - and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul's client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the lightbulb and holds the right to power the country?
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Favorite book of 2016
- By Taryn on 12-19-16
By: Graham Moore
-
The Sherlockian
- By: Graham Moore
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 764
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 607
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 607
In December 1893, Sherlock Holmes-adoring Londoners eagerly opened their Strand magazines-- anticipating the detective's next adventure-- only to find the unthinkable: his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, had killed their hero off. London spiraled into mourning -- crowds sported black armbands in grief -- and railed against Conan Doyle as his assassin.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Worth purchasing
- By Snoodely on 09-07-12
By: Graham Moore
-
The Myth of Artificial Intelligence
- Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do
- By: Erik J. Larson
- Narrated by: Perry Daniels
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 83
Futurists insist that AI will soon eclipse the capacities of the most gifted human mind. What hope do we have against superintelligent machines? But we aren't really on the path to developing intelligent machines. In fact, we don't even know where that path might be. Erik Larson takes us on a tour of the landscape of AI to show how far we are from superintelligence and what it would take to get there.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
dead wrong after 2 years
- By K. Lyon on 07-11-23
By: Erik J. Larson
-
American Demon
- Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack the Ripper
- By: Daniel Stashower
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 154
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 139
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 139
On September 5th, 1934, a young beachcomber made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Cleveland’s Lake Erie: the lower half of a female torso, neatly severed at the waist. The victim, dubbed “The Lady of the Lake,” was only the first of a butcher’s dozen. Over the next four years, twelve more bodies would be scattered across the city. The bodies were dismembered with surgical precision and drained of blood. Some were beheaded while still alive.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Not what I expected at all
- By Iceboxannie on 11-10-22
By: Daniel Stashower
-
How to Survive the Titanic
- The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay
- By: Frances Wilson
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
On the terrifying, chaotic night of April 14, 1912, while the Titanic was sinking, Bruce J. Ismay, the ship's owner, made a decision that would save his life - and end it. Ismay boarded a lifeboat meant for women and children, and within days became The Most Talked-of Man in the World. Branded a coward, he became a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Joseph Conrad's legendary eponymous character, Lord Jim.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Not especially uplifting, but quite good
- By Anonymous User on 04-18-12
By: Frances Wilson
-
The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel
- Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I
- By: Douglas Brunt
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,053
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 978
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 978
September 29, 1913: the steamship Dresden is halfway between Belgium and England. On board is one of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, whose new internal combustion engine is on the verge of revolutionizing global industry forever. But Diesel never arrives at his destination. He vanishes during the night and headlines around the world wonder if it was an accident, suicide, or murder.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great book!
- By Scott F on 09-24-23
By: Douglas Brunt
-
The White Darkness
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 288
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 253
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 253
Henry Worsley spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the 19th-century polar explorer who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape and life-threatening physical exhaustion. He soon felt compelled to go back. In 2015, Worsley bid farewell to his family and embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Will Patton's narration
- By Carol on 01-18-19
By: David Grann
-
Simple Courage
- The True Story of Peril on the Sea
- By: Frank Delaney
- Narrated by: Frank Delaney
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 329
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 208
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 211
Drawing on historical documents and contemporary accounts and on exclusive interviews with Carlsen's family, Delaney opens a window into the world of the merchant marine. With deep affection, and respect, for the weather and all that goes with it, he places us in the heart of the storm, a "biblical tempest" of unimaginable power. He illuminates the bravery and ingenuity of Carlsen and the extraordinary courage that the 37-year-old captain inspired in his stalwart crew.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Well written and read
- By AMS on 03-03-08
By: Frank Delaney
What listeners say about Thunderstruck
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Bane
- 08-09-18
Another great one from the author!
I love all Erik Larson books and this is no different. Very well read and the story is fascinating!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Unapologetic
- 03-08-18
Must read for any history buffs
Larson is an excellent story teller. To add Balaban as a narrator simply push the experience that much further towards amazing.
Highly recommend for anyone looking for a history lesson that involves people centric view points.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- N
- 01-13-23
Great listen!
Interesting and engaging, I love how this author ties everything together. All of his books are great!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- BB
- 07-08-23
Great
Wonderful story and historical context. Definitely worth the listen. Very much enjoy reading Larson. Recommend.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story3 out of 5 stars
- Jared
- 05-11-23
Thunderstruck
This is my least favorite Larson book and I’ve listened to all except the Lusitania one.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story4 out of 5 stars
- Dana Quinn
- 03-26-24
Good but not great
I love the works of this author however I found some of the intricate details of Marconi’s work tedious. It seemed to take forever to get to the actual point of the story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Joseph Gould
- 04-23-24
the flow and character development
story was interesting, raw and showed that people's curiosity and determination not to settle will win out
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Chukwuma Onyeije, MD
- 11-13-06
PHENOMENAL
Erik Larson is a National Treasure.
Anyone who has had the opportunity to read his previous book "The Devil in the White City", will definitely want to read this book.
Larson has the ability to connect very interesting historical and technical facts to a true-life murder mystery in such a way as to provide an account that you will have difficulty turning away from.
This is a book you will not want to miss.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
- Brian
- 06-01-11
Lots of Historical Detail
I like history, so this was a good book. It's a bit choppy going in between Marconi and the radio, and the actual murder though. The unabridged may be a bit better for those that want to get to the point. There have been some recent developments in this case since the book that you may want to look at after you listen to this book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Enrique
- 02-19-13
Great listening!!!
Would you consider the audio edition of Thunderstruck to be better than the print version?
Way much YES
Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?
Not on the edge, however I did not stop reading daily
Have you listened to any of Bob Balaban’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No, i do not have a reference
If you could give Thunderstruck a new subtitle, what would it be?
Wireless
Any additional comments?
Enhance the cover image it is blured
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!