Hopeful Listens in Times of Crisis
For those times when life itself seems precarious, history can be a source of comfort, inspiration, and strength. I have collected stories of the past when oncoming tragedies were somehow mitigated, avoided, or just plain gotten through when people pulled together. Miraculously, ordinary people often rise to the occasion within the confines of their professional work (shout-out to all the contemporary hospital workers and those keeping service industries moving during the COVID-19 crisis.) Although it’s frightening when change needs to happen fast (sometimes there are ten minutes of warning or ten days, other times decades of error have led to disaster), selfless people can adapt together. Most importantly, where there’s life, there’s hope. Here are my suggested all-is-not-lost listens to highlight real stories of lives snatched from the jaws of looming disaster. — Christina, Audible Editor
Product List
  • Rising Water Audiobook By Marc Aronson cover art

    • Rising Water

    • The Story of the Thai Cave Rescue
    • By: Marc Aronson
    • Narrated by: Vikas Adam
    • Length: 2 hrs and 53 mins
    • Release date: 03-19-19
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 33 ratings
    • 2018
    • Twelve boys and their soccer coach trapped by a flash flood in a cave in Thailand seemed to be in a hopeless situation, yet international teamwork, human ingenuity, and the creative application of technology saved the day.

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  • Deep Down Dark Audiobook By Héctor Tobar cover art

    • Deep Down Dark

    • The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
    • By: Héctor Tobar
    • Narrated by: Henry Leyva
    • Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
    • Release date: 10-07-14
    • Language: English
    • 4 out of 5 stars 902 ratings
    • 2010
    • Thirty-three miners trapped for 69 days in a Chilean mine, although desperate, didn’t panic. The unsung hero of their rescue was their teamwork and care for each other in—literally—dark times.

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  • Fly by Wire Audiobook By William Langewiesche cover art

    • Fly by Wire

    • The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson
    • By: William Langewiesche
    • Narrated by: David Drummond
    • Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
    • Release date: 12-14-09
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 122 ratings
    • 2009
    • In January 2009, Chesley Sully Sullenberger presided over a crew that gave us the Miracle on the Hudson. This audio, narrated by David Drummond, shows that no disaster is automatic if and when a competent professional steps in to care for others.

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  • The Only Plane in the Sky Audiobook By Garrett M. Graff cover art

    • The Only Plane in the Sky

    • An Oral History of September 11, 2001
    • By: Garrett M. Graff
    • Narrated by: full cast
    • Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins
    • Release date: 09-10-19
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 2,655 ratings
    • 2001
    • Having lived through September 11th on 23rd Street in Manhattan, I don’t often bring it up. However, this compelling oral history—winner of the 2019 Audiobook of the Year Audie Award—reminded me that the largest one-day boatlift in human history was accomplished in New York harbor by all the public and private craft ferrying people to safety on September 11, 2001.

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  • An Imperfect Offering Audiobook By James Orbinski cover art

    • An Imperfect Offering

    • Humanitarian Action for the Twenty-First Century
    • By: James Orbinski
    • Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
    • Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
    • Release date: 02-28-13
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 50 ratings
    • 1994
    • A list about competent professionals mitigating or avoiding loss of life would be incomplete without this audio by a member of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the group that won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. COVID-19 might not be analogous to the Rwandan genocide, but this audio suggests ways to stay calm and help each other – and the world—in times of chaos and fear.

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  • Flight 232 Audiobook By Laurence Gonzales cover art

    • Flight 232

    • A Story of Disaster and Survival
    • By: Laurence Gonzales
    • Narrated by: Victor Bevine
    • Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
    • Release date: 01-07-15
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 485 ratings
    • 1989
    • I’m trying to do an earnest list on a serious topic, here, but this audio is my guilty pleasure—despite the sad subject—for its you-are-there storytelling from multiple points of view, in a brilliant and taut narration by Victor Bevine. Surely a plane crashing in a cornfield should be a total disaster…but in 1989 swift thinking by the pilot and crew, and cooperation from passengers, saved nearly half the people who were doomed.

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  • How to Survive a Plague Audiobook By David France cover art

    • How to Survive a Plague

    • The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS
    • By: David France
    • Narrated by: Rory O'Malley
    • Length: 24 hrs and 28 mins
    • Release date: 11-29-16
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 320 ratings
    • 1980s
    • Enough said….except to highlight Rory O’Malley’s excellent performance about the beginning of the end of the AIDS crisis, the time before PWAs had access to life-saving drug therapies.

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  • Apollo 13 Audiobook By Jim Lovell, Jeffrey Kluger cover art

    • Apollo 13

    • By: Jim Lovell, Jeffrey Kluger
    • Narrated by: Fred Sanders
    • Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
    • Release date: 12-10-19
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 1,332 ratings
    • 1970
    • Remember when the NASA engineers on a deadline figured out how to make an oxygen scrubber to keep Jim Lovell and the other two astronauts alive long enough to get back to Earth? Well…that story feels a little like the dearth of ventilators during the COVID-19 crisis. The fact that Mission Control found a way to keep astronauts breathing in 1970 gives me hope that humanity 2020 can figure out manufacturing ventilators at scale.

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  • This Is Chance! Audiobook By Jon Mooallem cover art

    • This Is Chance!

    • The Shaking of an All-American City, a Voice That Held It Together
    • By: Jon Mooallem
    • Narrated by: Ray Porter
    • Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
    • Release date: 03-24-20
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 174 ratings
    • 1964
    • For all you working parents out there, worried about the health of your families and also trying to work (or find work) in a chaotic world, here’s the story of Genie Chance, who, by doing her (part time!) job, guided the entire city of Anchorage toward safety and hope by using her voice.

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  • The Miracle of Dunkirk Audiobook By Walter Lord cover art

    • The Miracle of Dunkirk

    • By: Walter Lord
    • Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
    • Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
    • Release date: 09-14-09
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 823 ratings
    • 1940
    • Not a natural disaster, exactly, but ordinary citizens rallied and took to their boats to prevent a great loss of life when 335,000 Allied troops were trapped between the English Channel and the German Army. As a story of human ingenuity and discipline, Dunkirk makes my list.

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  • The Underground Railroad Records Audiobook By William Still, Ta-Nehisi Coates - introduction, Quincy T. Mills - editor cover

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