-
The American Home Front
- 1941-1942
- Narrated by: John Byrne Cooke
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $26.05
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Alistair Cooke's America
- By: Alistair Cooke
- Narrated by: Peter Marinker
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years legendary broadcaster Alistair Cooke brought America to the rest of the world with incomparable wit and wisdom. This is his classic ‘personal history’ of America, guiding us through centuries of changing life in the USA.
-
-
Alastair Cook's America
- By Caroline Vickers on 08-27-16
By: Alistair Cooke
-
The Nazi Conspiracy
- The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
- By: Brad Meltzer, Josh Mensch
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1943, as the war against Nazi Germany raged abroad, President Franklin Roosevelt had a critical goal: a face-to-face sit-down with his allies Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. This first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, would decide some of the most crucial strategic details of the war. Yet when the Nazis found out about the meeting, their own secret plan took shape—an assassination plot that would’ve changed history.
-
-
Fabulous book!
- By Luke Einfeldt on 01-18-23
By: Brad Meltzer, and others
-
English Grammar Boot Camp
- By: Anne Curzan, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Anne Curzan
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grammar! For many of us, the word triggers memories of finger-wagging schoolteachers, and of wrestling with the ambiguous and complicated rules of using formal language. But what is grammar? In fact, it's the integral basis of how we speak and write. As such, a refined awareness of grammar opens a world of possibilities for both your pleasure in the English language and your skill in using it, in both speech and the written word.
-
-
Spectacular
- By Quaker on 09-24-16
By: Anne Curzan, and others
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
-
The Darkest Year
- The American Home Front, 1941-1942
- By: William K. Klingaman
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Darkest Year focuses on Americans’ state of mind not only through what they said, but in the day-to-day details of their behavior. William K. Klingaman blends these psychological effects with the changes the war wrought in American society and culture, including shifts in family roles, race relations, economic pursuits, popular entertainment, education, and the arts.
-
-
Unflinching recount of the US home front.
- By Marc R Luce on 08-22-21
-
The Fleet at Flood Tide
- America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 23 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of America's preeminent military historians, James D. Hornfischer has written his most expansive and ambitious book to date. Drawing on new primary sources and personal accounts of Americans and Japanese alike, here is a thrilling narrative of the climactic end stage of the Pacific War, focusing on the US invasion of the Mariana Islands in June 1944 and the momentous events that it triggered.
-
-
Hornfischer's Philosophical Summary Up to VJ Day
- By Hollywood Dave on 01-08-17
-
Alistair Cooke's America
- By: Alistair Cooke
- Narrated by: Peter Marinker
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years legendary broadcaster Alistair Cooke brought America to the rest of the world with incomparable wit and wisdom. This is his classic ‘personal history’ of America, guiding us through centuries of changing life in the USA.
-
-
Alastair Cook's America
- By Caroline Vickers on 08-27-16
By: Alistair Cooke
-
The Nazi Conspiracy
- The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
- By: Brad Meltzer, Josh Mensch
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1943, as the war against Nazi Germany raged abroad, President Franklin Roosevelt had a critical goal: a face-to-face sit-down with his allies Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. This first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, would decide some of the most crucial strategic details of the war. Yet when the Nazis found out about the meeting, their own secret plan took shape—an assassination plot that would’ve changed history.
-
-
Fabulous book!
- By Luke Einfeldt on 01-18-23
By: Brad Meltzer, and others
-
English Grammar Boot Camp
- By: Anne Curzan, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Anne Curzan
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grammar! For many of us, the word triggers memories of finger-wagging schoolteachers, and of wrestling with the ambiguous and complicated rules of using formal language. But what is grammar? In fact, it's the integral basis of how we speak and write. As such, a refined awareness of grammar opens a world of possibilities for both your pleasure in the English language and your skill in using it, in both speech and the written word.
-
-
Spectacular
- By Quaker on 09-24-16
By: Anne Curzan, and others
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
-
The Darkest Year
- The American Home Front, 1941-1942
- By: William K. Klingaman
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Darkest Year focuses on Americans’ state of mind not only through what they said, but in the day-to-day details of their behavior. William K. Klingaman blends these psychological effects with the changes the war wrought in American society and culture, including shifts in family roles, race relations, economic pursuits, popular entertainment, education, and the arts.
-
-
Unflinching recount of the US home front.
- By Marc R Luce on 08-22-21
-
The Fleet at Flood Tide
- America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 23 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of America's preeminent military historians, James D. Hornfischer has written his most expansive and ambitious book to date. Drawing on new primary sources and personal accounts of Americans and Japanese alike, here is a thrilling narrative of the climactic end stage of the Pacific War, focusing on the US invasion of the Mariana Islands in June 1944 and the momentous events that it triggered.
-
-
Hornfischer's Philosophical Summary Up to VJ Day
- By Hollywood Dave on 01-08-17
-
Train
- Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World - from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief
- By: Tom Zoellner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom Zoellner loves trains with a ferocious passion. In his new audiobook he chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, and could very well change it again. From the frigid Trans-Siberian Railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the futuristic maglev trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of man's relationship with trains. Zoellner examines both the mechanics of the rails and their engines and how they helped societies evolve. Not only do trains transport people and goods in an efficient manner, but they also reduce pollution and dependency upon oil.
-
-
The world history of trains up to the present
- By matthew on 03-06-14
By: Tom Zoellner
-
In a Sunburned Country
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. His previous excursion on the Appalachian Trail resulted in the best seller A Walk in the Woods. Now, we follow him "Down Under" to Australia with this delectably funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance that combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiosity. More from Bill Bryson.
-
-
Laugh out loud funny
- By Larry on 06-09-03
By: Bill Bryson
-
Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
-
-
Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
The Great Wall of China and the Salton Sea
- Monuments, Missteps, and the Audacity of Ambition
- By: Russell Rathbun
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We've been building and making things ever since we stumbled out of paradise. Some of those things are incredible continuations of God's creation, while others are nothing but ambitious catastrophes. We continue making, says Russell Rathbun, but we've lost ourselves in the process.
-
-
Excellent narrator
- By Tammy on 03-17-18
By: Russell Rathbun
-
Brave Companions
- Portraits in History
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: David McCullough
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Truman and John Adams, David McCullough has written profiles of exceptional men and women past and present who have not only shaped the course of history or changed how we see the world but whose stories express much that is timeless about the human condition. Here are Alexander von Humboldt, whose epic explorations of South America surpassed the Lewis and Clark expedition; Harriet Beecher Stowe, "the little woman who made the big war”....
-
-
I USUALLY LOVE THIS GUY
- By Randall on 01-28-19
By: David McCullough
-
The Fish That Ate the Whale
- The Life and Times of America's Banana King
- By: Rich Cohen
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Samuel Zemurray arrived in America in 1891, he was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans 69 years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. In between, he worked as a fruit peddler, banana hauler, dockside hustler, and plantation owner. He battled and conquered the United Fruit Company, becoming a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof America is the land of opportunity, but also a classic example of the corporate pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his adventures.
-
-
Rich Cohen, Chest thump for the Hitler of Bananas
- By Jose on 05-04-21
By: Rich Cohen
-
Blue Highways
- A Journey into America
- By: William Least Heat-Moon
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads. William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about "those little towns that get on the map-if they get on at all-only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot, Mississippi." His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation of the true American experience.
-
-
A new Mark Twain... this is a great book
- By Mr. on 01-25-13
-
The Men Who United the States
- America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators. Introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.
-
-
Simon Winchester tells us the history of America
- By KathrynVB on 10-16-14
By: Simon Winchester
-
Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days
- By: Michael Palin
- Narrated by: Michael Palin
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the autumn of 1988, Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club with an ambitious plan: to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Jules Verne's fictional hero Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier. The rules were simple. He had to make the journey in 80 days using only forms of transport that would have been available to Fogg.
-
-
music incredibly distracting and annoying
- By LJ on 05-18-19
By: Michael Palin
-
Stories from Texas: Some of Them Are True
- By: W.F. Strong
- Narrated by: W. F. Strong
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You might call W.F. Strong a student of all things Texas. In 2010, he began sharing his 'Stories From Texas' vignettes on public radio stations, most recently on the Texas Standard news show's 30 stations. For this book celebrating his home state, Strong has collected 75 of his broadcasts. You'll hear his inimitably Texan voice in your mind's ear as he weaves stories on subjects ranging from how to ''talk Texan'' to Texas bards and troubadours; from tall Texas tales to Lone Star icons like Charles Goodnight, Tom Landry and Blue Bell ice cream, and much more.
-
-
Soul satisfying stories
- By Lana Lane on 03-11-22
By: W.F. Strong
-
The King of California
- J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire
- By: Mark Arax, Rick Wartzman
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 19 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
J. G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions, and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields". The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s, drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world.
-
-
Interesting story of California Ag history
- By Jean on 08-11-14
By: Mark Arax, and others
-
Investment Biker
- Around the World with Jim Rogers
- By: Jim Rogers
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Legendary investor Jim Rogers gives us his view of the world on a 22-month, 52-country motorcycle odyssey in his best-selling business/adventure book, Investment Biker, which has already sold more than 200,000 copies.
Before you invest another dollar anywhere in the world (including the United States), read this book by the man Time magazine calls "the Indiana Jones of finance". Jim Rogers became a Wall Street legend when he co-founded the Quantum Fund. Investment Biker is the fascinating story of Rogers’s global motorcycle journey/investing trip.
-
-
Trigger warning: Jealous types should avoid!
- By Jim In Texas! on 04-05-15
By: Jim Rogers
Publisher's Summary
Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Alistair Cooke, a newly naturalized American citizen, set out to see his country as it was undergoing monumental change. He wanted to "see what the war had done to people, to the towns I might go through, to some jobs and crops, to stretches of landscape I loved and had seen at peace."
Working throughout the war, Cooke finished The American Home Front as the atomic bomb was being dropped on Hiroshima. His publisher thought there would be little interest in books on the war, so it was stuffed in a closet. It stayed there for almost 60 years, nearly forgotten, until it was unearthed shortly before Cooke's death in 2004.
The American Home Front is a fascinating artifact, a charming travelogue, and a sharp portrait that shows America changing from civilian pursuits to military engagement, from the production of consumer goods to materials of war. It is also a unique record of American life. Cooke travels small highways, with their advertising signs and their local typography, in an age before the interstate highway system. He chronicles the regional glories he encounters, elements of long-lost culture such as his beloved soda fountains, and the reactions of the citizens, from indifference to grief, from opportunism to resilience, under military threat.
Filled with touching personal stories of the effects of war, from a Japanese family facing internment that tries to sell Cooke their car, to the experiences of the unemployed relocating in hopes of jobs in a gunpowder factory, The American Home Front is the work of an experienced, talented journalist; it is intelligent, touching, and funny.
More from the same
What listeners say about The American Home Front
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Ron
- 05-01-09
one man's shallow view
This is strictly the authors observations while touring the United States shortly after the outbreak of World War 2. It is more scholarly than interesting. He never allows individuals to speak but rather drones on about what they meant to say. This is not oral history,it is observation and opinion.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Richard
- 02-18-09
Very depressing
I can see why no publisher would touch this book for 60 years. It is a very depressing book as Cooke hated Americans at this period in his life and it shows.
I want my money back.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Frank Donnelly
- 06-09-21
A Really Enjoyable And Informative Audiobook
I completely enjoyed this audiobook. I was composed by Alistair Cooke during World War II, but was left unpublished until the time of his death. There is a definite “time capsule” aspect to this fine book. I purchased both the Kindle and audiobook and listened and read simultaneously. I am glad that I did that. However the audiobook is clearly read and I could have followed most of it simply by listening.
Alistair Cooke was born in England and moved to the United States. As such he has a perspective from both cultures that adds to the depths of his observations. I am really glad that I came across this fine product. Thank You....
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Edouard
- 04-01-17
A Disappointment.
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
Not well spent. I wasn't interested in the author's travels and experiences at the beginning of WW II. Much of the rest of the book's content (up to the time that I quit listening to it (see below)) was about how various communities fared during the War. There was too much fluff for my tastes.
What do you think your next listen will be?
I'm going to try to finish English Grammar Boot Camp, if I can stand to. I've got maybe 5 hours left on it.
What does John Byrne Cooke bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Just a fairly good professional narration. One sign of a good narration, in my opinion, is when a person doesn't have any reason to think about it; he/she can focus on the book's content. That was true of this audiobook.
Could you see The American Home Front being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
NO.
Any additional comments?
The comments and ratings above are based on listening to the audiobook only about 2 hours. That was all that I could stand to listen to. Other people may like the book; if so, they can give the high ratings and glowing comments that I couldn't honestly give.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dr. H. K
- 03-17-14
very enlightening book
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I would recommend this book for people wanting to hear a general overview of life during the second world war. It is fluent, nicely written and you can hear that it was written in "real time". But one should know it is not very detailed, as it cover a lot of cities and towns.
What other book might you compare The American Home Front to and why?
Other books that describes life during the war.
Which character – as performed by John Byrne Cooke – was your favorite?
No particular character, it is written as first person impression.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
The American home front
Related to this topic
-
Train
- Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World - from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief
- By: Tom Zoellner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom Zoellner loves trains with a ferocious passion. In his new audiobook he chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, and could very well change it again. From the frigid Trans-Siberian Railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the futuristic maglev trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of man's relationship with trains. Zoellner examines both the mechanics of the rails and their engines and how they helped societies evolve. Not only do trains transport people and goods in an efficient manner, but they also reduce pollution and dependency upon oil.
-
-
The world history of trains up to the present
- By matthew on 03-06-14
By: Tom Zoellner
-
The King of California
- J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire
- By: Mark Arax, Rick Wartzman
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 19 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
J. G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions, and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields". The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s, drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world.
-
-
Interesting story of California Ag history
- By Jean on 08-11-14
By: Mark Arax, and others
-
Investment Biker
- Around the World with Jim Rogers
- By: Jim Rogers
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Legendary investor Jim Rogers gives us his view of the world on a 22-month, 52-country motorcycle odyssey in his best-selling business/adventure book, Investment Biker, which has already sold more than 200,000 copies.
Before you invest another dollar anywhere in the world (including the United States), read this book by the man Time magazine calls "the Indiana Jones of finance". Jim Rogers became a Wall Street legend when he co-founded the Quantum Fund. Investment Biker is the fascinating story of Rogers’s global motorcycle journey/investing trip.
-
-
Trigger warning: Jealous types should avoid!
- By Jim In Texas! on 04-05-15
By: Jim Rogers
-
Brave Companions
- Portraits in History
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: David McCullough
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Truman and John Adams, David McCullough has written profiles of exceptional men and women past and present who have not only shaped the course of history or changed how we see the world but whose stories express much that is timeless about the human condition. Here are Alexander von Humboldt, whose epic explorations of South America surpassed the Lewis and Clark expedition; Harriet Beecher Stowe, "the little woman who made the big war”....
-
-
I USUALLY LOVE THIS GUY
- By Randall on 01-28-19
By: David McCullough
-
BOOM
- Oil, Money, Cowboys, Strippers, and the Energy Rush That Could Change America Forever
- By: Tony Horwitz
- Narrated by: Matt Morel
- Length: 3 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In BOOM, prize-winning reporter Tony Horwitz takes a spirited road trip through the wild new frontier of energy in North America. His journey begins in subarctic Alberta, where thousands of miners labor in an industrial moonscape to extract the region's oil-rich tar sands. Horwitz then follows the route of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline that may carry tar-sands oil from Canada across Montana, the Dakotas, and Nebraska en route to Gulf Coast refineries.
-
-
Closest you’ll get without going there in person.
- By Leonardo Charre on 02-05-23
By: Tony Horwitz
-
America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than three decades after his death, John Steinbeck remains one of the nation's most beloved authors. Yet few know of his career as a journalist who covered world events from the Great Depression to Vietnam. Now, this original collection offers a portrait of the artist as citizen, deeply engaged in the world around him. In addition to the complete text of Steinbeck's last published book, America and Americans, this volume brings together for the first time more than 50 of Steinbeck's finest essays and jouralistic pieces.
-
-
Really good Steinbeck journalism.....no kidding!
- By Doug on 07-26-14
By: John Steinbeck
-
Train
- Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World - from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief
- By: Tom Zoellner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom Zoellner loves trains with a ferocious passion. In his new audiobook he chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, and could very well change it again. From the frigid Trans-Siberian Railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the futuristic maglev trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of man's relationship with trains. Zoellner examines both the mechanics of the rails and their engines and how they helped societies evolve. Not only do trains transport people and goods in an efficient manner, but they also reduce pollution and dependency upon oil.
-
-
The world history of trains up to the present
- By matthew on 03-06-14
By: Tom Zoellner
-
The King of California
- J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire
- By: Mark Arax, Rick Wartzman
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 19 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
J. G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions, and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields". The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s, drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world.
-
-
Interesting story of California Ag history
- By Jean on 08-11-14
By: Mark Arax, and others
-
Investment Biker
- Around the World with Jim Rogers
- By: Jim Rogers
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Legendary investor Jim Rogers gives us his view of the world on a 22-month, 52-country motorcycle odyssey in his best-selling business/adventure book, Investment Biker, which has already sold more than 200,000 copies.
Before you invest another dollar anywhere in the world (including the United States), read this book by the man Time magazine calls "the Indiana Jones of finance". Jim Rogers became a Wall Street legend when he co-founded the Quantum Fund. Investment Biker is the fascinating story of Rogers’s global motorcycle journey/investing trip.
-
-
Trigger warning: Jealous types should avoid!
- By Jim In Texas! on 04-05-15
By: Jim Rogers
-
Brave Companions
- Portraits in History
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: David McCullough
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Truman and John Adams, David McCullough has written profiles of exceptional men and women past and present who have not only shaped the course of history or changed how we see the world but whose stories express much that is timeless about the human condition. Here are Alexander von Humboldt, whose epic explorations of South America surpassed the Lewis and Clark expedition; Harriet Beecher Stowe, "the little woman who made the big war”....
-
-
I USUALLY LOVE THIS GUY
- By Randall on 01-28-19
By: David McCullough
-
BOOM
- Oil, Money, Cowboys, Strippers, and the Energy Rush That Could Change America Forever
- By: Tony Horwitz
- Narrated by: Matt Morel
- Length: 3 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In BOOM, prize-winning reporter Tony Horwitz takes a spirited road trip through the wild new frontier of energy in North America. His journey begins in subarctic Alberta, where thousands of miners labor in an industrial moonscape to extract the region's oil-rich tar sands. Horwitz then follows the route of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline that may carry tar-sands oil from Canada across Montana, the Dakotas, and Nebraska en route to Gulf Coast refineries.
-
-
Closest you’ll get without going there in person.
- By Leonardo Charre on 02-05-23
By: Tony Horwitz
-
America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than three decades after his death, John Steinbeck remains one of the nation's most beloved authors. Yet few know of his career as a journalist who covered world events from the Great Depression to Vietnam. Now, this original collection offers a portrait of the artist as citizen, deeply engaged in the world around him. In addition to the complete text of Steinbeck's last published book, America and Americans, this volume brings together for the first time more than 50 of Steinbeck's finest essays and jouralistic pieces.
-
-
Really good Steinbeck journalism.....no kidding!
- By Doug on 07-26-14
By: John Steinbeck
-
In Manchuria
- A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China
- By: Michael Meyer
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For three years Meyer rented a home in the rice-farming community of Wasteland, hometown of his wife's family, and their personal saga mirrors the tremendous change most of rural China is undergoing in the form of a privately held rice company that has built new roads, introduced organic farming, and constructed high-rise apartments into which farmers can move in exchange for their land rights.
-
-
If you liked the Wonder Years...?
- By Judas Mallory on 05-19-15
By: Michael Meyer
-
The Worst Hard Time
- The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
- By: Timothy Egan
- Narrated by: Jacob York
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Timothy Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, he does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes.
-
-
Excellent Description of Dust Bowl
- By Jeri Turner on 09-19-22
By: Timothy Egan
-
The Fish That Ate the Whale
- The Life and Times of America's Banana King
- By: Rich Cohen
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Samuel Zemurray arrived in America in 1891, he was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans 69 years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. In between, he worked as a fruit peddler, banana hauler, dockside hustler, and plantation owner. He battled and conquered the United Fruit Company, becoming a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof America is the land of opportunity, but also a classic example of the corporate pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his adventures.
-
-
Rich Cohen, Chest thump for the Hitler of Bananas
- By Jose on 05-04-21
By: Rich Cohen
-
Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
-
-
Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
The Men Who United the States
- America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators. Introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.
-
-
Simon Winchester tells us the history of America
- By KathrynVB on 10-16-14
By: Simon Winchester
-
Travels in Siberia
- By: Ian Frazier
- Narrated by: Ian Frazier
- Length: 20 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ian Frazier trains his eye for unforgettable detail on Siberia, that vast expanse of Asiatic Russia. He explores many aspects of this storied, often grim region. He writes about the geography, the resources, the native peoples, the history, the 40-below midwinter afternoons, the bugs. The book brims with Mongols, half-crazed Orthodox archpriests, fur seekers, ambassadors of the czar bound for Peking, tea caravans, German scientists, American prospectors, intrepid English nurses, and prisoners and exiles of every kind....
-
-
I Loved This Book
- By Sara on 01-05-14
By: Ian Frazier
-
Blue Highways
- A Journey into America
- By: William Least Heat-Moon
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads. William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about "those little towns that get on the map-if they get on at all-only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot, Mississippi." His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation of the true American experience.
-
-
A new Mark Twain... this is a great book
- By Mr. on 01-25-13
-
Essays of E. B. White
- By: E. B. White
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Legendary author and essayist E. B. White writes, "The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest." Covering a large number of subjects, this classic collection features 31 of White's most memorable essays.
-
-
E.B. White writes honestly, fearlessly and clearly
- By Bonny on 09-03-17
By: E. B. White
-
Country Driving
- A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China.
-
-
Pass the white rice please
- By Nick on 02-18-10
By: Peter Hessler
-
Lasso the Wind
- Away to the New West
- By: Timothy Egan
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Egan leads us on an unconventional, freewheeling tour: from America's oldest continuously inhabited community, the Ancoma Pueblo in New Mexico, to the high kitsch of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where London Bridge has been painstakingly rebuilt stone by stone; from the fragile beauty of Idaho's Bitterroot Range to the gross excess of Las Vegas, a city built as though in defiance of its arid environment.
-
-
Worst Narrator Ever