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Desperate Passage audiobook cover art

  • Desperate Passage

  • The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West
  • By: Ethan Rarick
  • Narrated by: Christopher Prince
  • Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
  • Unabridged
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    4 out of 5 stars 583
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In late October 1846, the last wagon train of that year's westward migration stopped overnight before resuming its arduous climb over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, unaware that a fearsome storm was gathering force. After months of grueling travel, the 81 men, women and children would be trapped for a brutal winter with little food and only primitive shelter. The conclusion is known: by spring of the next year, the Donner Party was synonymous with the most harrowing extremes of human survival.

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • Very well researched story of the Donner Party

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History of the Donner Party audiobook cover art

  • History of the Donner Party

  • A Tragedy of the Sierra
  • By: C. F. McGlashan
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C.F. McGlashan was the newspaper publisher of the local paper in Truckee, California, the closest town to the Donner Pass. McGlashan interviewed the survivors of the Donner Party, gathered artifacts and amassed an enormous amount of secondary information. Over an 18 month period, McGlashan published serialized articles in his paper and turned his articles into a book. History of the Donner Party is considered the definitive account of one of the most notorious treks in American history.

  • 3 out of 5 stars

  • Good story, bad reading.

  • By S. Smail on 12-25-13
The Frontiersmen audiobook cover art

  • The Frontiersmen

  • A Narrative
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The frontiersmen were a remarkable breed of men. They were often rough and illiterate, sometimes brutal and vicious, often seeking an escape in the wilderness of mid-America from crimes committed back east. In the beautiful but deadly country which would one day come to be known as West Virginia, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, more often than not they left their bones to bleach beside forest paths or on the banks of the Ohio River.

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Across the Plains in the Donner Party audiobook cover art

  • Across the Plains in the Donner Party

  • By: Virginia Reed Murphy
  • Narrated by: Colleen Delany
  • Length: 1 hr and 2 mins
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    4 out of 5 stars 28
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The story of the Donner Party is very much the story of James F. Reed's family, not simply because the Reeds were prominent members, but because they left much documentary evidence: diaries, memoirs, correspondence, and letters written en route and interviews shortly after the disaster. The adopted daughter of Reed, Virginia Reed Murphy's memoir is a noteworthy recounting of the Donner party disaster and its gruesome end. Her writing is sprightly, informal, and full of human interest.

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • Unembelished Excellence

  • By LL on 10-13-10
The Men Who United the States audiobook cover art

  • The Men Who United the States

  • America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible
  • By: Simon Winchester
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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.

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • Simon Winchester tells us the history of America

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Snowbound audiobook cover art

  • Snowbound

  • The Tragic Story of the Donner Party
  • By: David Lavender
  • Narrated by: George Guidall
  • Length: 1 hr and 42 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 5
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Trusting an overly optimistic guidebook, the Donner Party sets out for the Promised Land in May of 1846 - unaware that they're following only rumor-fueled speculations. But after betting their lives on a bogus shortcut, the starving travelers soon struggle to survive the November snows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Praying for a miraculous rescue, 48 of the original 88 escape certain death by living off the flesh of their dead comrades.

Publisher's Summary

The westward movement of Americans in the 19th century was one of the largest and most consequential migrations in history, and for countless people back east, the West represented opportunities for adventure, independence, and fortune. Even in the 21st century, Americans look back on the era fondly, even romantically, and millions are familiar with the popular game that reignited interest in the Oregon Trail.

Of course, it's easy for people with modern transportation to comfortably reminisce about the West, because many pioneers discovered that the traveling was fraught with various kinds of obstacles and danger, including bitter weather, potentially deadly illnesses, and hostile Native Americans, not to mention an unforgiving landscape that famous American explorer Stephen Long deemed "unfit for human habitation." 19th century Americans were all too happy and eager for the transcontinental railroad to help speed their passage west and render overland paths obsolete.

One of the main reasons people yearned for new forms of transportation is because of the most notorious and tragic disasters in the history of westward travel. While people still romanticize the Wild West, many Americans are still all too familiar with the fate of the Donner Party, a group of 87-90 people that met with disaster in the Sierra Nevada mountain range during the winter of 1846-1847. The party knew the journey would take months, but early snowfalls in the mountains left dozens of people trapped in snow drifts that measured several feet, stranding them in a manner that made it virtually impossible for them to go any further for several weeks.

©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River Editors

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