Audiobooks narrated by David H. Lawrence XVII

The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke

"*National Bestseller* A sweeping account of America's oldest unsolved mystery, the people racing to unearth its answer, and the sobering truths--about race, gender, and immigration--exposed by the Lost Colony of Roanoke In 1587, 115 men, women, and children arrived at Roanoke Island on the coast of North Carolina. Chartered by Queen Elizabeth I, their colony was to establish England's first foothold in the New World. But when the colony's leader, John White, returned to Roanoke from a resupply mission, his settlers were nowhere to be found. They left behind only a single clue--a 'secret token' carved into a tree. Neither White nor any other European laid eyes on the colonists again. What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? For four hundred years, that question has consumed historians and amateur sleuths, leading only to dead ends and hoaxes. But after a chance encounter with a British archaeologist, journalist Andrew Lawler discovered that solid answers to the mystery were within reach. He set out to unravel the enigma of the lost settlers, accompanying competing researchers, each hoping to be the first to solve its riddle. In the course of his journey, Lawler encounters a host of characters obsessed with the colonists and their fate, and he determines why the Lost Colony continues to haunt our national consciousness. Thrilling and absorbing, The Secret Token offers a new understanding not just of the first English settlement in the New World but of how its disappearance continues to define--and divide--America."

Andrew Lawler (Author), David H. Lawrence XVII (Narrator)

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Shooting Ghosts: A U.S. Marine, a Combat Photographer, and Their Journey Back from War

"'A majestic book.' --Bessel van der Kolk, MD, author of The Body Keeps the Score A unique joint memoir by a U.S. Marine and a conflict photographer whose unlikely friendship helped both heal their war-wounded bodies and souls 'The dueling-piano spirit of SHOOTING GHOSTS works because its authors are so committed to transparency, admitting readers into the dark crevices of their isolation.' Wall St Journal War tears people apart, but it can also bring them together. Through the unpredictability of war and its aftermath, a decorated Marine sergeant and a world-trotting war photographer became friends, their bond forged as they patrolled together through the dusty alleyways of Helmand province and camped side by side in the desert. It deepened after Sergeant T. J. Brennan was injured during a Taliban ambush, and both returned home. Brennan began to suffer from the effects of his injury and from the fallout of his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. But war correspondents experience similar rates of posttraumatic stress as combat veterans. The causes can be different, but guilt plays a prominent role in both. For Brennan, it's the things he's done, or didn't do, that haunt him. Finbarr O'Reilly's conscience is nagged by the task of photographing people at their most vulnerable while being able to do little to help, and his survival guilt as colleagues die on the job. Their friendship offered them both a shot at redemption. As we enter the fifteenth year of continuous war, it is increasingly urgent not just to document the experiences of the battlefield but also to probe the reverberations that last long after combatants and civilians have returned home, and to understand the many faces trauma takes. Shooting Ghosts looks at the horrors of war directly, but then turns to a journey that draws on our growing understanding of what recovery takes. Their story, told in alternating first-person narratives, is about the things they saw and did, the ways they have been affected, and how they have navigated the psychological aftershocks of war and wrestled with reforming their own identities and moral centers. While war never really ends for those who've lived through it, this book charts the ways two survivors have found to calm the ghosts and reclaim a measure of peace."

Finbarr O'reilly, Thomas J. Brennan (Author), David H. Lawrence XVII, Mike Chamberlain (Narrator)

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Axis of Aaron

"Ebon Shale is desperate to forget, but terrified of being forgotten.... Eager to move on after the sudden death and illuminated betrayal of his new wife and longtime girlfriend, Ebon Shale flees to the quiet island of Aaron, a place that's been calling him back since he was a child. But once there, Ebon’s reality begins to fall apart. The small town's citizens are as odd as its energy, and the island bends and changes around him. Soon Ebon has no idea what’s real ... or if “reality” on Aaron is an objective thing at all. Will the island help him to forget, or swallow him whole? Axis of Aaron is a mindbending journey through memory, presence, and surreality where nothing is what it seems, penned by bestselling authors Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt. “I had no time — NONE— but over the weekend I read the entire thing. I couldn’t stop.” - Galley review"

Johnny B. Truant, Sean Platt (Author), David H. Lawrence XVII (Narrator)

Audiobook

League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth

"NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A "meticulously documented and endlessly chilling" (The New York Times) exploration of the NFL's decades-long attempt to deny and cover up mounting evidence connecting brain damage from football with CTE. "A first-rate piece of reporting [that] adds crucial detail, texture, and news to the concussion story, which despite the NFL's best efforts, isn't going away."-Time ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Boston Globe, NPR "Professional football players do not sustain frequent repetitive blows to the brain on a regular basis." So concluded the National Football League in a December 2005 scientific paper on concussions in America's most popular sport. That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players-including some of the all-time greats-to madness. Everyone knows that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn't know-and what the league sought to shield from them-is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football. In League of Denial, award-winning ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru expose the public health crisis that emerged from the playing fields and examine how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research-a campaign with echoes of Big Tobacco's fight to deny the connection between smoking and lung cancer. They chronicle the tragic fates of players like Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was so disturbed at the time of his death he fantasized about shooting NFL executives, and former San Diego Chargers great Junior Seau, whose diseased brain became the target of a scientific battle between researchers and the NFL. Based on exclusive interviews, previously undisclosed documents, and private e-mails, League of Denial is the story of what the NFL knew and when it knew it-questions at the heart of a crisis that threatens American football-and of the battle for the sport's future."

Mark Fainaru-Wada, Steve Fainaru (Author), David H. Lawrence XVII (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by David H. Lawrence XVII