Audiobooks narrated by David Skulski

The Zelmenyaners: A Family Saga Audiobook

This is the first complete English-language translation of "The Zelmenyaners" a classic of Yiddish literature, one of the great comic novels of the twentieth century. The Zelmenyaners describes the travails of a Jewish family in Minsk that is torn asunder by the new Soviet reality. Four generations are depicted in riveting and often uproarious detail as they face the profound changes brought on by the demands of the Soviet regime and its collectivist, radical secularism. The resultant intergenerational showdowns-including disputes over the introduction of electricity, radio, or electric trolley-are rendered with humor, pathos, and a finely controlled satiric pen. Moyshe Kulbak, a contemporary of the Soviet Jewish writer Isaac Babel, picks up where Sholem Aleichem left off a generation before, exploring in this book the transformation of Jewish life. Moyshe Kulbak (1896-1937) was a leading Yiddish modernist poet, novelist, and dramatist. Arrested in 1937 during the wave of Stalinist repression that hit the Minsk Yiddish writers and cultural activists with particular vehemence, and given a perfunctory show trial, Kulbak was shot at the age of 41. Hillel Halkin, an acclaimed translator of Hebrew and Yiddish fiction, is the author, most recently, of Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel and Yehuda Halevi. Sasha Senderovich is assistant professor of Russian studies and Jewish studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Moyshe Kulback (Author), David Skulski (Narrator)

Audiobook

Harperism: How Stephen Harper and His Think Tank Colleagues Have Transformed Canada

Margaret (Maggie) Thatcher, the Iron Lady, and her neo-conservative philosophy transformed British political life forever. Actor turned politician Ronald Reagan, selling "trickle down" economics, did the same to political life in the United States. In Harperism, Donald Gutstein details how Stephen Harper accomplished a similar dramatic shift to the right and a introduced a new kind of politics in Canada. It's key tenets include: Canada's economic prosperity is strengthened when labour is weak-especially when unions disappear Public policy making is improved by cutting government scientific research and data collection Converting First Nations reserves to private property improves the conditions of life for aboriginal peoples Inequality of incomes and wealth is a good thing-and Canada needs more of it These and other central ideas that make-up Harperism flow from the neo-liberal economic theories of Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek and his disciples in the U.S.A and inspired Reaganism and Thatcherism. "This was a great compliment to Party of One (Michael Harris)" - "This is an important book!" In Canada, Stephen Harper has managed to take neo-liberalism much further in several key areas. As Donald Gutstein details, Harper has accomplished this using a successful strategy of incremental change coupled with denial of the underlying neo-liberal analysis that explains these hard-to-understand measures. Harperism's success is no accident. Donald Gutstein documents the connections between the think tanks, politicians, journalists, academics and researchers who nurture and promote each other's neo-liberal ideas. They are funded by ultra-rich U.S. donors, Canadian billionaires like Peter Munk, and many large corporations-all of whom gain from the ideas and policies developed and pushed by Harperites. This book sheds new light on the last decade of Canadian politics, and it documents the challenges that Harperism-with or without Stephen Harper-will continue to present to the many Canadians who do not share this pro-market world view.

Donald Gutstein (Author), David Skulski (Narrator)

Audiobook

How will capitalism end?: Essays on a Failing System

AftAfter years of ill health, capitalism is now in a critical condition. Growth has given way to stagnation; inequality is leading to instability; and confidence in the money economy has all but evaporated. In How Will Capitalism End?, the acclaimed analyst of contemporary politics and economics Wolfgang Streeck argues that the world is about to change. The marriage between democracy and capitalism, ill-suited partners brought together in the shadow of World War Two, is coming to an end. The regulatory institutions that once restrained the financial sector's excesses have collapsed and, after the final victory of capitalism at the end of the Cold War, there is no political agency capable of rolling back the liberalization of the markets. Ours has become a world defined by declining growth, oligarchic rule, a shrinking public sphere, institutional corruption and international anarchy, and no cure to these ills is at hand. er years of ill health, capitalism is now in a critical condition. Growth has given way to stagnation; inequality is leading to instability; and confidence in the money economy has all but evaporated. In How Will Capitalism End?, the acclaimed analyst of contemporary politics and economics Wolfgang Streeck argues that the world is about to change. The marriage between democracy and capitalism, ill-suited partners brought together in the shadow of World War Two, is coming to an end. The regulatory institutions that once restrained the financial sector's excesses have collapsed and, after the final victory of capitalism at the end of the Cold War, there is no political agency capable of rolling back the liberalization of the markets. Ours has become a world defined by declining growth, oligarchic rule, a shrinking public sphere, institutional corruption and international anarchy, and no cure to these ills is at hand.

Wolfgang Streeck (Author), David Skulski (Narrator)

Audiobook

Tree, A Life Story

Now with a new foreword by Peter Wohlleben, the international bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees and The Inner Life of Animals. The story of a single tree, from the moment the seed is released from its cone until, more than five hundred years later, it lies on the forest floor as a nurse log, giving life to ferns, mosses, and hemlocks, even as its own life is ending. This new edition has been updated and revised to reflect the effects of climate change on forests.

David Suzuki, Wayne Grady (Author), David Skulski, Peter Wohlleben (Narrator)

Audiobook

Kill the Messengers: Stephen Harper's Assault on your Right to Know

Information, the lifeblood of democracy, is under attack in Canada. Instead of the transparency Stephen Harper promised, the nation's business is done in secret, and an army of lobbyists and public-relations flackies now set the agenda and decide what we get to know. When we are denied information, when we no longer feel free to discuss political events or issues, when we are discouraged from even thinking about politics, voting loses its appeal. In such a climate, exercising ones democratic rights seems superfluous.Stephen Harper and his government, while delegitimizing the media's role in our political system, also undertook a war on the nations information systems: Statistics Canada was effectively killed, hundreds of scientists and statisticians were fired, our Library and Archives Canada were gutted and freedom of information rules turned into a joke. Facts, it would seem, are no longer relevant. In Kill the Messengers: Stephen Harper's Assault on Your Right to Know, Mark Bourrie reveals how events conspired to silence Canadian media and elect an anti-intellectual government determined to govern in secret Using multiple examples and case studies, Bourrie illustrates how the collection of facts that embarrass the government's position or undermine it's ideologically based decsion-making have been suppressed through budget cuts. And, perhaps more importantly, Bourrie shows how to take back your right to be informed and heard. Kill the Messengers is more than just a collection of complaints bemoaning the current state of Canadian media, it is a call to arms for all of us to become informed citizens and active participants in the democratic process. This is a book all Canadians are entitled access to hear-and now, they'll get the chance.

Mark Bourrie (Author), David Skulski (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Art of Social Enterprise: Business as if People Mattered

The current business-for-profit model rewards short-term thinking, narrow self-interest, and a social-and-environmental-costs-be-damned attitude. Non-profits, while more focused on the greater good, tend to be inherently resource-challenged and rely on increasingly scarce grants and donations to sustain their existence. Social enterprise is an exciting, blended model driven by the desire to create positive change through entrepreneurial activities. The Art of Social Enterprise is a practical guide which supplies everything you need to know about the mechanics of social entrepreneurship including: Startup – envisioning and manifesting intention Strategic planning – balancing social and monetary value Maintaining an even keel despite the inevitable challenges associated with being an entrepreneur. This valuable resource also provides an unparalleled legal perspective to help you take advantage of established legal organizational forms, recent statutory creations, contract hybrids, certification programs and more. Aimed at emerging as well as established social entrepreneurs, for-profit leaders who want to introduce an element of social responsibility into their companies, and non-profit organizations who want to increase their stability by generating income, The Art of Social Enterprise is the definitive guide to doing well while doing good.

Alan Bromberger (Author), David Skulski (Narrator)

Audiobook

That Is How It Is: Stories

That Is How It Is – another impressive translation by Harvey Fink – offers more than fifty short pieces by Moishe Nadir, almost entirely about America – “a land where people do not go for strolls, where no one drinks wine.” He wrote for the New York Yiddish press, in daily newspapers and popular humour magazines. Nadir’s stories will enter your consciousness with a gentle knock, seduce you with their eloquence and wry observations, and challenge you with a minefield of sardonic humor. “Nadir’s best stories acknowledge that a freer life might be practically preferable, but theologically barren; that there can be no ecstasy in a nation where ecstasies can be mass-produced; and that only kitsch can comfort when the communal is usurped by capitalism, and by democratic enfranchisement…” (Joshua Cohen, June 25, 2009, Tablet Magazine)

Harvey Fink (Author), David Skulski (Narrator)

Audiobook

Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons

In our age of predatory markets and make-believe democracy, our troubled political institutions have lost sight of real people and practical realities. But if you look to the edges, ordinary people are reinventing governance and provisioning on their own terms. The commons is arising as a serious, practical alternative to the corrupt Market/State. The beauty of commons is that we can build them ourselves, right now. But the bigger challenge is, Can we learn to see the commons and, more importantly, to think like a commoner?

David Bollier (Author), David Skulski (Narrator)

Audiobook

Poor Matza

Avrom Reisen (1876-1953) was an acclaimed and prolific Yiddish poet and short story writer for the American Yiddish dailies. This is a superb translation by Harvey Fink of some of Reisen's best short stories. At the time of Reisen's death, the Jewish Spectator wrote: "There are many Yiddish writers who owe their success to Reisen's encouragement. For years he published and edited, under great sacrifices, Yiddish journals with the primary aim of providing a platform for young, struggling writers... He had no arrogance, no pretensions and no personal vanity." This is the third of Harvey Fink's works of translation. He has also translated, 'From Man to Man' and 'That Is How It Is' - works of Moishe Nadir and will soon be available in audio from Post Hypnotic Press.

Harvey Fink (Author), David Skulski (Narrator)

Audiobook

Can Hens GIve Milk?

Tova lives with her family on a small farm in the famous town of Chelm, a mythical village populated, according to Jewish folklore, by fools. Tova's farm has hens and even a rooster, but no cow. Her mother, Rivka, wishes they could afford to buy a cow, so they could have fresh milk and butter every day. One night Tova's father has a dream about how to get milk without actually owning a cow. He asks Tova to help him find a way to get milk from their hens, and the results are hilarious. Finally, to the family's joy and the hens' relief, the problem is solved by none other than the wise Rabbi of Chelm himself, and a little extra help from Tova.

Joan Betty Stuchner (Author), David Skulski (Narrator)

Audiobook

Perfect Man

Michael Maxwell McCallum lives in a world just like ours, but peopled by superheroes. When Michael's hero, Perfect Man, quits his job without warning, Michael isn't worried. He knows that Perfect Man will come back. He always does. So that September, when a new teacher shows up in his classroom, a teacher with a number of special powers, Michael figures it out right away. Mr. Clark is Perfect Man. Mr. Clark doesn't say yes and he doesn't say no to Michael's endless questions, but he does encourage Michael to find his own super powers.

Troy Wilson (Author), David Skulski (Narrator)

Audiobook

Sack Full of Feathers

Yankel loves to tell stories, as long as they are someone else's. He does not see the hurt that his stories cause, the way they spread and change. Then the rabbi hands him a bag of feathers and tells him to place one on every doorstep in the village. Yankel is changed by what happens and finds himself with his best story yet, one of his very own.

Debby Waldman (Author), David Skulski (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by David Skulski