Audiobooks narrated by Dina Pearlman

False Claims: One Insider’s Impossible Battle Against Big Pharma Corruption

For the first time, Lisa Pratta shares her story of going undercover as a whistleblower at a Big Pharma company and standing up to systemic corruption, greed, and harassment—all while caring for her special needs son as a single mother. When Lisa Pratta started her career as a pharmaceutical sales representative, she had no idea of the industry’s depravity, and the endemic sexual harassment, bribery, and fraud she witnessed only got worse over time. Lisa hoped that might all change when she landed her dream job with a small company called Questcor which sold a drug that, when prescribed correctly, could help patients with multiple sclerosis. Yet Questcor realized they could make more money prescribing the drug incorrectly. While the FDA had approved the drug for two- to three-week treatments, Questcor was training, encouraging, and incentivizing its sales force to push a five-day treatment plan not backed by any science—and arbitrarily increased the drug’s price to $28,000 for a single vial. Pratta recognized this as being not only dangerous for patients, but also highly illegal. As the single mother of a special-needs son, Lisa couldn’t risk losing her job—but her moral compass also wouldn’t allow her to stay silent. Thus began her double life as a whistleblower. For nearly a decade she clandestinely fed information to the Department of Justice. Resisting internal pressure to succumb to Questcor’s illegal sales tactics, she was constantly harassed by supervisors and in danger of being fired, while the government offered her no protection in the event her betrayal was discovered. This incredible story offers an insider’s look at the unscrupulous sales methods used by America’s corrupt pharmaceutical industry, analyzes the levers they pull to extract ludicrous profits from the sick and dying, and is a page-turning portrait of one woman’s epic fight against Big Pharma and a mother’s heroic struggle to protect her family.

Lisa Pratta (Author), Dina Pearlman, TBD (Narrator)

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Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides after the Holocaust

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry. Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war.

Robin Judd (Author), Dina Pearlman (Narrator)

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Charlotte Salomon Paints Her Life: A Novel

Charlotte Salomon Paints Her Life Inspired by the life and work of Charlotte Salomon, this novel shows an artist intent on pursuing her art against all odds. As a young German-Jewish art student at The Berlin Art Academy during Hitler's rise to power in 1938, Charlotte's first place prize is denied because she is a Jew, her enrollment annulled. After Kristallnacht, she is sent from Berlin into exile with her grandparents. When Charlotte's grandmother leaps to her death, her Old World grandfather shocks her with the family secret, a legacy of female suicides. She struggles against her grandfather's insistence that suicide, not art, is her destiny too. Haunted by the encroaching terror of the Third Reich and the threat of psychological disintegration, Charlotte clings to her determination to become a serious modernist painter, to complete her monumental work 'Life? Or Theater?' and get it into safekeeping in a race against time before capture by the Nazis.

Pamela Reitman (Author), Dina Pearlman (Narrator)

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Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt is one of the most renowned political thinkers of the twentieth century, and her work has never been more relevant than it is today. Born in Germany in 1906, Arendt published her first book at the age of twenty-three, before turning away from the world of academic philosophy to reckon with the rise of the Third Reich. After World War II, Arendt became one of the most prominent—and controversial—public intellectuals of her time, publishing influential works such as The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, and Eichmann in Jerusalem. Samantha Rose Hill weaves together new biographical detail, archival documents, poems, and correspondence to reveal a woman whose passion for the life of the mind was nourished by her love of the world.

Samantha Rose Hill (Author), Dina Pearlman (Narrator)

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Israel: A History

Written by one of Israel's most notable scholars, this volume provides a breathtaking history of Israel from the origins of the Zionist movement in the late nineteenth century to the present day. Organized chronologically, the volume explores the emergence of Zionism in Europe against the backdrop of relations among Jews, Arabs, and Turks, and the earliest pioneer settlements in Palestine under Ottoman rule. Weaving together political, social, and cultural developments in Palestine under the British mandate, Shapira creates a tapestry through which to understand the challenges of Israeli nation building, including mass immigration, shifting cultural norms, the politics of war and world diplomacy, and the creation of democratic institutions and a civil society. References to contemporary diaries, memoirs, and literature bring a human dimension to this narrative history of Israel from its declaration of independence in 1948 through successive decades of waging war, negotiating peace, and building a modern state with a vibrant society and culture. Based on archival sources and the most up-to-date scholarly research, this authoritative history is a must-listen for anyone with a passionate interest in Israel. Israel: A History will be the gold standard in the field for years to come.

Anita Shapira (Author), Dina Pearlman (Narrator)

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Cowboy Apocalypse: Religion and the Myth of the Vigilante Messiah

In the midst of widespread mass shootings in America, a common motif stands out: the perpetrators of these attacks often view themselves as vigilante saviors, whose job it is to regulate society in a way that exterminates their enemies. In this critique, Rachel Wagner makes the case that this unfortunate phenomenon is best understood through the idea of the cowboy apocalypse. She shows that across US media, from video games and movies to novels and TV, a story arc has been created that provides a complete myth about the end of the world and the future after that. In these stories, the cowboy messiah is envisioned as a good guy with a gun. But he doesn't save the world. He just saves his world: he protects his family and others he deems worthy while embracing the chance to wipe the global slate clean and start fresh. Wagner illuminates the links between Christian apocalypticism, American gun culture, and the romanticization of the white male-dominated American frontier, showing how the vigilante has come to be regarded as a savior figure, out to protect the world for white supremacy and patriarchy. She offers ways to respond with other powerful cultural myths, making use of media to tell other stories. Cowboy Apocalypse offers a new means of making sense of how guns shape American life, and how we might engage with them otherwise.

Rachel Wagner (Author), Dina Pearlman (Narrator)

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Disruption?: The Senate During the Trump Era

What happens when a tradition-bound institution encounters an iconoclastic president intent on changing how the government operates? In Disruption?, Sean M. Theriault has gathered nineteen leading authors from a range of subfields to provide a compelling understanding for if, how, and to what extent Trump disrupted the Senate. As the authors argue, Trump became trapped in the norms and rules of the Senate on some dimensions, while he became the story to which all senators needed to respond on others. This book shows how multiple facets of the Senate changed during Trump's presidency, including the legislative process, party leadership, roll-call voting, and communications. Comprehensive in its coverage of the period and embedding it in a deep historical context, this book highlights how these changes reflected back on to not only the Trump administration, but also the very legitimacy of the Senate itself.

Sean M. Theriault (Author), Dina Pearlman, Perry Daniels (Narrator)

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In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist: A Novel

National Jewish Book Award Finalist: A 'sophisticated and engaging' novel of three innocents drawn into a criminal scheme in modern-day Jerusalem (the Wall Street Journal). Brokenhearted haberdasher Isaac Markowitz has fled the Lower East Side for Israel, where he now assists a renowned elderly rabbi who tends to the hungry and hopeless in his courtyard. Tamar is an American hipster-turned-observant Jew who has come to Jerusalem to find a devout man to spend her life with. And Mustafa, a devoted Muslim, works as a janitor at the Temple Mount, also known as al-Aqsa, a site holy to both faiths. After Mustafa finds a shard of pottery that may date back to the ancient era of the First Temple, he brings it to Isaac. But this simple act of friendship will lead Isaac into Israel's criminal underworld, put Mustafa in lethal danger, and send Tamar on a quest to save them both . . . This edition also includes 'The Rebbetzin's Courtyard,' a short-story sequel to In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist.

Ruchama Feuerman (Author), Dina Pearlman (Narrator)

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Which Way Is Up?: Finding Heart in the Hardest of Times

A heartfelt guide for meeting difficult times with mindfulness, compassion, and courage-from a psychotherapist and Buddhist practitioner who learned from her own crisis. Using personal examples from her own recent bardo crisis-undergoing cancer treatment during the pandemic-and offering contemplative prompts for inner-reflection and a meditation practice in each chapter, psychotherapist and Buddhist practitioner Susan Chapman demystifies the three main types of fear people experience (frozen, awake, and core), and how to meet each with love. This heartfelt guide from someone who's been there and done the work will help us get through life's challenges and restore our equilibrium, while also inviting a valuable opportunity for personal growth. Which Way Is Up? draws from traditional Buddhist teachings on the bardo, a Tibetan word most often associated with the period between death and rebirth. Chapman likens the bardo to abrupt episodes in our lives when things seem to turn upside down and we can't find our footing. In such times of not-knowing, our fearful mind tends to panic trying to make sense out of our experience. Instead, Chapman meets the listener in their groundlessness to show how these turning points can force us to let go of our assumptions about the future and allow something new to be reborn.

Susan Gillis Chapman (Author), Dina Pearlman (Narrator)

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On Antisemitism: Solidarity and the Struggle for Justice

When the State of Israel claims to represent all Jewish people, defenders of Israeli policy redefine antisemitism to include criticism of Israel. Antisemitism is harmful and real in our society. What must also be addressed is how the deployment of false charges of antisemitism or redefining antisemitism can suppress the global progressive fight for justice. There is no one definitive voice on antisemitism and its impact. Jewish Voice for Peace has curated a collection of essays that provides a diversity of perspectives and standpoints. Each contribution explores critical questions concerning uses and abuses of antisemitism in the twenty-first-century, focusing on the intersection between antisemitism, accusations of antisemitism, and Palestinian human rights activism. This anthology provides a much-needed tool for Palestinian solidarity activists, teachers, as well as Jewish communities. Featuring contributions from Omar Barghouti, Judith Butler, and Rebecca Vilkomerson, as well as activists, academics, students, and cultural workers, On Political Solidarity and Justice includes the voices of Palestinian students and activists, and Jews that are often marginalized in mainstream discussions of antisemitism, including Jews of Color and Sephardi/Mizrahi Jews.

Jewish Voice For Peace (Author), Dina Pearlman (Narrator)

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Healing Relational Trauma Workbook: Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy in Practice

A resource for practitioners implementing attachment-focused treatment for young people. Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) is an attachment-focused treatment for children and adolescents who have experienced abuse and neglect and are now living in stable foster and adoptive families. Here, Daniel Hughes and Kim S. Golding provide a practical accompaniment to their highly successful DDP text coauthored with Julie Hudson, Healing Relational Trauma with Attachment-Focused Interventions. In this book, practitioners are invited to reflect on their experience of implementing the DDP model through discussion, examples, and reflection prompts. Listeners are encouraged to consider the diversity of both practitioners and those receiving DDP interventions, and how each unique individual's identity can be embraced within the application of DDP interventions. DDP can be practiced as a therapy, a parenting approach, and as a practice approach for those working within healthcare, social care, or education, and this book is an invaluable resource for listeners who fall into any one of these roles.

Daniel A. Hughes, Kim S. Golding (Author), Dina Pearlman (Narrator)

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Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream

Award-winning author Francine Klagsbrun reveals the complex life and work of Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah and a Zionist trailblazer Henrietta Szold (1860-1945) is renowned as the founder of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, which quickly became one of the most successful of all Zionist groups. In her work with Hadassah, Szold used a combined ethical and pragmatic approach aimed at improving the lives of both Jews and Arabs. She later moved to Mandate Palestine to help shape education, health, and social services there. The pinnacle of her career came in her seventies, when she took on the task of directing the Youth Aliyah program, which rescued thousands of young people from the Nazis and resettled them in Palestine. Using Szold's copious letters, diaries, and essays, along with other archival documents, Francine Klagsbrun traces Szold's life and legacy with an eye to uncovering the person behind the Zionist icon. She reveals Szold as a complex human being who had to cope with controversy and criticism, a workaholic with an outsized sense of duty, and an idealist who fought for her beliefs even as she questioned her own abilities. With deep insight, Klagsbrun introduces listeners to this extraordinary woman, whose impact on women's lives as well as on education and health systems still resonates.

Francine Klagsbrun (Author), Dina Pearlman (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Dina Pearlman