Audiobooks narrated by Luis Soto

The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon

A revelatory new biography of the writer-activist who inspired today's movements for racial liberation In the era of Black Lives Matter, Frantz Fanon's shadow looms larger than ever. He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power continue to shape radical movements across the world. In this searching biography, Adam Shatz tells the story of Fanon's stunning journey, which has all the twists of a Cold War-era thriller. Fanon left his modest home in Martinique to fight in the French Army during World War II; when the war was over, he fell under the influence of Existentialism while studying medicine in Lyon and trying to make sense of his experiences as a Black man in a white city. Fanon went on to practice a novel psychiatry of 'dis-alienation' in rural France and Algeria, and then join the Algerian independence struggle, where he became a spokesman, diplomat, and clandestine strategist. He died in 1961, while under the care of the CIA in a Maryland hospital. Today, Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth have become canonical texts of the Black and global radical imagination, comparable to James Baldwin's essays in their influence. And yet they are little understood. In The Rebel's Clinic, Shatz offers a dramatic reconstruction of Fanon's extraordinary life--and a guide to the books that underlie today's most vital efforts to challenge white supremacy and racial capitalism.

Adam Shatz (Author), Luis Soto (Narrator)

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Charles Leclerc: A Biography

From acclaimed journalist Adam Hay-Nicholls, the very first biography of rising star Charles Leclerc. Few of the drivers on the F1 grid have the racing pedigree of Charles Leclerc. Widely regarded as one of the sport's hottest prospects, he was crowned F3 and then F2 champion in back-to-back seasons before he made his F1 debut with Sauber in 2018. Now firmly established as Ferrari's great hope, following in the footsteps of legends Alberto Ascari, Niki Lauda and Michael Schumacher, Leclerc has his eyes set on becoming world champion. Born in Monaco to a family of comparatively modest means, Leclerc remembers playing with toy cars on a friend's balcony as the best drivers in the world whizzed around the Monte Carlo circuit on the streets below. This early experience inspired him to get behind the wheel, encouraged by his father Hervé, and so began his meteoric rise in the sport. Along the way, he lost his father, his godfather and his best friend - all racing drivers - and this gave Leclerc the inner steel to become a winner. Writer Adam Hay-Nicholls, who has spent much of his career in the Formula One paddock, provides the inside track on this rising star, recounting how he has taken the racing world by storm. And as Leclerc's Ferrari is beginning to fire on all cylinders, will he beat his old rival and adversary Max Verstappen to the world title?

Adam Hay-Nicholls (Author), Luis Soto (Narrator)

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The Seaweed Revolution: Uncovering the Secrets of Seaweed and How It Can Save the Planet

Of all the unexploited resources in the world, seaweed is the greatest. Without it, there would be no crustaceans, nor fish. The ocean would be a desert without carbon or oxygen, and half of our atmosphere's oxygen would be gone. The most recent research tells us that seaweed is one possible solution for our future on the planet. It could feed human beings, reduce plastic pollution, absorb enough carbon to cool the atmosphere, reconstruct generative ecosystems, treat certain illnesses that are incurable today, replace land livestock farming that exhausts the environment, and give jobs to coastal populations. The seaweed revolution is a hope for tomorrow!

Vincent Doumeizel (Author), Luis Soto (Narrator)

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Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Payá and His Daring Quest for a Free Cuba

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David E. Hoffman comes the riveting biography of Oswaldo PayA, a dissident who dared to defy Fidel Castro, inspiring thousands of Cubans to fight for democracy. Oswaldo PayA was seven years old when Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba, promising to create a 'free, democratic, and just Cuba.' But Castro instead created an authoritarian regime with little tolerance of free speech or thought. His secret police were trained to crush dissent by East Germany's ruthless Stasi. Throughout Cuba's 20th century history, the dream of democracy was often just within reach, only to be dashed by dictatorship and revived again by a new generation. PayA inherited this dream and it became his life's work. As a teenager in Communist Cuba, he led a protest against the Soviet-led shattering of the Prague Spring. Before long, he was sent to Castro's forced labor camps. PayA later became a leading voice of opposition and formed a pro-democracy movement. A devoted Catholic, he championed a simple, bedrock belief that rights are bestowed by God, and not the state. Every day, he witnessed these rights trampled in Cuba. He could not stay silent. PayA's most daring challenge to the Cuban government was the Varela Project, a one-page citizen petition demanding free speech, a free press, freedom of association, freedom of belief, private enterprise, free elections and freedom for political prisoners. More than 35,000 people signed the Varela Project, an extraordinary outpouring of protest--with nothing more than pen and paper--against Castro's decades of despotism. The regime responded by ignoring the petition, arresting dozens of PayA's followers and sending them to prison for many years. After receiving multiple death threats, PayA was killed in a suspicious car wreck on a remote country road. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David E. Hoffman returns with an epic portrait of a lone individual who had the courage, faith, and persistence to struggle for democracy against an unforgiving dictator. At its heart, Give Me Liberty is a sweeping account of one country's tragic and continuing struggle for its

David E. Hoffman (Author), Luis Soto (Narrator)

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The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest

Brought to you by Penguin. The first book of the next crisis. All economic and financial activities take place across time. Interest coordinates these activities. The story of capitalism is thus the story of interest: the price that individuals, companies and nations pay to borrow money. In The Price of Time, Edward Chancellor traces the history of interest from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia, through debates about usury in Restoration Britain and John Law ' s ill-fated Mississippi scheme, to the global credit booms of the twenty-first century. We generally assume that high interest rates are harmful, but Chancellor argues that, whenever money is too easy, financial markets become unstable. He takes the story to the present day, when interest rates have sunk lower than at any time in the five millennia since they were first recorded - including the extraordinary appearance of negative rates in Europe and Japan - and highlights how this has contributed to profound economic insecurity and financial fragility. Chancellor reveals how extremely low interest rates not only create asset price inflation but are also largely responsible for weak economic growth, rising inequality, zombie companies, elevated debt levels and the pensions crises that have afflicted the West in recent years - conditions under which economies cannot possibly thrive. At the same time, easy money in China has inflated an epic real estate bubble, accompanied by the greatest credit and investment boom in history. As the global financial system edges closer to yet another crisis, Chancellor shows that only by understanding interest can we hope to face the challenges ahead. © Edward Chancellor 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Edward Chancellor (Author), Luis Soto (Narrator)

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España: A Brief History of Spain

Bestselling author Giles Tremlett traverses the rich and varied history of Spain, from prehistoric times to today, in a brief, accessible primer for visitors, curious listeners and hispanophiles. Spain's position on Europe's south-western corner has exposed it to cultural, political and actual winds blowing from all quadrants. Africa lies a mere nine miles to the south. The Mediterranean connects it to the civilizational currents of Phoenicians, Romans, Carthaginians, and Byzantines as well as the Arabic lands of the near east. Hordes from the Russian steppes were amongst the first to arrive. They would be followed by Visigoths, Arabs, Napoleonic armies and many more invaders and immigrants. Circular winds and currents linked it to the American continent, allowing Spain to conquer and colonize much of it. As a result, Spain has developed a sort of hybrid vigour. Whenever it has tried to deny this inevitable heterogeneity, it has required superhuman effort to fashion a 'pure' national identity - which has proved impossible to maintain. In EspaNa, Giles Tremlett argues that, in fact, that lack of a homogenous identity is Spain's defining trait. PRAISE FOR GILES TREMLETT: 'Lively and well-informed ... At once a history, a journalistic inquiry and a travel book' Sunday Telegraph. 'A feast of a book' Irish Times. 'A transfixing, elegantly written account of Spain today' Metro. 'Tremlett writes with humour, modesty and a great affection for his subject'. --Daily Telegraph 'An invaluable book ... Ghosts of Spain has become something of a bible for those of us extranjeros who have chosen to live in Spain ... A country finally facing its past could scarcely hope for a better, or more enamored chronicler of its present' New York Times Book Review.

Giles Tremlett (Author), Luis Soto (Narrator)

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Old Man on a Bike

Outrageously irresponsible and undeniably liberating, Simon Gandolfi's OLD MAN ON A BIKE will fire the imaginations of every traveller, young or old. At 73 years old, Simon Gandolfi sets off from Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico to embark on a five and a half month journey culminating at 'the end of the world', Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego. For Simon this is a journey of discovery. Leaving behind the safety and sanctuary of friends and family, he is truly alone but along the way he meets and talks with rich and poor, old and young, officials and professionals, agricultural and industrial workers. This expertly written travelogue reveals not only the stories of those he meets, and his own, but also that of Latin America, its attitudes to itself, to the USA and the UK in the aftermath of the Iraq war and the realities of the poverty and endemic corruption throughout much of this continent.

Simon Gandolfi (Author), Luis Soto (Narrator)

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Trash

Brought to you by Penguin. Raphael is a dumpsite boy. He spends his days wading through mountains of steaming trash, sifting it, sorting it, breathing it, sleeping next to it. Then one unlucky-lucky day, Raphael's world turns upside down. A small leather bag falls into his hands. It's a bag of clues. It's a bag of hope. It's a bag that will change everything. Soon Raphael and his friends Gardo and Rat are running for their lives. Wanted by the police, it takes all their quick-thinking, fast-talking to stay ahead. As the net tightens, they uncover a dead man's mission to put right a terrible wrong. And now it's three street-boys against the world... © Andy Mulligan 2010 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Andy Mulligan (Author), Federico Louhau, Florencia Cordeu, Fran Canals, Javier Fernandez, Jot Davies, Luis Soto, Nathalie Buscombe (Narrator)

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The Spanish Bride

Brought to you by Penguin. Shot-proof, fever-proof and a veteran campaigner at the age of twenty-five, Brigade-Major Harry Smith is reputed to be the luckiest man in Lord Wellington's army. But at the siege of Badajos, his friends foretell the ruin of his career. For when Harry meets the defenceless Juana, a fiery passion consumes him. Under the banner of honour and with the selfsame ardour he so frequently displays in battle, he dives headlong into marriage. In his beautiful child-bride, he finds a kindred spirit, and a temper to match. But for Juana, a long year of war must follow ... Georgette Heyer was for over fifty years one of the most prolific, succesful and best writers of historical romance. In The Spanish Bride she shows the skill that has won the hearts of a new wide audience in the twenty-first century. © Georgette Heyer 1940 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Georgette Heyer (Author), Luis Soto (Narrator)

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Conquistadores

Brought to you by Penguin. 'With reason, evidence, common sense, uncompromising candour and disciplined imagination Fernando Cervantes makes the conquistadores believable' Felipe Fernández-Armesto The 'conquistadores', the early explorers and settlers of Spanish America, have become the stuff of legends and nightmares. In their own time, they were glorified as heroic adventurers, spreading Christian culture and helping to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. Today, they stand condemned for their cruelty and exploitation, as men who decimated the ancient civilizations of the Aztecs and the Incas, and carried out horrific atrocities in their pursuit of gold and glory. In Conquistadores, Mexican historian Fernando Cervantes cuts through the layers of myth and fiction to immerse the reader in the world of the late-medieval imperialist. It is a world as unfamiliar to us as the Indigenous peoples of the New World were to the conquistadores themselves. Drawing upon a wide range of sources including diaries, letters, chronicles and treatises, Cervantes reframes the story of the Spanish conquest of the New World, set against the political and intellectual landscape from which its main actors emerged. At the heart of the story are the conquistadores, whose epic ambitions and moral contradictions defined an era. From Columbus to Cortés, Pizarro and beyond, the explorers we think we know come alive in this thought-provoking and illuminating account of a period that irrevocably altered the course of world history. © Fernando Cervantes 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Fernando Cervantes (Author), Luis Soto (Narrator)

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The Bilingual Brain: And What It Tells Us about the Science of Language

Brought to you by Penguin. How do two languages co-exist in the same brain? Why is it possible to forget a language? What are the advantages and challenges of being bilingual? Over half of the world's population is bilingual and yet this fascinating, complex ability is understood by few. In The Bilingual Brain, leading expert Albert Costa explores the science of language through a wide range of cutting-edge studies and examples from South Korea to Spain and Canada. Looking at the development of the brain from infancy to old age, Costa shows us the impact of bilingualism on everyday life: from a bilingual's ability to multitask and make decisions to the way in which they interact with those around them. An absorbing examination of an extraordinary skill, The Bilingual Brain leaves us all with a sense of wonder at how language works. © Albert Costa 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Albert Costa (Author), Luis Soto (Narrator)

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A Concise History of Spain

This audiobook traces Spain's development from prehistoric times to the present, focusing particularly on culture, society, politics and personalities. It introduces listeners to key themes that have shaped Spain's history and culture, including its varied landscapes and climates; the impact of waves of diverse human migrations; the importance of its location as a bridge between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and Europe and Africa; and religion, particularly militant Catholic Christianity and its centuries of conflict with Islam and Protestantism, as well as debates over the place of the Church in modern Spain.

Carla Rahn Phillips , William D. Phillips Jr (Author), Luis Soto (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Luis Soto