Audiobooks narrated by Paul Bellantoni

Morgan’s Great Raid: The Remarkable Expedition from Kentucky to Ohio

A military operation unlike any other on American soil, Morgan's Raid was characterized by incredible speed, superhuman endurance, and innovative tactics. One of the nation's most colorful leaders, Confederate general John Hunt Morgan, took his cavalry through enemy-occupied territory in three states in one of the longest offensives of the Civil War. The effort produced the only battles fought north of the Ohio River and reached farther north than any other regular Confederate force. Morgan's Raid historian David L. Mowery takes a new look at this unprecedented event in American history, one historians rank among the world's greatest land-based raids since Elizabethan times.

David L. Mowery (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Into the Void: Adventures of the Spacewalkers

When Ed White, clad in his gleaming space suit with a large American flag on his left shoulder, eased himself outside his Gemini spacecraft in 1965, Americans had a new space hero. They also learned a new acronym: EVA, short for extravehicular activity, more commonly known as 'spacewalking.' Though few understood the tremendous risks White was taking in his twenty-two-minute space walk, Americans watched with immense pride and patriotism as White, tethered to Gemini 4, propelled himself around the spacecraft with a pressurized oxygen-fueled zip gun. But White's struggle to fit his space-suited body back inside the claustrophobic Gemini spacecraft confirmed what NASA should have known: spacewalking wasn't easy. More than fifty years and hundreds of space walks later, the art of EVA has evolved. The first space walks, preparation for walking on the moon, intended to prove that humans could function in raw space inside their own miniature spacecraft—a space suit. After the end of the lunar program, focus was turned to long-duration flights on space stations in low Earth orbit, and space walks were crucial to the success of these missions. The construction of the International Space Station required hundreds of hours of work by spacewalkers. Into the Void tells the story of those who have ventured outside the spacecraft into the unforgiving vacuum of space.

John Youskauskas, Melvin Croft (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Snapshots Sent Home: From Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine―A Memoir

'Snapshots of truth . . . Blatty drew the portraits of veterans with love and honesty . . . fearless, furious, broken, hopeless, hopeful, undeterred as forces of nature. It's so easy to start romanticizing them, especially the fallen ones, yet Blatty respects them too much to turn these courageous spirits into cardboard heroes. They are humans instead, with all their follies, anger, broken hearts, and broken lives. The power of a great book is that it stays with you long after you finish reading. It's been ten years since Russians occupied my hometown. It's two years since my whole country turned into a war zone . . . in the fog of the war, these snapshots of truth are as rare as beams of light.' —Tetyana Strelchenko, director of America House, Kyiv, Ukraine Like many post-9/11 combat veterans, JT Blatty struggled to regain her sense of purpose in the first years returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2018, a chance encounter brought her to Ukraine, drawn in by the familiarity of war and those who serve in wars. Over five years, JT captured the oral history and portraits of a tribe of revolutionaries, the Donbas volunteer soldiers. As she embedded with them on the front line in bunkers and forests, and in Kyiv flats, JT's story began to blend with theirs in a universal bond of combat veterans, compelling her to stay as a new war began.

JT Blatty (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Jules Verne and the Invention of the Future

From the acclaimed biographer of explorers Magellan, Columbus, and Francis Drake comes a unique exploration of life and influence of Jules Verne, the novelist whose mind spun the greatest adventures ever told and whose daring and prescient imagination sparked a lasting transformation of modern society and technology, inspiring everyone from J.R.R. Tolkien to Kurt Vonnegut to Jeff Bezos. ''We are all, in one way or another, the children of Jules Verne.” —Ray Bradbury His stories inspired the greatest literary minds—J.R.R. Tolkien, Kurt Vonnegut, Ursula K. le Guin. He inspired real-world expeditions and discoveries, compelling undersea explorers, aviation pioneers, and astronauts to seek out the unknown. He’s one of the most widely translated authors in the world, outmatched only by Agatha Christie and Shakespeare. Jeff Bezos’s rocket factory includes a two-story replica of the spaceship from one of his novels. Few writers have left such an enduring legacy on the world as Jules Verne. Widely considered the “father of science fiction,” Verne stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. His novels—including such revered classics as Around the World in 80 Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth—not only thrilled and entertained, but also predicted innovations and technological advancements that in time would become everyday realities. Brimming with intellect, science, adventure, and paradoxes, his work dared to imagine a world beyond the limits of what was thought possible and, in turn, inspired future generations to achieve the unthinkable. From acclaimed biographer Laurence Bergreen, Jules Verne and the Invention of the Future is an engaging, vibrant, and richly researched account of a singular visionary who profoundly shaped our modern world.

Laurence Bergreen (Author), Paul Bellantoni, TBD (Narrator)

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Becoming Kerouac: A Writer in His Time

Jack Kerouac was one of America's great writers of the latter half of the twentieth century, yet he endured a life characterized by persistent hardship and disillusion. Leading Kerouac scholar Paul Maher Jr. targets the writer's embattled insight of self as central to his life and work. He reveals how Kerouac's troubled interactions with alcohol, drugs, and spirituality stamped its importance on his autobiographical prose and poetry and created a singular language that united thoughts on the human condition and spiritual liberation. Becoming Kerouac: A Writer In His Time affixes Kerouac's life and art in a fresh way, giving listeners a rich perspective from which to understand this twentieth-century literary genius. Using unpublished archival material, Becoming Kerouac focuses on the writer's critical formative years—1940 to 1957—to demonstrate his growth as a novelist and poet. Narrating the events that comprised Kerouac's life, biographers have long struggled to illustrate his complexness and the contradictions that shaped his determinations and dogged his relationships. But without consideration of the writing, the troubles in life fail to reveal their deeper resonances by skillfully analyzing the work while tracing the events. Becoming Kerouac fuses Kerouac's life and art to comprehend this misunderstood literary genius.

Maher Maher Jr., Paul Maher Jr. (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Byron: A Life in Ten Letters

Lord Byron was the most celebrated of all the Romantic poets. Troubled, handsome, sexually fluid, disabled, and transgressive, he wrote his way to international fame—and scandal—before finding a kind of redemption in the Greek Revolution. He also left behind the vast trove of thrilling letters (to friends, relatives, lovers, and more) that form the core of this remarkable biography. Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Byron's death, and adopting a fresh approach, it explores his life and work through some of his best, most resonant correspondence. Each chapter opens with Byron's own voice—as if we have opened a letter from the poet himself—followed by a vivid account of the emotions and experiences that missive touches. This gripping life traces the meteoric trajectory of a poet whose brilliance shook the world and whose legacy continues to shape art and culture to this day.

Andrew Stauffer (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe

The authors of The Bright Ages return with a real-life Game of Thrones saga—the story of the Carolingian Civil War, a bloody, protracted battle pitting brother against brother, father against son, that would end an empire, upend a continent, and lay down the modern borders of Europe. By the early ninth century, the Carolingian empire was at the height of its power. The Franks, led by Charlemagne, had built the largest European domain since Rome in its heyday. Though they jockeyed for power, prestige, and profit, the Frankish elites enjoyed political and cultural consensus. But just two generations later, their world was in shambles. Civil war, once an unthinkable threat, had erupted after Louis the Pious’s sons overthrew him—and then placed their knives at the other’s neck. Families who had once charged into battle together now drew each other’s blood. The Carolingian Civil War would rage for years as kings fought kings, brother faced off against brother, and sons challenged fathers. Oathbreakers is the dramatic history of this brutal, turbulent time. Medieval historians David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele illuminate what happens when a once unshakeable political and cultural order breaks down and long suppressed tensions flare into deadly violence. Drawn from rich primary sources, featuring a wide cast of characters, packed with dramatic twists and turns, this is history that rivals the greatest fictional epics—with consequences that continue to shape our own world. Oathbreakers offers lessons of what deep cracks in a once-stable social and political fabric might reveal, and the bloody consequences of disagreeing on facts and reality. The Civil War at the heart of this tale asks: who is “in” and who is “out”? And what happens when things fall apart?

David M. Perry, Matthew Gabriele (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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The Bomb Doctor: A Scientist's Story of Bombers, Beakers, and Bloodhounds

This is not CSI. What you encounter as a true bomb detective-or 'Bomb Doctor,' as some in the FBI call me-are fields of twisted metal containing soot-covered fragments intermingled with human remains. You have carnage and chaos. As you wade into that sea of wailing sirens and screaming survivors awash with the stench of diesel fuel and decaying bodies, your job is to ferret out forensic clues in a type of macabre scavenger hunt to ultimately reconstruct the scene and the explosive device and determine what happened and what the bomb looked like before it was torn asunder. The scavenger hunt can take months-or, in the case of the infamous Collar Bomber, seven painstaking years. The work is worth every second and every horrific image that etches itself into your brain because it helps prevent new horrors. Not all, obviously. We are not superheroes. But unlike shooters, who often just 'snap' or seem to act out in random ways, bombers almost always have a story-one that follows an arc. In The Bomb Doctor, my goal is to explain that arc, explode myths, reconstruct reality, and build an understanding of the reason and means behind the mayhem, as well as pull back the curtain on the investigative process that brings bombers to justice.

Kirk Yeager, Selene Yeager (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Damnation Alley

Hell Tanner isn't the sort of guy you'd mistake for a hero: he's a fast-driving car thief, a smuggler, and a stone-cold killer. Facing life in prison for his various crimes, he's given a choice: Rot away his remaining years in a tiny jail cell or drive cross-country and deliver a case of antiserum to the plague-ridden people of Boston, Massachusetts. The chance of a full pardon does wonders for getting his attention. And don't mistake this mission of mercy for any kind of normal road trip-not when there are radioactive storms, hordes of carnivorous beasts, and giant, mutated scorpions to be found along every deadly mile between Los Angeles and the East Coast. But then, this is no normal part of America, you see. This is Damnation Alley . . .

Roger Zelazny (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Throne of Serpents

Wren’s world shattered the day Arrik became king and broke every promise he’d made to her. Fueled by rage and betrayal, she must double-cross her husband to save the realm from war. But with every passing day, as her devilish king tries to entice Wren to stand by his side, she finds herself struggling not to fall for his charms and seduction. After years of scheming, Arrik finally held the world in his hands. But it wasn’t enough. Secretly, he’d always wanted someone to share it with, but his queen was hiding something from him. On the brink of civil unrest, he must secure his power at all costs. Even if it means losing the woman he loves. Passionate and heart pounding, Throne of Serpents is the epic conclusion of the Dragon Isle Wars. This romantic villain fantasy is inspired by tales of Beauty and the Beast, Vikings, and Reylo. It's perfect for listeners who love Glint, A Deal with the Elf King, The Bridge Kingdom, and The Serpent & the Wings of Night.

Frost Kay (Author), Katherine Littrell, Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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No One to Meet: Imitation and Originality in the Songs of Bob Dylan

The literary establishment tends to regard Bob Dylan as an intriguing, if baffling, outsider. That changed overnight when Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, challenging us to think of him as an integral part of our national and international literary heritage. No One to Meet places Dylan the artist within a long tradition of literary production and offers an innovative way of understanding his unique, and often controversial, methods of composition. In lucid prose, Raphael Falco demonstrates the similarity between what Renaissance writers called imitatio and the way Dylan borrows, digests, and transforms traditional songs. Although Dylan's lyrical postures might suggest a post-Romantic, 'avant-garde' consciousness, No One to Meet shows that Dylan's creative process borrows from and expands the methods used by classical and Renaissance authors. Drawing on numerous examples, including Dylan's previously unseen manuscript excerpts and archival materials, Falco illuminates how the ancient process of poetic imitation, handed down from Greco-Roman antiquity, allows us to make sense of Dylan's musical and lyrical technique. By placing Dylan firmly in the context of an age-old poetic practice, No One to Meet deepens our appreciation of Dylan's songs and allows us to celebrate him as what he truly is: a great writer.

Raphael Falco (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Bob Dylan in the Attic: The Artist as Historian

Bob Dylan is an iconic American artist, whose music and performances have long reflected different musical genres and time periods. His songs tell tales of the Civil War, harken back to 1930s labor struggles, and address racial violence at the height of the civil rights movement, helping listeners to think about history, and history making, in new ways. While Dylan was warned by his early mentor, Dave Van Ronk, that, 'You're just going to be a history book writer if you do those things. An anachronism,' the musician has continued to traffic in history and engage with a range of source material-ancient and modern-over the course of his career. In this beautifully crafted book, Freddy Cristobal Dominguez makes a provocative case for Dylan as a historian, offering a deep consideration of the musician's historical influences and practices. Utilizing interviews, speeches, and the close analysis of lyrics and live performances, Bob Dylan in the Attic is the first book to consider Dylan's work from the point of view of historiography.

Freddy Cristóbal Domínguez (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Paul Bellantoni