Audiobooks narrated by Suzanne Toren

No One Has Seen It All: Lessons for Living Well from Nearly a Century of Good Taste

From the New York City legend, bestselling author, and iconic stylist Betty Halbreich comes this wise and witty collection of guidance from her 96 years to help people of all ages look, feel, and live their best. For half a century, Betty Halbreich curated wardrobes and bore witness to the vicissitudes of life as Bergdorf Goodman's original personal shopper. Of course, visitors to the store were awed by a 96-year-old woman who still held down a nine-to-five, let alone one in the youth-obsessed industry of fashion. But age is only half the story: Betty built that career by giving encouraging yet deeply honest advice. Much of it was about what to wear, but her insight was by no means relegated only to matters of the closet. She was known for her good taste on many levels, from her immaculate Park Avenue apartment of 70-plus years to the fashion stars she helped discover and the looks she styled for iconic series like Sex and the City and Gossip Girl. In short, Betty was in the unique position to dispense useful prescriptions on how to look good and live well at any age. This collection of her writings from the last five years of her life contains her signature firm and frank guidance on relationships, careers, style, etiquette, and keeping house, as well as eloquent reflections on aging, solitude, and modern life. The result is a definitive dispatch from a powerful woman who always held her head up high, inspiring you to do the same.

Betty Halbreich (Author), Lena Dunham, Suzanne Toren, TBD (Narrator)

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Mary Chesnut's Civil War

Winner of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize in History “A feast for Civil War buffs … One of the best firsthand records of the Confederate experience … Electrifying.”—Walter Clemons, Newsweek “A great epic drama of our greatest national tragedy.”—William Styron, New York Review of Books The incomparable Civil War diarist Mary Chesnut wrote that she had the luck “always to stumble in on the real show.” Married to a high-ranking member of the Confederate government, she was ideally placed to watch and to record the South’s headlong plunge to ruin, and she left in her journals an unsurpassed account of the old regime’s death throes, its moment of high drama in world history. With intelligence and passion she described the turbulent events of politics and war, as well as the complex society around her. In her own circles, the aristocratic, patriarchal, slave-holding Mary Chesnut was a figure of heresy and of paradox: she had a horror of slavery and called herself an abolitionist from early youth. Edited by the eminent historian C. Vann Woodward, Mary Chesnut’s Civil War presents a full and reliable edition of Chesnut’s journals, restoring her to her rightful place in American history and literature.

Mary Chesnut (Author), Suzanne Toren (Narrator)

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Rebel Queen: The Cold War, Misogyny, and the Making of a Grandmaster

A real life Queen's Gambit, this captivating memoir tells the story of one of the most renowned women in chess history, Susan Polgar, taking on a sexist establishment, standing up to an authoritarian empire and rewriting the rules of what women could achieve against the oppressive backdrop of Cold War Eastern Europe. Born to a poor Jewish family in Cold War Budapest, Susan Polgar would emerge as the one of the greatest female chess players the world had ever seen. Susan would become the highest rated female chess player on the planet and the first woman to earn the men's Grandmaster title -- chess' highest designation. Still a teenager, in 1986, she became the first woman to qualify for the men's World Chess Championship cycle. Then, she would make history again, by becoming the first chess player, male or female, to achieve the game's "triple crown," holding World Championship titles in all three major chess time formats (blitz, rapid, and classical), and still the only one to earn all 6 of the world's greatest chess crowns (triple crown, world #1 ranking, Individual and Team Olympiad Gold). Yet, at every turn, she was pitted against a sexist culture, a hostile Communist government, vicious anti-Semitism, and powerful enemies. She endured sabotage and betrayal, state-sponsored intimidation, and violent assault. And she overcame all of it to break the game's long-standing gender barrier and claim her place at the pinnacle of professional chess. After retiring as a player, she defied the odds again, leaving all she had known in Hungary to start a new life as an American citizen, and becoming the only female Division 1 college coach in the country. Over her 14-year coaching career, she built two separate college chess dynasties from scratch, and led them to more national titles, world championships, major titles, and Olympiad medals than all other college chess teams combined. Before her improbable rise, it was taken for granted that women were incapable of excellence in the game of chess. More than question those entrenched beliefs, Susan Polgar disproved them single-handedly.

Susan Polgar (Author), Suzanne Toren, TBD (Narrator)

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Becoming Janet: Finding Myself in the Holocaust

As a four-year-old in Nowy Targ, Poland, Gustawa Singer lived an idyllic life. Her parents doted on her, and she was always surrounded by loving relatives. Her father worked in the hardware store owned by her grandfather, and the family prospered. Then, in 1939, everything changed: Hitler's army invaded Poland, and Gustawa's carefree childhood days were gone forever. The Nazis killed 2,000 of the 2,200 Jews in her small hometown. Gustawa's mother was transported to the death camp at Belzec, her father was assigned to forced labor, and Gustawa became separated from everyone she had ever known. Amidst the Nazis' hatred and savagery, a stranger spotted Gustawa after her cousin abandoned her in Krakow. This woman took her in and loved her at terrible risk to her own family. For Gustawa's protection, her name had to be changed several times. She survived the seemingly endless ordeal of the Holocaust and was eventually reunited with her father. They emigrated to the United States where Janet grew up. Believing that the world must never forget the horrors unleashed by Hitler's regime, the woman who was now Janet Singer Applefield began a series of talks to students, telling them the moving story of all she had endured, teaching them the power of courage and resilience in the face of bigotry, and encouraging them to stand up to discrimination and injustice.

Janet Singer Applefield (Author), Suzanne Toren (Narrator)

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Sources: A Memoir

Uta Hagen, one of the great ladies of the American theatre wrote a deeply personal memoir of her life, from her childhood in Germany to the present. Sources is Miss Hagen’s lyrical account of the special ways love of nature is intertwined with love of art in her life, providing a rare glimpse of the off-stage life of an actress. Originally published in 1983, this book was republished in 2019 with a foreword by Uta’s daughter, Leticia Ferrer, and her grand-daughter Teresa Teuscher to whom Uta dedicated the book. Now in audio for the very first time, Sources also includes a brief biography of Uta Hagen. This audio edition is masterfully read by award-winning narrator Suzanne Toren. Produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont. ©1983, 2019 Uta Hagen Trust §

Uta Hagen (Author), Suzanne Toren (Narrator)

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Empire of Rags and Bones: Waste and War in Nazi Germany

Paper, kitchen garbage, rubber, hair, fat, rags, and bones-the Nazi empire demanded its population collect anything that could be reused. Citizens conjured up schemes to squeeze value from waste or invent new purposes for defunct or spent material, no matter the cost to people or the environment. As WWII dragged on, rescued loot-much of it waste-clogged transport routes and piled up in warehouses across Europe. Historicizing the much-championed ideal of zero waste, Anne Berg shows that the management of waste was central to the politics of war and to the genesis of genocide in the Nazi Germany. Destruction and recycling were part of an overarching strategy to redress raw material shortages, procure lebensraum, and cleanse the continent of Jews and others considered undesirable. Resource extending schemes obscured the crucial political role played by virtually all German citizens to whom salvaging, scrapping, and recycling were promoted as inherently virtuous and orderly behaviors. Throughout Nazi occupied-Europe, Jews, POWs, concentration camp inmates, and enemy civilians were forced to recycle the loot, discards, and debris of the Nazi race war. In the end, the materials that were fully exploited and the people who had been bled dry were cast aside, buried, burned, or left to rot. Nonetheless, waste reclamation did not have the power to win the war.

Anne Berg (Author), Suzanne Toren (Narrator)

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Dangerous Visions

Dubbed “the most significant and controversial SF book” of its generation, Harlan Ellison’s groundbreaking collection launched an entire sub-genre: New Wave science fiction. With contributions from legendary authors and multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, Dangerous Visions returns to print in a stunning new edition perfect for new and returning fans alike. A landmark short story collection that put New Wave Science Fiction on the literary map, Dangerous Visions won several prestigious awards and was nominated for many others. This now-classic anthology includes thirty-three stories by thirty-two award-winning authors, over half of whom have won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards. Contributing authors include: Robert Silverberg, Frederik Pohl, Brian W. Aldiss, Philip K. Dick, Larry Niven, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, Theodore Sturgeon, J.G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany, and Ellison himself. As relevant now as it was when first published, Dangerous Visions is a phenomenal collection that deserves a place on every bookshelf.

Harlan Ellison (Author), Bradford Hastings, Bronson Pinchot, Dion Graham, Edoardo Ballerini, Feodor Chin, Grover Gardner, Heath Miller, James Patrick Cronin, Jd Jackson, Jim Meskimen, Joe Hempel, Joel Froomkin, John Pirhalla, Johnny Heller, Mara Wilson, Mark Sanderlin, Natalie Naudus, Neil Hellegers, Neil Shah, P. J. Ochlan, Ramiz Monsef, Robert Fass, Scott Aiello, Scott Brick, Shiromi Arserio, Simon Vance, Stefan Rudnicki, Steve West, Steven Jay Cohen, Suzanne Toren, TBD, Thom Rivera, Tim Campbell, Vikas Adam (Narrator)

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Only in America: Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer

A probing biography of world-renowned Jewish singer and actor Al Jolson and the history of his performance in and the making of The Jazz Singer Al Jolson, born Asa Yoelson, immigrated from a shtetl in Lithuania to the United States in 1894 after his father secured a job as a rabbi in Washington, D.C. A poor, Yiddish-speaking newcomer navigating a racially segregated and antisemitic America, young Jolson dreamed of becoming a star, and he did. Thanks to his immense talent and his knack for assimilating into new environments, by the time he reached his twenties he was the most famous and highly paid entertainer in America, making almost $5,000 a week at a time when the average American made $800 a year. Jolson's public adoration and widespread acceptance as a star marked the beginning of an enriching cultural transformation, a moment when the American mind opened up to ethnic and racial differences, widening the gap of acceptability. And yet Jolson himself, despite being ferociously ambitious and gigantically talented, was crippled by insecurity, often nervous to the point of collapse, prisoner to his many vices. Through Jolson, Bernstein simultaneously breaks open the history and legacy of the cultural sensation The Jazz Singer. Not only was The Jazz Singer the first feature length film with synchronized music and dialogue, but it was also taboo smashing in its content: The Jazz Singer is all about Jews, Orthodox and otherwise. Bernstein expounds on the making of The Jazz Singer, what the film meant then and now, introducing the many individuals involved in its production, including Samson Raphaelson, a young Jewish writer whose short story was the basis for the movie; the four Warner brothers, who made a fortune off it; and George Jessel, Jolson's rival and the star of Raphaelson's stage adaptation of his short story. In the background emerges a picture of old Hollywood in the Roaring Twenties: cutthroat and greedy yet visionary and progressive. And while The Jazz Singer represented the future in many ways, it also dredged up the worst of the past, including Jolson's use of blackface, common at the time. At once a tale of the Judaizing of American culture and an acknowledgment of the challenges to come, Only in America is a glistening examination of a man at the center of a watershed moment in the arts.

Richard Bernstein (Author), Suzanne Toren, TBD (Narrator)

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Lovers in Auschwitz: A True Story

Brought to you by Penguin. Zippi Spitzer and David Wisnia were captivated by each other from the moment they first exchanged glances across the work floor. It was the beginning of a love story that could have happened anywhere. Except for one difference: this romance was unfolding in history's most notorious death camp, between two young prisoners whose budding intimacy risked dooming them if they were caught. Incredibly, David and Zippi survived for years beneath the ash-choked skies of Auschwitz. Under the protection of their fellow inmates, their romance grew and deepened, even as their brushes with death mounted and David's luck in particular seemed close to running out. As the war's end finally approached and the time came for them to leave the camp, David and Zippi made plans to meet again. But neither of them could imagine how long their reunion would take or how many lives they would live in the interim. They had no inkling, either, of the betrayals that would await them along the way. But David did suspect that Zippi harbored a secret-one that could explain the mystery of his survival all those years ago. An unbelievable tale of romance, sacrifice, loss, and resilience, Lovers in Auschwitz is a saga of two young people who found themselves trapped inside a waking nightmare of the Nazis' creation, yet who nevertheless discovered a love that sustained them through history's darkest hour. ©2024 Keren Blankfeld (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Keren Blankfeld (Author), Suzanne Toren, TBD (Narrator)

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Cassoulet Confessions: Food, France, Family and the Stew That Saved My Soul

Cassoulet Confessions is an enthralling memoir by award-winning food and travel writer Sylvie Bigar that reveals how a simple journalistic assignment sparked a culinary obsession and transcended into a quest for identity. Set in the stunning southern French countryside, this honest and poignant memoir conveys hunger for authentic food and a universal hunger for home. In Cassoulet Confessions, Sylvie travels across the Atlantic from her home in New York to the origin of cassoulet-the Occitanie region of Southern France. There she immerses herself in all things cassoulet: the quintessential historic meat and bean stew. From her first spoonful, she is transported back to her dramatic childhood in Geneva, Switzerland, and finds herself journeying through an unexpected rabbit hole of memories. Not only does she discover the deeper meanings of her ancestral French cuisine, but she is ultimately transformed by having to face her unsettling, complex family history. Sylvie's simple but poetic prose immerses us in her story: we smell the simmering aromas of French kitchens, empathize with her family dilemmas, and experience her internal struggle to understand and ultimately accept herself.

Sylvie Bigar (Author), Suzanne Toren (Narrator)

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Summons to Berlin: Nazi Theft and A Daughter's Quest for Justice

On his deathbed, Dr. Joanne Intrator's father poses two unsettling questions: 'Are you tough enough? Do they know who you are?' Joanne soon realizes that these haunting questions relate to a center-city Berlin building at 16 Wallstrasse that the Nazis ripped away from her family in 1938. But a decade is to pass before she will fully come to grasp why her father threw down the gauntlet as he did. Repeatedly, Joanne's restitution quest brings her into confrontation with yet another of her profound fears surrounding Germany and the Holocaust. Having to call on reserves of strength she's unsure she possesses, the author leans into her professional command of psychiatry, often overcoming flabbergasting obstacles perniciously dumped in her path. The depth and lucidity of psychological insight threaded throughout Summons to Berlin makes it an attention-grabbing standout among books on like topics. As a listener, you'll come away delighted to know just who Dr. Joanne Intrator is. You'll also finish the book cheering for her, because in the end, she proves far more than tough enough to satisfy her father's unnerving final demands.

Joanne Intrator (Author), Suzanne Toren (Narrator)

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Vergil: The Poets Life

A biography of Vergil, Rome’s greatest poet, by the acclaimed translator of the Aeneid The Aeneid stands as a towering work of Classical Roman literature and a gripping dramatization of the best and worst of human nature. In the process of creating this epic poem, Vergil (70–19 BCE) became the world’s first media celebrity, a living legend. But the real Vergil is a shadowy figure; we know that he was born into a modest rural family, that he led a private and solitary life, and that, in spite of poor health and unusual emotional vulnerabilities, he worked tirelessly to achieve exquisite new effects in verse. Vergil’s most famous work, the Aeneid, was commissioned by the emperor Augustus, who published the epic despite Vergil’s dying wish that it be destroyed. Sarah Ruden, widely praised for her translation of the Aeneid, uses evidence from Roman life and history alongside Vergil’s own writings to make careful deductions to reconstruct his life. Through her intimate knowledge of Vergil’s work, she brings to life a poet who was committed to creating something astonishingly new and memorable, even at great personal cost.

Sarah Ruden (Author), Suzanne Toren (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Suzanne Toren