Audiobooks narrated by T. Ryder Smith

FIGHT THE HORDE OR DIE. Cent and Torres have been trapped with evil before but this isn’t quite the same thing. Stuck on Harold Campbell’s island with nowhere to go and surrounded by a growing number of obayifo, they will have to find allies if they want to make it out. But not everyone can be trusted, and even those you think you can trust have ulterior motives. As the long night drags on, and with morning—and the promise of safety—still hours away, shadowy forces make their move, further complicating Cent and Torres’s plans. This isn’t the first time Cent and Torres have had to fight for their lives against an unrelenting creature that doesn’t just want to kill them but also take away everything they hold dear. If they’re not careful, it might be their last time. Beyond the Gathering, the Rising Horde will emerge…

Sam Sisavath (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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The Gathering

THE NIGHTMARE HAS JUST BEGUN. They thought the worst was behind them, but they were wrong. Very wrong. After surviving one brutal night against a creature they call the obayifo, Cent and Torres are unexpectedly reunited when both are recruited by the mysterious billionaire Harold Campbell to join his fight against the creatures that lurk in the shadows. For Cent, it’s an easy decision: Find and kill the obayifo and rid the world of their scourge. For Torres, it’s a little more complicated. There are forces turning her against people she trusts, with her future—and those of the people she loves—in the balance. From abandoned basements to dark sewers to secret complexes, Cent and Torres will be inducted into a world they didn’t even know existed until now. And it’s much, much more complicated and vastly more dangerous than they ever thought. After The Last Storm has receded, it’s time for The Gathering to begin…

Sam Sisavath (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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Self-Portrait: Collected Unpublished Writings

A collection of previously unpublished writing culled from the Kerouac archive Jack Kerouac's archive is vast. Throughout his life he was constantly writing, and he meticulously saved and catalogued his material. The result is that beyond the work published in his lifetime there has been a rich stream of posthumous writing that is far from tapped, adding depth to his lifework--the Duluoz Legend--and our understanding of Kerouac the man. Far from being the adrenalized thrill-seeker that he depicted in On the Road's Dean Moriarty, Jack himself was deeply spiritual, shy, and reclusive. He sought adventures for the sake of experience, needing them to fuel his writing, which according to him was his sole reason for living. Few people sacrificed more for their art. This collection of previously unpublished writing culled from the Kerouac archive, and as a companion to Paul Maher Jr.'s Becoming Kerouac, spans Jack's adult life, from a journal written at age seventeen to autobiographical reflections a few years before his death. Self-Portrait is a blend of fictional and nonfictional pieces, a few abandoned starts but most complete in themselves and all of them chosen for the revelations they contain. In The Moon and Sixpence, Somerset Maugham wrote, 'A man's work reveals him... No one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his soul.' There are more than two dozen Kerouac biographies, but Self-Portrait reveals the artist in his own words, from his early ambition to the deep self-examination of his 'Self-Ultimacy' period, his three-year struggle to write On the Road, musings about himself and America in the half-dozen years before the novel was published and then in the aftermath amid his public withdrawal, suffering from alcoholism and hounded by fame. Through it all there are tortuous feelings about his family--love, guilt, duty, and betrayal. As fans of Kerouac have come to learn, reading his work is a visceral probe.

Jack Kerouac (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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The Art of Dying: Writings, 2019-2022

When Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker’s art critic and the leading art writer of his generation, published his eye-opening autobiographical essay, “The Art of Dying,” in December 2019, he reported that he had lung cancer and had been given six months of life. Fortunately, his treatment was showing some improvement, and so, he wrote, “These extra months are a luxury that I hope to have put to good use.” And he did. The Art of Dying begins with that essay and collects all forty-six pieces that he subsequently published in the magazine before his death in October 2022. These last works explore the meanings and purposes of art, not only in relation to the writer’s own condition, but also under the stress of an intensely anxious period spanning the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protests, the 2020 presidential election, and the war in Ukraine. Reviewing exhibitions and, occasionally, books, Schjeldahl probed the art world’s answers to the questions—esthetic, moral, political—posed by these tempestuous three years, in writing inflected with generosity and openness. Comedian and author Steve Martin contributes a foreword, and writer and curator Jarrett Earnest contributes an introduction.

Peter Schjeldahl (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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The Hijacking of American Flight 119: How D.B. Cooper Inspired a Skyjacking Craze and the FBI's Batt

He pulled off what some deem the crime of the century: skyjacking a commercial jetliner, collecting a ransom of $200,000, parachuting off the aft stairs of the Boeing 727 into the night, and simply disappearing. Since November 1971, “D. B. Cooper”—no one knows his real name or identity—has become a figure of enduring fascination and obsession. The FBI pursued him for over forty years, before closing the case and leaving it unsolved. Unsolved, perhaps, but much admired. D. B. Cooper’s exploit over the skies of the American Northwest has inspired books, films, and endless speculation. What’s less known is that it inspired imitators. None were more daring than the hijacker of American Flight 119. After commandeering the flight from St. Louis with a machine gun and collecting $502,500 in ransom, he parachuted out over Indiana. Unlike Cooper, he was tracked down. In The Hijacking of American Flight 119, John Wigger explores the wave of hijackings that swept over commercial flights between 1961 and 1972. One hijacker ran across the ramp in Reno, Nevada, with a pillowcase over his head, gun in hand, to seize a United Airlines flight. Another collected a large ransom in Washington, D.C., before jumping over Honduras. Yet another rode a bicycle across the tarmac with a rifle strapped to the handlebars. Motivations involved an admixture of ideology, greed, derring-do, and a desperate need to be noticed. What they had in common was that their exploits transfixed the nation’s attention, bringing about a transformation in airline security that remains with us still. With its focus on the parachute hijackers, Wigger’s book gathers together the stories of this period of daring criminality and recounts them in gripping fashion, showing their effect on the public, the media, and law enforcement. Using never-before-published interviews and first-hand accounts, he brings to life one of the most chaotic and fascinating periods in American aviation history.

John Wigger (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

The long-awaited follow-up to the groundbreaking Massacre at Mountain Meadows Published in 2008, Massacre at Mountain Meadows was a bombshell of a book, revealing the story of one of the grimmest episodes in Latter-day Saint history, when settlers in southwestern Utah slaughtered more than 100 members of a California-bound wagon train in 1857. In this much-anticipated sequel, Richard E. Turley Jr. and Barbara Jones Brown examine the aftermath of this atrocity. Vengeance Is Mine documents southern Utah leaders’ attempts to cover up their crime by silencing witnesses and spreading lies. Investigations by both governmental and church bodies were stymied by stonewalling and political wrangling. While nine men were eventually indicted, five were captured and only one, John D. Lee, was executed. The book examines the maneuvering of the defense and prosecution in Lee’s two trials, the second trial ending in Lee’s conviction. Turley and Brown explore the fraught relationship between Lee and church president Brigham Young, and assess what role, if any, Young played in the cover-up. They trace the fates of the other perpetrators, including the harrowing end of Nephi Johnson, who screamed “Blood! Blood! Blood!” in his delirium as he lay dying more than sixty years after the massacre. Turley and Brown also tell the story of the massacre’s few survivors: seventeenchildren who witnessed the slaughter and eventually returned to Arkansas, where the ill-fated wagon train originated. Vengeance Is Mine brings the hitherto untold story of this shameful episode in Mormon and Utah history to its dramatic conclusion.

Barbara Jones Brown, Richard E. Turley (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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Flight From the Ages And Other Stories

From the Author of The Quantum Magician and The House of Styx From the clouds of Venus to the origins of the time gates, this collection of novellas and short fiction visits many favourite worlds of the Quantum Evolution universe, as well as some new to the series. With two 20,000-plus-word novellas and four long short stories, this collection is a stunning showcase of talent. Collecting: “Persephone Descending”, “Schools of Clay”, “Beneath Sunlit Shallows”, “Flight From the Ages”, Pollen From a Future Harvest and Tool Use By Humans of Danzhai County, this is a must for all fans of forward-thinking science fiction.

Derek Kunsken, Derek Künsken (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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Blown by the Same Wind

Things in the sleepy fishing town of Cold Storage, Alaska, are changing. It’s the summer of 1968; the men are wearing their hair long, the Vietnam War is at its height, and multiple assassinations have gripped the country. But some things remain the same. Ellie’s bar is still the place to catch up on the town gossip, and there’s a lot to talk about, from the boys who have returned from the war (and the ones who haven’t), to the robberies that are plaguing the locals, to the new guy in town: a famous monk from Kentucky. Ellie, herself a fugitive of sorts, is curious about this “Brother Louis” and worries about his motives, but he seems harmless enough. However, when a handful of other outsiders arrive to town and start poking around the bar and asking questions, she begins to have reservations. Have they followed this mysterious monk, rumored to be the famous author Thomas Merton, to Cold Storage? And what is it that they want, particularly the inept FBI agent with the strange name: Boston Corbett? Inspired by assassination conspiracy theories, the life of Thomas Merton, and the changing tide of the ’60s, Blown by the Same Wind is a coming-of-age story for the town of Cold Storage itself.

John Straley (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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Wrath

In a future much nearer than you think, where scientific experimentation is exploited for commercial profit, unwisely under-supervised cutting-edge technology creates a menace that threatens the very fabric of human existence. Wrath is the story of a lab rat instilled with human genes whose supersized intelligence helps him to engineer his escape into the world outside the lab: a world vastly ill-equipped to deal with the menace he represents. Modified through advances that have boosted his awareness of humankind's cruelty in the name of science, and endowed with a rat's natural proclivity to procreate regularly, Sammy has the potential to sire a rodent army capable of viciously overwhelming the human race.

Daniel Kraus, Sharon Moalem (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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Holding on While Letting Go: Parenting Your Child Through the Four Freedoms of Adolescence

Parenting a teenager is not for the faint of heart. It is during these roller-coaster years that frustrated parents find themselves at their wits' end, barely even recognizing their offspring as they move through the teen years. Carl Pickhardt, Harvard-trained psychologist and the voice of reason behind Psychology Today's advice column, 'Surviving (Your Child's) Adolescence,' shares critical insights and practical tools that parents need to know along their child's rocky road toward independence and adulthood. There's a reason the road is rocky—it's supposed to be. How adept parents become at navigating the twists and turns with less handholding and hitting the brakes directly correlates to how successful their child will pass through what are four critical milestones that lead to successful adulthood and independence. This book explains to parents how four unfolding drives for freedom sequentially and cumulatively motivate adolescent growth, as this ten to twelve year coming of age passage forever changes the child, the parent in response, and the relationship between them. The four unfolding freedoms are these: First is freedom from rejection of childhood, around the late elementary school years, when the girl or boy wants to stop acting and being treated as just a child anymore. Second is freedom of association with peers, around the middle school years, when the girl or boy wants to form a second family of friends. Third isfreedom for older experimentation, around the high school years, when the girl or boy wants to try more grown up activities. And fourth is freedom to claim emancipation, around the college age years, when the girl or boy decides to become their own ruling authority. With each successive push for freedom, parent and adolescent both have to do less holding on to each other while doing more letting go.

Carl Pickhardt (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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Mr. Coats

Mr. Coats is freezing cold. No matter how many heaters he turns on, how many blankets he sleeps under at night, or how many layers he wears, he can simply never get warm. Being this cold all the time is lonely. And loneliness is a chilly feeling. Mr. Coats thinks he’ll be alone in the cold forever. But what if he’s wrong? What if there’s someone out there who is just like him?

Sieb Posthuma (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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Last Rites: The Evolution of the American Funeral

The Untold Story of American Funeral and Mourning Traditions Why do we embalm the deceased? Why are funerals so expensive? Is there a reason coffins are shaped the way they are? When—and why—did we start viewing the deceased? Ceremonies for honoring the departed are crucial parts of our lives, but few people know where our traditional practices come from—and what they reveal about our history, culture, and beliefs about death. In Last Rites, author Todd Harra takes you on a fascinating exploration of American customs around death, burial, and remembrance, including: • Influences for American rituals—from medieval Europe, the Roman Empire, and ancient Egypt • When mourning fell out of fashion—and how George Washington’s passing brought it back • Abraham Lincoln’s landmark funeral and its widespread impact • How technology, religion, media, and even grave robbers have shaped our traditions • Unknown soldiers—how warfare influenced funeral and bereavement practices … and vice versa • The future of our death rites—mushroom suits, green burial, body donation, flameless cremation, home funerals, and more The rich story of the American funeral is one of constant evolution. Whether you’re planning a funeral service or are simply intrigued by the meaning behind American burial practices, Last Rites is an informative and compelling exploration of the history—and future—of the ceremonies we use to say farewell to those who have departed this world.

Todd Harra (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by T. Ryder Smith