Non-Fiction Audiobooks

CSI Told You Lies: Giving victims a voice through forensics.

CSI Told You Lies is a gripping account of the work of the forensic scientists on the frontline of Australia's major crime and disaster investigations. They are part of the team at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM), a state-of-the-art facility in Melbourne. VIFM is a world-renowned centre of forensic science, and its team members have led major recovery operations over the years, from the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires to the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014. VIFM forensics experts have also played pivotal roles in some of Australia's highest-profile homicide cases, including the Frankston Serial Killer, the murders of Eurydice Dixon and Aya Maasarwe, and the arrest of convicted serial killer Peter Dupas. Join Meshel Laurie as she goes 'behind the curtain' at VIFM, interviewing the Institute's talented roster of forensic experts about their daily work. Her subjects also include others touched by Australia's major crime and disaster investigations, including homicide detectives, defence barristers and families of victims as they confront their darkest moments. After reading CSI Told You Lies you'll never read another homicide headline without wondering about the forensic pathologist who happened to be on call, the evidence they found and the truth they uncovered.

Meshel Laurie (Author), Meshel Laurie (Narrator)

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Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created Sunday in the Park with George

Putting It Together chronicles the two-year odyssey of creating the iconic Broadway musical Sunday in the Park with George. In 1982, James Lapine, at the beginning of his career as a playwright and director, met Stephen Sondheim, nineteen years his senior and already a legendary Broadway composer and lyricist. Shortly thereafter, the two decided to write a musical inspired by Georges Seurat's nineteenth-century painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Through conversations between Lapine and Sondheim, as well as most of the production team, the two Broadway icons lift the curtain on their beloved musical. Putting It Together is a deeply personal remembrance of their collaboration and friendship and the highs and lows of that journey, one that resulted in the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic.

James Lapine (Author), Adam Grupper, Alyssa Bresnahan, Eva Kaminsky, Graham Winton, Len Cariou, T. Ryder Smith (Narrator)

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Collins Stargazing: Beginners guide to astronomy

An ideal introduction for beginner and seasoned stargazers alike from the astronomers of the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Astronomy expert Tom Kerss offers complete advice from the ground up, introducing the world of telescopes, planets, stars, dark skies and celestial maps, explaining the best ways to plan your stargazing experience and the key things to look out for on specific dates throughout the year. Bridging the gap between human curiosity and the need for scientific expertise, Stargazing allows a complete novice to understand our place in the cosmos and enjoy the beautiful and extraordinary wonders of the night sky.

Collins Astronomy, Radmila Topalovic, Tom Kerss (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Art and Hitler’s first Mass-Murder Programme

‘A riveting tale, brilliantly told' Philippe Sands The little-known story of Hitler’s war on modern art and the mentally ill. In the first years of the Weimar Republic, the German psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn gathered a remarkable collection of works by schizophrenic patients that would astonish and delight the world. The Prinzhorn collection, as it was called, inspired a new generation of artists, including Paul Klee, Max Ernst and Salvador Dali. What the doctor could not have known, however, was that these works would later be used to prepare the ground for mass-murder. Soon after his rise to power, Hitler—a failed artist of the old school—declared war on modern art. The Nazis staged giant ‘Degenerate Art’ shows to ridicule the avant-garde, and seized and destroyed the cream of Germany's modern art collections. This action was mere preparation, however, for the even more sinister campaign Hitler would later wage against so-called 'degenerate' people, and Prinzhorn's artists were caught up in both. Bringing together inspirational art history, genius and madness, and the wanton cruelty of the fanatical 'artist-Führer', this astonishing story lays bare the culture war that paved the way for Hitler's first extermination programme, the psychiatric Holocaust.

Charlie English (Author), Crawford Logan (Narrator)

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Hidden Heritage: Rediscovering Britain’s Lost Love of the Orient

Brought to you by Penguin. A vital new perspective on British history from award-winning broadcaster Fatima Manji Why was there a Turkish mosque adorning Britain's most famous botanic garden in in the eighteenth century? And more importantly, why is it no longer there? How did one of the great symbols of an Indian king's power, a pair of Persian-inscribed cannon, end up in rural Wales? And who is the Moroccan man that stole British hearts depicted in a long forgotten portrait hanging in a west London stately home? Throughout Britain's galleries and museums, civic buildings and stately homes, relics can be found that beg these questions and more. They point to a more complex national history than is commonly remembered. These objects, lost, concealed or simply overlooked, expose the diversity of pre-twentieth-century Britain and the misconceptions around modern immigration narratives. Hidden Heritage powerfully recontextualises the relationship between Britain and the people and societies of the Orient. In her journey across Britain exploring cultural landmarks, Fatima Manji searches for a richer and more honest story of a nation struggling with identity and the legacy of empire. 'A compelling read about a history of Britain rarely cited and one that enriches an understanding of our complex, intriguing and wonderful past' Daljit Nagra 'A timely, brilliant and very brave book' Jerry Brotton, author of This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World © Fatima Manji 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Fatima Manji (Author), Fatima Manji (Narrator)

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The Last Sovereigns: Sitting Bull & The Resistance of the Free Lakotas

The Last Sovereigns is the story of how Sioux chief Sitting Bull resisted the white man's ways as a last best hope for the survival of an indigenous way of life on the Great Plains-a nomadic life based on buffalo and indigenous plants scattered across the Sioux's historical territories that were sacred to him and his people. Robert M. Utley explores the final four years of Sitting Bull's life of freedom, from 1877 to 1881. To escape American vengeance for his assumed role in the annihilation of General George Armstrong Custer's command at the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull led his Hunkpapa following into Canada. The Mounties welcomed the Lakota and permitted them to remain if they promised to abide by the laws and rules of Queen Victoria, the White Mother. But the Canadian government wanted the Indians to return to their homeland and the police made every effort to persuade them to leave. They were aided by the diminishing herds of buffalo on which the Indians relied for sustenance and by the aggressions of Canadian Native groups that also relied on the buffalo. Sitting Bull and his people endured hostility, tragedy, heartache, indecision, uncertainty, and starvation and responded with stubborn resistance to the loss of their freedom and way of life. In the end, starvation doomed their sovereignty. This is their story.

Robert M. Utley (Author), Bob Souer (Narrator)

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The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton

In The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Porwancher debunks a string of myths about the origins of this founding father to arrive at a startling conclusion: Hamilton, in all likelihood, was born and raised Jewish. For more than two centuries, his youth in the Caribbean has remained shrouded in mystery. Hamilton himself wanted it that way, and most biographers have simply assumed he had a Christian boyhood. With a detective's persistence and a historian's rigor, Porwancher upends that assumption. This radical reassessment of Hamilton's religious upbringing gives us a fresh perspective on both his adult years and the country he helped forge. Although he didn't identify as a Jew in America, Hamilton cultivated a relationship with the Jewish community that made him unique among the founders. As a lawyer, he advocated for Jewish citizens in court. As a financial visionary, he invigorated sectors of the economy that gave Jews their greatest opportunities. As an alumnus of Columbia, he made his alma mater more welcoming to Jewish people. And his efforts are all the more striking given the pernicious antisemitism of the era. By setting Hamilton in the context of his Jewish world for the first time, this fascinating book challenges us to rethink the life and legend of America's most enigmatic founder.

Andrew Porwancher (Author), George Newbern (Narrator)

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Learning in Public: Lessons for a Racially Divided America from My Daughter's School

One mother's story of enrolling her daughter in a local public school, and the surprising, necessary lessons she learned with her neighbors. From the time Courtney E. Martin strapped her daughter, Maya, to her chest for long walks, she was curious about Emerson Elementary, a public school down the street from her Oakland home. She learned that White families in their gentrifying neighborhood largely avoided the majority-Black, poorly-rated school. As she began asking why, a journey of a thousand moral miles began. Learning in Public is the story, not just Courtney's journey, but a whole country's. Many of us are newly awakened to the continuing racial injustice all around us, but unsure of how to go beyond hashtags and yard signs to be a part of transforming the country. Courtney discovers that her public school, the foundation of our fragile democracy, is a powerful place to dig deeper. Courtney E. Martin examines her own fears, assumptions, and conversations with other moms and dads as they navigate school choice. A vivid portrait of integration's virtues and complexities, and yes, the palpable joy of trying to live differently in a country re-making itself. Learning in Public might also set your family's life on a different course forever.

Courtney E. Martin (Author), Courtney E. Martin (Narrator)

Audiobook

Mae West: An Icon in Black and White

"Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" Mae West invited and promptly captured the imagination of generations. Even today, years after her death, the actress and author is still regarded as the pop archetype of sexual wantonness and ribald humor. But who was this saucy starlet, a woman who was controversial enough to be jailed, pursued by film censors and banned from the airwaves for the revolutionary content of her work, and yet would ascend to the status of film legend? Sifting through previously untapped sources, author Jill Watts unravels the enigmatic life of Mae West, tracing her early years spent in the Brooklyn subculture of boxers and underworld figures, and follows her journey through burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway and, finally, Hollywood, where she quickly became one of the big screen's most popular--and colorful--stars. Exploring West's penchant for contradiction and her carefully perpetuated paradoxes, Watts convincingly argues that Mae West borrowed heavily from African American culture, music, dance and humor, creating a subversive voice for herself by which she artfully challenged society and its assumptions regarding race, class and gender. Viewing West as a trickster, Watts demonstrates that by appropriating for her character the black tradition of double-speak and "signifying," West also may have hinted at her own African-American ancestry and the phenomenon of a black woman passing for white. This absolutely fascinating study is the first comprehensive, interpretive account of Mae West's life and work. It reveals a beloved icon as a radically subversive artist consciously creating her own complex image.

Jill Watts (Author), Holly Palance (Narrator)

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Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence

A candid and riveting memoir from the founder of Harlem Children's Zone, taking readers through his Canada in which violence stalked every street corner. Long before the avalanche of praise for his work-from Oprah Winfrey, from President Bill Clinton, from President Barack Obama-long before he became known for his talk show appearances, Members Project spots, and documentaries like Waiting for "Superman", Geoffrey Canada was a small boy growing up scared on the mean streets of the South Bronx. His childhood world was one where "sidewalk boys" learned the codes of the block and were ranked through the rituals of fist, stick, and knife. Then the streets changed, and the stakes got even higher.

Geoffrey Canada (Author), Bill Quinn (Narrator)

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Ranger School: Discipline, Direction, Determination

From Jimmy Blackmon comes a blow by blow account of his journey through the most challenging leadership and small tactics course in the world-US Army Ranger School. Through colorful dialogue and vivid storytelling for which Jimmy Blackmon has been praised, the listener will take a journey through Ranger School. From the nervous anticipation leading up to the course, to the extreme pain and suffering Ranger School demands, Jimmy shares the feelings and emotions that accompany extreme sleep and food deprivation. Furthermore, he shares what he learned about himself along the way. Ranger School is designed to replicate the extreme nature of combat in a multitude of environments. The attrition rate is over 50 percent. Jimmy openly shares how he dealt with extreme hunger, exhaustion, below freezing temperatures, and ultimately, a desire to quit and end the suffering. Despite all the aforementioned challenges, Ranger students must lead one another on complex missions in harsh terrain in order to succeed. How to motivate, inspire, and lead in such an extreme environment is powerful and will appeal to leaders of all types and in all industries.

Jimmy Blackmon (Author), Jimmy Blackmon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Dragged Off: Refusing to Give Up My Seat on the Way to the American Dream

Dr. David Dao was dragged off United Express Flight 3411 on April 9, 2017 after refusing to give up his seat. In the tradition of contemporary immigrant stories comes a personal narrative of the many small but significant acts of racial discrimination faced on the way to the American Dream. The unseen effects of discrimination. The United Airlines scandal of 2017 garnered over a million views on YouTube. A result of an overbooking overlook, security officials forcibly removed Dr. Dao after refusing to give up his seat. He awoke in the hospital to a concussion, a broken nose, several broken teeth, and worldwide attention. Things aren't always fair for an immigrant, but according to Dr. Dao, you can prevail if you firmly advocate for yourself. A response to a lifetime of oppressive acts. Why was Dr. Dao so adamant on his right to a seat? His entire life had led to that moment. A Vietnamese refugee, he fled his home country during the fall of Saigon. He was stranded in the Indian Ocean, immigrated to the United States, enrolled in medical school for a second time, built a practice, and started a family-all the while battling the effects of discrimination and what he had to embrace as a result. This is his story.

Dr. David Dao (Author), David Shih (Narrator)

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